Frozen Truth

At the time Jodi Huisentruit disappeared Tony Jackson lived two blocks from KIMT-TV in Mason City, where Jodi worked.

Two years later Jackson violently raped four women in the Minneapolis area. He was later connected by DNA to a total of six rapes in Iowa and Minnesota.

One of the officer’s responsible for arresting Jackson in Minnesota was Jay Alberio. He joins me on this episode. He and others have contended that Jackson should be seriously considered by authorities in Iowa for Jodi’s disappearance in 1995.

This is the second part of our analysis of Tony Jackson’s possible connection to Jodi’s disappearance. If you haven’t already done so, please go back and listen to Part 1 of this episode first.

At the time Jodi Huisentruit disappeared Tony Jackson lived two blocks from KIMT-TV in Mason City, where Jodi worked.

Two years later Jackson violently raped four women in the Minneapolis area.

One of the officer’s responsible for arresting Jackson in Minnesota was Jay Alberio. He joins me on this episode. He, and others, have contended that Jackson should be seriously considered by authorities in Iowa for Jodi’s disappearance in 1995.

Tamara (Tammy) Baker spent a weekend with Jodi Huisentruit in June 1995 on a lake in Iowa City, Iowa. The friends water skied during the day, and the enjoyed the college town night life after dark.

Jodi disappeared the following Tuesday.

Here’s Tamara’s account of Jodi Huisentruit’s final weekend, and of her interactions with the man police have believed could be responsible for Jodi’s disappearance.

Mason City, Iowa police have never named a suspect in the 1995 disappearance of television news anchor Jodi Huisentruit, but they have ruled a few people out.

One of those men ruled out by authorities in Jodi’s case was a violent serial rapist who stalked some of his victims before attacking them in their own homes. That man, 21 year-old Tony Jackson, lived two blocks from KIMT-TV in Mason City at the time Jodi vanished.

Some question what information police have kept quiet about Jackson that led to him being quickly ruled out as a possible suspect in the Huisentruit case.

Caroline Lowe broke the story of Jackson’s possible link to the Jodi Huisentruit disappearance for WCCO-TV in Minneapolis three years later in 1998. She joins me on this episode to discuss her research and reporting on Jackson. We also discuss another man often suspected in Jodi’s disappearance, local seed dealer John Vansice, and examine a third possibility in the case: that someone else, previously unknown, is actually the person responsible for one of Iowa’s most notorious abductions.

It took three days for the Mason City Police Department to declare the Jodi Huisentruit disappearance an abduction.

Since then, the department’s investigation into one of Iowa’s most notorious cold cases has been thwarted by strange twists and turns.

There are no shortage of leads to follow in Jodi Huisentruit’s disappearance.

Early on, the FBI and local investigators wondered if her disappearance might be related to other unsolved murders of young women in north Iowa.

There’s a dark side to television reporting that few watching are aware of.

Could Jodi Huisentruit’s abduction be related to her profession as an on-air media personality?

Jodi Huisentruit disappeared from Mason City, Iowa on her way to work in June 1995.

Jodi’s case will be the subject of Season 3. New episodes will be released bi-weekly on Sundays.

Special thanks to Christine Penhale (TheTrueCrimeFiles.com) and James Wilcox (KETV, Omaha) for their time in this episode.

This epilogue episode is the Season 2 finale of Frozen Truth.

Will this case be resolved?

Two children who were placed by Maine’s Department of Health and Human Services and its Office of Child and Family Services have died in the last year.

Both deaths were determined to be the result of child abuse at the hands of their foster caretakers.

One state lawmaker called the events a “colossal failure” of the state’s government, adding: “we have miserably failed these kids.”

The agency has been accused of systemic failures for two decades and before they became involved in the Ayla Reynolds’ disappearance in 2011.

Writer Terrilyn Simpson is my guest this episode.