Body of missing N.D. student Dru Sjodin found.

[odannyboy]

CROOKSTON, Minn. - The body of college student Dru Sjodin has been found, five months after she disappeared from the parking lot of a North Dakota shopping mall, authorities said Saturday. Sheriff Mark LeTexier sobbed as he told volunteers, "Dru is home." He later confirmed that authorities had found Sjodin's body.


AP Photo


Scores of volunteers had joined the search on Saturday for the 22-year-old University of North Dakota student, who was last seen Nov. 22 the mall where she worked at a Victoria's Secret. While a handful of Sjodin's relatives continued searching through the winter, official searches had been halted in December because of severe weather and resumed this month.


Bob Heales, a private investigator who has coordinated search efforts for the Sjodin family, said volunteers had been near the spot where the body was recovered "probably a dozen times," but the area was covered with snow. He said Sjodin's friends and family felt relieved Saturday that Sjodin had been found. Dru's coming home and that's what we've wanted from the beginning," he said. "We never wanted to go through life without knowing where she was."


Convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 51, of Crookston, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn. He was arrested in December and is jailed in Grand Forks on $5 million bail. At a court hearing last month, investigators testified that blood matching Sjodin's DNA was found in Rodriguez's car. Police said they also found knife in the car that matches a sheath discovered near Sjodin's car.

Before Saturday's search, Sjodin's parents spoke to a search party of more than 100 people. "Your legs are our legs today, and our voices for Dru," said her mother, Linda Walker.


Hours later, before the sheriff's announcement, Sjodin's boyfriend, Chris Lang, arrived in tears at the school where volunteers had gathered for the search. He and Sjodin's father, Allan, joined authorities in a trailer serving as a makeshift command post. Lang was the last person known to have heard from Sjodin, when she spoke to him by cell phone after leaving her job the afternoon of Nov. 22.

The animal responsible deserves the executioners needle.

[Woodmonkey]

Originally Posted by odannyboy

[/font]
The animal responsible deserves the executioners needle.

That's the least he deserves.

[Hoss68]

Originally Posted by odannyboy

The animal responsible deserves the executioners needle.

Unfortunately it's not an option for him here, but because of his actions, the sex offender laws here just got tougher...

[odannyboy]

Originally Posted by Hoss68

Unfortunately it's not an option for him here, but because of his actions, the sex offender laws here just got tougher...

Neither Minnesota nor North Dakota has capital punishment, but federal law allows the death penalty for murder committed during a kidnapping. Minnesota U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger and his North Dakota counterpart, Drew Wrigley, said Saturday that it was too early to discuss whether federal murder charges would be pursued.

At a court hearing last month, investigators testified that blood matching Sjodin's DNA was found in Rodriguez's car. Police said they also found a knife in the car that matches a sheath discovered near Sjodin's car.

He still may meet the grim reaper yet.

[Tesla]

Originally Posted by odannyboy

[/font]
The animal responsible deserves the executioners needle.

Forget the Needle bring back the electric chair.:icon_evil

[sfga6970]

Originally Posted by Tesla

Forget the Needle bring back the electric chair.:icon_evil

I agree! But not until after his bunk buddy "Big Bubba" gets done with him!

[Hoss68]

Pam Louwagie And Tim Harlow, Star Tribune

April 19, 2004

In the end, it could be something that would seem rather insignificant that might mean the difference between life and death for Dru Sjodin's killer.
Instead of driving west into the vast open prairies of North Dakota, the kidnapper happened to go east, across the Red River, the Minnesota state boundary, and a legal chasm that could make the case federal and death-penalty eligible.

And it happened at a time when political winds are blowing in favor of seeking capital punishment in federal cases, even in states that don't have it.

"Oh, the vagaries of the law," said former U.S. Attorney for Minnesota B. Todd Jones, who said he anticipates the case likely will bring a federal charge of kidnapping resulting in death.

Sjodin's body was found Saturday near Crookston, Minn., nearly five months after the 22-year-old disappeared outside a Grand Forks, N.D., shopping mall. Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a convicted sex offender from Crookston, has been charged with her kidnapping.

Because her body was discovered in Minnesota, it opened the door for prosecutors to upgrade charges against Rodriguez from kidnapping to murder and for the federal government to seek the death penalty even though neither Minnesota nor North Dakota law allows for capital punishment.

Crossing the line

If her body had been found in North Dakota, experts say, it might have remained a state case.

"If they hadn't have crossed the state line, I don't believe there would be any federal jurisdiction in the case, from the facts that I know," Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom said.

Thomas Heffelfinger, U.S. attorney for Minnesota, wouldn't comment Sunday about the possibility of federal charges but said federal authorities have watched the case from the beginning, "recognizing this kidnapping took place a stone's throw from the Minnesota border."

Both Heffelfinger and Drew Wrigley, U.S. attorney for North Dakota, appeared at a news conference Saturday, and some in the legal community said their presence spoke volumes.

"That's unusual and tells us a lot," said former U.S. attorney for Minnesota David Lillehaug. "They didn't say much, but they didn't need to."

If Sjodin's case goes federal, Attorney General John Ashcroft would have the final say on whether to seek the death penalty after a Justice Department committee reviews recommendations by a local U.S. attorney.

"This is a poster child case for the death penalty," said Minneapolis defense attorney Joe Friedberg, citing the egregiousness of the case and Ashcroft's record of seeking the death penalty in other cases.

Murder alone is a state crime. But when it is committed in addition to federal crimes such as kidnapping across state lines or carjacking, it can become a federal offense.

Former federal prosecutors said that under the charge that would probably be used, it doesn't matter where Sjodin died -- in North Dakota or Minnesota -- as long as her body crossed a state line.

In rare cases, someone can be tried in both state and federal courts for the same crime.

Jones said that when he was U.S. attorney from 1998 to 2001, there seemed to be a "higher level of sensitivity to state law with respect to death penalty issues."

The Justice Department now is aiming for more uniform sentencing across the country "not making exceptions driven by state statutes or local conditions," Jones said.

Under federal guidelines, whether a state has the death penalty isn't supposed to weigh on federal prosecutors' decisions, Lillehaug said.

In practice, he said, it can come into play, though.

In recent years, death penalty sentences have been handed out in other states that don't have death penalties.

Ashcroft approved pursuit of the death penalty in 20 of the 45 eligible cases he has considered through March 1, 2003, according to the federal defense bar. He also had reversed the recommendations of federal prosecutors 28 times, ordering them to seek the death penalty in cases where they had recommended against doing so, according to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project.

In one Vermont case, Ashcroft told prosecutors to withdraw a plea agreement they had made with a man on trial for carjacking and kidnapping that led to a woman's death in 2002. Ashcroft ordered them to seek the death penalty in the case.

"It's fair to say that he's been more aggressive in favor of the death penalty than any of his predecessors," Lillehaug said. "Having said that, [Sjodin's case] would be a very strong candidate for the death penalty under any attorney general. Because of the criminal background of the alleged perpetrator, the fact that it was a stranger abduction and, let's face it, the political climate and the national publicity. This is one [case] where probably John Ashcroft already knows the name of Dru Sjodin."