GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. — Caroline Lowe has been long removed from her time reporting in Minnesota, but learning about the death of Donald Blom brought her right back.
"It's been just a big part of my life," she said. "The images of Katie in the convenience store, impossible to shake that."
Lowe was the crime reporter for WCCO in 1999 when Katie Poirier, a 19-year-old college student went missing. Police said a costumer at the I-35 Moose Lake convenience store called 911 to report no employees were there. Surveillance video showed Poirier getting dragged out of the store by a man.
"As blurry as it was, [the surveillance video] it stays with you," Lowe said.
Police said Blom came on their radar after friends and co-workers of his called them with a tip. His truck matched the description witnesses saw that night, and police learned the Richfield resident owned a cabin nearby. Blom was a convicted sex offender, but he changed his last name to his wife's maiden name.
"It was very competitive we would watch what the other stations did, the newspapers. It was competitive to a fault," Lowe said. "It was consuming."
Lowe said her reporting of the case took a toll on her life at home. She recalls raising her children during this time and said she was not a "very good mother."
"I am a better grandparent than I was a parent because of the hold it takes when you're that committed to do the story," Lowe said.
When asked about how hard it was to watch Poirier family live through this pain and trauma, Lowe said she often thought about how she wouldn't be able to "crawl out of the covers of my bed if my daughter had been murdered like Katie."
Katie's mom, Pam Poirier was a force.
Within a year of her daughter's murder, she was at the state Capitol advocating for tighter sex offender laws. She was successful in her efforts.
In April 2000, Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura wrote Katie's Law into effect. Poirier worked with lawmakers on creating stricter penalties for sex offenders and increased tracking of them. Katie's Law also allocated $12 million to new technology for tracking all criminals statewide.
"There were so many families impacted by this. Katie's family the most," Lowe said. "Blom also had children that shared his name. They were impacted too."
All these years later, Lowe said she would hear from him occasionally through letters. She even visited Blom in prison. Her final visit was in 2016.
"I kept thinking for years maybe he would finally tell me he did it or give me details," she said. "He stuck to his story that he didn't do it."
Watch more Breaking The News:
Watch all of the latest stories from Breaking The News in our YouTube playlist: