TRACY, Minn. – The friend who was with Jacob Wetterling the night he was abducted 26 years ago is hoping the developments of this past month will lead them to answers.
Aaron Larson was only 11 years old in October 1989, when he witnessed Jacob's abduction in rural St. Joseph. Just last month, he learned of a major development in the case when he received a call from Jerry Wetterling.
"Definitely a tough conversation, but I was glad they called and told me," Larson told KARE 11 about his conversation, in which he learned the FBI, BCA and others had named Daniel Heinrich a "person of interest" in the Wetterling investigation.
"My first thought was you, you just run through a thousand questions of what do they know," he said.
And for Larson, those questions quickly turned into how he can help the investigation. For the last few weeks, he's been working with law enforcement by reviewing pictures of people close to Heinrich, pictures of Heinrich himself and pictures of cars Heinrich once drove. Larson has also been trying to piece together how the Paynesville attacks in the 1980's match details from the night Jacob was abducted.
"A lot of the similarities from a lot of the Paynesville cases, obviously, that's a big one," Larson said.
Larson also described his strong reaction when he first looked at a picture of the 52-year-old person of interest.
"I would say it definitely gives you a chilling feeling as far as when I look at him," he said, adding, "You get that feeling, and your heart starts racing. That's the feeling I got. It was definitely more of a feeling than I ever got, ever looking at any other pictures as far as suspects or anything."
As for what's next, Larson said he'll continue to search for answers – buoyed by the love of his wife and two boys, one 9 years old, one 5 months old. And he'll continue to hope he'll one day find out the fate of his best friend.
"If he was still here with his family, he'd be making a huge difference with his family and people around him. So you want to continue that on for him," he said, adding, "That's why you just keep going. You can never give up."
