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Dru Sjodin disappeared after leaving her job at North Dakota
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
Posts: 3225

PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2003 11:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Crookston man arrrested in Dru's kidnapping

Associated Press

Published December 2, 2003

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- A Crookston, Minn., man has been arrested and is facing a kidnapping charge in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin, police said.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, was arrested on Monday at 7:20 p.m. in Crookston, Grand Forks police said.

Rodriguez is being held at the Tri-County Correctional Center in Crookston, police said.

Dru Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., has been missing since Nov. 22, when she left her job at the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks.

Police said a search for Sjodin is ongoing. Police said no further information will be released until a press briefing on Tuesday morning.
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 01, 2003 11:54 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

There's a picture of the suspect here:

http://www.kare11.com/news/news-article.asp?NEWS_ID=55971
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 12:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

wow, thanks for the update nanci and jane. Must have been some interesting detective work to find this guy. The only thing I can think of offhand is pawning a ring or other jewelry she may have been wearing. Or someone close to him notices something suspicious. I guess that's more likely.

Well, they didn't find her. That's unfortunate but sadly expected.

rd
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 1:25 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

from www.foxnews.com (fair use)

Arrest Made in Case of Missing N.D. Coed
Monday, December 01, 2003

GRAND FORKS, N.D. — Cops arrested a Crookston, Minn., man Monday and charged him with kidnapping in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin, police spokesmen said.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, was arrested in Crookston and was being held in the Tri-County Correctional Center, Grand Forks police said. Sjodin, 22 -- last seen Nov. 22 -- has still not been found.

Rodriguez has a history of sexual contact and attempted kidnapping with adult females, a Minnesota Department of Corrections Web site said.

Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., was last seen when she left her job at the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks (search), about 30 miles from Crookston. Her 1994 red two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass was found in the mall parking lot.

Sgt. Michael Hedlund had said earlier Monday a crime lab analysis of the car yielded nothing.

Soon after the young woman disappeared, her boyfriend, Chris Lang, called Sjodin's roommate, saying he had received two calls. The first was cut off and Lang heard Sjodin say, "Oh, my God," before the phone went dead.

A second call a couple of hours later was filled only with static and the sound of numbers being pressed.

Since then, more than 1,300 volunteers have been involved in the search for Sjodin, using all-terrain vehicles to plow through ditches and fields in the Grand Forks area. Divers searched the Red Lake River near Crookston.

In addition, about 30 FBI agents, along with investigators from 20 agencies in three states and the Canadian province of Manitoba, were involved in the case. A $140,000 reward was offered.

At a news conference with police earlier Monday, Sjodin's mother, Linda Walker, in radio and television interviews, said her family has been overwhelmed.

"We're going to find you, Dru," said one cousin, Mike Sjodin.

The news of the arrest was stunning -- coming just hours after the family's appearance with police.

One of Sjodin's cousins, Jon Sutfin of Washington, D.C., said the family had remained upbeat during the grueling two weeks of her disappearance. "We look at it as a countdown to finding her," Sutfin said.

Police have said they received more than 900 calls to a tip line, and more than 5 million hits to a Web site set up to help in the search.

The woman's brother, Sven Sjodin, 24, a finance manager at a California car dealership, said the family has heard from people around the world. In the Grand Forks area, strangers have given hot chocolate, food and gasoline.

"The outpouring of support from people has been tremendous," the brother said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 1:27 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Rodriguez has a history of sexual contact and attempted kidnapping with adult females, a Minnesota Department of Corrections Web site said.


This apparently means he's an identified sexual offender. They should be required to wear location transponders. How many more women must die before we make that happen?

rd

click to read the online true crime mystery novel Murder on a Horse Trail: The Disappearance of Chandra Levy

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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 7:52 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Look at his record. Please somebody tell me why these guys aren't electronically monitored? Do they think they get cured with time? After 22 years in prison, took him all of seven months to attack another woman. This time he killed her. Wonderful, now we know he's dangerous. and Dru's dead. That's too hard of a way to find out.

rd
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jane



Joined: 22 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 8:08 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

It makes no sense to allow brutes such as Rodriguez freedom. He obviously can't handle freedom. Allowing him to wander around free is tantamount to saying women are valueless trash, unworthy of being protected.

What is the purpose of arresting and trying criminals like Rodriguez, having judges determine they are extremely dangerous, if they end up walking around preying on citizens afterwards?

Dickens' Mr. Bumble was right when he said the law is an ass.
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
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Location: Sacramento, CA

PostPosted: Tue Dec 02, 2003 8:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

When a society gets too soft to protect itself it begins to decay. If the enemy without does not get us, the enemy within will.

Kidnapping and rape used to be death sentence offences. That was a death sentence within about three years from the time of the offence, or perhaps from the time of the trial and conviction.

I am not in favor of just putting everyone to death, but clearly our system is not working.

Jesus Christ is the answer. I am sorry if I offend anyone, but He is the answer. We do not have to be ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

benn
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 8:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I was wrong. I thought the attacker would have had to subdue Dru with chemicals to knock her out but it looks like he forced her into his car at knifepoint. Well, it is his MO. I hope the psychologist that overruled civilly committing him as a sexual predator is happy now. Only seven months ago he ruled this guy was safe to walk the streets. Doesn't anybody know that psychologists / psychiatrists don't have any more of a clue than the rest of us?

Looks like at least Dru fought him from the beginning. It was predictable... at least to everyone but psychologists.

rd
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benn



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 10:50 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

rd, many years ago a janitor was tried and convicted for murdering two students, a boy and a girl, whom he had befriended at a college where he worked about fifty miles north of San Francisco.

Somehow he got a temporarily insane sentence and they sent him to a State mental hospital.

I don't have that sentence quite right I know, but it is close.

Anyway in about three years some psychiatrist decided that this murderer was no longer mentally disabled, and without confering with the judge, or anyone, the mental hospital let the murderer loose. They never did find him again that I know of. He served about three years in a mental hospital for double murder.

They were going to change the law after that, but I don't know if they ever did.

benn
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Fri Dec 05, 2003 11:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I think we're just trading away the lives of women to save costs when we don't require sexual predators and for that matter all people on probation to be electronically monitored. Fine, let them serve a 23 year sentence for attacking a woman with a knife and trying to rape her, but he was on probation for 10 years and he should have had a transponder attached to his leg the entire 10 years.

Some would argue to never let them out but the monitoring is the right mix of a person resuming their life after serving their sentence and the necessity of keeping a watch on them. People repeat their crimes too often not too.

rd
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 07, 2003 5:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

from www.cnn.com (fair use)

Sister of missing student suspect asked to keep tabs on him
December 7, 2003

CROOKSTON, Minnesota (AP) -- The sister of the suspect in the case of a missing University of North Dakota student pleaded with a local police officer to keep tabs on her brother after his release from prison in May because she feared he might strike again.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, has been charged with kidnapping in the disappearance of Dru Sjodin, 22. The student has been missing since November 22, when police believe she was abducted from a mall parking lot in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Rodriguez's sister, Ileana, called Sgt. Gerry Moreno several times following her brother's completion of a 23-year prison term for stabbing and trying to kidnap a woman. She asked Moreno to keep her brother, who had previously pleaded guilty to rape, locked up or away from the community.

Moreno told The Forum of Fargo, North Dakota, that he wasn't in a position to help her.

"Once a person does their time, they have no ties to probation," Moreno said in Sunday's edition of the newspaper.

Ileana Rodriguez turned to the 26-year police veteran, because they grew up together in Crookston. Moreno also went to the same elementary school as Alfonso Rodriguez, and as children they would play together, he said.

When they were children, "there was nothing unusual that made me think he was a weirdo," Moreno said.

Investigators in the Sjodin case have put their two-state physical search for her on indefinite hold and were trying to piece together clues on her whereabouts.

Alfonso Rodriguez faces a preliminary hearing February 4, and arraignment on February 6.
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fallout



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 566
Location: The Great NorthEast

PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2003 2:49 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi everyone,

Fox and CNN are reporting that the police are following up on a tip sent in to the Dru Sjodin website. I think this is the tip they are referring to. Its from a writer calling herself 'Kristina':

"Dear Police, I keep thinking about Dru and her family and at this point I believe this discussion board is about solving a heinous crime. I'm sure you have covered all this ground already but the following is just for the record.
Two weeks ago there was NOT a full moon, there is one now. It is shining on the one inch of snow we have. There was NO snow two weeks ago but the river was probably mostly iced over. I'm from Crookston and I know a little bit about the area and the people. I looked up Alphonso Rodriquez in my 1968 yearbook and there he was next to Francisco Rodriquez (perhaps a cousin). Both of them went to my elementary school on the north end of town. I believe they lived in houses close to where the riverbank is caving in and bringing some houses down to the river. (Crookston got unnecessary national media attention several months ago on that). Therefore, Alphonoso is very familiar with the river and the changes of seasons of when it becomes iced over.
As a native Crookstonite, we all know about the back way to leave GRFKS to get back to Crookston especially if you've been shopping at Columbia Mall. It is no fun to go through all the traffic lights of GRKFS to get over the river on Hwy. 2 when you can go south from the mall about 8 miles (runs parallel to I-29) and then turn east on the single lane of traffic. I don't know the name or number of that paved road. As you travel east towards Crookston's sugar beet plant that would bring one south of Fisher instead of north on the highly trafficked Hwy. 2. That would explain why the cell phone was perhaps giving a strong signal in that area. There is a very narrow bridge going over the river on this less frequented paved road.
The RIVER is the important thing in solving this mystery because several days AFTER the abduction, Alphonso went to my dad's shop to get something repaired. It is on the riverbanks of Crookston. Alphonso carried this piece of equipment weighing about 35-50 lbs some distance from his car trunk to the shop. He had another Hispanic friend with him. He told my dad that he was going away soon and that he wanted to get this thing repaired.
Where was Alphonso planning to go? Did he know his days were numbered? I continue to pray that he would open up and confess to the crime because it is breaking too many hearts, his own family's and that of Dru's friends and family. I know he won't say anything now that he is arrested with a $5 million bond on him. He sure DIDN'T talk in grade school all the years I knew of him. Alphonso may be telling the truth when he said he didn't kidnap Dru. No, that was not his intention...
I continue to pray for the ones who knew and loved Dru. Thanks for all the work in keeping this website up and going. It must be exhausting and sad. If we can solve this, we can help other girls and women from attacking predators. Just be aware."
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rd



Joined: 13 Sep 2002
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Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Mon Dec 08, 2003 4:38 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Nice info, fallout. I agree with benn's signature statement from Joseph D. McNamara. An informed, law-abiding citizenry is policing's most valuable asset, and you just infomed a bunch of us. :) I hope that tip helps them find Dru's body and provide some closure to her family.

rd
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fallout



Joined: 19 Sep 2002
Posts: 566
Location: The Great NorthEast

PostPosted: Tue Dec 09, 2003 11:31 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

The webmaster on the Dru Sjodin 'official site' sent this posting to the police 5 minutes after he read it on Sunday morning. I haven't seen any reports about that area in the news that connect to the information but the police chief there said that the police were most interested in talking to people who knew Alphonso and his whereabouts at the time of the disappearance.

That police chief is impressive. Too bad he wasn't in charge in DC two years ago!

James
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