CROOKSTON, Minn. (AP) —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 yesterday.
Sheriff Mark LeTexier sobbed as he told volunteers, “Dru is home.” He later confirmed that authorities had found Miss Sjodin’s body.
Scores of volunteers had joined the search yesterday for the 22-year-old University of North Dakota student, who was last seen Nov. 22 at the mall where she worked at a Victoria’s Secret outlet.
While a handful of Miss Sjodin’s relatives continued searching through the winter, official searches had been halted in December because of severe weather. They resumed this month.
Bob Heales, a private investigator who has coordinated search efforts for the Sjodin family, said the body was found in a ditch near a county road northwest of Crookston.
Volunteers had been near the spot “probably a dozen times,” but the area had been covered with snow, he said.
Chris Lang, Miss Sjodin’s boyfriend, said he remembers searching the area, but “the drifts were 5 feet high.”
“It just kind of feels numb,” Mr. Lang said after learning Miss Sjodin’s body had been found. “I woke up this morning, and I just knew for sure it was going to happen today.
“Now I know she’s been at peace for a long time,” Mr. Lang said.
Mr. Lang was the last person known to have heard from Miss Sjodin, when she spoke to him by cell phone after leaving work the afternoon of Nov. 22.
Convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 51, of Crookston, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Miss Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn. He was arrested in December and is jailed in Grand Forks, about 25 miles northwest of Crookston, on $5 million bail.
Prosecutor Peter Welte declined to comment Saturday. A judge has ordered lawyers involved in the Rodriguez case not to speak with the media.
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 yesterday 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 Miss Sjodin’s DNA was found in Mr. Rodriguez’s car. Police said they also found a knife in the car that matches a sheath discovered near Miss Sjodin’s car.
Before yesterday’s search, Miss Sjodin’s parents spoke to a search party of more than 100 people.
Hours later, before the sheriff’s announcement, Mr. Lang arrived in tears at the school where volunteers had gathered for the search. He and Miss Sjodin’s father, Allan, joined authorities in a trailer serving as a makeshift command post.
Mr. Heales said the student’s friends and family felt relieved yesterday that Miss Sjodin’s body 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.”
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