A gathering will take place in front of the Mason City TV station where Jodi Huisentruit worked when she disappeared 30 years ago today.
Former Minneapolis crime reporter Caroline Lowe is with the group FindJodi, which helped organize the event. “So, striking to me preparing for this anniversary is how raw and traumatized the feelings are of the people who are affected most directly that day,” she says, “her co-workers, her close friends, they, her family, you know, it doesn’t go away.” Omaha news anchor Brian Mastre worked with Huisentruit at KIMT in Mason City. “She was focused and driven. And then it all ended,” he says.
Mastre was one of the first to read the reports on the air about his 27-year-old colleague’s disappearance. “It’s hard to believe that not a lot has changed from what I said that day to today,” Mastre says. So far, there have been no arrests. However, authorities say one of Huisentruit’s neighbors, a person of interest, died last year. “Some people out there think the case ended there, too, but in the same breath. I mean, you’d think that if that individual had something to do with it, that he would have slipped up and investigators would have been on to it,” Mastre says.
Mason’s City Police Chief says officers continue to work on the case in the hope that they can provide answers to the family and the community. The FindJodi group has put up billboards and posters to ask anyone who may have information to come forward in hopes of finding a clue that could lead to finding out what happened.
You can see more about the case at findjodi.com.
(By Sheila Brummer Iowa Public Radio)