FindJodi

23:20She knew. She knew he had an interest, but just blew it off. You know, he's like a father to me. She made that mention quite a few times. In front of him? Yeah, yeah. But some of Jody's friends doubted he got the message. I cautioned her. I said, Jody, there's going to come a point in time when he's going to want more. When she told us he named his boat after her, we go, That was our, like, stuff. Okay, Jody, this is a little much. But she didn't see it as odd. No, she laughed. I think she was, like, honored, like, hey, it's kind of cool. Jody's sister Joanne and other family members met John Van Syce a few days after Jody's disappearance.

24:04You were a fun-loving group. We were. We had a blast together. We just laughed and laughed and laughed. 48 hours was there as Van Seis told them about his friendship with Jody.

24:18Joanne found his demeanor odd. I try to watch over it. I try to check on it once in a while. Not all the time, just once in a while, see how she's getting off. In my mind, there's a good chance that he is linked to Jody's case some way or other. What makes you say that? It's just that he was so obsessed with her. If you've ever given your apartment, she'd get some of his clothes. They're mine. If I had a shirt she liked, I'd wear it for a while, but I'd give it to her. But Ben Seuss has never been arrested. He's never been named a suspect. I know. He hasn't. It's been 23 years. I know. If he is the one, let's get the evidence.

24:58But we have to be objective. We have to have an open mind. It could be somebody we least expect.

25:09Looking back 23 years later, Ani now believes Van Syce could have harmed Jodi. When you think maybe it was John, what would his motive have been? Maybe being rebuffed. Maybe finally saying to her, I'm not your father. I want to be your boyfriend. That's the only thing I can think of. But the thing that has always puzzled me, like, why in the morning in the parking lot? Could what was in that parking lot have had something to do with it? 48 Hours obtained a copy of a search warrant for Jody's 1991 Miata and learned it was not in her name when she vanished. It reads this license is listed to John Lessard, the previous owner, pending title transfer.

25:57John Lessard is a prominent businessman. He told 48 Hours the sale to Jody was arranged by a friend who was a car salesman. The friend has since died, but his son remembers the sale. She worked hard for that. She was proud of getting that car. She was excited about it. And that car seemed to be on John Van Sise's mind. His close friend, LaDonna Woodford, claims he told her the car was a birthday gift to Jody from a boyfriend. He said, but she doesn't like, want the car. She's going to give it back to him. She never said anything about a gentleman buying it or paying for it or anything like that.

26:38So I think that's hogwash. Inconceivable to you. Yeah. Lessard says the only time he met Jody was to hand her the car keys. Ani says Van Syce had a history of jealousy when it came to Jody. If we were out somewhere, if she was visiting with somebody, he would come join the conversation. Just swoop in? Pretty much, yeah. He wanted to make sure that everybody knew Jody was his. But LaDonna insists Van Seiss had no romantic interest in Jody and no reason to hurt her. When you talk about Jody, it was like, I'm protecting her. She's like my daughter. What if on June 26th and then into the morning of June 27th, what if John Van Syce had picked then to share with Jody that he wanted to take it to the next level?

27:36And people always ask me that question, and this is what I say. He would not do it where they think he did it, where she was abducted. He used to live in those apartments. Everybody knows him. LaDonna feels Van Syce has been unfairly singled out by police and the community. It's just so horrible what they've done to him. He lost his best friend. And it's sad. It's really sad. And LaDonna says she knows where Van Syce was the morning Jody was abducted. He was out taking a walk with her. It was their routine. As you walk through this neighborhood, did he seem anxious? Didn't seem anxious. He seemed himself.

28:19And nothing seemed unusual when she called earlier to confirm their plans. I called John, 6 o 'clock in the morning. I say, hey, John, are we going to work out today? You felt when you called him that morning that he was up there sleeping. Yeah, absolutely. We didn't have cell phones, so I know he was home. And that is why LaDonna believes she is his alibi. I called her and I talked to her. She was there. Remember, Jodi's producer spoke to her at around 4.10 a.m. LaDonna believes that Van Syce, even though he lived only five minutes away, would not have had enough time to abduct Jodi, possibly dispose of her body, and be home by 6 a.m.

29:04I know the time frame of when I called him, when I met with him, when we walked. It's almost impossible for him to have done this. Police finally confirmed in the fall of 1995 that Van Seis had passed a polygraph test, something he'd been telling friends all along. But he remained on their radar. And soon, another man would join him. Tony Jackson is a predator. You gotta look at this guy.

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30:55This gets you access to Rosetta Stone Sapphire in 25 languages. Visit rosettastone.com slash rs10 to redeem your 20 % off. That's rosettastone.com slash rs10. Do you have a dark curiosity? Heart Starts Pounding Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me, Kaylin Moore. Each week, I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwoods horror, and more. So if you're looking to join a passionate community of the darkly curious, check out Heart Starts Pounding on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts.

31:33And remember, stay curious.

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32:15May 4th, 1996. We're going to head down to the river. Nearly a year after Jody disappeared. Gary, this is Ani. Ani Cruz was holding on to a sliver of hope. Follow the river. That her friend could still be found. They said 18 to 19. We hope to find any type of evidence. Oh, yuck. Any type of clues, you know, earrings, purse, anything that we can find. She led a search party through woods. Start curbing back here. The river's over here. Two miles from Jodi's apartment. Get your exercise, huh? Despite Ani's efforts, nothing was found. Two and a half years after Jodi vanished, someone else, someone 140 miles away, started her own search for answers.

33:04to test potential evidence in the Jody Hughes and Trude case. Caroline Lowe was an investigative reporter at WCCO-TV in Minneapolis. She started reporting on Jody while covering a terrifying crime spree in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area. I covered a serial rapist who was accused of raping four women in 18 days. The rapist was this man, Tony Jackson. He was arrested in 1997 after a routine traffic stop police found in his car the tools of his trade. He's got rope. He's got handcuffs. He's got his gun. He's got duct tape. Basically, it's a rape kit. Jay Alberio, formerly a detective with the Woodbury, Minnesota, Police Department, worked the Jackson case.

33:53All the victims that we know of, there is an element of stalking. Jay explored Tony Jackson's past. He learned Jackson was living in Iowa when Jody disappeared. And not just anywhere. The background investigation puts him in Mason City, two blocks from the TV station that Jody worked at. This is where Jackson lived. This is where Jody worked. Two blocks. That's chilling. It was like a bolt. When you see that, you go, wow. This guy may be involved in Jody's case. We need to get this information down to the Mason City authorities. Caroline visited the Mason City police three months after Jay had sent them the Jackson information.

34:43She noticed the file didn't seem to hold much interest. Woodbury police sent Mason City a fat file about the Twin Cities rapes, a file that has been gathering dust. Minnesota sent me a copy. So that was really nice of them. Caroline was trying to get answers to questions about Jackson's past. She learned he was once a promising college basketball player at Iowa's Waldorf College.

35:14He was a star basketball player. Problem is, he would do well and then he would snap. And he would get into violent episodes with people and he was kicked out of the college. Then, a year and a half before Jody disappeared, he enrolled at North Iowa Community College in Mason City, where he showed an interest in broadcasting. He does a couple talk shows, and so is it your thought to start watching the people in town who are on TV doing the news? Sure, he's going to watch them, see how they go about doing their job. The time is 611, 62 degrees. Jay's theory is Jackson might have watched Jody on TV, known her schedule, and even stalked her.

36:02Caroline also learned something that troubled her. When he snapped, he snapped. She spoke with an ex-girlfriend of Jackson's, who said they broke up five days before Jody vanished. And it was violent, very violent. I mean, it was a totally different person. It was like the devil stepped inside of him and just took over. I sat in the living room with this girl, and she looks a lot like Jodi. It was chilling. The woman did get back together briefly with Jackson, until, she says, his anger took another scary turn. And she described how he had tried to choke her, and they took him into custody. Although Jackson was arrested for that attack, the charges were ultimately dropped when the woman moved away and declined to proceed.

36:52Four months later, he would go on to commit the Minnesota rapes. The verdict is guilty on all counts for a local man accused of being a serial rapist. Jackson was sentenced to the equivalent of life in prison. Still, Caroline kept digging into any connection to Jody's case. I want to get this guy as bad as the police do, you do. She learned about a former jailmate of Jackson's. He says, I abducted an anchorwoman and killed her. The man said Jackson boasted about what he'd done in a rap song. Not wanting to forget the lyrics, the jailmate wrote them down. Yeah, he said, she's a stiffen around Tiffin, and pile it to silage, and a bylo, lo below.

37:38Thinking that might mean Jody was buried in a farm near a silo in the town of Tiffin. A few hours from Mason City, Caroline headed there. She brought law enforcement. So this would be the entry. And cadaver dogs. I'll work this side and meet you in the back. To search for human remains. Two of the three dogs alerted, which was a sign that something had been there. And the boards that they found there were sent to the state crime lab. But like so often in Jody's case, the lead led nowhere. Any forensics tying Tony Jackson to Jody? None that we know of. None. On May 5th, 1999, the Mason City Police issued the following statement.

38:28After conducting a thorough investigation, which included interviews, crime laboratory analysis, records review, and polygraph examination, Tony Jackson is not considered at this time a viable suspect in the investigation. Boy, I tell you, I've wondered about him too. He's on the list. Jody's sister Joanne can't close the book on Jackson. He's a rapist and living in the area. But the police say no, that there was no way, and I don't know, though. 48 Hours wanted to ask Jackson about Jody's case, but he declined to speak with us. He would not answer specific questions, but in a rambling email, wrote, I stand firm in my integrity regarding the Jody Who's intruded case.

39:18I'm going right now. And so the hunt for clues crawls on with another look at John Van Sise.

39:29Hi, Dad. Hi, John. My name is Jim Axelrod. I'm with the CBS News broadcast 48 Hours.

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41:48Terms apply.

41:59John Van Sise's friend, LaDonna Woodford, says roughly two years after Jodi's disappearance, she received a visit from an FBI agent. And he said, I have a subpoena for you to appear at the grand jury to testify for John Van Syce. They're trying to indict him. And I was like, really? Like, are you kidding me? LaDonna is going public with this information for the first time. I went into the grand jury and I just told my story, what I knew. LaDonna says she was questioned about John Van Syce for five hours. What do they have on John? Why did I have to go to this grand jury? Why were they trying to indict him?

42:43Because at the end of the day, you don't think it's going to be him. I'd be shocked. Did you ever have any contact with the FBI again after that? Mm-mm. There would be no indictment of John Van Syce. Police continued to work the case, and the mystery of who abducted Jody remained. So yeah, it was hard. You know, they weren't solving it. We weren't finding her. On May 14, 2001, now six years after Jodi disappeared, she was declared legally dead. Jodi's family was forced to make the tough decision in order to settle her estate. That's like the end of the chapter. That's like the end of the book.

43:34But you still had hope, even though you know, realistically, your mind is saying, you know, she's probably not coming home. And despite the hundreds of leads detectives generated early in the investigation, over time, tips slowed to a trickle, and fewer detectives were assigned to the case. That's when, in 2003, journalists Gary Peterson and Josh Benson created the website FindJody.com. They were later joined by a team of former reporters and retired detective Jay Alberio. Who's going to consistently look for Jody if we don't do it? She's one of ours. Their goal? To keep Jody's story alive. And to crack the case.

44:25Did you feel they were overmatched, the Mason City police investigators? I think this is a very big case. I think this is something that they were not accustomed to dealing with. From the beginning, Ani says she was concerned with how detectives processed the crime scene. You know, I was very surprised it was not sectioned off. The whole area wasn't police taped off? Not the first day or so. But there's all kinds of evidence that could have gotten compromised. That's what I thought. And what about Jody's car, a key piece of evidence? That car was the only crime scene they have. This is a case with so little evidence.

45:02Until they find her body, they don't have another crime scene. That car is your crime scene. But investigators didn't hold on to that car for very long. It was released to Jody's family just a couple of months after she disappeared. So if the car is your crime scene, why would they give it back to the family? I think that's a question for the police. Was that car given back too quickly? Maybe. Jeff Brinkley is Mason City's fourth police chief since Jody disappeared. Because the evidence that could have been in that car, especially given the technological advances since then, could be important today.

45:43Right. But you don't have that evidence. We don't have it. But we just have to live with what we've got and try to do as good as we can with that. Chief Brinkley says they do have some DNA samples, and then there is that palm print. But police won't tell us exactly what other evidence they have. Is Tony Jackson still a person of interest? I'm not going to comment on that. Is John Van Seis still a person of interest? I can't comment on that. But findjody.com broke the news that in 2017, John Van Seis, who currently lives in Arizona, was still on police radar. The Mason City Police obtained a search warrant for GPS information on two of Van Seis' vehicles.

46:24What'd you make of that? Very intrigued because it's the first thing we'd seen in years of any kind of official document. The warrant is sealed, but Caroline thinks police were looking for information that could have led to Jody's body. We surmised that they must have been trying to see if he was going to visit some site that he might have buried Jody. That piece didn't pan out like we'd hoped. No one was coming back from out of state to check out a potential body site. We didn't get any information that was useful. Whatever information the police may have on anyone, they're not sharing. Why won't you talk about any specifics in this case?

47:08I don't want to let the cat out of the bag. I think that we still... Is there a cat in the bag? Do you have something? Not completely. No, no. I don't think we do yet. But I think that we're very close. So does that mean we're talking about weeks, months? I don't think it's fast. It's not fast. I don't think it's fast. You ready? Yeah. Thank you. 48 hours traveled to Phoenix to ask John Van Syce what he knows about Jody's disappearance.

47:38Hi, John. My name's Jim Axelrod. I'm with the CBS News broadcast 48 Hours. How are you? Hi. We're conducting an investigation into the disappearance of Jody Housin-Truth. I want to ask you a couple of questions, John. No, I've got a lot of people.

47:55On June 5th, 2018, on what would have been Jody's 50th birthday, the FindJody.com team officially unveiled four billboards around Mason City. It's time to bring Jodi home. Until then, these are the last images of Jodi that friends and family hold on to. Way to keep me in check. When I think about her, I think about all the fun we had. Welcome back to News Channel 3 Daybreak. She had a lot of sunshine to many people's world. 64 degrees already abundant sunshine here in Mason City. We're not giving up. Find Jody's not going to go away. I am staying on this until we find Jody. Somebody knows something.

48:45Is it you? Plenty of happy farmers out there, I'm sure, with the rain. Oh, you better believe it. And I have the tomato plants and lawns and all that stuff. Welcome to Midday. I'm Jody Husentrout.

49:02If you have any information about Jody Husentrout, please call the Mason City Police Department at 641-421-3636.

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