An old case with a new twist

Carole Moore
Missing Persons Contributor
Officer.com

Has a peculiar connection to a North Carolina homicide. The unsolved disappearance of a morning news anchor 13 years ago recently made the news in a very strange way when the woman’s journal was leaked to the media. In a bizarre twist, the case has an odd parallel to another high-profile case hundreds of miles away. Jodi Huisentruit anchored for a television station in Mason City, Iowa. The 27-year-old petite blonde disappeared early one morning while hurrying to work after apparently oversleeping. Evidence in the parking lot of her apartment building led investigators to believe that Huisentruit fought her attacker. But after more than a decade, no sign of the young woman has ever been found. Then a copy of Huisentruit’s 84-page journal turned up in the mail at a local newspaper. An investigation found the source of the leak: the wife of the former police chief. According to published reports, the former chief “inadvertently†took a copy of the journal with him when he left his position. The former chief’s wife, they said, mailed a copy of the journal to the paper. Authorities announced there would be no prosecution -- no harm, no foul. Fast forward a couple of months to Onslow County, N.C., where the sheriff and district attorney are investigating a leak in the highly-publicized murder case of Maria Lauterbach. Lauterbach, you might remember, was the young, pregnant U.S. Marine found murdered and buried in the backyard of another Marine’s residence. While authorities await the extradition of the accused in this case, an intern in the D.A.’s office has been arrested for allegedly stealing evidentiary documents and trying to sell copies to what he believed was a member of the national news media. Investigators allege the intern was looking to make a buck, but the motives of the police chief’s wife are a little murkier. I suppose she might have felt the journal should be shared, but was it really her call? Sorry. I don’t think she had any business even reading that journal, much less releasing it. As for the North Carolina case, that one’s going to court. For more information, check out this site devoted to finding Jodi: http://www.findjodi.com/