A private investigator who has worked on the unsolved 1995 disappearance of an Iowa newscaster said there are four suspects in her presumed abduction and death.
Steve Ridge, who has investigated KIMT news anchor Jodi Huisentruit’s disappearance since 2019, told “NewsNation Prime” that Huisentruit started dating a man about two weeks before she vanished. Ridge said the relationship, which was with a man from out of state, potentially led to Huisentruit vanishing under suspicious circumstances.
“I believe [this] was ultimately the motive for a confrontation that would have occurred in the parking lot at her Key Apartments,” he said.
READ: Tip Sparks New Search in News Anchor’s 1995 Disappearance
Huisentruit, 27, was reported missing after she failed to show up for work at KIMT in Mason City. Police went to her apartment complex and located her vehicle in the parking lot.
Beside her car were a pair of women’s dress shoes, a bent car key, a blow-dryer, a bottle of hair spray, and earrings.
Ridge said he has narrowed down 29 suspects to four. John Vancise, a close friend of Huisentruit’s who was linked to the cold case, is reportedly incapacitated and unlikely to be prosecuted.
Huisentruit’s body was never found. Last month, Iowa investigators searched a location in Winstead, Minnesota, regarding an undisclosed tip. The location is under construction as an apartment complex is being built. Since then, officials disclosed that farm animal bones were discovered near the construction site — which is not suspicious or uncommon in a rural area.
“If we had the remains, I can almost guarantee that, eventually, we would have established links to one of the four people who I have on my list,” Ridge told NewsNation.
Huisentruit was declared legally dead in 2001. No suspects have been arrested or charged in her disappearance and presumed death.
For the latest true crime and justice news, subscribe to the ‘Crime Stories with Nancy Grace’ podcast.
[Feature Photo: Handout]
