A memorial dedication honoring Jacob Wetterling was held at Klinefelter Park in St. Joseph, Minnesota this week.
Jacob was 11 when he was abducted in 1989, not far from his home while he and his brother and his friend were on their bikes on their way to the store to rent a movie.
At the ten year anniversary of his disappearance, the community planted trees in a park to remember both Wetterling and Officer Brian Klinefelter of St. Joseph who was shot and killed while attempting to arrest three suspects who had just robbed a liquor store in Albany, MN.
A donated boulder, known as Jacob’s Rock, marks the space.
Jacob's mother, Patty Wetterling, says her husband goes there a lot to meditate.
"But he realized that today, nobody knows that story because there was no marker ever placed," Wetterling explained.
Wetterling says there is now a granite stone, with a plaque and a picture of Jacob on it, along with the eleven attributes that Jacob lived by, which Patty rattled off.
"Be fair, be kind, be understanding, be honest, be thankful, be a good sports, be a good friend, be joyful, be generous, be gentle with others, and be positive," she says.
According to Patty Wetterling, her husband Jerry spearheaded the effort.
"He met with the park people and city council and the granite people who do those markers and I was so proud of him," Wetterling tells WCCO Radio. "He took this project on and he wanted to dedicate it so other people could enjoy this very peaceful, beautiful spot and know kind of a meaning behind where it came from."
After Jacob was abducted, Patty and Jerry became national activists, helping organize the Jacob Wetterling Resource Center and speaking to hundreds of organizations across the nation that dealt with crimes against children.
On September 1, 2016, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) recovered human bones from a pasture near Paynesville, about 30 miles from the original site of the abduction. Wetterling's family announced that the bones were those of Jacob, and local law enforcement stated that the identity of the bones had been confirmed by dental records.
The location was revealed by Danny Heinrich, a long-time person of interest in the abduction of another boy, 12-year-old Jared Scheierl. Later that week, Heinrich confessed to kidnapping and murdering Wetterling, as well as abducting and sexually assaulting Scheierl.