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(CNN)Patty and Jerry Wetterling spent more time looking for their son than they spent raising him.
For 27 years they searched for Jacob, just 12 years old when a stranger abducted him in 1989.
Then, in eight days, a case that gripped the nation and defined the Wetterlings’ life was over.
In that time, the Wetterlings went from learning that a longtime person of interest was willing to lead authorities to Jacob’s body, to sitting in court, hearing that man recount how he molested their son and shot him to death out of fear that police were on to him.
“I don’t even know how to describe what it felt like when hearing his words,” Patty Wetterling told CNN affiliate WCCO.
“All I could do is look at him and say, ‘How could you?'”
For the first time since that day in court in September, the Wetterlings sat down with WCCO’s Esme Murphy and reflected on the abrupt end to their search.
“It was actually absolutely stunning to try and process,” Patty Wetterling said. “How you shift your head from hoping and searching and to now knowing that he wasn’t alive, and what a horrible death?”
The discovery
The next day, the lead prosecutor called and told them they’d found something. The Wetterlings went to a farm in Paynesville and identified his red jacket.
Even after all that time, one of the hardest things the Wetterlings had to do was break the news to their surviving children.
“One thing nobody will ever know is the intensity of these phone calls, we had to call our children and tell them they found his jacket, those were grueling phone calls to make,” Patty Wetterling said.
Heinrich pleaded guilty to one count of child pornography in exchange for a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. In return, he admitted the chilling details of Jacob’s murder and pleaded guilty to kidnapping and sexual assault of another boy. He will be sentenced later this month.
Today, the agony of the unknown has been replaced with the horrifying knowledge of their son’s final days. With love and support from the community, they’re getting through.
“That gunshot snuffed his breath out October 22, 1989, but his spirit is so strong you can see how it effects people,” Jerry Wetterling said.
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