The Jacob Wetterling Investigation

FBI and other agencies join investigation. Investigators are inundated with tips; they find tire and shoe tracks they think might be important. Officers and volunteers conduct aerial and ground searches. Stearns County Sheriff Charlie Grafft decries lack of evidence. Wetterlings meet with friends and make conscious decision to seek as much publicity for the case as possible.

Prayer vigil draws 500 people to St. Joseph church. Grafft (pictured) says investigators are sure the abduction involves a sex offender, think the abductor has likely left the area and suggests Jacob could be dead.

Perpich says he will activate the National Guard, the State Patrol and the Department of Natural Resources to search a 700-square-mile area for Jacob. The Wetterlings appear on "CBS This Morning."

Minnesota Twins baseball players and officials join 7,000 to 10,000 others in a public show of support for the Wetterlings.

Banners of support are on display at a Minnesota Vikings-Los Angeles Rams football game. Reporting no significant progress in the investigation, authorities give half of the investigators the weekend off.

Starting their inaugural basketball season, the Minnesota Timberwolves donate proceeds from 5,400 tickets to the team's first home game to the search for Jacob.

Police release two more sketches. One is of a man heard talking about the abduction in the Tom Thumb store two weeks after it took place. The other is of a man thought to have tried to abduct a boy in the Minneapolis suburb of New Brighton. They say the two match the earlier sketch of the man seen lurking in the Tom Thumb convenience story the night of Jacob's abduction. Flurry of tips follows.

Jared Scheierl, a 12-year-old victim in a sex assault abduction in January 1989 in nearby Cold Spring, meets with FBI agents to create a sketch of the man who assaulted him. Investigators think the two cases are related. The sketch generates hundreds of new tips and more investigators are added to the Wetterling case.

Paynesville police chief tells Wetterling investigators that his town has had a year of molestation episodes. The chief, Robert Schmiginsky, believes Heinrich should be considered a suspect in those cases. Several incidents of an unknown adult male groping or chasing juvenile males had been reported to Paynesville law enforcement from about September 1986 through the following September. No arrests were ever made.

Investigators get access to a 1987 Mercury Topaz that Heinrich owned until March 1989. When they have Jared sit in the car, he tells them that on a scale of 1 to 10, the vehicle is an 8 or 9 in terms of how similar it was to the car in which he was abducted a year earlier.

Investigators search the Paynesville home of Heinrich's father, where Heinrich has been living since November 1989. They're looking for Jacob, his clothing, a gun, documents and other material. They find and collect two police scanners, a carrying case, lists of scanner frequencies, a pair of boots, clothing. During the search Heinrich tells investigators he most likely was at home the day of the Wetterling abduction and that he was not in St. Joseph that weekend. Investigators find a trunk containing photos of children, one with a towel wrapped around him and another in his underwear. Heinrich objects to officers seizing them because "they just didn't look right." He later tells investigators he has burned them.

FBI takes six agents off the case, leaving nine.

Heinrich is arrested in connection to the Jared Scheierl abduction and sexual assault. He denies involvement. He is later released without being charged.

FBI reports to investigators that a shoeprint at the crime scene "corresponds" to Heinrich's right shoe but because there was insufficient detail, the lab examiner could not determine that it was made by Heinrich's shoe.

About 1,000 people gather to commemorate the first anniversary of Jacob's abduction.

Heinrich gets his property back from the search warrant that was executed on Jan. 24, 1990.

Congress passes the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act and Child Safety Act. Part of a larger violent-crime bill, it requires any person convicted of a criminal offense against a minor or who is convicted of a sexually violent felony to register with police for 10 years after release from prison, parole or probation. The law permits, but does not require, police to tell the community where such offenders are living. Later laws make this a requirement.

John Sanner (pictured) replaces Jim Kostreba as Stearns County sheriff.

Investigators ask Dan Rassier, a Wetterling neighbor, to admit he abducted Jacob.

President Bush signs the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, creating a national sex offender registry and requiring states to disclose to the public information about the most serious offenders.

Investigators search the farm where Rassier and his parents still live, digging up parts of it and declaring Rassier a "person of interest."

Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension reports that it obtained a DNA profile from the wrist of a sweatshirt worn by Jared when he was abducted in January 1989. It reports the sample contained DNA from at least two people. Jared could not be excluded as one of those, but the predominant male DNA profile did not match Jared's DNA. The BCA reports that 99.5 percent of the general population could be excluded.

BCA reports that the predominant male DNA profile from the wrist of the sweatshirt Jared wore in January 1989 matches the DNA in body hair samples taken from Heinrich in 1990. "The predominant profile would not be expected to occur more than once among unrelated individuals in the world population," the BCA reports. The agency also tells investigators Heinrich could not be excluded from being a possible contributor to the mixed DNA on the Paynesville baseball cap. "It was estimated that 80.5 percent of the general population could be excluded from being contributors," the BCA says.

A sealed criminal complaint against Heinrich is signed by Special Agent Shane Ball, in presence of U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey J. Keyes.

Heinrich's lawyers ask judge to declare the search of his home illegal.

After his attorneys agree to a deal in which Heinrich will be charged only on the pornography case and not kidnapping or murder, Heinrich shows investigators where he buried Jacob's body. The site is on a farm just outside Paynesville, not far from where Heinrich lived at the time. It is about 30 miles from St. Joseph.