Dear Jacob: Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker on Advocacy, Hope, and Justice

Laura: Patty and Joy, thank you so much for joining us at ISHI this year, our 35th anniversary. We’re very honored to have you come and do a presentation, as well as participate in a panel where we talked about from evidence to narrative. Very interesting topic area, and I was very impressed with what I saw, and we’re excited to talk about it a little bit here. So, people who follow ISHI and weren’t able to attend can learn a little bit more about it. Before we get into your story. Maybe it would be nice just for each of you to talk a little bit about your background and what brought you here.

Patty: Sure. My son Jacob was kidnapped in 1989. So, it’ll be 35 years ago. So, I was reminded of how the level of expertise with DNA and science way back in ‘89 was so much less than what we have today. So, it was nice to honor that. We searched for nearly 27 years, and it was because of some DNA, a break in the case and Joy’s investigative stuff that we got our answers. Without that, we’d still be searching for answers.

Laura: I’m so sorry. I’ve read your story, and it’s just such a long, long journey. Thank you. We’re very honored to share it with us.

Patty: Thank you.

Laura: Joy.

Joy: Well, I’m a freelance marketing professional by trade. And really, I became associated with the Jacob Wetterling Story as a blogger. I’m the blogger on the case as I’ve been sort of named. But yeah, my involvement. I just really started a blog. Nothing to do with true crime, just as a tool to keep me writing. And I ended up picking Jacob’s case and things kind of went from there.

Laura: It’s a very interesting story. The two of you had quite a journey together as well, Patty. This is a tougher question, but for the audience, could you share a little bit about more about what happened and how that impacted you?

Patty: Sure. I was a stay-at-home mom. We had four children. I loved being that mom. If somebody’s kid was sick, they’d come to my house. And when four people, four children have guests over, it’s a party. So, it was a Sunday night, and our children didn’t have school the next day. We had a meeting; I chair an art festival, and they were just doing a summary meeting and I asked Jacob to babysit. He was nearly 12. He was in sixth grade, and he was fine with staying home for a few hours, and his friend Aaron came over as well. They called and they asked permission to go to a to rent a video. This is pre-Netflix you know. And they biked to the store. It’s a mile away. We know most of the people at the bottom of the hill. But they passed all the houses and there was a guy standing in the road with a gun. He told them to get off their bikes and lie down in the ditch, or he’d shoot. He let two of them go. And when he let Aaron go, he saw the man grab Jacob’s shoulder. And when Aaron caught up to Trevor, they turned around and they were gone. So, they ran home and said, call 911. Police were there within six minutes. And it began the longest manhunt in Minnesota. The biggest that Minnesota has ever really had. It was a search that lasted nearly 27 years before we got our answers.

Laura: 27 years. I am so very sorry.

Patty: Thank you. Yeah, it was a journey. And I learned a lot. I knew nothing. So, you start asking questions, and I just kept asking questions and learning more and trying to take away the fear from other children. I didn’t want to live in a world where kids are scared of everybody and afraid to go out in the world. So, we fought hard to build normalcy in our own kids’ lives and the community.

Laura: Absolutely. And you have done that. I mean, it’s a remarkable story. We will get into more. What you have done with that. Joy, how did you first come across the case? You know, what encouraged you to get in contact with Patty? And how did that evolve over time?

Joy: Well, I got involved with the case. Just kind of a fluke. I was looking for a new story to write about. I had fallen in love with blogging and the interactivity of it. This was back in 2010 when I first started my blog, which was really before true crime kind of took off as a thing. And so, I had written about another story that had nothing to do with true crime. But given that it was this mystery that had evolved online and people were helping me solve it and the commenting back and forth, I loved it. So, I kind of wanted another mystery to unravel. And so, I just googled Minnesota Mysteries, and of course, Jacob’s case came up. So, I just started looking into it and got completely hooked, started blogging about his case for about three weeks until I kind of got freaked out that I had two boys of my own and didn’t live that far from Saint Joseph. So, I quit, and it was probably three more years before I came back to it. And that’s when that’s when things kind of heated up.

Laura: Okay. And how did you first reach out and what was the reaction? I did see part of the panel. And so, it was an interesting story.

Joy: Yeah.

Patty: I was speaking at a gala for a women’s shelter. And this very tall woman came and introduced herself and said she’d been blogging about Jacob, and I really had never read a blog. I mean, this is going back a way. And she handed me her card and I went home, handed it to my husband, and he read it, and the next morning was reading it aloud to me. And it was incredibly well written, detailed, accurate. And I thought, who is telling my story? Who can? And I didn’t trust anybody. We’d been burned by people who were wannabe cops, and I didn’t want somebody interfering with the case. So, I was very much afraid of Joy. And you know, where was she going with this? So, we had about a two-hour phone call that day, and, I was the skeptic.

Joy: So, I thought I was a mom helping another mom. That really was my intention, that I just wanted so badly to become a writer and to find my purpose in life. I knew writing was my thing, and I just wanted to figure out how to use those skills for greater good. And so, when I picked Jacob’s case to write about, I honestly thought, you know, there’s a chance here that this could make a difference. If enough people could start thinking, Jacob with me, that we could make a difference collectively. And so, after that conversation, you know, I think it was we talked for two hours, but we were polite, and Patty was polite, and I think that was encouraging to me. So, I just kept going. By then I had already been putting witnesses and persons of interest together at, you know, they were having conversations, and I was talking to all these people, and I think she was getting more and more nervous. But it wasn’t until I met with a young child survivor, really, of an abduction that had taken place ten miles away from Saint Joseph and nine months prior to Jacob’s abduction, his name was Jared. He had been a 12-year-old boy at the time, was now, you know, in his 30s, and he agreed to meet with me. I found him and he agreed to meet with me, and he wanted to reach out to Patty and to talk to her son and Aaron, the other boy that was with Jacob when he was abducted. And so, I said, sure, I’d give that a whirl. And how’d that go?

Patty: So, Joy called, and I was so super protective of our kids, and I didn’t see any benefit to having Trevor, who was with his brother, you know. And Aaron, who lost his best friend, talked to Jared. I knew Jared, but I just didn’t see the wisdom of all of that. And I confronted her. It’s like you’re talking to neighbors. Persons of interest. Suspects. Witnesses. It’s like it feels rather… I called her a stalker. I did. Well, what if I did that to you? I interviewed your neighbors, your coworkers. You know, it just felt scary to me. And I didn’t know her well enough. So, I almost scared her away, which would have been disastrous.

Laura: I really appreciated that in the presentation today on the panel when you said that and your response, I mean, it did get a laugh, but you really built this incredible relationship that followed.

Patty: We did. Joy was very patient, and she was working with Jared, who was also a victim, and he was on fire. He wanted to know who took him and assaulted him, and we all kind of felt they were related. I finally recognized the fact that Joy was doing more investigating than any of the local police or the sheriff’s department, anybody at that time. It’s hard to have a cold case. And she was asking questions, and it was very factual, very well written and intensely promising the way she was doing it. She was very respectful to our family. And we started talking more. And then she discovered what was really a key breaking point in our case.

Laura: Okay. Joy, do you want to talk about that and how that came about?

Joy: Sure. So just going back to the stalker thing for just a moment.

Laura: Absolutely.

Joy: You know when, when that happened and she was you know, I have to say Patty was nice. She said it in a nice way. It wasn’t, you know, horribly. But she said something to the effect that this is starting to feel a bit stalkerish. And to me, I was devastated. I thought, oh my goodness, you know, here I thought I was helping and if I’m one not helping and two harming this, this woman, this supermom that I had such respect for and was, you know, such a big deal in Minnesota and this nation for that matter. So, I had decided I was done. I was just going to walk away. And I would have had it not been for Jared. And he really kept reeling me in. And he said, you know, you’re not going anywhere. I need to know this and this, and I need you to look up this, and what about this guy? Blah, blah, blah. So that’s kind of how that got going. And I forgot your other question.

Patty: So, you were looking for that photo for Jared.

Joy: Oh, I’m sorry. So yes. How did I get going on the or the big breaking information. So I had been looking for a photo that Jared wanted me to find of an early suspect in the case, and I was going through some online archives of the Painesville Press, and that’s when I ran across this article of these five young teenage boys who had been attacked at night by a masked gunman wearing black, chasing them down, some of them on bikes, some of them in groups, threatening them with a gun. And it was astounding. This happened in 1986, 87, and the police were looking for help about this person that was stalking these young teenage boys. So right away I called Jared, and I said, have you heard of these cases before? And he had not. And so, his family had moved him from Cold Spring to Painesville, and that was where his parents were from. So that’s where he grew up and graduated. And he said, “Yeah, you need to send that immediately. That article up to Stearns County, to the sheriff’s office, and we need to look into that.”

Patty: And she called us. When Joy came presented that article. It’s like I had never heard of those cases. And this town, this small town is still in the same county, which was amazing. And it was two years before Jacob was kidnapped. And, you know, it’s one of those, don’t you wish that would have been solved and maybe someone would be home safe today. And same thing with Jared. He would have been free of that horrible experience. So, all of a sudden this was hugely significant. Nobody had done enough.

Laura: No. Absolutely. You know, especially with the parallels that you were finding. That’s right.

Patty: So yeah. Go ahead.

Joy: And what we found is that we were finding cases that didn’t fit into those original five that were described in the newspaper article. So, we’re like, is this a new one? And then we kept finding more new ones and more new ones and more new ones. And suddenly people were coming out of the woodwork and saying, that happened to my brother. That happened to my nephew, my son. And Jared was finding these people and talking to them. And so suddenly we had 13 cases of these incidents that had taken place in Painesville between 1990 and 1986 and 1988, and it was astounding.

Patty: And he let all of these kids go. You know, he took them, sexually assaulted them, and then let them go. And Jared spent his high school years in Painesville. So, before Joy blogged about it, Jared said, “Well, let me start asking questions.” And that’s when these kids were now men, grown men, and they didn’t really want to talk to law enforcement because that didn’t get them anywhere in the past. But they would talk to Joy, and they would talk to Jared, and she just had a map pinpointing the sites. And, you know, a really good description of exactly what happened in each case. And that was huge.

Laura: No, absolutely. And Joy, were you writing about this as this went along or did that? Did you, you know, restart that later? Like what happened next? How did this move forward?

Joy: Yes, I was writing about it as we went, as again, this mystery was unraveling live online, and people were commenting. Just like we had hoped they would, they were and commenting and asking questions. And we were trying to get back to them and answer their questions. And then, you know, there became an element where there were these online sleuthers that were, you know, kind of armchair experts in their own minds. And that was where I really kind of had to step outside of myself and say, “Gosh, am I this? Is this who I am or what am I doing here?” And it got very difficult to deal with. People throwing names around to the wind and suspects and theories, and I just wasn’t comfortable with it at all. And so finally, I kind of had to reel everything in, and I decided I am only going to talk to people who have a direct connection to this case. And I had a degree in journalism, so I had some background in, you know, ethical standards. And that became really important to me.

Laura: Absolutely. And this was really before the advent of this. I mean, this is happening so much today. And really, you know, part of the point of the panel was to talk about how can that be done sensitively and actually to help victims and their families versus harm them, and for you to see that, you know, happening then and how were you feeling at that time?

Patty: The detail and the accuracy of what Joy was writing was absolutely amazing. The sheriff was on a person of interest who was not involved in those at all, and he wasn’t looking. And so, it meant the world to us to have, you know, fresh eyes and a fresh thing. And it was more promising than anything we’d seen in years, almost 25 years, when this was going on. And the FBI brought their review team, and they were very impressed with her work. She’d done a whole bunch of background for them. And then one of the local media reporters did a story interviewing Joy and Jared and me and tell them what happened, the number of leads.

Joy: Oh. So, things started to get really crazy once we published the story about the Painesville incidents. And it really blew up and there was a huge media blitz and all of a sudden, we had all these radio stations and TV stations interviewing us. And what happened was people suddenly were coming directly to me with all these tips, and I had hundreds of tips to sort of wield through and figure out, you know, what should I be? And I was just sending them kind of one at a time. And it got to be just overwhelming for everyone. So, I ended up making a spreadsheet of all the tips, and I prioritized them, you know, by which ones were most important and who the suspect was, and, you know, when it occurred and where it occurred. And so, I could sort of look and search for things easier. And for me, that was big. And I was able to send that. And I had to ask Patty, I’m like, “I have all of these tips. Some are really disturbing, you know, really, truly. And do you want me to send them to you?” I felt bad keeping them from her and Jerry, but I didn’t know if I should or not. And so finally I did. And that was a big step, too.

Laura: And, going through this in the search for Jacob, I mean, you must have come across so many things that other parents were facing, too, as they’re searching for missing children. Maybe we can talk about some of those. What makes it so difficult?

Patty: Yeah. We were lucky at the very beginning. We had great response from law enforcement, and they preserved, you know, a footprint and what little evidence they had. They did preserve really well. What’s very hard is as time goes by, how do you keep them? You know, I used to ask them, “Can’t you get the bank robbers to stop robbing banks and get the criminals to behave so we can just solve this?” But, you know, their work continued, and so it’s hard to keep it a priority. And there’s a sense of already done that, tried that. And so, I just kept… You know, I’m pretty creative. I kept thinking of what next to try to keep them engaged. But this new stuff was bigger. And I didn’t trust that they were going to do all that they needed to do with it, but they couldn’t ignore us. You know, this team of the four of us was strong and we were relentless. And we weren’t going to stop. Jared, especially. I mean, imagine being an abducted child and never having the knowledge… Because this guy threatened him. “You can tell anybody you want, but if they come close to me, I’m going to come back and kill you, you know?”

So, he lived with that for a very long time, and so we knew we were close. Joy’s blog post on the stories got a lot more attention. I don’t know how she kept track of it all, but by this time there was a total trust, and we were going to get our answers working with other parents. I studied and I got to meet kids who’d come home. Elizabeth Smart, Jessica Muhlenberg was from Wisconsin. You know, the Cleveland women. I knew there’s kids out there that have been gone ten years, 17 years, and I knew that the hope was real and that’s what kept me alive and functioning. And it’s like, don’t quit. Whatever it is, you don’t quit on these kids. Some of them are out there and they’re coming home. So that was my work on a national level, working with other parents and trying to keep energy going into these searches.

Laura: And you became a huge source for advocacy and for pushing for change and helping other families.

Patty: Thank you. I had a lot of help in changing some state law and federal law and setting up some federal programs that weren’t there, like coordination between the nonprofit organizations that didn’t exist. We built that. And a parent support group, we called it Team Hope. And it was parents offering mentoring to other parents who were searching for no matter what type of missing it is. And that was really heartening because there’s power in these parents. It’s not just one sad story. There’s energy and power. We’re fighting for our kids. And that was really meaningful to me. So, I loved my work, but I really struggled when we when we got our answers, because I suddenly no longer represented hope because it was not the answers we were looking for.

Laura: I’m very sorry about that. I’d love to hear more about the legislation, but if you want to continue the story and talk about the evolution of how you did find the answer.

Patty: Where did we leave off?

Joy: Well, I think what happened was, it was coming up on 25 years. October 22nd, 2014 was going to represent 25 years. And so, Patty was working with the Stearns County Sheriff’s Department and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children just they put up a billboard campaign for Jacob with a new age-progression photo. And you know something that said still missing. And so, there was a lot of energy in that, combined with the Painesville incidents and what we were doing. I’m going to let you take over.

Patty: I had asked the sheriff. It’s like, bring back the team. We need more eyes on this case. We had the team at the beginning, and I wanted them back, and they agreed. The sheriff agreed to let this FBI child abduction response deployment team come in. And they were very impressed with Joy’s sightings of all of these cases and revisited the case and they found some DNA off Jared’s shirt.

Now, his clothing had been sent in with DNA before, but DNA advanced. And now they knew who took him, but statute of limitations had run out and they couldn’t charge him. But they did have enough for a search warrant. And they found volumes of child pornography. So, he was arrested on federal charges for that. And eventually, after about ten months of being in prison and knowing that DNA was probably going to… The FBI had vacuumed out his car at the beginning. So, they had hair samples, and he knew that one of those might come back to be Jacob’s and he’d go down for murder. So, he agreed to a plea, and he and he led investigators to where Jacob’s remains were. That was complicated by the fact that, you know, they called us, and we went out there and we thought this was the end. But then the next day, we found out those were not human remains that they found. And the teeth were not human.

It was devastating. So, they interviewed the guy, and then they went back the next day. And this time they brought an expert from the University of Minnesota who could identify human remains. And they actually found Jacob’s remains at that point in time. So, it was science that got us the answer. His jacket was there, but it didn’t have his name on it. They figured the cotton embroidery thread must have dissolved over 27 years. But they couldn’t prove it was his. So, it was it was the human remains that they found and then that it was all a matter of eight days between them going out. They thought they found him. They didn’t. Then they did. And we couldn’t talk about it. We couldn’t tell anybody. And the hearing was… Well, Monday was Labor Day and the hearing was Tuesday. So, it was just so overwhelmingly fast to have the answers. And it was hard because he hadn’t signed anything. We couldn’t tell anybody about it. My siblings and Jerry’s sisters found out about it in court what had actually happened. I called Joy. She was one of like, the only person I might have been able to tell. Oh, maybe the day before I was able to call my siblings too. But it was a grueling process. But thankfully, a quick court. And then about 5 or 6 weeks later, he was sentenced.

Laura: Okay, an excruciating eight days and not being able to speak about it.

Patty: Oh my gosh. So yeah, that’s a heavy load to carry.

Laura: A very heavy load to carry. Everything you’ve gone through, you somehow have taken it and you are integral to passing some groundbreaking legislation, the Jacob Wetterling Act. Maybe you want to talk a little bit about that?

Patty: Yeah. I asked law enforcement “what would have helped? What do you need to find kids faster?” And two things. One was a central repository of information, because the computer system was all separate, but they were working on that. And the second thing was it would help to know who was in the area who’s done this before. So, six states had sex offender registry, and I studied their legislation. I worked with our state legislators, and we got that passed in Minnesota. And then it was part of the 1994 Crime Bill with President Clinton signing off on it.
And I tell law enforcement, it’s like one tool, hopefully in your garage full of tools, because not everybody who’s committed those crimes is on a registry. And it’s just one tool. It’s a checkpoint, but it can quickly clear people as well. And I think it’s been a useful tool. It, like any law passed, needs to be fine-tuned. But it was meaningful to feel like there was some legacy left behind.

And the other the other piece that we really worked hard on was trying to build a better, safer world for Jacob and to fight for the world that he knew and believed in. I refused to let that man take anything more. You can’t have my marriage. You can’t have my other children. You can’t have the world that Jacob knew and enjoyed. And we fought really hard throughout all those years to build that and hold on to it. That’s what kept me going.

Laura: That’s incredible. Strength of character and I really appreciate you being able to do that and share that with the world. And I think everyone wants to live in that world where they feel safe.

Patty: I think so. The other piece was, and I didn’t talk about this, but the other piece was the community coming together. It was phenomenal. It drew national attention, and I think people are starved for that again. And, you know, just having people come together and say, “No, you cannot harm our children.” And the same thing with law enforcement. Our sheriff’s department couldn’t do it alone. And it was all the agencies collaborating and coming in to get us answers that gave us the answers. And it was Joy. I would call her an ordinary citizen, but she’s so extraordinary. I can’t call her that. But just an interested person who had some… She calls herself Joy the Curious, and that curiosity got her, you know, to ask the right questions and get the right answers. And so, it was just this miracle of the right people and the right agencies coming together.

Laura: No, it’s beautiful to talk about the community behind it and enjoy. I mean, there are many journalists and now many bloggers podcasters that don’t take that approach. I think it’s a very fine line, you know, to, like you said, be helpful and, you know, continue to write about it, but in a really respectful way. Maybe you want to talk about that process and how that evolved for you as you and Patty got closer.

Joy: Yeah, it really bothered me, and it continues to bother me how true crime has become a source of entertainment. And it is a big genre. It sells a lot of books and, you know, a lot of people tune in to hear these stories, and that’s okay if it’s done respectfully. But you have to consider the victims. You have to consider these families that have gone just through the ringer for so many years, and you have to step outside of yourself and say, if this was my family…? That is what Patty asked of me. You know, when she said, “How would you feel if this were you and your family?” And I was the one that was asking all these questions of people you knew, and that really opened my eyes. And you have to think that way because nobody deserves that. They’re already in so much pain from the crime itself. And then to have these, you know, people constantly just rethinking, reframing and throwing out wild theories or disrespecting the family or accusing them, it’s just it’s awful and I don’t like it at all.

Laura: I would agree, and I think this audience agrees. I mean, coming to speak to this audience of forensic DNA professionals. We’ve had many conversations over the years about it is not entertainment. These are people’s lives. I mean, it’s a very it’s a difficult thing to talk about because there is such frustration at that level.

Patty: Well, they’re part of the stick to the facts. They are the fact finders and that really was the brilliance of coming together at the end. We had speculation that this guy might have done it, but we needed the facts. We needed the research. And that’s what her strength is. You know, she was accurate and detailed and relentless and trying to help us and Jared, you know, get our answers. But sticking to the facts.

Laura: Absolutely. You’ve both covered this a little bit, but I would love to hear your advice from both perspectives, like your advice and somebody now who is writing or, you know, working in the field telling stories that are happening. What advice would you give them, and then what advice would you give families who might be facing a similar situation today? I’d love to hear both perspectives.

Joy: Well, I think it’s really important to build trust, especially when you look at Jared and myself, for example, he would have never talked to me, number one, if I hadn’t already been doing a good job. Besides just building trust, it’s really important to get the buy in from the family and to work with the families. And if they don’t want your help, then don’t offer it. I mean, walk away because you’re not doing them any good. But if you can do a good job and there are a lot of people, a lot of good, qualified people that are smart and have the skills and also have the integrity that can do this work. And so, I would love to be able to see some kind of an opening for people like me and others that have the knack for it. And you know what? How can we somehow help without being intrusive?

Laura: Absolutely.

Patty: For me, it was letting go of… You know, I had worked with law enforcement, and I was it was the same thing. We’d been burned. So that trust issue wasn’t there. But you have to allow people to come in and ask a question. What about this? And I think that’s true with the investigators too. Or the scientists, the technicians. What about this? And keeping yourself open to possibilities, because that was that openness. When I finally let Joy in, I won’t let her go. Now she’s like my lifelong friend that we built because of respectfulness of the work that we pulled together between us all. So, my advice to parents and really investigators, anybody with a missing child is don’t give up ever. Keep fighting for your child. Some of them are alive and they’re coming home, and some of them aren’t, but the whole world needed answers. There was somebody out there who steals kids. You can’t just let that be. We needed to fight hard. And so, as parents, we are their advocate, and we can’t give up either. It was just believing in children and believing in our collective energy. We can find our answers.

Laura: You really bring both of you such a message of hope and tenacity. And I really feel like the audience today felt that. And it was, you know, one of the more beautiful things that I’ve seen or that we’ve seen at this event. We’re so thankful for that.

Patty: Thank you. I would just like to add that’s why we wrote Dear Jacob, the book. I had written letters to him all throughout the journey. I wanted to let him know we were working really hard. And so, I had written some letters and I wanted to write a book, but I was so intensely busy and had no organizational skills at all, because our lives were sort of chaotic throughout this process. And so, I asked Joy if she could help me, and we did it. It was a labor of love, but it was also to offer assistance to other people. No matter what your challenge in life is, if you share it, you’re no longer alone. And people kept telling me that I gave them some strength in in their loss, whatever it was. And we wanted people to walk away with some hope and promise of things getting better and to try and offer that up from this tragedy. Jacob brought a lot to the world, and so we celebrate the way he lived and want to protect that for other children. So, it was a labor of love. I’d never looked back. I was constantly driven going forward. So, reflecting gives you perspective and hope and promise for things getting better. I look at so much is better than it was in 1989.

Laura: It was so beautiful and well spoken. I don’t think anyone could say it better. Given our audience of forensic DNA professionals and law enforcement, is there one thing you’d like to leave them with? Just a parting thought to keep in mind as they’re doing their work?

Joy: Yes. We sat this morning across from two young ladies who were in the field, and I asked them what they did, and they were they were both working in the lab and they said, “Very often they just do the work and it goes off and they never hear any outcome from it.” And I thought, well, how tragic is that? Because we’re all in this because we care. And I thought, if they can find the suspect from the DNA, certainly they can go find the people who did it and offer them a thank you or some closure to let them know that, yeah, they did make a difference. And this is due to them and their work that this person was found or the case was closed. So, kudos to them. And I hope that there can be some answers for them as well. They deserve it.

Laura: That is such a lovely story. I’ll just quickly share. I don’t know if you’ve met Julie Weil? She’s here. We’ve interviewed her in the past. She had a very tragic event. I’ll introduce you. I’d love for you to speak with her, but her case was solved after much so many years and so much fear on her part that someone was still out there. And like you said, the person who worked on it, like, actually figured it out many, many years later had no idea who, you know, what she was doing, who it was for. And then Julie came to speak, and this person actually left the field and came back into forensic DNA. They needed a moment because the case, you know, was so traumatic for them. First year that they were back, she was speaking. They connected that they were the people that had helped each other in the middle of the presentation. And so, I think you’re right. It was the most… It was overwhelming. And it really showed the power of being able then to connect and talk and see what the work is doing on both sides for everybody. So, I love that. I really love that you shared that because I think it’s so important. It doesn’t happen a lot.

Patty: Well and I just respect the knowledge, and it’s moving so quickly. The data and information gathered is an ongoing study, and I’m just so honored to be part of it, but also incredibly grateful for those who are doing that work to make the improvements to help solve all of these crimes, so don’t quit. That’s my one piece of advice is never quit. We are so extremely grateful. In many ways, you’re saving lives. All of the people who helped us over the years, really saved our family, and saved my belief and trust that there’s way more good people in the world than bad. So, thank you.

Laura: Don’t quit is a perfect way to end this. And I mean, neither of you quit. And you’re here today and we’re so honored that you accepted and were able to participate. Thank you so very much.