Jodi Huisentruit's apartment

This is Jodi Huisentruit's former apartment.

It is located at 550 North Kentucky Avenue in Mason City, Iowa.

The 27-year-old KIMT news anchor was abducted from the parking lot on the morning of June 27, 1995.

In the months before her disappearance, she reportedly expressed concerns that she was being followed.

The evidence indicated that the attack occurred outside Building C, which is on the southern side of the complex.

Around 4:10 a.m. on June 27, 1995, a producer at the station noticed Huisentruit was 40 minutes late. When they called her, she said she had overslept and was getting ready to leave.

She had been late on several occasions before.

Police believe the abduction took place at roughly 4:30 a.m. Even though it was summer, it would have been dark, as civil twilight did not begin until 30 minutes later.

Three hours later, there was still no sign of the anchor. The station contacted the police and asked them to perform a welfare check.

When officers arrived at the apartment complex, they noticed signs of a struggle. Huisentruit's red Mazda Miata was still in the parking lot, and her belongings were scattered nearby.

Her high-heeled shoe, earrings, hair dryer, and car key were found on the ground. The key was slightly bent, indicating the attacker ambushed her from behind while she tried to unlock the door. Drag marks near her vehicle suggested that someone had grabbed her and pulled her away.

A forensic investigation of the crime scene uncovered a strand of hair and a partial palm print on Huisentruit's Mazda.

Although law enforcement conducted multiple searches and carried out hundreds of interviews, no trace of Huisentruit was found.

Neighbors told investigators that a woman was screaming around the time Huisentruit would have exited her apartment. No one in the complex called the police or checked to see what was happening.

Early that morning, a passerby reportedly saw a mid-1980s white Ford Econoline van in the lot with its headlights on. The vehicle has never been identified.

Six years after her disappearance, she was legally declared dead.

Huisentruit's acquaintance, John Vancise, is a person of interest, but he has been thoroughly investigated. He also reportedly had an alibi.

His behavior in the immediate aftermath of her disappearance has drawn scrutiny. After passing a lie detector test, he reportedly told a local news reporter that he was going to celebrate. One of Vancise's coworkers also claimed he was acting strangely that morning and said she was "gone."

In 2017, the police obtained a search warrant for GPS data belonging to two of his old vehicles. It remains unclear what investigators hoped to find or what reasonable cause they had to persuade a judge to grant the warrant.

One prevailing theory is that Huisentruit was being stalked.

However, if someone was following her, they likely knew her schedule and would have expected her to leave before 3:30 a.m. This would have required them to wait in the parking lot for more than an hour after she was scheduled to leave for work.

In many stalking cases, the perpetrator will attempt to establish a relationship with their victim by sending them flowers, correspondence, or other items. Their behavior starts out relatively harmless, but escalates to intimidation and violence after their advances have been rejected.

Although there is no evidence of an individual attempting to insert themselves into her life, there are subtypes of stalkers who engage in more covert behavior.

Past cases have repeatedly shown that many sexually-motivated abductions are crimes of opportunity. These offenders often look for vulnerable targets and can act on impulse when a situation presents itself.

If this was the case, then Huisentruit's abductor may have had ties to the apartment complex. For example, he or someone he knew lived there. He may have known her, watched her leave for work in the past, or been a complete stranger who was there by chance.