Jacob Wetterling Case Summary

According to ncbnews (2016), on October 22, 1989, Jacob Wetterling who was 11 at the time was riding his bike with his brother and a friend by his house in central Minnesota, when he was kidnapped by a masked gunman who was later identified as Danny Heinrich. Heinrich, who sexaully molested and killed Jacob then burying his body in a pit near Jacob’s home. The police suspected Heinrich from the beginning but he claimed that he had no connection to the case, and the police lacked significant evidence to question him. After the case became cold, Jacob’s parents pushed for a national sex offenders registration list, and in 1994, congress passed the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offenders Registration Act. Sadly, Jacob was not Heinrich first victim, nine months prior to Jacob’s disappearance, Heinrich kidnapped and sexually

SOMTA is divided into four stages, the first stage is the initial referral, in this stage a sex offender’s case is looked over by the Office of Mental Health. Once approved, the sex offender meets with an psychologist who determines if he does not have any mental abnormalities, then the case goes to the Attorney General, which is the second stage, or evaluation. During the third stage or litigation, the Attorney General has to prove that the sex offender is unsafe to be released because of mental abnormalities. In the last stage, which is supervision, treatment and review, the sex offender is either released from prison but he is placed under supervision of the Division of Parole and must receive treatment. However, if the sex offender is found unable to be released, he will be sent to a civil confinement where he will also receive treatment (New York State Division of Criminal Justice,