Search for Student Nets Arrest

A man was arrested Monday night and faces a kidnapping charge in the disappearance of a college student who may have been abducted while talking to her boyfriend on her cellphone, police said.

Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, was arrested in Crookston, Minn., where he lives, and was being held in the Tri-County Correctional Center, Grand Forks police said. The missing student, Dru Sjodin, 22 -- last seen Nov. 22 -- has still not been found.

Rodriguez has a history of sex offenses and of attempting to kidnap adult females, a Minnesota Department of Corrections Web site said.

Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn., was last seen as she left her job at the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks, about 30 miles from Crookston. Her 1994 red two-door Oldsmobile Cutlass was found in the mall parking lot.

Sgt. Michael Hedlund said earlier Monday that a crime lab analysis of the car yielded nothing.

Soon after the young woman disappeared, her boyfriend, Chris Lang, called Sjodin’s roommate, saying he had received two calls. The first was cut off and Lang heard Sjodin say, “Oh, my God,” before the phone went dead.

A second call a couple of hours later was filled only with static and the sound of numbers being pressed.

Since then, more than 1,300 volunteers have been involved in the search for Sjodin throughout the Grand Forks area. Divers searched the Red Lake River near Crookston.