Missing Student’s Body Found

The body of University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin was found Saturday, revealed by the spring thaw in an area volunteers had searched several times during the five months she had been missing.

Sheriff Mark LeTexier sobbed as he told volunteers, “Dru is home.” An official identification and autopsy were scheduled, he said.

Scores of volunteers had joined the search on Saturday for the 22-year-old University of North Dakota student, who had last been seen Nov. 22 at the Grand Forks, N.D., mall where she worked.

While a handful of Sjodin’s relatives continued searching through the winter, official searches had been halted in December because of severe weather and resumed this month.

Bob Heales, a private investigator who has coordinated search efforts for the Sjodin family, said the body was found in a ravine near a county road northwest of Crookston.

Sjodin’s father, Allan, said it had been “a devastating day.”

“We were waiting for that call and when that call came we all stopped living for a second,” he said at a press conference.

Volunteers had been near the ravine “probably a dozen times,” but the area had been covered with snow, Heales said.

Convicted sex offender Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 51, of Crookston, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping Sjodin, of Pequot Lakes, Minn. He was arrested in December and is being held in Grand Forks on $5-million bail.

Prosecutor Peter Welte declined to comment Saturday.

At a court hearing last month, investigators said they found blood matching Sjodin’s DNA in Rodriguez’s car.

Police said they also found a knife in the car that matches a sheath recovered near Sjodin’s car.