In the predawn hours of June 27, 1995, a ringing telephone jolted Jodi Huisentruit awake.
It was shortly after 4 a.m., and the 27-year-old morning news anchor was already running late for her shift at KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa.
Still sounding groggy, Huisentruit apologized to the coworker who had called to check on her and said she would arrive at the station in about 15 minutes.
She quickly collected what she needed for work — including makeup, a hairdryer and a pair of red high heels — then stepped out of her apartment and headed through the dim parking lot toward her red Mazda Miata.
She never arrived at the newsroom.
Investigators believe Huisentruit was taken somewhere between her apartment door and her car in the darkness of that early morning.
The belongings she had been carrying were later discovered scattered around the Mazda, and muddy drag marks on the pavement pointed to a violent struggle.
More than three decades later, the questions at the heart of the case remain unanswered: who abducted Jodi Huisentruit, and why?
Jodi Huisentruit, the TV anchor who vanished in June 1995 while running late for work
Huisentruit’s red Mazda sits idle in the parking lot of her apartment complex as investigators hunt for clues
No arrests have ever been made in the case, and only a handful of persons of interest have been publicly named.
Earlier this month, local private investigator Steve Ridge claimed a dramatic breakthrough, insisting he had identified the person responsible for Huisentruit’s abduction after obtaining a second-hand confession from one of the alleged suspect’s former partners.
The unnamed woman claimed she was dating a man just ‘months’ after Huisentruit’s disappearance when he said that he ‘did it,’ Ridge told local Iowa news outlet KTTC. Ridge also claimed that the woman had provided evidence to support her allegations.
Ridge – who has made several sensational claims about the case in the past – did not name either person but said he shared his findings with Iowa’s Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI).
Mason City Police Chief Mike McKelvey immediately poured cold water on Ridge’s claims in an interview with the Daily Mail.
Without naming names, McKelvey warned that misinformation spread by social media sleuths and self-described private investigators is having a ‘detrimental’ effect on the investigation.
He said some recent claims have been either ‘grossly misleading’ or rooted in baseless speculation.
‘To be objective, we do follow up on some of this chatter,’ McKelvey said.
‘The majority of the 2026 leads brought forth by private investigators and amateurs have been duds or speculation without any substance.’
McKelvey shared that multiple persons of interest are currently being investigated by MCPD, including Brad Millerbernd, the ex-husband of one of Huisentruit’s childhood best friends, who was identified last year in a documentary examining the case.
Investigators looked at allegations that Millerbernd had an unusual fixation on Huisentruit, drove a van similar to one reportedly seen near her apartment the morning she vanished, and resembled a composite sketch of a suspicious man seen lurking outside her building two nights earlier.
He has denied wrongdoing and has not been formally accused of any crime in connection with Huisentruit’s disappearance.
McKelvey added that his department continues to chase down every lead and is committed to bringing closure to Huisentruit’s family and the local community.
He is hopeful that new and emerging technologies – including AI – could help finally solve the decades-old mystery.
‘We and DCI continue to investigate leads as they come in,’ he said. ‘We also review the case file and assess periodically if new or emerging technology can reveal data that may have been less apparent with prior technology.
‘There are still multiple people of interest. We continue to speak to their associates regarding activities and behavior related to this case.’
Huisentruit was a rising star at KIMT-TV. She had celebrated her 27th birthday just three weeks before vanishing
Brad Millerbernd, the ex-husband of Huisentruit’s childhood best friend, had been named as a person of interest, but denied any wrongdoing
Huisentruit with her niece and goddaughter, Kristen Nathe
Huisentruit was pronounced legally dead in 2001 after years of failed searches. Her body has never been found.
The three decades that have passed without answers about her fate have been excruciating for her loved ones.
A gathering organized by the non-profit FindJodi.com will be held on Saturday outside KIMT to raise awareness, and locals are being urged to leave a light on or a candle to mark the somber milestone.
Speaking to the Daily Mail last year, Huisentruit’s niece, Kristen Nathe, said that while her optimism wanes with each passing year, she still clings to hope that her aunt’s killer will one day be brought to justice.
‘You can’t move on,’ Nathe said. ‘It’s always an open question that’s eating at you and haunting you, so it’s been a defining part of my life.’
Addressing the culprit directly, she added: ‘We’ve existed in this nightmare for too long, so find compassion in your heart to help us find the peace that we and Jodi desperately need.’
In a case that has yielded so few public leads, the identification of Millerbernd as a person of interest came as a shock to many of Huisentruit’s loved ones.
Millerbernd was first named in the three-part documentary, Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit, which aired on Hulu last July.
Investigators were led to him by Patty Niemeyer, Millerbernd’s ex-wife and one of Huisentruit’s closest childhood friends.
In the series, Niemeyer described watching an ABC 20/20 special on the case three years earlier and being overcome by a gut feeling that her ex-husband may have been involved.
She said her suspicions dated back years earlier, to the tenth anniversary of Huisentruit’s disappearance, when she allegedly received a call out of the blue from Millerbernd.
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According to Niemeyer, he asked: ‘Do you realize what day it is?’
The call rattled her. Niemeyer had been separated from Millerbernd for almost 11 years and said they had not spoken in a decade.
It also got her thinking.
Millerbernd, she claimed, had always had an odd preoccupation with Huisentruit, frequently talking about her and asking what she was doing and where she ‘was at.’
‘That always bothered me,’ Niemeyer said. ‘But I guess I was naive, and I was like, “Oh, it’s nothing.”‘
Millerbernd’s ex-wife has alleged that he always had an odd preoccupation with Huisentruit
Patty Niemeyer with Millerbernd. She first reached out to the Mason City Police Department in 2017, urging them to look into Millerbernd as a potential suspect
Niemeyer first contacted the Mason City Police Department in 2017, urging them to look into Millerbernd as a potential suspect.
Her initial tip went unanswered, she said, but she followed up again after seeing the 20/20 special, providing more detailed information to support her suspicions.
Millerbernd has not been accused of any crime related to Huisentruit and has denied wrongdoing in conversations with law enforcement.
He declined to speak in the Hulu documentary, and the Daily Mail’s attempts to reach him for comment have been unsuccessful.
At the time Huisentruit vanished, Millerbernd was living roughly three hours from Mason City in Winsted, Minnesota, property records show.
He was working for his father’s company, Millerbernd Process Systems, and frequently traveled to Mason City for work, driving a white Ford Econoline van, according to Niemeyer.
That detail stood out to Mason City detectives.
Several witnesses reported seeing a mysterious white Ford van parked outside Huisentruit’s apartment around the time she was abducted. Identifying the owner of that vehicle has long been seen as one potential key to cracking the case.
While investigating Niemeyer’s tip, MCPD detective Terrance Prochaska made another discovery: the department’s case files contained composite drawings of a man reportedly seen lurking near Huisentruit’s apartment complex two nights before she vanished.
Sharing the information publicly for the first time in the documentary, Prochaska said several witnesses saw a suspicious white man standing near a bridge embankment by the complex, carrying a bag and ‘acting odd’ as he stared toward Huisentruit’s home and ‘creeped’ around the property.
The man was described as bald, with a mustache and goatee, and wearing a strange black hat.
Huisentruit with friends at her birthday party. Standing above her is John Vansice, the last person known to have seen her alive
One of Huisentruit’s shoes found outside her apartment, which was part of a larger body of evidence recovered from the scene that indicated signs of a struggle
A Ford Econoline van had been spotted outside of Huisentruit’s apartment the night she vanished. Millerbernd allegedly drove a similar car at the time
The documentary showed Niemeyer looking at the drawings.
‘I see Brad Millerbernd… ‘ she said in response. ‘That is him to a T.’
Niemeyer’s marriage to Millerbernd was short-lived. The couple married in February 1994 and were living apart by December of that year. Their divorce was finalized on June 23, 1995 – four days before Huisentruit vanished, and two days before locals reported seeing the suspicious man near the anchor’s building.
Both Niemeyer and Prochaska said they found the timing compelling.
In 2022, Prochaska questioned Millerbernd over the phone about his memories of Huisentruit.
According to the detective, Millerbernd admitted during the call that he had taken Huisentruit out to dinner in the fall of 1994.
He allegedly said he contacted her after finding her information in a telephone directory, then drove from Winsted to Mason City in his white Econoline van to pick her up. That was understood to be the last time he saw her.
Prochaska interviewed Millerbernd again in 2024, this time in person. Details of that interview were not shared in the documentary, but the detective described Millerbernd as cooperative and ‘very nervous’ when confronted with some of the evidence.
Millerbernd voluntarily submitted DNA and later agreed to take a polygraph test, the results of which have not been disclosed.
A search of one of Millerbernd’s former properties found no new leads.
Among the other persons of interest is the now-deceased older friend of Huisentruit’s, John Vancise, who was the last known person to have seen her alive.
Police have also investigated suspected serial killer Christopher Revak in connection with her disappearance.
More than anything, Huisentruit’s family wants to know where she was taken so they can finally lay her to rest.
‘With all the time that passes, it makes it seem less and less likely that we’re going to find Jodi,’ Nathe said last year.
‘But I try to remain hopeful and optimistic… because that’s what Jodi would’ve wanted.’
