The Megyn Kelly Show - Mysterious Disappearance of TV News Anchor Jodi Huisentruit 30 Years Ago - Crime Week Continues  |  Ep. 1220
Aired: 2025-12-31
Duration: 49:42


=== Who Made Her Bed (15:06) ===

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[00:00:07]  Hakeskink, ja.
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[00:00:56]  Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, live on Sirius XM Channel 111 every weekday at New East.
[00:01:08]  Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly.
[00:01:10]  Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show and Crime Week, because nothing says Christmas like true crime.
[00:01:15]  The disappearance of Iowa news anchor Jody Hoosentroot has remained one of the nation's most haunting, unsolved cases for more than 30 years.
[00:01:24]  This happened just a few years before I got into news, and I remember finding this whole thing just so awful, so chilling.
[00:01:31]  She was just a couple of years older than I was, and she seemingly disappeared into thin air.
[00:01:37]  In the early morning hours of June 27th, 1995, think of where you were.
[00:01:42]  I was graduating from law school, and she was making her name in news.
[00:01:46]  She was running late for her early morning shift at KIMT TV when she vanished from the parking lot of her apartment complex.
[00:01:54]  Her belongings left scattered near her car suggested an abduction.
[00:01:59]  No other trace of her has ever been found.
[00:02:02]  It's a case that has captivated the public and inspired many to continue following the tragic mystery.
[00:02:09]  Even some 30 years later, there's an active Facebook page and community run by Jodi's family.
[00:02:15]  It's facebook.com/slash hope for the numeral for Jodi, J-O-D-I.
[00:02:22]  There's a website, findjody.com, run by journalists who continue to continue to share her story.
[00:02:28]  You can find information about the disappearance and leave tips.
[00:02:31]  And another person who has spent years examining this case is private investigator Steve Ridge.
[00:02:38]  He's a persistent voice pushing for answers, and he joins me next.
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[00:03:51]  Steve, thank you so much for being here.
[00:03:52]  It's good to be with you, Megan.
[00:03:53]  Thanks for having me.
[00:03:55]  So tell us a little bit about Jodi, who she was.
[00:03:58]  This happened to her when she was in Iowa, but where was she from?
[00:04:00]  What was she like?
[00:04:01]  Well, she was from Minnesota, but she had an incredible amount of natural talent that manifested itself in a relatively short period of time.
[00:04:12]  She began as an intern in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where she was for about a year.
[00:04:17]  And then she returned to Alexandria, Michigan, or Alexandria, Minnesota, to work at a local TV station there.
[00:04:24]  And then eventually, my company helped relocate her to Mason City, KIMT, where we were coaching her on air ability and trying to eliminate some of that Minnesotan accent, if you will, to make her appeal broader.
[00:04:43]  So what role were you in at the time?
[00:04:45]  What, what, what?
[00:04:46]  I'm sorry.
[00:04:47]  What was your job at the time?
[00:04:48]  Oh, okay.
[00:04:49]  At that time, I was actually running Frank Maggott Associates, which was the largest media research and consulting firm in the United States.
[00:04:59]  And I was with that company for 37 years.
[00:05:02]  I knew of the case of Jodi the whole time, but until I semi-retired, I was not in a position really to actively investigate this full-time.
[00:05:16]  So she sent the resume tape in, you saw the resume tape and decided, does this person have a future here?
[00:05:23]  And the answer in Iowa was, yeah, this is a good place for her right now.
[00:05:28]  Absolutely.
[00:05:28]  And so her resume tape was very good for the limited amount of experience that she had.
[00:05:35]  And I later came across that same resume tape when I was moving some materials.
[00:05:42]  I still have it on the shelf over here, which I keep as a reminder.
[00:05:47]  It's got her little business card on it, you know, with her name.
[00:05:50]  And as you know, early in television, I mean, you do your own editing.
[00:05:55]  I mean, you edit your own highlights.
[00:05:57]  And so sure enough, I mean, she had edited that tape and I still had it when I began digging into the case.
[00:06:06]  So I did share it with the Mason City Police Department and eventually the FBI and state police.
[00:06:13]  So she's up and coming.
[00:06:14]  She's young.
[00:06:15]  She's making it.
[00:06:16]  She's paying her dues as most reporters do, going to the smaller markets, and you hope to work your way up.
[00:06:21]  And she was doing well.
[00:06:22]  She was the morning news anchor, 6 a.m. show.
[00:06:26]  And one day she was supposed to go in for her early morning show.
[00:06:31]  And she normally got to the newsroom around 3 a.m., which is standard for people who are doing the first thing in the morning, that shift.
[00:06:39]  And she didn't, she wasn't there by 4 a.m.
[00:06:43]  And one of her colleagues called her apartment and she did answer.
[00:06:46]  She was home.
[00:06:47]  She had overslept.
[00:06:48]  She's like, I'll be right there.
[00:06:50]  And that, as far as we know, that other than her abductor, that was the last person to ever speak with Jodi.
[00:06:56]  That's right.
[00:06:57]  That's exactly right.
[00:06:59]  So what happened?
[00:07:00]  She didn't show up at the newsroom.
[00:07:02]  She said, I'll be right there.
[00:07:03]  She leaves at 4 a.m. or she gets called at 4 a.m., but she doesn't show up.
[00:07:06]  And then they sent somebody back to go check on her.
[00:07:09]  And it wasn't until around 7, my understanding is that they got there.
[00:07:13]  And that's when they found this chaotic scene outside of her apartment building.
[00:07:17]  Well, that's right.
[00:07:18]  I mean, obviously, this abduction happened about 4:30, and they really weren't on the scene until closer to 7:30.
[00:07:26]  The fact of the matter is, I am now 100% convinced that Jodi actually had an overnight guest.
[00:07:33]  And there's been a lot of speculation about that.
[00:07:37]  And I don't want to cast any aspersions here because it was, I think, a very innocent invitation.
[00:07:43]  She lived up a high flight of stairs on a second floor.
[00:07:48]  And I'm certain that she was entertaining her guests with drinks.
[00:07:51]  It would have been 10, you know, after 10 o'clock at night.
[00:07:55]  And I'm sure she simply offered the couch, which she did have at the ready there for that gentleman to spend the night.
[00:08:02]  And then I can quickly tell you that I believe what happened is her phone rang around four o'clock and it awakened them both.
[00:08:12]  I think she went into the restroom and after going to the bathroom, I think she got in the shower.
[00:08:18]  I think the guest went in the bathroom and raised the toilet seat, which is the way it was left, used the toilet.
[00:08:25]  And we all know women do not have to do that.
[00:08:26]  And headed down to the parking lot.
[00:08:30]  So you think he used the toilet and then left?
[00:08:33]  Because there was evidence from the beginning that there were two wine glasses on her counter, like next to each other, and there was a fair amount of food in the apartment and the toilet seat was up.
[00:08:43]  So there's been speculation over the years about whether there had been somebody staying overnight, but her bed was made.
[00:08:49]  I mean, she could have just made her bed in the morning, like many people do.
[00:08:53]  Do we have a theory of who that was, Steve?
[00:08:56]  Well, actually, I do.
[00:08:58]  I think it's one of two people, neither of whom have taken a lie detector test and neither of whom, you know, have come clean.
[00:09:09]  And there are some reasons why they might not want to have that information be known.
[00:09:14]  But I think at this juncture, they have an obligation really to help solve this crime because I think that what happened is they went down to the parking lot to, you know, scurry out of there.
[00:09:28]  And by the way, when this individual got in their little sports car and drove out of the parking lot, they nearly hit an early morning jogger who reported the whole incident.
[00:09:38]  And I think what happened was they went down to the parking lot and there was a gentleman waiting down there that exchanged words with this individual and told him basically to get the hell out of here and don't ever come back.
[00:09:50]  And you think that individual is the one who took Jodie?
[00:09:53]  You're not suggesting the person who hurt Jodi is the person who was in her apartment that night.
[00:09:58]  That's correct.
[00:09:59]  I am, you know, I'm just more than certain of it.
[00:10:03]  And I've confirmed this with so many angles and little minute distinction of information that I think it's so crystal clear now that I actually think, you know, if I could work with somebody like you, I think we could have a circumstantial case built and ready to go in short order.
[00:10:22]  But that's not going to happen in Mesa City, Iowa.
[00:10:25]  Wait, you have a circumstantial case that she had a man in the apartment that night or that you know who the killer is?
[00:10:31]  I know who the killer is.
[00:10:32]  Yes.
[00:10:33]  Oh, well, that's bigger than knowing who the man is.
[00:10:35]  All right, hold on because we're definitely going to get to that.
[00:10:37]  Okay.
[00:10:38]  Did she she was dating, dating, seeing, friends with John, is it Van Seiss?
[00:10:45]  That's correct.
[00:10:46]  John Van Seiss was a very affable cornseed salesman, 22 years older than Jodi, who moved to town.
[00:10:56]  He ordered, he owned a water ski boat.
[00:11:00]  He loved to drink in the bars and celebrate and buy drinks for all the Jodi and her friends.
[00:11:07]  And they met fairly early on after he was divorced and moved to town and they hung out a lot together.
[00:11:14]  And it was very innocent for the most part.
[00:11:16]  I mean, Jodi had no interest in him really.
[00:11:22]  But she enjoyed being with him.
[00:11:24]  He was fun.
[00:11:25]  He was entertaining.
[00:11:27]  And he bought all the drinks.
[00:11:30]  There's a documentary out about Jodi's case on Hulu right now.
[00:11:34]  It's called Her Last Broadcast, The Abduction of Jodi Husintru.
[00:11:40]  And they talk about John and how police did, of course, consider him as a possible person of interest when this thing first broke.
[00:11:49]  Here's a little of that from the documentary in SAT 54.
[00:11:54]  Detectives approach this man.
[00:11:55]  His name is John Van Seiss.
[00:11:57]  He just throws out there that he has this videotape of a birthday party.
[00:12:01]  And I know that the officers initially were confused, and they wrote about this.
[00:12:06]  What does that have to do with anything?
[00:12:07]  What videotape?
[00:12:08]  He says, I am friends with Jodi, and I was just with her last night watching a videotape.
[00:12:13]  This is the first encounter we really had with anybody that knew Jody other than her own employees at work.
[00:12:19]  But John Van Seiss consistently denied involvement.
[00:12:22]  He died last December, and he took polygraph tests prior to his death, which I presume led nowhere because he was never arrested.
[00:12:34]  Has he been ruled out?
[00:12:35]  I mean, obviously he's deceased now, but was he ruled out?
[00:12:38]  Well, he wasn't.
[00:12:39]  Because he was in her life.
[00:12:41]  He definitely seemed like he was into her.
[00:12:44]  Here's a bit more on John from the documentary.
[00:12:46]  Again, this is on Hulu, and it's called Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Usentru.
[00:12:52]  John Van Seiss has always been considered a person of interest in this case because she is like super close to John.
[00:13:00]  She's been such a big part of my life here lately, and she just makes me feel so good and feel great about things.
[00:13:08]  That's Jody.
[00:13:09]  You can't help another woman.
[00:13:10]  You just can't help another.
[00:13:12]  I thought it was very odd, and so did a lot of other people, that he spent so much time with Jodi, and he was so much older than her.
[00:13:19]  Do you know, are you going to, are you prepared to reveal the identity of the man who was in her apartment overnight, the one who drove away in a sports car?
[00:13:26]  Well, because it's two individuals, I think it's important that I not name either one of them, but they are both people who she knew very well, had gotten to know and had been friends with.
[00:13:39]  So it would have been very logical and appropriate for them to have possibly had drinks in her apartment and then for him to be awakened suddenly at four o'clock and then depart.
[00:13:51]  So you're saying when you say because it's two individuals, do you mean two individuals who might have been there?
[00:13:55]  Or what do you mean?
[00:13:56]  I mean it's one of two.
[00:13:58]  Okay.
[00:13:59]  So pinpointing which one was there while important is less important the fact that whichever one it was, when they descended those stairs and went into the parking lot, there was a gentleman waiting to confront her.
[00:14:14]  And I'm quite confident that I know who that was.
[00:14:18]  Who?
[00:14:19]  Well, I had narrowed it down originally to four people and then I had narrowed it to two people.
[00:14:29]  And now I believe that I've eliminated that second person, but I'm not prepared to name names today.
[00:14:38]  I'm sharing way more with you than has ever been shared publicly, but I'm very confident that I know who her abductor was at this point.
[00:14:49]  If I give you four names, will you tell me whether it's one of them?
[00:14:53]  Well, you can try.
[00:14:57]  Okay.
[00:14:58]  The four names I'm going to throw out there are John Van Ceese, Tony Jackson, Christopher Rivak, and Brad Millerburn.

=== Eliminating The Second Suspect (15:11) ===

[00:15:06]  Yes, I can tell you that I would eliminate three of those for sure, but there are not, you are not listing some of the names that were in my final four.
[00:15:19]  Only one, John Van Seiss, was in my final four.
[00:15:24]  So those other names, while interesting and there's some reason for them to have been suspected, just don't, they were not involved.
[00:15:34]  And Tony Jackson, I know very well.
[00:15:38]  I've been to see him in prison multiple times.
[00:15:41]  I've been up and down through the whole thing.
[00:15:43]  I'm convinced he was not, even though he's a three-time convicted rapist.
[00:15:50]  He was not responsible for Jody's demise.
[00:15:54]  Three-time convicted rapist who lived just two blocks away from Jodi's apartment.
[00:16:00]  No charges ever resulted against him, but obviously convicted rapists living two blocks away would have to be on the short list of people they'd look at.
[00:16:08]  So you're saying you don't, that was a dead lead.
[00:16:11]  Tony Jackson went nowhere.
[00:16:13]  This Christopher Rivak was charged with second-degree murder in connection with the March 2007 killing.
[00:16:20]  So two years later, well, sorry, 12 years later, of Renee Williams, a 36-year-old mother of three.
[00:16:27]  Ravak died by suicide in a Missouri jail cell in 2009, the day after he was, the charges were filed against him.
[00:16:37]  And he had a girlfriend who once lived very close to Jody's apartment in a unit reportedly shared with John Van Cease.
[00:16:45]  So this guy's got a girlfriend who lives right by Jodi, and he was charged with second-degree murder of a 36-year-old woman.
[00:16:54]  And then he killed himself when he got arrested.
[00:16:56]  But you don't think it's him?
[00:16:58]  No, I pretty conclusively have ruled him out.
[00:17:02]  All right.
[00:17:02]  Now, the man you said you've you, he was not on your list either is this Brad Miller burned.
[00:17:08]  And the documentary on Hulu spends a fair amount of time on this guy.
[00:17:12]  They talked to Brad's ex-wife, who's not a fan, and her name is Patty Niemeyer, and she called the cops on her ex-husband, Brad, whom she married in a mass ceremony at the Mall of America, which is never a good sign for a lasting marriage.
[00:17:30]  And indeed, their marriage didn't work.
[00:17:32]  But here she is in a soundbite from the dock, SOT 55.
[00:17:36]  Brad always talked about Jodi.
[00:17:38]  He always would ask, what's she doing, where she's at?
[00:17:41]  Why do you always care where she's at?
[00:17:43]  That always bothered me, but I guess I was naive.
[00:17:47]  And I'm like, oh, it's nothing.
[00:17:49]  When you look at these, what do you see?
[00:17:56]  I see red and lumber.
[00:17:59]  Like, that couldn't be a more perfect sketch.
[00:18:02]  That is, that is.
[00:18:04]  She's showing a composite sketch of the alleged perpetrator outside of Jodi's apartment that day to Brad's ex-wife.
[00:18:12]  And she's saying it looks like Brad.
[00:18:13]  But Brad, he's revealed as a new person of interest in the documentary, saying two different witnesses reported seeing a man acting, quote, strangely near her apartment complex in the early hours before her disappearance.
[00:18:26]  And based on their descriptions, law enforcement created a composite sketch that does resemble him.
[00:18:32]  He also reportedly owned a white Ford Econa line van similar to the one witnesses say they saw near Jodi's apartment building around the time she disappeared.
[00:18:43]  That does dovetail with your own reporting that while maybe the person, the man who may have been in her apartment with her left in a small sports car, there was some sort of an interaction with a guy who was in the parking lot driving a van, a light colored van.
[00:18:56]  That's correct.
[00:18:57]  And in fact, one other new nuance that I will share with you today is only recently, in recent days, I have interviewed at length a young woman who at the time was in her teens who lived in the apartment building adjacent to Jodi's.
[00:19:17]  And she and several of her apartment dwellers on the same hall heard a very loud noise, probably a scream in the parking lot.
[00:19:27]  And they came out into the hall and went to the end of the hall where a window overlooked the parking area.
[00:19:34]  And they debated based on the loud noise they heard calling the police.
[00:19:40]  And this was at 4.30.
[00:19:42]  If they'd called the police, this thing would have been solved.
[00:19:46]  They didn't.
[00:19:47]  They went back to bed.
[00:19:49]  And now, interestingly, this woman tells me that the following morning when she went out to retrieve her car, that her car was parked perpendicular directly across from Jodi's car and that a police officer on the scene told her in no uncertain terms that Jodi put up a very good fight,
[00:20:11]  that she was able to escape her attacker briefly and weave between the vehicles that were parked in that lot and eventually was overcome and subdued.
[00:20:22]  And that's different from the official story, right?
[00:20:25]  Isn't the official story that she was grabbed and subdued immediately upon getting to her car?
[00:20:30]  Yeah, that's what's been left out there, but I guess that's why you always keep digging.
[00:20:36]  You know, Mason City is a town of 27,000 people.
[00:20:40]  It's a small, you know, all-American town, you know, which, but it had a very, very dark underbelly, which was all the drug dealing, a lot of drug dealing of marijuana and cocaine.
[00:20:56]  And eventually it was where Dustin Honkin, one of two mass murderers who murdered victims in the area who had information on his drug dealing, he perfected meth so well that the government wasn't able to duplicate the high quality of that meth.
[00:21:16]  And the government nicknamed it the rocket.
[00:21:20]  So, but do you think that the drug scene and crime scene had something to do with her abduction and presumed death?
[00:21:30]  I don't directly, although I will say that I think there's one other mysterious component, and that is a very good friend of hers, Billy Pruin, a farmer who was, I believe he was murdered three months before she went missing.
[00:21:46]  Originally, they said it was a suicide, then they re-characterized it or reclassified it as undetermined.
[00:21:54]  And I think the fact of the matter is it's pretty likely was a murder and it could have been drug related.
[00:22:01]  So here's what I would say.
[00:22:04]  I think there were people in the satellite or the orbit around Jodi who were involved in drugs.
[00:22:11]  And that's in no way to suggest that she was or had any interest.
[00:22:15]  I mean, she, God love her.
[00:22:17]  She loved her beer and she could hold quite a bit.
[00:22:21]  But I don't think that she was ever into drugs.
[00:22:25]  In my experience, having known a lot of on-air people, if you are into drugs, it will come out sooner or later.
[00:22:34]  It is very hard to maintain a drug addiction and be an on-air person.
[00:22:38]  It's hard to do it with alcohol, too.
[00:22:40]  So I don't know.
[00:22:41]  There was absolutely not a hint of that in her case.
[00:22:44]  So are you suggesting then that, well, let me ask it this way.
[00:22:50]  Do you believe that her abductor knew her?
[00:22:53]  Yes, absolutely.
[00:22:55]  Yep.
[00:22:56]  And she knew her abductor.
[00:22:57]  Absolutely.
[00:22:58]  And the two people that I had narrowed it down to both knew her as well.
[00:23:02]  In fact, all four of them knew her.
[00:23:04]  So it without a doubt, the person who abducted her was somebody she knew well.
[00:23:11]  So this wasn't a stalker type situation.
[00:23:13]  Sadly, I've had this in my own life where a viewer develops a very bizarre and dangerous fixation with you and thinks you're in a romantic relationship when you're not.
[00:23:25]  They can become obsessed.
[00:23:26]  It can turn very dangerous.
[00:23:28]  And that was considered here, but you're saying that that was not, in your view, what happened here?
[00:23:32]  Not a stranger, but I think just splitting hairs a little bit there, I do think it was somebody that was more than infatuated with her.
[00:23:42]  I think this person genuinely was in love with her and would have liked to have made a life with her.
[00:23:47]  It just wasn't in the cards.
[00:23:50]  So that, if that's the case, your reporting that she was in her apartment with another man, someone other than this person, the night before she was murdered, may provide a motive.
[00:24:02]  Absolutely.
[00:24:03]  I mean, I think it's, I mean, to me, it's kind of an open-ended shot case.
[00:24:06]  And I hate to say it that way, but you know, I've had seven years to work on this.
[00:24:11]  I have 190 files behind me here on the case.
[00:24:14]  I've interviewed now over a thousand people.
[00:24:17]  And every little piece, I mean, you know this as an attorney and as a journalist, that every little piece of the puzzle can be kept and you keep trying to refit it and put it together.
[00:24:30]  And eventually you get a mosaic that makes a lot of sense.
[00:24:34]  And I mean, I feel like I have this thing so nailed that I don't know what else to do.
[00:24:40]  I want to back up a little bit because, you know, the audience is still a little lost on exactly how this went down.
[00:24:47]  In the documentary, which we're going to rely on here because it was very interesting and had a lot of good evidence, they interviewed the Mason City Police Sergeant.
[00:24:54]  Here's what he said.
[00:24:56]  He's on in the documentary describing the timeline the morning of her disappearance just to set the scene.
[00:25:01]  Let's take a listen to it.
[00:25:02]  SOT 51.
[00:25:03]  At 7.13 a.m., the Mason City Police receives a phone call from KINT to do a welfare check on Jodi.
[00:25:10]  We immediately dispatched an officer.
[00:25:15]  When the officer arrived, they found a lot of her belongings were scattered across the parking lot.
[00:25:20]  The mirror on her Mazda Viata was bent backwards.
[00:25:23]  They found the car keys laying on the ground and the door key was bent.
[00:25:28]  They started to walk between the cars.
[00:25:29]  They started noticing more things, her hair dryer.
[00:25:31]  There's an earring over here and there's some paperwork here and red high-heeled shoes.
[00:25:35]  You can see drag marks.
[00:25:37]  We've got a problem.
[00:25:38]  Jody's been dragged out of here.
[00:25:41]  Immediately, radios for supervisor, additional units showed up and a perimeter is then set.
[00:25:48]  So they knew right away when they got there, which wasn't until after seven, that she'd been abducted.
[00:25:54]  They could see that she'd been dragged.
[00:25:55]  There were drag marks, which were showing on camera here.
[00:26:00]  And then they went inside the apartment and found some of the things that you and I are discussing.
[00:26:03]  Let me roll that in SOT 52.
[00:26:05]  So not only were just wine glasses found there, there was other dishes found there.
[00:26:09]  There was multiple plates, items of food.
[00:26:12]  Things were fingerprinted and things were photographed.
[00:26:14]  That was what you did.
[00:26:16]  Everything was fingerprinted.
[00:26:19]  DNA was just super brand new then and it was basically unheard of in local law enforcement.
[00:26:25]  Those chemicals that the fingerprint dust is compiled of contain bacteria, which kills DNA.
[00:26:31]  There was some on those services like touch DNA.
[00:26:34]  Fingerprint dust is not good for touch DNA.
[00:26:37]  Do we still have items that we haven't fingerprinted?
[00:26:40]  Yes, we do.
[00:26:41]  Do we plan to send those in?
[00:26:43]  Absolutely.
[00:26:46]  So no DNA was the biggest headline out of that.
[00:26:49]  Absolutely.
[00:26:50]  Whatever may have been there has been destroyed by the fingerprint dust that they unleashed because it was 1995.
[00:26:56]  They didn't have, you know, as he said, DNA analysis was in its infancy.
[00:27:02]  So although it was out there, I mean, we had just watched the O.J. Simpson trial, which relied heavily on DNA analysis.
[00:27:07]  So I'm not sure exactly why things wouldn't have been preserved or would have been entirely spoiled.
[00:27:12]  All right.
[00:27:12]  So what do you glean?
[00:27:13]  What do you think is the most important piece of data from the crime scene?
[00:27:17]  Well, I think that they do have more items from the crime scene than they have revealed.
[00:27:24]  I think they're intentionally withholding what that information is because they think it could be corroborative in nature if someone were to come forward.
[00:27:34]  I think I have a sense of what that possibly is, but I'm quite certain they have more than they disclosed.
[00:27:43]  Unfortunately, when they examined that automobile, because her key was found bent, laying on the ground and the car door was locked, they only processed the exterior of the car.
[00:27:58]  And then they towed the car and gave it back to her family before anyone ever had a chance to go in and process the interior of the car, which might have had some evidence.
[00:28:11]  I mean, to assume that no one had been in the car is just, I mean, it just doesn't make sense that you wouldn't process the entire vehicle.
[00:28:21]  But they didn't.
[00:28:22]  With this being 2000 or 1995, there wouldn't have been a bunch of surveillance cameras on every store and apartment complex and gas station.
[00:28:33]  It was just a different time.
[00:28:34]  We used to have privacy.
[00:28:35]  We used to be able to wander around without being on camera all the time.
[00:28:39]  No, you know, ring cameras on doorbells.
[00:28:42]  Like, was there anything of use that we know of that may have caught somebody on camera?
[00:28:46]  No, absolutely not.
[00:28:48]  I mean, I think every angle has been looked at and there just isn't anything.
[00:28:53]  People have said this was somebody really clever.
[00:28:57]  I think this was somebody that was simply lucky because, you know, she was attacked at 4.30 in the morning.
[00:29:05]  A lot of noise was made.
[00:29:06]  There had already been loud voices between two males arguing.
[00:29:10]  The police were almost called.
[00:29:13]  I think it's sheer brazen luck that this individual got away with this abduction.
[00:29:21]  Do you believe that the man who did this to her is still alive?
[00:29:26]  I can't say.
[00:29:28]  I cannot answer that question.
[00:29:31]  Well, I mean, if he's not still alive, there can't be an arrest and there can't be a trial.
[00:29:35]  And this is all for not.
[00:29:37]  It's like, well, it would be interesting to know who did it, but there's no reason to keep the case file open or protect the integrity of the investigation.
[00:29:44]  Well, that was my point when I went and went to court to fight to get the search warrant of John Van Seiss's vehicle unsealed so that we could see what the evidence was against John Van Seiss.
[00:29:59]  And the county attorney fought it and we appealed to the state.
[00:30:06]  And before the state did anything more, essentially the state attorney general then filed a motion to block it being reviewed or released.

=== John And The Double Murder (10:02) ===

[00:30:18]  I think it's an administrative review is officially what they do.
[00:30:22]  I decided to withdraw the motion to appeal because my attorneys told me that it was very likely I was going to win because I had Iowa law on my side and the family by then had said they did not want it released if it could possibly jeopardize a prosecution.
[00:30:43]  So I thought, well, I'm not going to get anything more from it.
[00:30:47]  I've got all I need.
[00:30:48]  I think I have more than.
[00:30:50]  This is the search warrant for John's car, for his car?
[00:30:54]  Yes.
[00:30:54]  Actually, not for the car he owned at the time.
[00:30:57]  This was for cars that he purchased after he moved to Arizona and dropped out, which is where I tracked him down and found him living and talked him into talking to me.
[00:31:09]  I'm the only person in 24 years that ever talked to him.
[00:31:12]  And then I stayed in touch with his family until he died.
[00:31:15]  And I'm the one that announced that he died.
[00:31:17]  But he had two vehicles.
[00:31:19]  What they did was they subpoenaed him to come in and give fingerprints again, which meant he drove to Iowa in his vehicle, his newer vehicle.
[00:31:31]  They then put a device on his car to track where he went, hoping that he would take them to the burial scene.
[00:31:39]  So that was their point.
[00:31:40]  That's what they attempted to do.
[00:31:43]  And they have since pretty much confirmed that.
[00:31:45]  They haven't officially confirmed it, but once I put all the pieces together, I said, here's how this came down.
[00:31:51]  They were trying to trick him into going back to the crime scene or to the burial site.
[00:31:57]  John is getting very interesting.
[00:31:59]  Let's take another look at him from the documentary on Hulu, her last broadcast, the abduction of Jodie Husentrup.
[00:32:05]  In 2017, I was able to compile a bunch of research I had done and obtain a grand jury subpoena for John Van Seiss.
[00:32:14]  I wrote a GPS through Torrance on his vehicle just so I could track him on his way here to do that.
[00:32:18]  That was it.
[00:32:19]  The grand jury hearing did not result in any charges being filed against John Van Seiss.
[00:32:24]  He died in 2024.
[00:32:26]  Since then, there have been efforts in court to get that warrant for the car unsealed, but a judge ruled in March of 2025 that very little of it would be made public.
[00:32:35]  Was John ever in any other trouble with the law?
[00:32:38]  Well, he certainly was around a lot of trouble.
[00:32:42]  And he did comment to someone that he had been investigated with regard to a double murder sometime prior to a double murder.
[00:32:56]  Yeah, actually a double murder.
[00:32:57]  It was a drug-related double murder at the, I'm going to say Silver Dollar Ranch, I believe it was, but in another state.
[00:33:09]  And then also, once John moved to Arizona, he and two other security guards at a Walmart store were taking an individual into the back room, I believe, for stealing a loaf of bread.
[00:33:26]  And they reported that this gentleman stumbled and hit his head and died.
[00:33:32]  So yeah, I mean, I mean, yeah, you know, John, John was around a lot of rough stuff.
[00:33:40]  I mean, you know, but again, that, you know, innocent until proven guilty, right?
[00:33:45]  I mean, it just, and look, I got to know the guy right.
[00:33:50]  So did he, he named his boat after Jodi?
[00:33:53]  Like, were they, that seems like a remarkable thing to do if you're not like married to a person.
[00:33:58]  Like, what, what was their relationship?
[00:34:00]  Well, he said he was just so fond of her.
[00:34:03]  And in fact, he said, you couldn't help but love her.
[00:34:06]  You just couldn't help but love her.
[00:34:07]  She was so special.
[00:34:09]  And so he did name his boat by name.
[00:34:13]  He didn't inscript it or inscribe it on the back of the boat, as some people had speculated, but he did refer to his boat as Jodi.
[00:34:21]  And, you know, in many respects, I mean, I think it's fair to say John was in love with Jodi.
[00:34:28]  There's just no question about it.
[00:34:30]  Were they in a dating relationship?
[00:34:31]  Were they like openly in a romantic relationship or was he in the friend category?
[00:34:36]  He was in the friend category for her, but being a fair amount younger and a whole lot more naive, I think that she did not see the danger in the relationship.
[00:34:47]  And she had many friends warning her that be careful.
[00:34:50]  This guy, you know, he's naming his boat after you.
[00:34:54]  He's taking you on weekends to go water skiing.
[00:34:59]  You just, you can't be this trusting.
[00:35:01]  And Jodi was just a very innocent, naive, trusting, you know, loving, but very vivacious, lots of personality.
[00:35:11]  And she just didn't see it.
[00:35:13]  She just didn't have a blind spot.
[00:35:16]  Did John have any connections to the police or anyone in a position of power that might have incentivized anyone investigating this case to overlook him or give him too much benefit of the doubt?
[00:35:30]  No, absolutely not.
[00:35:31]  I feel very confident that the police department, at least as it related to John Van Seiss, there was no other potential agenda.
[00:35:40]  When you went and interviewed John, did you make tapes of those interviews?
[00:35:44]  I taped part of it.
[00:35:46]  And I have, in fact, I'm going to review that again.
[00:35:51]  I had it all transcribed in addition to being able to take a look at it.
[00:35:56]  A lot of the video, he's not on camera for all of the video because essentially I was using it really primarily to record audio.
[00:36:04]  And some time ago, I did seek their permission and they both, both John and his wife signed a document giving me authorization to use it as I see fit.
[00:36:17]  So I do have that.
[00:36:20]  Doesn't sound like the act of a guilty man.
[00:36:22]  No, but here's one other little thing.
[00:36:25]  He already, when I first met him, was showing some signs of Alzheimer's and he was getting certain people, certain names.
[00:36:36]  And he was hell-bent, you know, on certain facts that, you know, I didn't do this.
[00:36:42]  I didn't find out until a friend of mine came to my house and got me that morning.
[00:36:47]  Well, that's not what happened.
[00:36:50]  But to say that John is lying would be unfair to John because I think he is maybe misremembering or imposing, you know, what he wants his memory to be.
[00:37:04]  But he went steadily downhill with Alzheimer's and eventually passed.
[00:37:12]  You said you had a couple.
[00:37:14]  I mean, I think we're presuming John's one of them, but then there's another one.
[00:37:18]  Can you give us any sort of an outline of this other character and why you found this person?
[00:37:24]  You're not saying which one it was, but why this person wound up in your final two?
[00:37:30]  Absolutely.
[00:37:31]  And the reason I can tell you that is there are about four or five people, actually, believe it or not, that had their hearts set on Jodi.
[00:37:39]  They just, they were around her a lot.
[00:37:41]  They all drank together.
[00:37:44]  She spent time with them.
[00:37:45]  And so to think about it, I mean, there were literally there were five people, I guess you would say, that pretty much fell in love with Jody.
[00:37:55]  I mean, you know, maybe some more, you know, strongly than others.
[00:37:59]  And John would be one of those extreme examples.
[00:38:02]  But there was at least one other individual who did really have strong affection for Jodi and would have pursued a relationship.
[00:38:12]  He also was older.
[00:38:14]  So that's a reason why he, you know, it might not have been a potential fit or why he wasn't able to make a move.
[00:38:23]  And have you interviewed this person?
[00:38:25]  Yes, I have.
[00:38:27]  He spoke pretty openly to me in my first conversation.
[00:38:32]  And then he sent me an email and said, I have been to see the police.
[00:38:38]  And if you mention my name, I will sue you.
[00:38:42]  So you don't mention his name.
[00:38:44]  I see.
[00:38:45]  I understand that.
[00:38:46]  Okay.
[00:38:46]  Is he dead or alive?
[00:38:49]  He is alive, yes.
[00:38:51]  And was he Jody's contemporary?
[00:38:53]  Was he her age?
[00:38:54]  No, no, he was older.
[00:38:56]  He was also older.
[00:38:56]  Did he work in the newsroom?
[00:38:58]  Nope.
[00:38:59]  Okay.
[00:39:01]  And so you won't tell us whether you've moved on from this person who's made this threat.
[00:39:05]  Well, everything that he told me, I have been able to pretty much independently verify.
[00:39:13]  So, and a lot of it went against the grain of what John had told me.
[00:39:17]  But bear in mind, it's his word against his.
[00:39:21]  And so maybe neither one, you know, maybe who knows which one was actually right.
[00:39:28]  But, You know, and I appreciate your attorney techniques.
[00:39:32]  You're pretty good.
[00:39:33]  You probably should, you probably should come to town and we ought to get to the bottom of this.
[00:39:37]  Well, I mean, look, I'll say it.
[00:39:40]  You don't have to say it, but it seems pretty clear your suspect is John and he is dead, so he can't sue you for defamation.
[00:39:48]  But you don't want to say it's him if it actually turns out to be somebody else.
[00:39:53]  And we don't want to disparage a dead man, even though he can't sue us.
[00:39:57]  What we really want to know is who did it and why.
[00:39:59]  Yeah, and I guess I would also say a lot of it is out of respect for his wife, Jane, who is still alive.
[00:40:06]  And I've talked to Jane, you know, I announced his death.
[00:40:11]  I've talked to her since, and I've told her I have not ruled John out, but I have not said 100% it's him.

=== Respect For Jane, Not John (08:01) ===

[00:40:20]  So, you know, but I am sensitive to the family and in particular to Jane, who I got to know.
[00:40:27]  I mean, I was out in Arizona several times and sat in the backyard and drank beer with them and talked about the case.
[00:40:34]  So I'm just really trying to be sensitive to that fact.
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[00:41:31]  Use the promo code Megan for 20 bucks off your first order and let me know what you think.
[00:41:36]  That's riverbendranch.com.
[00:41:37]  Promo code MEGAN.
[00:41:53]  I've got some exciting news.
[00:41:55]  I now have my very own channel on SiriusXM.
[00:41:58]  It's called the Megan Kelly Channel, and it is where you will hear the truth unfiltered with no agenda and no apologies.
[00:42:04]  Along with the Megan Kelly show, you're going to hear from people like Mark Halperin, Link Lauren, Maureen Callahan, Emily Dushinsky, Jesse Kelly, Real Clear Politics, and many more.
[00:42:14]  It's bold no BS news only on the Megan Kelly channel, SiriusXM 111, and on the SiriusXM app.
[00:42:25]  Do you think that when someone kills another person, how often do you think it happens that they never kill again?
[00:42:33]  Not very often.
[00:42:35]  No, I think, in fact, I think it feeds on itself.
[00:42:39]  You know, this Dustin Honkin, the mass murderer, said that it only got easier.
[00:42:44]  He said he fed on it.
[00:42:45]  I mean, he basically said, man, once you kill somebody, you're on your way.
[00:42:50]  And he said, it just killing more is just, it's easy.
[00:42:53]  And he, in fact, he went and hunted down another guy and killed him after that.
[00:42:58]  And he was engineering a breakout of prison and planned to kill more witnesses and a judge and police officers.
[00:43:06]  The guy was, I mean, he was a ticking time bomb.
[00:43:09]  And who was this?
[00:43:11]  This gentleman was the guy that was actually put to death for all this drug dealing and for the five murders of those young people.
[00:43:21]  There were two men and a woman.
[00:43:22]  His name was Dustin Honkin.
[00:43:24]  And he said he talked about them shooting a 10-year-old girl and a six-year-old girl in the back of the head.
[00:43:32]  Said it didn't phase him a bit, didn't lose any sleep.
[00:43:35]  Because I always just wonder, you know, like in the case of BTK, for example, who went on and was living this like domestic life with a daughter and a wife, you know, at what level does the family know?
[00:43:47]  At what level do they are they willfully blind to what they're living with?
[00:43:53]  Well, and I would point out that, well, first of all, I would point out that his son, who I tried to, John Van Seiss's son, who I tried to interview, has refused and rebuffed every attempt to talk to him.
[00:44:08]  And he would be pretty essential because he did go water skiing with John and with Jodi the weekend before she went missing.
[00:44:16]  So I really need to talk to him.
[00:44:19]  But his wife, Jane, he had only been married to 11 years.
[00:44:24]  So this John's wife or the son's wife?
[00:44:28]  John's wife.
[00:44:29]  So he was remarried, see, well after he moved to Arizona.
[00:44:34]  So she would be completely oblivious to what may have happened earlier in his life.
[00:44:40]  Right.
[00:44:41]  Right.
[00:44:41]  And by the time you're older and having dealing with Alzheimer's, everything's changed.
[00:44:46]  I mean, you're not the same.
[00:44:48]  And again, he was a wonderful guy.
[00:44:51]  I mean, you know, outwardly, he was, I mean, he was fun to talk to.
[00:44:54]  He had great stories.
[00:44:56]  He was entertaining.
[00:44:59]  In fact, I don't know if I should share this or not.
[00:45:02]  I mean, to be honest, so was Ted Bundy.
[00:45:04]  Well, he was good looking.
[00:45:06]  He was a charmer.
[00:45:08]  And he was a sociopath.
[00:45:09]  He was a jokester.
[00:45:10]  And when I came around back and just agreed to have a beer with him in the backyard, it was getting dark and his motor home was parked back there.
[00:45:17]  And he said, so did you think I was going to lure you into the backyard and murder you and cut you up to pieces and put you in that motor car?
[00:45:25]  Oh, boy.
[00:45:27]  And what?
[00:45:29]  No, I was hoping you weren't.
[00:45:32]  But that's John's sense of humor.
[00:45:35]  Yeah.
[00:45:35]  Oh, boy.
[00:45:36]  I'm sorry.
[00:45:37]  Well, you know how it is.
[00:45:38]  Like they say in every joke, there's like a nugget of truth, you know, like you might have been lucky to get out of it.
[00:45:45]  Well, when he gave you a trip, I do want to follow up on this.
[00:45:49]  I care about this poor girl.
[00:45:50]  And I've thought about her a million times since she went missing.
[00:45:54]  And it just sort of vanished from the news.
[00:45:57]  She vanished from the face of the earth.
[00:45:59]  I feel like if that crime happened today, the person would have been caught in an hour with all the modern day techniques we have and the surveillance cameras.
[00:46:08]  And I don't know, even back then, this seems like there would have been prints, there would have been eyewitness, there would have been motive, there would have been enough for the cops to zero in on somebody.
[00:46:18]  I still remain a bit mystified as to why they never did.
[00:46:21]  I know that there's a reward posted for people who give information leading to the discovery of her remains.
[00:46:28]  I'd like nothing more than to write a check for $100,000 to have this resolved and bring peace to the family.
[00:46:34]  And I'm not going to let go.
[00:46:36]  Eventually, I think I will leave a memo.
[00:46:40]  If I ever leave this earth, I'm going to leave a formal statement of what I precisely think happened because I think the public has a right to know and I think the family needs to know.
[00:46:52]  Well, Steve, if you put a copy of that in the mail and CC me, I promise you I will make sure it hits air with the proper attention.
[00:47:00]  All right.
[00:47:00]  Sounds good.
[00:47:01]  Thank you very much, Meg.
[00:47:02]  All right.
[00:47:03]  Thank you.
[00:47:04]  Thank you for continuing the show.
[00:47:05]  I know it's very popular.
[00:47:07]  Thank you.
[00:47:07]  Thank you very much.
[00:47:08]  Take care.
[00:47:09]  The Megan Kelly show reached out to Mason City Police following the taping of this segment and they gave the following comments over the phone.
[00:47:16]  Quote, the investigation remains open and active.
[00:47:19]  We continue to work with multiple partner agencies, including the Iowa Department of Public Safety and the FBI, and we have never stopped pursuing leads as they come in.
[00:47:28]  If Steve Ridge has new information to provide, the department is willing to review and discuss it with him.
[00:47:33]  That said, we cannot release case files or confirm or deny specific leads, as doing so could jeopardize the integrity of the investigation.
[00:47:41]  While we strive to be as transparent as possible, we also have a responsibility to protect that case.
[00:47:47]  We welcome any new tips or information that may assist our efforts.
[00:47:50]  If you have any information regarding the Jodi Who's in Truth case, please call the Mason City Police at 641-421-3636.
[00:47:59]  End quote.
[00:48:00]  And remember, you can find out more at findjody.com.
[00:48:04]  Leave a tip and help share her story.
[00:48:07]  Tomorrow, a deep dive into the woman at the center of the Netflix hit, Bad Vegan.
[00:48:13]  We'll see you then.
[00:48:16]  Thanks for listening to the Megan Kelly Show.
[00:48:18]  No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

=== Faith, Storytelling, And Tips (01:20) ===

[00:48:22]  Every once in a while, something comes along that reminds us of the power of storytelling.
[00:48:27]  Something bold, meaningful, and grounded in faith.
[00:48:30]  The Pendragon Cycle, Rise of the Merlin, is a new seven-part series from The Daily Wire based on the novels by Stephen R. Lawhead.
[00:48:40]  In the series, as pagan gods fall silent and empires collapse, one man's faith lights the spark of a civilization reborn.
[00:48:48]  It's a story about courage, order, and moral clarity.
[00:48:51]  It's the kind of story Hollywood does not make anymore.
[00:48:54]  Through blood, faith, and sacrifice, Merlin becomes the bridge between myth and history and shapes the destiny of kings.
[00:49:00]  The Pendragon cycle, Rise of the Merlin, premieres exclusively on Daily Wire Plus on January 22nd, 2026.
[00:49:09]  Watch the new trailer now at pendragonseries.com.
[00:49:15]  Mange bruker mye strøm på lite varme.
[00:49:19]  Altså varmekabler fra 80-tallet og termostater som lever sine egne liv.
[00:49:25]  Vi skal da ikke gå rundt og fryse inne.
[00:49:27]  Nei, varme er viktig.
[00:49:29]  Men vi synes jo alt med strøm og varme er viktig.
[00:49:32]  Og apropos varme, vi har opp til 30% på massevis av varmeovne vi.
[00:49:37]  Elektroimportøren.
[00:49:39]  Luis Verme Electromotrelle or Smartus.