When he self-published his book about the infamous Jacob Wetterling abduction early last year, Eau Claire author Robert Dudley had no way of knowing that the next 18 months would bring resolution to the quarter-century-old case. Nor did he know that he’d stumbled across the identity of the perpetrator of the crime – a crime that had led to international headlines and ultimately to changes in sex-offender laws. And he certainly had no idea that he’d end up rewriting his book twice and have its final edition published this fall by a new true crime imprint of North Carolina-based McFarland Publishing.

Dudley did, however, believe that the media and his fellow amateur investigators were pursuing the wrong suspect in the crime, which occurred in 1989 in St. Joseph, Minnesota. When his original book – It Can’t Happen Here: The Search for Jacob Wetterling – was published, speculation was swirling online about Duane Allen Hart, a convicted pedophile who’d abused boys in the same part of Minnesota where 11-year-old Wetterling vanished. But because of his endless hours of research – which included combing through newspaper archives and law enforcement documents – Dudley has his doubts. Hart just didn’t seem to fit the case: He carefully groomed his victims with alcohol and drugs, while Wetterling’s masked abductor had taken the boy at gunpoint in front of witnesses. Furthermore, Dudley’s research led him to a cache of documents that included long-forgotten notes from a private investigator’s interview with Hart, in which Hart pointed toward another man – Danny Heinrich – as the potential perpetrator in Wetterling’s disappearance as well as the assault of another boy earlier that same year.

While Dudley didn’t mention Heinrich by name in the first edition of his book, in late 2014 he did forward those notes about the suspect to an FBI agent working on the case. (At around the same time, Dudley says, a previous FBI investigator also passed Heinrich’s name to the current investigator.)

A year later, in October 2015, Heinrich’s name exploded into view when he was arrested in an unrelated child pornography case and was named as a “person of interest” in the Wetterling kidnapping. After reaching a plea deal with prosecutors, Heinrich admitted he abducted and killed Wetterling 27 years ago, and this September he led them to the boy’s body. On Nov. 21, Heinrich was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Eau Claire author Robert Dudley

“I will never pretend going into that book that I knew it was Denny Heinrich,” Dudley explains, “but it did not surprise me that he was arrested.”

After Heinrich’s arrest, Dudley published a revised version of his book and thought he was done writing about the Wetterling case. (He’s since moved on to other projects, including a recently published book about a deadly 1976 post office bombing in Minnesota.) However, in July McFarland approached him with an offer to publish the book if he rewrote it again, which he did just in time for Heinrich’s sentencing.

And while we now know the tragic conclusion to the saga, the revised book, now titled Finding Jacob Wetterling, is still a compelling read. Particularly for those of us who lived in the Upper Midwest at the time and who remember the anxiety caused by the abduction – and the profound impact it had on families too afraid to let their children play outside anymore – the detailed exploration of the crime, its aftermath, and its ultimate resolution are gripping.

What’s perhaps most impressive about the book is that Dudley didn’t come to the project as a professional investigator or even as a writer. In fact, his interest was sparked by a 2010 radio news report about the Wetterling case. His curiosity led to a bit of casual online research, but soon enough Dudley fell down the proverbial rabbit hole. Eventually, intent on bringing details of the case to the public, he resolved to write a book. And while he’s humble about any impact his work might have had on the case, he does acknowledge that the book “added an element of public pressure” to the cold case.

Now that Wetterling’s killer is behind bars, Dudley hopes the boy’s family can find some measure of closure. “The main thing that everybody was looking for for the last 27 years was answers, and now we have answers,” Dudley says. “Heinrich getting immunity for the murder is the price for getting those answers.”

Dudley will discuss his book, Finding Jacob Wetterling, at 7pm Monday, Dec. 12, at the Volume One Gallery at the Local Store, 205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire. The book is available at The Local Store as well as online via the publisher at mcfarlandpub.com