Danny Heinrich is a rapist, pedophile, and killer from Paynesville, Minnesota which is located an hour and a half from Minneapolis. He lived with his father.

On October 22, 1989 Danny Heinrich kidnapped 11-year old Jacob Wetterling before raping him and murdering him. The brutal crime pushed the United States Congress to enact the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually Violent Offender Registration Act which required state governments to make sex offender registries. ^[1]

On September 6, 2016, 27 years after the horrific crime, Danny Heinrich confessed to the crime at a federal court in Minneapolis. The confession came while Danny was on trial for 25 counts of child pornography unrelated to the killing of Jacob Wetterlling.

Danny also molested another child Jared Scheierl nine months before the murder and rape of Jacob Wetterling.

On October 22, 1989 Jacob Wetterling had been riding his bikes with his younger brother and best friend. Danny Heinrich wore a mask and confronted the children with a revolver. ^[1]

Danny told the Jacob to get into his car and told the other boys to run away or else he would shoot them.

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'What did I do wrong?'Jacob asked Heinrich. ^[1]

Danny handcuffed the boy in the front seat and said he had a police scanner so when he heard officers were searching for Jacob, he told the child to duck down.

He then drove Jacob to a gravel pit where he undressed the boy and molested him. ^[1]

"I’m cold," Jacob told Danny.

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Danny then said Jacob could put his clothes back on. Jacob then asked Heinrich if he could go home. Jacob started to cry when Danny said he couldn't take him all the way home. ^[1]

"I panicked.

I pulled the revolver out of my pocket...I loaded it with two rounds."

I told Jacob to turn around. ^[1]

"I told him I had to go to the bathroom.

I raised the revolver to his head.

I turned my head and it clicked once.

I pulled the trigger again and it went off.

"^[1]

'Looked back, he was still standing.

I raised the revolver again and shot him again,' Danny told the court.

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Danny then fled the scene but returned later to bury the boy's body.

At first, Danny used a Bobcat Company excavator to bury Jacobs body. But when he later returned to the site and saw a part of the boy's jacket sticking out he dug up the body. He then put Jacob's body in a bag and drove it across the highway to just outside Paynesville, where he left it until it was recovered by police last week. ^[1]

Danny led authorities to Jacob's buried remains in a central Minnesota field last week, according to a law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the ongoing case. The Stearns County Sheriff's Office said Jacob's remains were identified Saturday. ^[1]

Danny, was originally indicted in 2015 on 25 child pornography counts, had been scheduled to go to trial next month on the charges before he led investigators to Jacob’s remains.

He pleaded guilty Tuesday to one of the 25 charges against him.

In exchange for his plea and confession, the other counts were dismissed.

As part of the plea deal he will not face charges for the murder, rape and kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling.

Jacob Wetterling's parents's signed off on the deal, essentially trading immunity on murder charges to find out what happened to Jacob and bring him home.

Judge John Tunheim said the sentence recommendation will be the statutory maximum of 20 years in prison.

Danny would be 73 after serving a 20-year sentence.

Judge Tunheim also said the defendant could be civilly committed as a sexual predator if he lives beyond that sentence.

His sentencing will occur on November 21, 2016.

Danny, who had as many as 150 pornographic images of children in his home and computer, including minors under age 12, admitted to downloading image of naked minor female on March 1, 2014, as well collecting other images.