Items Found in Search for UND Student (Dru Sjodin)

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Volunteer searchers have turned up several "items of interest" in the disappearance of a University of North Dakota student, but nothing that has led investigators to Dru Sjodin.

Police on Tuesday sifted through discarded paper, clothes and other items gathered by hundreds of volunteers - some on their knees in the snow - in hopes of finding a cell phone or other links to Sjodin (pronounced shah-deen), who was last heard from over the weekend.

Police would not elaborate on the items that were found. Sgt. Michael Hedlund said they did not appear to be significant to the case.

The items were found in searches of ditches and fields southeast of Grand Forks, near Fisher, Minn., where a call had been traced to Sjodin's cell phone Saturday night. Grand Forks and Fisher are about 12 miles apart.

Grand Forks police said 1,300 people volunteered on Tuesday to join the search, a response so overwhelming they asked others to stay home.

Police believe Sjodin, 22, may have been abducted Saturday. They said Tuesday that they were working on the assumption she is still alive.

The searchers were bused to the Fisher area, snow covered the ground and the the wind made the temperature feel like 10 below zero.

Hannah Schlag, a UND student from Velva, was in a group of 12 walking through one five-mile section covered with snow.

"My ankles are getting a little numb, going through the deep stuff," she said. "But I feel this is what I should be doing right now. Biology doesn't seem that important."

Sjodin's father, Allan, and Hedlund appeared on television Tuesday morning to show Dru Sjodin's picture and ask for help.

The search was to resume Wednesday, but only with law enforcement personnel, Hedlund said. Authorities also are awaiting results from the state crime lab, which is analyzing Sjodin's car.

Sjodin, a graphic arts major from Pequot Lakes, Minn., was last seen late Saturday afternoon, as she was leaving the Columbia Mall store in Grand Forks where she worked. Her mother, Linda Walker, said her daughter was talking to her boyfriend in Minneapolis on her cell phone about 5 p.m. Saturday when he heard her say, "Oh, my God," before the phone went dead.

The boyfriend, whom authorities would not identify, called Sjodin's roommate to ask about her after a second call about three hours later that lasted only about a minute, with no conversation. The roommate called police after Sjodin, who had a reputation for reliability, did not show up for her 9 p.m. shift as a waitress in a Grand Forks bar.

Lt. Dennis Eggebraaten said he did not know why Sjodin's boyfriend did not call police.

"I'm not going to guess what was going on in his mind at the time," Eggebraaten said.

Police said the second cell phone signal put it within about five miles of the tower near Fisher from about 8 p.m. Saturday until the signal faded out 24 hours later.

Police said Sjodin's car was found in a Columbia Mall parking lot with a package inside that she apparently had bought at the mall. They found no sign of a struggle.

Posted on Wed, Nov. 26, 2003

Law enforcement, volunteer search yields little
By Stephen J. Lee
Herald Staff Writer

FISHER, Minn. - No clues emerged Tuesday after more than 1,300 volunteer searchers pored over miles of farmland and frozen river here looking for any sign of Dru Sjodin.

The volunteers joined about 70 federal, state and local law enforcement officers.

"They worked very hard," Capt. Mike Kirby of the Grand Forks Police Department said of the searchers. "They were on their hands and knees, brushing away snow."

They were looking for any clue connected to the UND student who went missing Saturday night in what family and police fear was an abduction.

The area was searched so thoroughly that police are asking volunteers only to be on standby today and plan to use only law enforcement officers in the search.

"That area was covered very well," Lt. Dennis Eggebraaten, a lead investigator said. "I wish we would have found certain items and the cell phone itself. We didn't find exactly what we wanted."

Items of interest

An irregular area around the cell phone tower three miles west of Fisher was searched. The area searched was described by Lt. Byron Sieber of the Grand Forks Police Department as extending roughly seven miles east and seven miles west of the tower, four miles north and six miles south of the tower.

Not all the fields were covered, but roads, ditches, coulees, bridges and edges of fields were closely walked, Sieber said. Helicopters, horses and ATVs were used, as well as the foot searching and hand and knee searching by volunteers.

"We also had law enforcement officers out there doing 'knock and talks,'" Sieber said. "They stopped at farmsteads and homes in this area and interviewed people."

Several "items of interest," were found and are being analyzed, but nothing that is being called evidence linked to Sjodin, Kirby said.

One of the items found appears to be a "cordless phone," that was "smashed to pieces," Sieber said.

But Kirby and Sieber emphasized that Sjodin's cell phone has not been found.

Sjodin's cell phone "is a very small item, and we still can't say for certain it's not in that area, with the snow cover," Sieber said.

There is no clear indication where else to search.

"We are leaving all the possibilities open right now," Sieber said. "That includes the fact she may be in a building in this area, with the cell phone with dead batteries. That's the best case scenario."

Few clues

Sjodin last was heard from about 5 p.m. Saturday as she was walking from Columbia Mall to her car, talking on her cell phone to her boyfriend in the Twin Cities.

After a 10-minute conversation, Sjodin exclaimed, "Oh, my God," or "Oh no," and the call disconnected, the boyfriend told police.

It appears Sjodin was abducted, police say. There was no blood and no obvious signs of a struggle in the car, but certain items were missing. Her 1986 Olds Cutlass was found about 11 p.m. Saturday parked north of the north entrance to J.C. Penney at the mall.

Tests of evidence taken from the car were "not conclusive," Kirby said Tuesday.

Video surveillance tapes from security cameras outside Columbia Mall are being analyzed, police said.

Nothing of Sjodin has been seen yet on the tapes, and no witnesses have come forward who saw anything happen to her in the mall parking lot.

The main clue remains Sjodin's cell phone.

Her boyfriend, who has not been identified by police and is not considered a suspect, received another call from her cell phone at about 7:40 p.m. Saturday. No one spoke on the phone and it quickly was disconnected.

However, a signal from the phone continued for 24 hours, according to the Sprint telephone company, which told police about noon Sunday the cell phone was located within three to four miles of the tower west of Fisher.

The search began in earnest Monday.

(snip)

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/7351831.htm

A zest for life
Friends speak about Dru
By Lisa Davis

Herald Staff Writer People following the Dru Sjodin story are learning about her love for life through the stories of friends who miss her. "Even if she didn't know you, she'd give you a smile," friend and sorority sister, Randi Canady said. Friends call Dru bubbly, friendly, energetic, charismatic -- the type of person everybody wants to be around. Her friends are trying to keep a positive attitude, but they sometimes catch themselves slipping. Dru hasn't been heard from since Saturday. Friends on Tuesday caught themselves saying "Dru was," then correcting themselves to say "is." "None of us will think anything but good thoughts," Dru's UND advisor Lynda Kenney said. "We want her to come back and make us giggle."

Stands out

Audra Van Hoff said Dru stood out among a group when they first met during sorority recruitment a few years ago. Van Hoff was the leader of a group that introduced women to the different sorority houses.

"She's just one of those people," Van Hoff said. "You have quiet and loud. She was just one of the ones you knew was present."

Canady summed up Dru's appearance and her personality: "So pretty that she's one of those girls you want to hate, but you can't because you love her so much."

(snip)

http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/7351803.htm

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