29 years ago today Jodi Huisentruit was abducted on her way to work at KIMT-TV from the parking lot of her apartment complex in Mason City. No arrests have been made, and Huisentruit was declared legally deceased in 2001.
Former KWWL-TV Anchor Tara Thomas of Waterloo tells Radio on the Go News about her career choice that put her in a unique situation in 1995.
“I actually came to the station in Mason City and was hired two months after Jodi’s disappearance. So I was not a friend of hers personally, but the interesting twist, they gave me her desk. I was assigned Jodi’s vacant desk only two months after she had been missing. So I stayed very close with her friends and coworkers. And to this day, we’ve always had a unique bond and connection, perhaps united in the tragedy of that, surreal situation.”
Thomas says while in Mason City she encountered one individual whose name has been mentioned unofficially as a possible suspect.
“And I did have an encounter directly with that gentleman. And it did rattle me enough that I went to the local library, because that’s what we did in the 90s. We had to look up job postings in the back of, in this case, broadcasting and cable magazine in the classifieds. We didn’t have monster.com or Indeed. So I found a posting, two line ad in the classifieds for an anchor producer wanted for a new morning show out in Yakima, Washington. And I left Mason City and took that job out in the Northwest.”
Thomas, and another former anchor at KWWL, Amanda Goodman, talk about the Huisentruit case as part of their “Faith and Four Letter Words” podcast, which they have taken on the road as well.
