Amanda Hocking

Amanda's Blog Post

you can never give up hope
July 1st, 2010 by
This post currently has 1 comment
For people that didn’t grow up in Minnesota, I’m not sure how familiar you might be with the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling. If you’re not, here’s a crash course –
 
In October 1989, eleven-year-old Jacob Wetterling was riding a bike down a country road to his home with his brother and a friend. A man stopped them and told the two other boys to lay down in the ditch while he took Jacob. 
Jacob hasn’t been seen since. (For more information or if you have any information, please go: here )
In October 1989, I was five years old and we’d recently moved out to a farm in rural Minnesota. I’d just gotten a bike (with training wheels), and I frequently rode my bike up and down the quarter mile long drive away. 
I remember watching the news story on TV and how the road that Jacob disappeared on looked just like my road. When it first happened, I didn’t understand how far away St. Joseph was from where we lived, and I did think he was kidnapped from just right down the road.
After that, I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking I would be kidnapped as a child. I used to practice jumping out of the car window (when it wasn’t moving) in case I needed to escape quickly if someone wanted to abduct me. 

Now that I’m older, I don’t worry so much about being kidnapped, but I still think about Jacob Wetterling all the time. It bothers the hell out of me. Thinking about him and worrying about him has kept me awake many, many nights in my lifetime. I have no idea how his mother holds it together so well.


I’ve also recently written about Jacob Wetterling’s abduction. I mean, it’s in one of my vampire books, and they discuss the abduction for various reasons in relation to the plot. If they find him, I’d have to rewrite the scene. And honestly, I would love rewrite it. I’d rewrite every book I’ve ever written if they could just find him. 

Last year was the 20th anniversary of his disappearance, and the post office in my town finally took his MISSING poster down, and it upsets me. A lot.

Yesterday, my brother turned 11. And to me, he seems like such a little kid. I mean, not a little kid but… he’s so young. It wasn’t until that I realized exactly how young Jacob was when he went missing. He’s always been older than me, so it was hard for me to see that he was just a kid.

And yesterday, police started searching a property near where Jacob was abducted. They haven’t said anything about what’s going on yet, but it feels… exciting, I guess, to know the case is being revitalized. (For more details about the new investigation, click: here.) 

My heart and thoughts go out to his family, as they do every day, and I hope that this brings some closure to the case. 


And again, if you know anything, PLEASE PLEASE contact the authorities about this. His family has been missing a little boy for over twenty years, and they deserve to know what happened to him.

Leave a Reply

  • Nicole MacDonald says:
    25 June 2011 at 12:20 am

    Just meandering through your old posts (when I’m meant to be working on book 2… straight back to it after this, I promise ;p) and was struck by this one. It’s a story that everyone knows no matter where they are in the world, a different name, a different face but the story is essentially the same. A child taken, never to be seen again. Just heart-breaking.. I hope the family receives closure someday.

    Reply