After startled cry, UND senior vanishes (Dru Sjodin)

Star Tribune ^ | November 25, 2003 | Chuck Haga and Richard Meryhew

[maggief]

GRAND FORKS, N.D. -- Dru Sjodin finished her shift at the Victoria's Secret store at 4 p.m. Saturday, then did a little shopping at another store in the Columbia Mall in Grand Forks.

As she walked to her car, the 22-year-old University of North Dakota senior from Pequot Lakes, Minn., used her cell phone to call her boyfriend in the Twin Cities. They talked for about 10 minutes, he later told authorities, until the call ended with a startled cry from Dru:

"Oh, my God! No!"

Nobody has heard from her since.

A few hours later, there was a second brief and voiceless call to her boyfriend, and the signal from her cell phone was tracked to a rural area near Fisher, Minn., 13 miles southeast of Grand Forks.

Throughout the city Monday, people took up her disbelieving cry: "Oh, my God, No!"

(snip)

[Walkingfeather]

start to review the video tapes of victorias secret where she worked for the last week. See if anyone is taking notice of her....

[Lazamataz]

This sucks. She's a cutie.

[cajungirl]

I hope something isn't right and that she ran away or whatever. If not then she may be dead. And BTW once a man intruded into my house in broad daylight, I was coming down the stairs and he just walked in. I said Oh My God No so I can understand her doing that if she saw a guy coming toward her. Now if he grabbed her, I do think all we would hear would be a shriek. And my dog bounded down the stairs barking like a crazed dog and the guy ran like hell with the dog right behind. I loved that dog.

[from occupied ga]

This sucks. She's a cutie.

It wouldn't suck if she were ugly?

[Lazamataz]

It wouldn't suck if she were ugly?

That's the problem with written text. You couldn't hear the pause and the change in tone.

[Lazamataz]

cajungirl (no)

Your tagline says "No No", but your eyes say "Yes Yes"......

< / Antonio Bandaras>

[from occupied ga]

Actually it wouldn't suck if she were Barbra Streisand or Dianne Feinstein, but they aren't just ugly, they're evil.

[cajungirl]

LOL..that no got there some way when I was typing and it ended up as my tagline so I just left it there. It has no significance other than I think it is kind of cute in lower case.

[Sandylapper]

Thanks very much, maggiefluffs! Praying for Dru's safe return.

Haven't had a chance to read carefully all the posts and articles re her disappearance. Wonder who initiated that "OMG, NO" call? Boyfriend or Dru? Did I miss the answer to that?

[Sandylapper]

Never mind....just saw that she did.

[irgbar-man]

I'm still looking for something in print myself. The source I mentioned above was the WCCO - 4 local news at 10 last night.

http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_329102551.html

This story does not back up the 'boyfriend in in the clear' comment. Could it be a police decoy or a case of careless reporting? Yes, it could.

[HusbandMan]

Catspaw, you seem to be having problems with other people's suspicion of the boyfriend, so let me see if I can help you here.

A few years back, a woman(don't remeber her name) drowned her two baby boys so she could be with her lover. She went on the air with tear filled eyes claiming she had been car jacked by a black man, and "please return my babies to me unharmed" all the while she new they were dead.

Perhaps you remember the Terry Anderson incident at Northridge Mall in Milwaukee. He stabbed and killed his wife, then superficially stabbed himself, and claimed they had been attacked by(memory cloudy here) at least one black man.(Interesting note: Terry was imprisoned with Jeffrey Dahmer, and both were killed in prison at the same time by the same inmate.) The latest incident is the Scott/Laci Peterson incident. He went fishing, then his wife disappeared. (Yeah, right!)

Here's a little story... I'm a dumb criminal, and I just reached the point where I want to kill my girlfriend who is 300+ miles away. I know that if I am getting a call from her on my cell phone, I will provide an alibi for myself. So I drive the 300+ miles, dispatch my girlfriend, grab her cell phone and call my cell phone. Alibi established(remember, I described myself as a dumb criminal.).

It's just a thought. But with press being replete with stories like this - the "I am so broken up because of my loss, please help me...oops, I'm the guilty party kind of stories - I too am very suspicious of the boyfriend. In the end, this has got to be very hard for her family and friends, especially if they know that, statiscally, people who go missing under these kind of circumstances are usually killed within the first 24 hours. (I remember Lori Depies, too. That was a sad case. I still think her boyfriend did it.)

[JudyB1938]

Why don't you tell me what she should've said when she was dragged out of her car? What would be the appropriate words to say when one is abducted?

Maybe if she'd said, "Oh, Sh#t", ispy4u would be more satisfied.

[toast]

One problem with your story.

The boyfriend called her roommate right after the OMG. NO! conversation. There is a record of that call too. They can tell what receiving towers the call goes through.

[Catspaw]

Given that the boyfriend was in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Dru was in Grand Forks ND, how would he have been able to abduct her if they were 300+ miles apart?

[Ispy4u]

That would have been more believable, still that in itself may not be entirely convincing to me.

[Catspaw]

She made the call:

As she walked to her car, the 22-year-old University of North Dakota senior from Pequot Lakes, Minn., used her cell phone to call her boyfriend in the Twin Cities. They talked for about 10 minutes, he later told authorities, until the call ended with a startled cry from Dru:

Her boyfriend in the Cities then called her roommate to check on her. Cell phone records would bear that out.

[Ispy4u]

If you don't mind would you post a link to the article that said he called her roommate immediately after. I don't recall seeing that in anything I've read yet.

Better yet if the information is new, post the article right into the thread for preservation of information.

thanks

[Catspaw]

If you don't mind would you post a link to the article that said he called her roommate immediately after. I don't recall seeing that in anything I've read yet.

I already did:  http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1028540/posts?page=97#97

That was about 5 p.m. Saturday. Police think those words, uttered in or near her car, signaled her abduction. Forensic tests of evidence gathered from the car were not complete Monday, he said.

Shortly after 5 p.m. Saturday, the boyfriend called Sjodin's roommate in the student apartment she shared on UND's campus to express concern about her welfare.

About 7:40 p.m. Saturday, Sjodin's boyfriend received another call from her cell phone, but there was no voice on the other end, and the call quickly was disconnected. That call came, according to Sprint telephone officials, from within a three- to four-mile radius of the tower near Fisher, Grand Forks Police Lt. Dennis Eggebraaten said.

Meanwhile, when Sjodin's UND roommate learned that the always-reliable Sjodin did not show up for her 9 p.m. shift at the El Roco, the roommate knew something was wrong and called UND Police to report her missing.

[Catspaw]

Wrong link.  Here's the right one:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1028540/posts?page=54#54