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Judge unseals portion of Jodi Huisentruit search warrant
Affidavit for the warrant still sealed as 1995 case remains under investigation
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The locations from a tracking device the Mason City Police Department placed on a vehicle connected to John Vansice, a longtime person of interest in the 1995 disappearance of KIMT-TV anchor Jodi Huisentruit, have been unsealed in Cerro Gordo County District Court.
Sometime before Feb. 14, 2017, Vansice had moved from Mason City to Arizona. Around that time, law enforcement officers became aware that he would be driving from Arizona to Iowa later that month.
The tracking device installed by police shows that the vehicle left Baxter, in Jasper County, at 2:24 p.m. March 2, 2017, and traveled through Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona before arriving in Phoenix early March 4, 2017.
Senior District Court Judge James Drew ruled in late March that a portion of a search warrant involving the GPS data should remain sealed, but the rest could be unsealed, as Huisentruit’s disappearance remains under investigation.
Attorneys for private investigator Steve Ridge had filed a petition in Cerro Gordo County District Court to unseal the warrant following Vansice's death in December in Arizona, arguing that his family needs closure.
County Attorney Carlyle Dalen then filed a petition on the behalf of the state, arguing that unsealing the record would jeopardize the ongoing investigation.
In his ruling, Judge Drew noted that although some federal and state courts have specifically recognized the court's authority to seal search warrants, in those cases only the affidavits are sealed — not the entire file. He ordered that the appropriate portions of the search warrant be unsealed in 31 days.
Anyone with information about Huisentruit’s disappearance is asked to contact the Mason City Police Department at (641) 421-3636.
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