PoeForward Future Dead Girls - Missing Persons- Dru Kathrina Sjodin


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	Dru Kathrina Sjodin MURDERER SENTENCED TO DEATH		Missing Jessie Davis Lisa Stebic Tara Grinstead Pamela Kinney LaToyia Figueroa Natalee Holloway Lori Hacking Brooke Wilberger Dru Kathrina Sjodin Kristine Johnson Laci Peterson Elizabeth Smart Chandra Levy

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	After leaving her job in a Victoria's Secret store at a Grand Forks, North Dakota mall on November 22, 2003 - Dru Kathrina Sjodin, 22, was last heard talking to her boyfriend on his cell phone. The suspect - Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., a 50 year old convicted rapist, was recently released from prison after serving a 23 year sentence for attempted kidnapping, rape, and aggravated assault. He was arrested in Minnesota and extradited back to North Dakota. During his arraignment, a woman in the courtroom shouted out, begging him to tell the authorities the location of the missing woman. Searchers found Sjodin's body Saturday morning, April 17, 2004, near a county road northwest of Crookston. Rodriguez, 51, has pleaded not guilty, but could face a federal murder charge now that Sjodin's body has been found. The convicted sex offender was arrested in December and is jailed in Grand Forks, N.D., on $5 million bail. Attorneys familiar with the case have said federal prosecutors probably will take over the case, although the top federal prosecutors in Minnesota and North Dakota have said that is too early to determine. Neither state has capital punishment, but federal law allows the death penalty for murder committed during a kidnapping. The tight-knit community of 1,800 people - where everyone used to leave their doors unlocked and their keys in their vehicles - has become paranoid because of the Sjodin case. On Monday, Sjodin's boyfriend, Chris Lang, said the community support as the search stretched over months was ''the one positive thing out of this horrible experience.'' ''You have to take something good out of that, out of this tragedy, and that is that the human spirit can transcend all and it is a good world,'' he said on ABC's ''Good Morning America.'' ''For every, you know, evil person out there, there's probably a million good ones.'' Friends of Sjodin who were working at the Oasis restaurant Sunday tried to focus on Sjodin's life rather than her death. ''She was just a doll,'' said waitress Erica Doolittle, 22. ''She would take you under her wing, no matter what, no matter who you were friends with or what you did. She was always there for you.'' On the University of North Dakota campus in Grand Forks, several hundred mourners left candles on the lawn in front of Sjodin's sorority after gathering for a memorial Sunday night. Lillian Elsinga, the school's dean of students, spoke to the crowd and read a poem by Sjodin's grandmother. ''Now she has been initiated by God's angels and accepted her new job with her big blue eyes watching over us 'til we meet again someday,'' said Dani Mark, one of Sjodin's Gamma Phi Beta sorority sisters. ''It has been a long, long five months,'' Erinn O'Keefe Hakstol, adviser at the sorority, said earlier Sunday. ''I can't say this is a happy ending, but now we can really celebrate Dru's life.'' After the service, the sorority sisters led a candlelight procession from Memorial Union to the Gamma Phi house, where they placed candles on the front step. A pink banner that read, ''Dru, in angels' arms you stay'' hung over a window in front of the house. UPDATE 2007 On August 30, 2006, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. was found guilty in Federal court. On September 22, 2006, he was sentenced to death. He continues to maintain his innocence. "Dru's Law" set up the DRU SJODIN NATIONAL OFFENDER PUBLIC REGISTRY. A scholarship has been set up in Dru's name at the University of North Dakota. A memorial garden was established at Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. Another is planned at the UND campus.

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MISSING PERSONS - DRU KATHRINA SJODIN

Dru Kathrina Sjodin

MURDERER SENTENCED

TO DEATH

The tight-knit community of 1,800 people - where everyone used to leave their doors unlocked and their keys in their vehicles - has become paranoid because of the Sjodin case.

On Monday, Sjodin's boyfriend, Chris Lang, said the community support as the search stretched over months was ''the one positive thing out of this horrible experience.''

''You have to take something good out of that, out of this tragedy, and that is that the human spirit can transcend all and it is a good world,'' he said on ABC's ''Good Morning America.'' ''For every, you know, evil person out there, there's probably a million good ones.''

Friends of Sjodin who were working at the Oasis restaurant Sunday tried to focus on Sjodin's life rather than her death.

''She was just a doll,'' said waitress Erica Doolittle, 22. ''She would take you under her wing, no matter what, no matter who you were friends with or what you did. She was always there for you.''

On the University of North Dakota campus in Grand Forks, several hundred mourners left candles on the lawn in front of Sjodin's sorority after gathering for a memorial Sunday night. Lillian Elsinga, the school's dean of students, spoke to the crowd and read a poem by Sjodin's grandmother.

''Now she has been initiated by God's angels and accepted her new job with her big blue eyes watching over us 'til we meet again someday,'' said Dani Mark, one of Sjodin's Gamma Phi Beta sorority sisters.

''It has been a long, long five months,'' Erinn O'Keefe Hakstol, adviser at the sorority, said earlier Sunday. ''I can't say this is a happy ending, but now we can really celebrate Dru's life.''

After the service, the sorority sisters led a candlelight procession from Memorial Union to the Gamma Phi house, where they placed candles on the front step. A pink banner that read, ''Dru, in angels' arms you stay'' hung over a window in front of the house.

UPDATE 2007

On August 30, 2006, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. was found guilty in Federal court.

On September 22, 2006, he was sentenced to death.

He continues to maintain his innocence.

"Dru's Law" set up the DRU SJODIN NATIONAL OFFENDER PUBLIC REGISTRY.

A scholarship has been set up in Dru's name at the University of North Dakota.

A memorial garden was established at Pequot Lakes, Minnesota. Another is planned at the UND campus.