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FEATURE Missing from the mall:

How investigators nabbed a serial

rapist in the death

of a college

student

“20/20” explores the 2003

By Ivan Pereira
murder of Dru Sjodin. abc News, January 12, 2024

More than 20 years ago a North Dakota town was shaken after “It was a God-awful terrible night,” he said.
a college student went missing after she left the mall where she
worked at the beginning of the busy holiday season. Investigators were soon able to track the location of the second
phone call to Lang, which was near Crookston, Minnesota. Because
Dru Sjodin’s disappearance in November 2003 banded together of the likelihood that the young college student was abducted and
several of her friends, family, and neighbors in two states along transported across state lines, more law enforcement agencies,
with multiple law enforcement agencies. And although their search including the FBI became involved in the case and searched the
ended in tragedy, her family was able to get justice and spark area, which at this point of the year was covered in snow.
change to make it easier for the public to track sex offenders living
in their communities One of Dru Sjodin’s shoes was found under a bridge in Crookston,
roughly 25 miles away from the mall. As search teams combed the
A “20/20” episode airing Jan. 12 at 9 p.m. ET and streaming on area for any more signs of the missing college student, investigators
Hulu the next day takes a look at the case with interviews with key hit the ground looking for potential suspects.
investigators, Sjodin’s family, college friends, and others.
Four days after Dru Sjodin went missing, investigators received a tip
Dru Sjodin, 22, who was a senior at the University of North Dakota from someone who claimed they saw a known sex offender shopping
studying graphic arts, was leaving her job at the Columbia Mall in in Grand Forks the day she disappeared. When investigators started
Grand Forks on Nov. 22, 2003. After buying a purse at one of the to look into the criminal history of that man, Alfonso Rodriguez Jr.,
stores, she walked to the parking lot and was on the phone with her they said they feared they had a serial rapist on the loose. In 1974,
boyfriend Chris Lang, according to investigator Bill Macki. Rodriguez was convicted of aggravated rape and attempted
aggravated rape in conjunction with attacks on two young women.
“That phone call was interrupted and she abruptly hung up,” Shirley Iverson, Rodriguez’s first victim, told “20/20” that he assaulted
Macki told “20/20.” “Prior to doing so, she said something along her after she agreed to give him a ride home after recognizing him
the lines of ‘OK, OK.’” as a fellow student from school.

Lang would later get another call from her number three hours “Being held against your will, and then to be, you know, sexually
later but could only hear static and the sound of the dial pad being assaulted combines the two worst fears that you have,” she said.
typed, investigators said. Dru Sjodin’s friends would call the police
after they found out she didn’t show up at her second job later in the In his second assault, Rodriquez used a kitchen knife to threaten
night. Officers found her car still in the parking lot and a knife sheath his victim, according to court papers. He was sentenced to 15
near one of the tires. years in prison in one case, but the sentence was stayed, and he
was sentenced to the Minnesota Security Hospital for sex offender
Allan Sjodin said he immediately drove to the town after getting treatment in the other case.
word that his daughter was missing. He said when he got to the
parking lot and saw her car, he was so taken with emotion that he In 1980, Rodriguez struck again when he was on leave from the
held a vigil next to the vehicle, hoping his daughter would return to hospital to visit family, investigators said. He attempted to kidnap a
her car. woman and stabbed her twice before she fought him off and fled.
22 W.A.D Beyond Global