On this cold, rainy, dreary day I bring heartening news to the fans and supporters of Don Harman.…
While I’ve yet to hear back from police Lt. Frank Sterns in Mason City, Iowa, I was able to connect with sources there familiar with the case of long-missing, early-morning news anchor Jodi Husentruit.
Let’s review. Area law enforcement heard that Harman was interviewed recently about Husentruit’s disappearance from Mason City television station KMIT in 1995. Husentruit anchored the wee hours morning news program there at the time Harman was the station’s weather guy.
After Husentruit, 27, failed to show up for work one morning, police went to her residence where they discovered signs of a struggle, neighbors reported hearing screams and her red Mazda Miata was still in its parking space. She was never heard from again and declared dead in 2001.
The mystery of what may have happened has haunted – and continues to haunt – the town ever since.
Brief aside: Mason City is known for successful music entertainers, including playwright Meredith Willson, best known for "The Music Man," a hit Broadway musical and later a movie, based on characters from Willson’s childhood there.
The population today is around 28,000, but for people of a certain age, it’s still River City.
As I first reported and have reminded readers, Harman suffered from severe depression and that was the leading theory as to why he took his own life. If indeed Husentruit’s cold case – which has remained open all these years – was undergoing a stepped up effort to reinvestigate – if indeed police had contacted Harman – it could have been nothing more than the retracing the investigation to find out what people who knew and worked with her knew or remembered.
A cold case is a crime that has not been solved for usually at least one year and remains open.
Then three years ago, in 2008, copies of Husentruit’s personal journal were mailed anonymously to Mason City’s Globe Gazette newspaper. Mason City police had been in possession of the original and it was soon learned that the copy had been sent to the paper by the wife of the former Mason City police chief.
The $64 million question: Was there anything in that diary that linked Harman to Husentruit?
The answer is no.
"It was her diary," says a Mason City source close to the investigation. "You know, there are so many rumors."
But Harman’s connection has never been among them, says the source.
"There’s always been another older man implicated," says the source, But thus far, they’ve never been able to connect enough of the dots to charge the man, the source adds.
As for Harman’s time and rep in Mason City, "He was really popular here," the source says. "He had a show where he went around and ate dinner at people’s houses."
Again, I’m still awaiting police confirmation of whether Harman was interviewed here and what, if anything, was learned from that interview.
As for Harman’s depression issues, it’s not unlikely that he was bipolar, says one area counselor.
"(That’s) not at all unusual unfortunately," the counselor says. "When you find someone to be so energetic , funny and seemingly unflappable there is often a dark side."
APPALLED
What a casual headline after you spread a horrible rumor about a tormented man before his body was even cold. I am ashamed that I have played any part in spreading this rumor, which I did because I considered you a reliable source. Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and you should have sat on this until you were sure, even if it meant you got scooped.
Disgusted
How pathetic that you are using this poor man’s death to try to lure readers to your blog disguised as news. I’ve heard quite a few horrible rumors about you. But since I can’t validate any of them, I’ll keep them to myself. As you should have done.
i wont pretend to be shocked
I imagine you saw a bump in traffic from that earlier headline. It brings to mind one of those headlines from the enquired. “Woman gives birth to alien.” Plastered across the front of the enquirer. You go to the story thinking you are going to read about some woman giving birth to a little green man. Turns out its just some illegal Guatemalan maid who had a kid on the subway.
Too Bad For Don
It’s too bad that Don Harman was not counted as a “Friend Of Hearn”. Had he been, Christopher would probably have treated Harman’s death with the same respect that he would have accorded an alumna of his alma mater, Pemday, instead of spreading baseless rumors. Who knew this seemingly earnest weatherman and family guy was in fact a potential traveling psychotic serial killer? Almost like some comedy store owner who leads a secret double life as a drug-dealer. Who’d a thunk it? How fortunate one cannot legally be held liable for slandering the dead.
I reported what I knew and made it very clear that depression was the known and the investigation could have been incidental. That said, the police have yet to weigh in.
If you want to know what goes on behind the scenes as new unfolds, you have to take the bitter with the sweet.
Or in your case, the living
Corruption and Suppression in Mason City
Hey Hearne – I live in Mason City, Iowa. I am in a unique position of knowing what the police department here has and has not done in regard to the Huisentruit case, and I can tell you it is a total disaster to say the least. You would be stunned to know what I know and what has and is currently taking place among among those who “serve and protect” us up here. There is a lot of the proverbial “circling the wagons” taking place right now, and it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if some of this hits the fan real soon.
Gird yourself Hearne. Cue
the usual splenetic, slatternly, smattering of supercillious, self righteous shit, finger pointing and ad hominem insults based on emotional responses from lemmings with their brains in their cell phone holsters.
Salt of the earth zeitgeist apparatchiks, tearing themselves away from the Kardashians during commercials to pontificate from on high with the “wet by every rain, blown by every wind” knowledge eminating from the top of the bell curve.
Hearne’s extemporaneous, A La Francaise, minute to minute revelations on this story were, as they say, “Breaking News.”
Vetting a story in the new millenium, with bloggers, twitter and the internet, is NOT going to be like going to the movies to see “All The President’s Men.”
We are all inside the abattoir, watching the 4th estate make sausage. If you don’t like sausage, don’t look, or read the politically correct, boring, editorialized, slanted, watered down diaphanous ditherings in the Kansas City Star.
Mr. Harman was a public figure, and Hearne is not getting sued for fuckin shit. So go home to your mommys and tell them to block this site, cause it is just too grown up for you.
ITS ALL GOOD,
It is all OK, we like a web site that allows rumor and specualtion to be posted.
Kansas City man reports vicious anal trauma and profuse bleeding during late night attack outside Buddies, was Hearne Christopher involved in the incident?
To be fair, while that may be true, it certainly doesn’t mean that Hearne was a suspect in the case.
Well, feel free to contact me at hearne@kcconfidential.com. I am somewhat familiar with the mess that went down with the police department there on this case. And it is difficult to imagine how there could be what appears to be a widespread feeling about who dunnit but no concrete action taken.
Then again, I think about how Syracuse and Penn State police handled those situations…
Amen
Hearne…stick to bar closings…fat plumbers..nightclubs…
your reporting on this harman case is getting you in trouble. It’s going to get even nastier. When you and
glazer put yourself out on a site like this you’re going to get some personal vicious attacks…and now they’re
going after your family. Be careful.
Tragic…
A tragic story HC. Don will be missed. My prayers are with his daughter and family…
Hey, Chris. Thanks for weighing in.
For readers who may not recognize Snyder he was the totally funny, young, hip weather dude on KCTV in the early 2000s
People should be ashamed
This story passive aggressively implies Don had something to do with this girl’s disappearance. If they weren’t trying to make people think that, they never would have put this article up. Horrible thing to say. Just horrible.
“Gives a pass?”
After making accusations or innuendos like that… all you have to say is that the River City “gives a pass” to Don?
Don was an early morning weather person who arrived at work the same time as Jodi… the idea that he kidnapped and killed someone and dumped a body then still made it to work on time with no evidence of a struggle on his person… well it’s just insane.
I really hope you post an official apology to Don’s family and friends.
In response to Lowell
As far as slander to the living. I CAN validate Glazer is a rat/informant who also exploits young kansas city girls sending them out for work in his porn racket. Hearn knows.
Looking at the fine responses
I think none of ya’s comment really sums up this so called reporting.
Did Hearne Christopher start the Justin Bieber getting a girl pregnant story and make the prediction for the end of the world a few months ago? Wouldn’t suprise me. Hey Hearne, did you hear aliens are taking over the Waldo area? Better go find out what’s going on.
Y’all just don’t understand
I know how Don felt, right up to the second he killed himself. I’ve been there. In fact, I’m still there. Every night when I go home, I look at all those pills. My fear? I’ll not get the job done. Who knew that the news would show me a better way. Get a helium tank, hook up my cannali start the tank..It’ll be just like my oxygen tank.
Now I know a successful way to end this. Luckily, I won’t get the news that Don did.
Malingerer!!!!
Go ahead and delete this post as well, coward. You are a malingerer- want the definition? This is a poor excuse for what you have done- you are slandering this man’s reputation and I seriously doubt his family and friends thank you for it. And, I’m sure this is just what his little girl would like spread around the school yard when she gets to that age. @$$!!!!
Hearne can’t handle the truth
Rumor has it that Hearne Christopher kidnapped Baby Lisa! So he could eventually impregnate her and use HER baby’s stem cells to firm up his sagging scrotum! Stay tuned! (Hey, it’s just a rumor …)