Hulu is adding a new true crime docuseries this month, and it tells the story of a TV show anchor who disappeared in Iowa back in 1995. Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit will begin streaming on July 15.
Jodi Huisentruit was a news anchor for KIMT in Mason City, Iowa when she went missing on June 27, 1995. She failed to report to work at the station at 4:00 a.m. as scheduled, and her producer Amy Kuns called her to make sure everything was ok. Jodi told her that she had overslept, but would be on her way to work shortly.
When Jodi had still not arrived by 6:00 a.m., Kuns had to fill in for her on the station’s morning news show, which was called Daybreak. An hour later, the police were called to check on Jodi.
As soon as law enforcement arrived, they could clearly see that something had happened in the parking lot. Jodi’s red Mazda Miata was there, and next to it were her high heeled shoes, a bent car key and other personal items. Police were able to lift a palm print from the car, but it was never identified.
Several of Jodi’s neighbors at the apartment complex said they had heard screams that morning, and one said they had seen a white van idling in the area around the same time the screams were heard. **NOTE: Hey, kids, let’s all make a pact that we will immediately call the police or at least peek out the window if we EVER hear screams in our parking lot, OK?
A few months later, Jodi’s family hired some private investigators, who appeared on America’s Most Wanted and Unsolved Mysteries, as well as meeting with three psychics. That meeting was filmed, and became the pilot episode for a series called Psychic Detectives. Unfortunately, none of these television appearances generated any feasible leads, and neither did searches of the area. Six years after she vanished, Jodi was declared legally dead.
However, her case has stayed relevant over the years since, thanks in part to a website set up by a couple of television journalists. In 2008, an unknown person mailed 84 photocopied pages of Jodi’s personal journal to the Mason City Globe Gazette; this was an interesting development, since the original journal had been in the possession of law enforcement since the initial investigation. As it turned out, the sender was actually the wife of Mason City’s police chief.
Will Hulu’s three part series bring new evidence to light?
The press release for Her Last Broadcast: The Abduction of Jodi Huisentruit indicates that there may have been recent developments in the 30-year-old missing person’s case.