Previous victim provides information on Sjodin case
From the "Wolf Blitzer Reports" staff in Atlanta:
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Allan Sjodin, Dru Sjodin's father, looks on as Alfonso Rodriguez Jr. takes his seat in court Thursday.
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ATLANTA (CNN) -- As Alfonso Rodriguez, Jr. made his appearance at a bond hearing in North Dakota, on Thursday, new details were emerging about the investigation that led to his arrest.
Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, is accused of kidnapping 22-year-old Dru Sjodin from the parking lot of the shopping mall where she worked.
Shirley Iverson says when she first heard news accounts of Sjodin's disappearance, there were unsettling similarities to what happened nearly 30 years ago, when she lived in Crooskston, Minnesota, when she was raped.
That was Rodriguez's first of three sex related convictions.
"Something about it just really grabbed my attention," says Iverson. "I looked at the information that was available on the Internet, and something more grabbed my attention. There were just some things in my stomach, that I thought I needed to call police in Grand Forks."
Iverson says she believes other women also contacted police before they arrested Rodriguez on Monday.
Investigators have been questioning Rodriguez, but so far, they say he's provided no information that could lead them to Sjodin.
The missing woman's mother is asking for help from the Rodriguez family.
"That his mother please speak to her son and his sister to please speak to her brother and ask, on the behalf of all of us, the love that we have for Dru and the love from the community, that we want her back in our arms," says Dru Sjodin's mother, Laura Walker.
Police and volunteers continue to search the bleak December landscape. The question -- sometimes unspoken -- can Dru Sjodin still be alive?
"What I think he's shown is that he's capable of violent crimes," says Iverson of Rodriguez. "I think each of the women in testimony in the court proceedings have talked about fearing for their lives during their assault."
Sjodin's friends and family remain optimistic.
"I'm very hopeful," says one of her sorority sisters, Laura Bouche. "We just pray and try to remain optimistic, and to stay positive to send out good energy to Dru, so when we find her she'll know that we've been praying and thinking about her this whole time."
"We're very steadfast in the fact that Dru has a very strong spirit, a kind soul. And we know that she has the strength and will to survive the situation," says Walker.
