They also found blood on a rear window and on the car’s seats. The former convict allowed investigators to search his 2002 Mercury Sable, where they found a knife hidden in the trunk. There was just one problem: The film he said he’d seen was not playing at any theater in Grand Forks at the time, CNN reported. He admitted to detectives that he’d been at the mall where she worked, but said he was watching a movie at the mall’s theater. Rodriguez became a suspect four days into the investigation after police received a tip stating he’d been in Grand Forks the day Sjodin vanished, according to media reports. Her throat was also cut, and a rope and the remnants of a plastic grocery bag remained around her neck when her body was found. Sjodin’s autopsy determined she had been beaten, stabbed and possibly suffocated to death. Sjodin’s black loafer was later found under a bridge leading into the small city. The final phone call from Sjodin’s phone was made from a rest stop near Crookston, according to an affidavit in the murder case. Rodriguez, who had expressed anxiety and fear of living back in society, was released anyway, even after his own family expressed concern to Minnesota Department of Corrections officials. He was classified as a Level 3 sex offender, the most dangerous category, court records show. Prior to his release, he had served 23 years in prison for multiple rapes and an attempted rape. Rodriguez, a registered sex offender released from prison six months before the murder, lived in Crookston with his mother at the time of Sjodin’s abduction. Sjodin’s body was found the following April about 30 miles away, near Crookston, Minnesota, after the spring sunshine had begun to thaw the snowy ditch where she had been dumped. 22, 2003, from outside a mall in Grand Forks, N.D. Dru Sjodin murder: Deputies stand guard near the spot where University of North Dakota student Dru Sjodin's body was found April 17, 2004, in a ditch near Crookston, Minn.
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