Today: Iowa Police Say Deceased Fox 4 Meteorologist Not Involved, Not Interviewed
Hearne Christopher Jr.
Dec 06, 2011
Scratch one local law enforcement rumor...

The rumor that deceased Fox 4 meteorologist Don Harman was interviewed recently by Mason City, Iowa police and/or the FBI about the case of long-missing TV news anchor Jodi Huisentruit: Bogus.

That according to Mason City Investigations Supervisor Lt. Frank Stearns.

"That's not true," Sterns says. "He was not interviewed. Don Harman has never been a person of interest."

Nor, as noted it the orginal reporting here, merely a source in a stepped-up investigation.

Huisentruit's case may have gone "cool" but it's never gone "cold," Stearns says.

"It's been actively pursued since Day One," Stearns says. "We still have one investigator working on it."

Huisentruit dissapeared from Mason City in 1995 after not showing up for work at KMIT where she was the morning anchor at the time Harman was the station's main weather guy. And she hasn't been seen or heard from since.

Mason City police did find a palm print in Huisentruit's red Mazda Miata.

Police say they still have the print, the question is, could it be mined for DNA evidence with today's technology?

"We still aren't sure of that," Stearns says. "We 're still looking into that and what we could do. You're always hoping that there's some new technology that will come along. I'm not going to give you any specifics, but there's still hope."

According to biometrics.gov, "Palm print recognition inherently implements many of the same matching characteristics that have allowed fingerprint recognition to be one of the most well-known and best publicized biometrics."

However the technology is still evovling, it goes on to say, adding that, "there are still significant challenges in balancing accuracy with system cost."