Some cases leave behind an overwhelming record.
Court filings. Interviews. Timelines. Press conferences. Years of public reporting.
Other cases leave behind only fragments.
A name. A date. A place. A few inches of newspaper print. A state database entry that tells us almost nothing about the person who was lost.
This episode of A Heavy Weight sits with two Minnesota cases that are not known to be connected, but share a painful kind of absence. Both involve young women. Both involve roads between where they were last known to be and where they were found. Both remain unsolved.
The Case of Juanita “Wendy” Wear
The first is the case of Juanita “Wendy” Wear.
Wendy was seventeen years old. According to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, she was last seen at a party in Farmington in December 1976. Newspaper reporting from the time says she was reported missing on December 25. That distinction matters. We do not know that Wendy vanished on Christmas. We know she was reported missing that day.
Nearly two months later, on February 21, 1977, Wendy’s body was found by juveniles in a construction area near Johnnycake Road and 129th Street in Apple Valley. Early reporting said authorities had not yet determined what caused her death or where she had died. Today, her case is listed by the BCA as an unsolved homicide.
There is so much we still do not know.
Who was at the party in Farmington?
When was Wendy last confirmed alive?
Who reported her missing?
How did she get from Farmington to Apple Valley?
Was the construction area where she died, or where she was left?
What evidence remains today?
The lack of public information is not a reason to look away. It is part of why the case matters. Wendy was not a few lines in a database. She was a daughter. She was seventeen. She had a life before the record went quiet.
The Case of JoAnn Bontjes
The second half of the episode turns to JoAnn Bontjes.
JoAnn was twenty one years old and operated a beauty salon in Sherburn, Minnesota. On the night of October 1, 1975, she spent the evening with friends at the American Legion Bar in Trimont. She left sometime between midnight and one in the morning, driving home alone toward Sherburn.
She never made it home.
The next morning, her car was found abandoned along Highway 4. Her jacket and purse were reportedly inside, and her keys were still in the ignition. The following day, October 3, a farmer found JoAnn’s body in a roadside ditch south of Trimont. She had been shot in the head.
For decades, JoAnn’s family and community have waited for answers. Her parents died without knowing who killed their daughter. Her brother searched for her in those first terrifying hours. Years later, a retired police chief, Don Mickelson, helped bring renewed attention to the case.
In 2024, JoAnn’s case received new public attention after investigators discovered an unknown DNA sample from the scene and submitted it for testing. Authorities have collected comparison samples from multiple individuals, and those samples reportedly did not match the unknown DNA.
That does not mean the case is solved.
But it does mean there is movement.
DNA can be powerful in a cold case, but it still needs context. Investigators have to determine whose DNA it is, how it got there, and whether it is connected to the crime. In JoAnn’s case, the unknown DNA offers hope, but not certainty.
What These Cases Reveal
These two cases should not be forced into one theory. There is no known connection between Wendy Wear and JoAnn Bontjes.
But covering them together reveals something important about cold cases.
Some cases remain almost invisible because the public record is thin.
Some survive because family members, reporters, former officers, and community members keep pushing them back into view.
Some wait for a witness.
Some wait for a lab.
Some wait for someone who was young then, and older now, to finally say what they know.
Wendy Wear was seventeen.
JoAnn Bontjes was twenty one.
Their cases are still unsolved.
And a cold case is not cold to the people who loved the person at the center of it.
If You Have Information
If you have information about Juanita “Wendy” Wear, contact the Apple Valley Police Department.
If you have information about JoAnn Bontjes, contact the Martin County Sheriff’s Office or the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.
Even if what you know feels small, it might matter.
