A developing story at 5, the BCA has issued an Amber Alert for a 5-year-old girl from Waterville. This is Alaina Ertle and she was last seen at her house at 2:00 in the morning. According to investigators, the family says they noticed her missing about 8:00 this morning. 8:30 in the morning. The child’s bed isn’t made.
The 5-year-old girl is not in the house. And she’s not the only thing gone. Her father’s pickup truck is missing. His phone is gone, too. And so is the man who spent the night in the house, a family friend. Within just a few hours, this case stops being a simple missing person situation and turns into, well, the worst-case scenario.
Alaina, 5 years old. She was last seen alive during the night inside her own home. They put her to bed around 2:00 in the morning, wrapped in her favorite Frozen blanket. By the time morning comes, she’s gone. It’s not just a child who disappears. A 2002 GMC Sierra vanishes, her father’s work pickup.
Her father’s phone disappears. And Zachary Anderson is gone, too. A family acquaintance, a co-worker, a friend. Someone they trusted enough to let him stay overnight in their home without a second thought. At 9:56 in the morning, police are called. Almost immediately, it becomes clear this is not a runaway situation and it’s not an accident.
At 1:12 in the afternoon, an Amber Alert is issued. In a small town like this, panic spreads fast. Investigators begin tracking phone signals. They see movement. They see the father’s phone pinging in Todd County. The last signal hits at 9:00 in the morning. Then, it goes silent. Almost at the same moment, a call comes in from Zachary’s father.
And he says his son had called and asked for permission to drive out to a remote family cabin about 19 miles away from Watkins.” The search warrant is approved immediately, no delays. Investigators head out right away because, yeah, time is slipping by minute by minute. On the Anderson property, they find the pickup truck hidden, carefully tucked into a ravine.
At that point, this isn’t a theory anymore, it’s confirmation that a serious crime has happened. Inside the house, they find weapons, ammunition, and a note that points to possible suicidal intent. There’s blood, too. But there’s no child and no sign of Zachary Anderson. The search continues on foot through woods, through swampy ground.
A canine unit picks up a scent. At 4:24 in the afternoon, the dog leads officers straight to Zachary Anderson. He’s standing knee-deep in water. There are cuts on his arms. He doesn’t resist. When officers ask him directly where the little girl is, he avoids the question, keeps saying he doesn’t know, then he asks for silence.
A few minutes later, after repeated and very direct questioning, he finally says one word, “In the swamp.” He leads them to the spot. About a quarter mile away, they find the body of Alaina. She’s naked in the water, hidden under debris. A short distance away, they find her blanket. At 6:02 in the evening, the Amber Alert is canceled. The search is over.
This is no longer a missing child case. This is a homicide investigation. But before we go deeper into what happened next, let’s slow down and go back to where all of this began. This case takes us to Watkins. Watkins is a small town with a population of around 1,000 people. At first glance, it feels incredibly quiet.
A calm lakeside place near Seneca Lake. It’s best known for a canyon with waterfalls in a nearby state park and for a racetrack that hosts major racing events. On regular days, everything here feels peaceful, touristy, almost provincial. The kind of place you associate with walks, wineries, and nature, not big headlines.
Friends, let me grab your attention for just a second. Tell me in the comments what city you’re watching this video from and what time it is for you right now. I’m genuinely curious where everyone is tuning in from. While you’re typing that, I’ll keep going. Thanks for that. But in July of 2016, the residents of Watkins were still trying to recover from a tornado that tore through the town, leaving behind piles of debris and shattered pieces of what used to be normal life.
Extensive damage was seen in Watkins. 25 houses were damaged, 12 of them received major damage, and five businesses were also damaged. In Watkins, Monday night brought the storms. Tuesday morning brought the cleanup. People were trying to get back to normal and rebuild what had been destroyed.
Long summer nights were settling in again. And part of this small, close-knit community was Alaina, a little girl who even at just 5 years old had already managed to leave a real mark on everyone around her. Alaina loved everything pink and purple and was totally into playing dress-up. But at the same time, she loved being outside, running around, getting dirty, and just having fun with her dad, Matt.
Her mom, Kayla, later said Alaina was basically friends with everyone. If she missed even one day of school, people noticed right away. Her absence felt loud. She was fearless, always up for an adventure. Like she wouldn’t think twice about climbing onto the roof of the barn just to help her dad fix something. Kayla once said, “She was our little tiny one.
” Elena was loved by so many people, always smiling, always ready with a hug for absolutely everyone. She adored her older brother and loved learning from him, following him around, copying everything he did. Life felt good for the family back then. Things felt stable. And in just 2 months, they were supposed to celebrate Elena’s 6th birthday on Halloween.
It was meant to be a happy moment, a milestone, a night of costumes, candy, and laughter. No one had any idea what was coming. That night, Elena’s dad, Matt, went out with his friend and co-worker, Zachary Anderson. They played together in a local softball league, and after a game around 10:30 at night, they headed to Riverside Tavern to unwind and grab a few drinks with the rest of the team.
That was pretty normal for them, nothing out of the ordinary. After a few drinks, the bar closed at 1:00 in the morning, and they moved on. From there, they stopped at Gordy’s, a bar just a couple of blocks from Matt’s home, where he lived with his family. Around 2:00 in the morning, Elena was already asleep in the living room.
Kayla picked her up, carried her to bed, tucked her in, and covered her with her favorite Elsa blanket, the one she slept with every single night. Matt got home around 2:30 in the morning. Zachary arrived later, sometime between 3:30 and 3:45. He and Matt talked until about 4:00 in the morning, and then they both went to sleep.
Zachary staying over wasn’t strange at all. It was something that had happened before. 8:30 in the morning, August 20th, 2016, when the parents woke up, they realized Alaina wasn’t in her bed. She wasn’t in the bedroom. She wasn’t anywhere else in the house. Panic set in fast. And pretty quickly, something else became clear.
It wasn’t just Alaina who was gone. Matt’s work pickup, a 2002 GMC Sierra, was missing. His phone was gone, too. And Zachary Anderson was nowhere to be found. While Matt and Kayla searched everywhere around the house and property, it hit them this was bigger than they could handle alone. It was time to call law enforcement. Police were contacted at 9:56 in the morning.
And yeah, it was obvious by then this could be an abduction. So, at 1:12 in the afternoon, the decision was made to issue an Amber Alert. Developing story at 5:00, the BCA has issued an Amber Alert for a 5-year-old girl from Watkins. This is Alaina Ertle, and she was last seen at her house at 2:00 in the morning.
According to investigators, family say they noticed her missing about 8:00 this morning. According to police, Anderson has no sex offender history, and they aren’t sure of a motive. The BCA says that Anderson now has a shaggy short beard and may be wearing a black T-shirt like this that says Riverside, Minnesota softball. News about the search spread fast through Watkins.
And honestly, people couldn’t wrap their heads around what was happening. Officers worked to gather as much information as possible, hoping someone had seen or heard something, anything, that felt off, out of place, or just plain wrong. They searched the surrounding area and contacted Zachary’s mobile phone provider, trying to track his device.
Investigators learned that around 8:30 in the morning, Zachary had been seen at a store near Browerville. Police knew there was another option, tracking Matt’s phone, which was believed to be left inside the pickup. Time was not on their side, so every lead had to be checked immediately. They received information that around 6:30 in the morning, Zachary may have been in Todd County after Matt’s phone began pinging off a cell tower in that area.
The final signal came in at 9:00 in the morning, still in Todd County, and then the phone went dark. Less than an hour after the Amber Alert was issued, another call came into the Cass County Sheriff’s Office. It was Zachary’s father. He told investigators that he believed his son was the central figure in the Amber Alert case and that he had important information.
Earlier that day, he said, his son had called asking for permission to go to a family cabin in Motley, about 90 miles from Watkins. He also stated, clearly, that he was giving police permission to search that property. Without wasting a second, deputies headed out. Everyone was hoping, praying really, that if this lead was real, they might still be in time.
On the drive, their minds were racing. What were they about to find? Would Elaina still be alive? Could they bring her back home to her family? And what had actually happened near a wildlife preserve in rural Cass County? Deputies arrived at the property. As the search began, they quickly hit their first major break.
The pickup truck taken from the Erdel family’s home was parked down in a ravine on property belonging to the Anderson family. The way it had been positioned made it clear someone had tried to hide it. They moved on to the cabin and began searching room by room, hearts pounding, not knowing what they were about to walk into.
What they found was deeply concerning. Firearms, ammunition, and a note believed to be written by Zachary Anderson suggesting an intent to harm himself. There was blood in the upper corner of the note, but Zachary wasn’t there, and neither was Alaina. Officers exited the cabin and followed footprints leading down a trail into the nearby woods.
Cass County Deputy Sheriff William Conner and his canine partner, Yankee, began tracking near the pickup not far from the cabin. Yankee picked up a scent and started pulling Deputy Conner toward a swampy area. 4:24 in the afternoon, about a quarter of a mile from the cabin, deputies found Zachary Anderson.
He was standing knee-deep in water in the marsh with cuts on his arms. He did not resist when he was taken into custody. One of the officers looked at him and asked, “Where’s the little girl?” “What little girl?” he replied. Investigators read Zachary Anderson his rights. He repeated it three times he did not want to talk. At that moment, they still didn’t know whether Alaina was alive, so they told him straight up they needed to bring her home, back to her family.
They explained that he could help make that happen. “I don’t know anything,” he said. For the next few minutes, they kept pressing him over and over asking where she was. “That little girl, is she here in the swamp? Or do we need to go somewhere else to find her?” “In the swamp,” he answered quietly.
They asked him two more times to confirm what he’d just said. Then they asked if he could show them exactly where her body was. He asked for a cigarette. After that, he led them to the spot pointing to a specific place in the swamp. The naked body of Alaina was found submerged in the water hidden beneath debris in the southern part of Wilderness Park Estates.
A canine unit identified another location as well, about 75 ft away, following the scent from the cabin. That’s where they found her favorite frozen blanket. 6:02 in the evening, Sheriff Brian Crewes made it official. The Amber Alert was canceled. This was no longer a missing child case. This was now a murder investigation.
Couldn’t sleep last night. I just thought about it. Craig Speldrich is among those living inside the Wilderness Park private estates. It’s where the body of Alaina Ertle was found in a swamp just beyond the Anderson family cabin. And I decided something had to be done. Speldrich built a tasteful timber cross for Alaina, a place where others are now purging their grief.
And the people here are absolutely offended, you know? They are they’re heartbroken. Well, it’s a pretty tight community, really. Folks like Ray Schulties and Anna Cash are stopping to pay respects to a child they never knew, but can’t stop thinking about. The community here’s sadness is as if they had lived here. I mean, it doesn’t really matter where you are, what you who you are, where you’re from, but when it you know, when something happens so close to home.
Ray actually recalls seeing Anderson briefly at last Saturday’s annual meeting. Yeah, he came down to the clubhouse, you know? Um and he was just all muddy and dirty. He must have just come out of the swamp. Now, it’s a Northwoods community left in mourning over a crime so unthinkable. It’s it’s heartbreaking, that’s all.
It’s emotional. It’s extremely cold. So, let me go and get up there. Weren’t for that canine team, uh that suspect’s capture would have at at least been delayed, if not, you know, wouldn’t have happened. Steve Pearson trains police dogs. He says it was Cass County Deputy Bill Connors’ dog Yankee that ultimately led authorities to a swampy area in the woods about a quarter mile from the cabin.
Pearson trained Yankee roughly 5 years ago. Their ability to smell and and and and follow that odor is just absolutely remarkable. Pearson says because authorities didn’t have an item of clothing for Yankee to go off of, he believes the German Shepherd tracked Anderson’s fear scent. Police say Anderson initially said, “What girl?” when they asked about Alaina.
Those officers when they got to that cabin had no idea where to start. They they tried using the helicopter to find you know people down in in the in the woods and whatnot. I have no doubt that he would have gotten away. According to the official medical examiner’s findings, the cause of death was asphyxiation combined with blunt force trauma.
Those injuries made it clear this was a violent act and left very little room for doubt. On top of that, examiners found clear evidence of sexual assault. A detail that fully exposed the gravity of what had been done and made the case even heavier. 25-year-old Zachary Todd Anderson was hit with multiple felony charges.
They included one count of second-degree murder, one count of sexual conduct involving a child under the age of 13, one count of kidnapping to facilitate the commission of a felony, and another count of kidnapping with intent to inflict great bodily harm. Each charge on its own carried serious prison time. Taken together, they formed a case that could define the rest of his life for decades to come.
The court set bail at $1 million with strict conditions, or $2 million with no conditions at all. For the small community of Watkins, processing what they had seen and heard felt almost impossible. People didn’t even know where to begin. This wasn’t just a crime. It was something that shattered the town’s sense of safety.
What once felt distant and unthinkable suddenly became real and it touched everyone. We’re pretty close knit. People around here. Swapping stories over coffee can take a whole afternoon when you’re in your 80s. Just unbelievable. Even for two friends who’ve seen a lot over the years, these past few days have been too much.
It shouldn’t happen for a young kid that small and should never happen. I’ve seen her around town. I’d go for a walk, she’d wave, say hi. That’s just a little girl she was. Alice Lister can hardly find words to describe what Allette Watkins is feeling. Been rough. I mean, Watkins has been through a lot. We’ve lost a lot. But we’ve all come together.
It’s a family community. A town of a thousand where everyone seems to know everyone and their pain. A tragedy like this is unbelievable. Just something that doesn’t happen here. As these old friends struggle to understand what has happened, their long lives keep teaching them one important lesson. We will survive.
It’s a community that has a lot of heartfelt feelings between each other. But we will survive. In Watkins, candlelight vigils were held. People came together quietly, shoulder to shoulder trying to process the tragedy and show support for the family. It was about being there for each other, sharing the grief, and honoring a little girl who meant so much to so many.
“I just feel helpless.” One of the people there said, “Honestly, I think the entire state is in shock.” A small town in central Minnesota, something like this just isn’t supposed to happen. It feels unreal. To help the family, a GoFundMe page was set up and the goal, $15,000, was reached in just 15 hours.
People showed up the only way they could, fast and together. There are still some people out here tonight. It seems as if the entire town came to this church parking lot for a service to honor Alaina. Now, some people were just too stricken with grief to speak to us, but everyone here came together to be surrounded by friends and family, those who knew and loved this sweet 5-year-old.
Sounds of Frozen, Alaina’s favorite, came before prayer. Beautiful. Shy. Liked to play. More people than you could count filled the St. Anthony Catholic Church parking lot. A way to come together to remember a vibrant girl who was never without a smile. Like you just want to be here to support the community and the family and for this little girl who lost her life. It’s just It’s sad.
Many wrestle with why this 5-year-old with so much life ahead of her was taken. I just want to know why. What possesses people to do this? Parents who have lost a child share in the family’s sorrow. I’m so sorry that this happened to them. I’m so sorry it happened to her. The realization that it was someone the family knew, someone they trusted, made everything feel even more chilling.
Well, a small town in central Minnesota began saying goodbye this afternoon to little girl whose death has shaken so many. 5-year-old Alaina Ertl was kidnapped from her home in Watkins on Saturday morning. Her body was found later that day. Investigators arrested a family friend, Zachary Anderson.
He is charged with murder, criminal sexual conduct, and kidnapping. WCCO’s Colin is in Watkins right now, where people are mourning the loss of Alaina at her visitation. Liz. Amelia, there has been a long line outside this funeral home since the doors opened just a couple of hours ago. People here clearly choosing to remember Alaina for how she lived and not the unthinkable way she died.
Now, mourners shuffled into the small funeral home as bubbles floated through the air. Alaina’s visitation will last until 8:00 tonight and begin again tomorrow morning from 9:00 to 10:00 before her funeral. The family asked our camera not to go inside, but I can tell you the walls are filled with pictures of a happy little girl along with Alaina’s favorite toys.
The school year will start in Watkins after Labor Day and teachers said they will do what they can to help Alaina’s classmates cope. We have to strike that balance between remembering Alaina and making a safe and loving and normal environment for the rest of the kids. And that’s going to be really tough. And hundreds of people are expected to return here tomorrow for Alaina’s funeral set for 10:30 tomorrow morning at St.
Anthony Catholic Church, which is just up the road here in Watkins. Amelia. Just a heartbreaking situation, Liz. All right. Thank you. According to online court records, Zachary Anderson had only a few minor traffic violations on file. Nothing violent. Nothing that would have raised red flags. We have no information indicating that he was a sexual predator or anything like that, said Sheriff Brian Cruze. There’s no known motive.
We honestly don’t understand why this happened or why it happened now. A man named John grew up alongside Matt and also knew Zachary Anderson through the local softball league. He seemed like a normal guy. Everyone liked him. He was always smiling and that’s exactly why this is so hard on everyone, he said. People trusted him.
He came across as a good person. But once investigators started digging deeper into Zachary Anderson’s past, some really disturbing details began to surface. Let’s go back to May of 2006. Zachary Anderson was only 16 years old. He was living with his mother next door to a 31-year-old single woman who was raising two young children on her own.
From the outside, everything looked normal. A quiet residential neighborhood where people recognized their neighbors and nothing really seemed out of place. Later, the woman told investigators in Wright County that Zachary’s behavior had started to concern her even back then. He would leave notes on the windshield of her car, short but persistent.
In them, he wrote that he thought she was beautiful, left his phone number, and asked her to call him if she wanted him to be her boyfriend. She was very aware of the age difference. And to her, these gestures felt unsettling, not innocent. She also suspected that Zachary had been stealing cigarettes from her garage when it was left unattended, though she didn’t have direct proof.
By December, his behavior took a sharp turn. It became frightening and unstable. Late at night, around 1:30 in the morning, the woman was jolted awake by loud, frantic banging on her front door. Zachary was there. He was standing outside in nothing but his underwear, demanding that she open the door and have sex with him.
His voice was insistent, aggressive. He grabbed the handle and tried to force his way in, making his intentions painfully clear. He only ran off when the woman’s boyfriend came to the door. The presence of another adult finally made him back down. But that night didn’t just end there. Then, in June of 2007, the woman was sleeping upstairs with her children.
The house was quiet, still. That’s when Zachary removed the screen from a first-floor window and climbed inside silently, almost unnoticed. He walked up to the coffee table in the living room, grabbed her phone, and disappeared just as quickly as he’d come in. He was charged with theft and first-degree burglary.
Later, he pled guilty to third-degree burglary. The court sentenced him to community service and ordered him to write a letter of apology, a formal gesture that did little to ease the fear. The court also ordered that he have no contact with the woman, but even that wasn’t enough for her to feel safe. She was so afraid of him that she eventually moved away, leaving behind a home that had once felt like a place of safety.
Because Zachary Anderson was a juvenile at the time, the incident didn’t make the news or appear on his public record. When she later heard why Zachary Anderson had been arrested this time, she admitted it hit her like a punch to the chest. She said that in that moment, she couldn’t even begin to imagine that his behavior could ever go this far.
I felt sick. I was completely shocked and just devastated, she said, thinking back to that moment. She added that she chose to speak out publicly, not just for herself. She said she truly hoped her story would be a warning, a signal to other potential victims. Meanwhile, Zachary Anderson entered a plea of not guilty to all 19 charges against him.
Among them were the most serious offenses possible. First-degree murder, first-degree criminal sexual conduct, kidnapping, and abuse of a corpse. Each charge on its own carried devastating consequences. Together, they formed a case that could determine his fate for the rest of his life. Later, it became known that his defense attorney attempted to have evidence gathered at the crime scene ruled inadmissible.
The defense argued that serious violations had occurred during interactions with law enforcement. Zachary had repeatedly told officers that he was invoking his right to remain silent and did not want to give a statement. And yet, despite those clear declarations, questioning continued. Cass County District Court Judge Jana Austad ultimately ruled that Zachary had been improperly interrogated by investigators.
That ruling meant one thing. His initial statement could not be used in court as evidence because it had been obtained in violation of his constitutional rights. More than that, the fact that he led officers to the exact location and pointed out where Alaina could be found also could not be used against him.
The court determined that by that point he had already invoked his right to remain silent, meaning any related actions were not admissible as evidence. Prosecutors, however, emphasized one key point. Alaina would have been found regardless. According to them, the search would have continued using every available resource, including helicopters and additional canine units.
Zachary’s public defender, Scott Collins, went even further. He filed a motion asking the court to dismiss the case entirely, arguing that there were insufficient grounds to charge his client because his constitutional rights had been violated. The judge denied that request. The defense’s attempt to throw out the 19-count indictment failed.
All charges remained in place. Defense attorneys also asked the court to exclude details related to the discovery of Alaina’s body, the clothing and blankets found nearby, and the results of the examination of her body. Once again, the court refused, making its position unmistakably clear. The evidence in the case file shows that the discovery of Alaina’s body and her blanket was completely independent of any unconstitutional coercive act by Zachary Anderson when he led officers to the location where he claimed Alaina was. The court ruled that
the following cannot be used as evidence. His statement, “I don’t know anything.” His verbal statements made while in the swamp. His actions in leading officers to the location where he claimed Alaina could be found. However, the court also ruled that the following are admissible. Items of clothing and the blanket.
The fact that her body was discovered. Alaina’s body itself. All evidence obtained during the examination of her body. Every photograph taken during that examination. In other words, even with parts of his statements thrown out, the physical evidence, the most critical pieces, remained firmly on the table. Zachary Anderson was scheduled to appear in court for a pre-trial hearing, just a standard step in the criminal process.
In the end, Zachary pled guilty to first-degree murder, a charge that included first-degree sexual assault with penetration. That plea meant full responsibility for the most serious crime possible. As part of the agreement, the remaining 18 charges were dismissed. Almost immediately after the plea, the court issued its final decision.
Zachary was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. A sentence that offers no path back to freedom. “Our goal was to secure the maximum punishment allowed under Minnesota law, life in prison without release,” said Cass County Attorney Benjamin Lindstrom. “And that’s exactly what we achieved through this agreement.
” There was no sense of triumph in those words. Just a calm, almost clinical statement of an outcome the prosecution had been aiming for from the very beginning. At the same time, Alaina’s family was determined to do everything they could to make sure her spirit, her memory, didn’t get lost in court documents and legal language. Just 2 months after her murder, on the day she was supposed to turn 6, October 31st, Halloween, her mom made an incredibly difficult decision, despite the pain, despite the emptiness.
She chose to throw a birthday party for her daughter. What started as a deeply personal act of love and remembrance slowly turned into something much bigger, something unexpected. Over time, that moment grew into a powerful charitable effort, one rooted in keeping Elena’s light alive and turning loss into something that could still help others.
A family still struggling with the loss of their little girl is helping other families fighting their own heartache. The project was called Sharing Elena’s Love, and the name said everything. At its core, the entire idea was about putting people from the community first, making sure every act, every effort, and every bit of help stayed centered on caring for others and spreading the love Elena had given so freely.
And in Motley, today the Erdel family held a fundraiser called Sharing Elena’s Love. Proceeds went to a family whose daughter is fighting cancer. Alexis Wasson was diagnosed with a rare type of bone cancer last September. I’ve been putting on wristbands. I have helped do some stuff around for the silent auction, and it’s been really fun.
Kayla later admitted that this initiative became her way of staying afloat after the tragedy. It helped her find something, anything light, in the middle of all that darkness. Sometimes that meant donating toys to a local hospital, where those small gifts became moments of joy for kids who really needed them.
Other times, it meant putting together care packages for people going through hard times. There was no showmanship in any of it. No big speeches. Just quiet, almost invisible acts, not about saving the world, but about holding on to humanity, and to keep showing the world who Alaina was, and how much genuine joy she gave to everyone around her.
Kayla once told her daughter something simple. She said that a sunset was like someone looking down on us from heaven. Just a gentle explanation. Child-like words. Spoken without any sense of what the future would bring. But after Alaina was gone, those words took on an entirely new meaning. From that moment on, Kayla began to see her daughter in every sunset, in the colors of the sky, in that quiet pause between day and night, when the world seems to stop breathing just for a few seconds.
Nearly 2 months later, a memorial continues to grow outside their Watkins home. The home to a family sorely missing its youngest member. She was very loving. Alaina was known for her friendliness and versatile personality. From her love of My Little Pony’s to the time she spent hunting with her dad.
She’d come in our room every morning and give us a kiss good morning, and you know, made sure everybody else was okay. Kayla and Matt Erdal hold memories and many tokens close as they try not to concentrate on the evil that took Alaina away. Just an innocent little girl that did nothing wrong. Matt had worked with Zach Anderson at a utility line company for 4 years.
Anderson lived in [ __ ] Rapids, so when they’d play softball in the summer, he’d sleep over. On that Saturday morning in August, the family woke up to find Anderson and Alaina missing along with Matt’s pickup. 3 hours after an Amber Alert was issued, K9 officers found Anderson near his family’s cabin by Motley. Alaina’s body was found nearby.
Investigators say she’d been sexually assaulted before Anderson killed her. People that you think that you know, that you trust and become your friend and you have in your home and turn your back on you and you don’t understand it. The Ertls admit they will struggle trusting new friends moving forward. Still, they are continuously reminded of the good that remains.
The support has been overwhelming. Yeah. Gifts and cards from so many touched Alaina’s life. This one, too, was a journal or a day-by-day Even strangers from states away pledging to be more patient parents and not taking the time they have with their own kids for granted. He’ll make comments of certain shows or different things he did that made her laugh.
The Ertls are pushing on for their son, Carter, and for their small community that created a public space to heal. Look outside and there’d be four or five kids just sitting around there reading books and it’s cool to see. It’s where they find comfort in the words they are certain Alaina would want them to hear.
When it rains, watch for rainbows. When it’s dark, watch for stars. Liz Collin, WCCO 4 News. About 1 month before Alaina was taken from this world, a tornado tore through the community. It came out of nowhere. In its wake were shattered homes, uprooted trees, downed power lines, pure chaos. For a while after, the air still smelled like dust and wet wood, and the quiet that followed the storm felt heavy, almost suffocating.
In the days after, people came together not because they weren’t hurting, but because everyone was. They stepped outside, looked at the damage, and just started working. They picked up whatever could be saved. They rebuilt where rebuilding was still possible. And where destruction was simply too deep, they planted something new right there in the debris like a quiet refusal to let life stop.
The same thing happened after Elena was killed. Her story is one of overwhelming, all-consuming destruction. The kind no family and no community should ever have to face. The loss wasn’t just personal, it echoed through every home, every street, every familiar place. There are parts of this tragedy that will never be put back together.
Pieces that stay broken forever. Scars that time doesn’t erase. Questions that will never have answers, no matter how long they’re asked. And a kind of pain that doesn’t disappear, it just becomes part of the landscape of life. The background to every new day. And still, even after a loss this devastating, people didn’t vanish. They showed up.
They grieved together without hiding their tears. They remembered together, quietly, out loud, each in their own way. Because that’s what we do when we’re faced with the unthinkable. We gather the broken pieces even when we know they’ll never look the same again. We stay close to one another so we don’t fall alone. And even though we can’t undo the storm, we can still find hope in the simple fact that we choose to build again.
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