The teeth were in the ashes.


"The bones were so badly degraded by fire that there was no DNA evidence left," said Beltrami County Sheriff Phil Hodapp. "Same thing for the tooth -- but it had a filling in it."

Hodapp was an investigator with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in the spring of 1999 when Poirier, 19, of Barnum, Minn., went missing. He remembers every detail of the case, down to the partial license plate description he and other BCA investigators were given by a witness to Poirier's abduction.

"One number and three letters," he said.


For the second time since helping to put Blom behind bars, Hodapp's successful investigation landed him on television. Paula Zahn's Investigation Discovery show "On the Case" last month delved into Poirier's killing, with Hodapp helping to tell the story.





At the time of Poirier's murder, Blom was working at a veterans home under the name Donald Hutchinson, according to media reports. Blom's list of aliases is as long as the list of other crimes that Hodapp and Donald Fier, also a BCA investigator, believe Blom perpetrated.

Holly Spangler, her body found decomposing in woods outside Bloomington in 1993, is a possible victim; Wilma Johnson, found strangled near the St. Paul Cathedral in 1983, is another. Blom, according to Fier, is a suspect in several unsolved murders and disappearances dating to the 1970s, he told a WCCO-TV reporter in 2006. Hodapp still holds out hope for a deathbed confession.



Starting in 1975, Blom began a disturbing criminal career that included the rapes and kidnappings of women and girls, some as young as 14. He served time in prison for several of the crimes and was on parole when he abducted Poirier on May 26, 1999.

Enter Hodapp.



The VHS tape from the convenience store was "lousy," Hodapp said. It was grainy and blurry, but Poirier's abduction played out for investigators to see. So they watched the tape over and over.


The garment was uncommon, according to Hodapp, and investigators enlisted the star power of baseball player Paul Molitor to spread the word about the suspect. The St. Paul native recorded a public service announcement for police, and "that night, we got a call from the killer's co-worker," Hodapp said.

Other parts of the puzzle were the description of the truck, the number and letters on the license plate, the computer print-outs, the search warrants and the name: Donald Blom.

"So three weeks later, we find this truck we've been looking for," Hodapp said, "and it's been scrubbed with bleach from top to bottom."

But inside the vehicle, investigators found a receipt for gas purchased from D.J.'s Expressway Conoco in Moose Lake. That's where Poirier worked. And that's where the surveillance video showed Blom forcing Poirier out of the store and into his black Ford pickup about 20 minutes before midnight May 26, 1999.


The discovery of the receipt sent investigators across the state in search of a man suspected of kidnapping and possibly killing an innocent, 19-year-old gas station clerk.

First it was a campground in Bemidji. "You can imagine, with all the campsites around here, how difficult it would have been to track him down," Hodapp said. Then, Cass Lake and finally, Alexandria.


Moose Lake to Bemidji, Bemidji to Cass Lake, Cass Lake to Alexandria.



"Then we interview him and I'm asking him things," Hodapp said. "... He lied about everything."


Blom told investigators he used paper and wood to burn Poirier's body, but the fire that destroyed her remains blazed so hot it nearly destroyed any chance of identification.

But Hodapp and other investigators found a mandible, Poirier's jawbone, in a burn pit on Blom's Richfield property. They sent the scant evidence to a forensic odontologist.


Norrlander found something else: The tooth had a filling with a unique chemical make-up.

"If you want to talk about a miracle happening, this is it right here: The chemical make-up is unique to a brand-new 3M product, and that particular tooth had this new 3M adhesive," Hodapp said. "Katie had a cavity, and she filled it using the new adhesive."

Blom, 64, continues to serve a life sentence at a maximum security prison in Pennsylvania.



Hodapp learned an important lesson as a result of the Poirier killing. A jailhouse informant who shared a cell with Blom told investigators about a discussion the pair once had. The prisoner apparently advised Blom of the best way to get rid of a body: dig 6-feet down below a fire ring, burn the corpse and backfill the grave with ashes.

"People think to look in fire rings," Hodapp said, "but prior to that, I wouldn't have thought to (dig that far down). But now, I do it every time."