Editor’s note: This is Part 4 in a Forum News Service investigative series related to the disappearance of Belinda Van Lith, including an exclusive interview with the main suspect in her case. To see everything published in the investigation, visit the Van Lith investigation page. Listen to The Vault podcast for related episodes.
EAGLE LAKE, Minn. — Belinda Van Lith’s 1974 missing persons case was kept alive through tips from the public. Investigators determined two of them warranted thorough examination, yet they led the law enforcement to a series of complex rabbit holes and disappointing dead ends.
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One stemmed from an alleged drunk confession from a distant relative. The other related to a man who falsely confessed to the kidnapping of Jacob Wetterling and owned the home Belinda was looking after when she vanished on June 15, 1974.
These tips were revealed in the 1,200-page investigative file related to Belinda’s case, which was obtained by Forum News Service in August with the help of family members. The file reveals glaring failures in the early stages of the case and the Wright County Sheriff’s Office efforts to remedy the investigation more than three decades later.
The investigation has not yet led to any charges related to Belinda’s disappearance, nor has Belinda been found, yet it did lead to an unrelated conviction for the prime suspect, Timothy Crosby.
Crosby, who went on to become a serial abductor, is now locked up at the Minnesota Sex Offender Treatment Program in Moose Lake., Minnesota In a recent interview with Forum News Service, he denied any involvement in Belinda’s disappearance.
A drunk relative confesses?
In January 2002, the Wright County Sheriff’s Office in Minnesota received a call from a woman who claimed she had information about a confession in Belinda’s case. Belinda was 17 years old when she went missing on June 15, 1975, from a home she was house sitting on Eagle Lake, near Monticello, Minnesota.
The woman told investigators her sister was riding in the back of a truck one to two years prior when she heard their aunt say Belinda’s distant cousin confessed to the crime at some point between 1987 and 1989 while drunk.
The distant cousin arrived at the aunt’s house and allegedly told her that he and a friend forced Belinda into their car while she was walking down the road on a dark and foggy night. Then, he claimed things “got out of hand,” according to the case file.
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He said they drove to a nearby cemetery, where she ended up in a grave that had already been dug.
When they got the tip, Wright County Sheriff’s Office investigators tracked down the woman who allegedly heard this confession firsthand.
She said the man who confessed would regularly come over drunk during the 1980s. She tried to ask him follow-up questions to the confusing and troubling confession, but he wasn’t coherent enough to provide answers.
It had been decades since the initial confession was supposedly made, and investigators believed Belinda likely went missing during the daylight hours. Yet, they tracked down the man who allegedly made those claims – and all of his close acquaintances over the years.
Wright County Sheriff’s Office investigators were thorough. They conducted interviews with his ex-wives, family members and friends. They tracked down records from cemeteries in and near the area where Belinda went missing. They attempted to monitor his phone calls and conduct in-person surveillance.
They also talked to Belinda’s mother, Beverly Van Lith, to get a feel for the family’s relationship with the distant cousin and ask her about allegations that she had confronted him.
Beverly, it turned out, had not confronted the cousin.
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In the end, investigators determined the confession was not credible and that the distant cousin was not responsible for the disappearance or death of Belinda.
After clearing allegations that Belinda’s distant cousins could be involved, investigators put a microscope on Timothy Crosby, the last person to see her, and the man whose home Belinda was house sitting when she went missing: Duane Cornwell.
The Cornwell investigation
Cornwell was initially considered a person of interest at the start of Belinda’s investigation in June 1974. He was initially cleared after providing investigators with an alibi.
Belinda was house-sitting for Cornwell while he was away with his band in Nashville at the time she went missing. When he arrived home on June 15, 1975, his mother’s vehicle was parked in the driveway.
The two, collectively, realized Belinda wasn’t around.
When Belinda was reported missing, Cornwell told investigators he and a bandmate had stayed at the Scottish Hotel in Nashville and checked out on the evening of June 14, 1974, before making the 14-hour trip home.
But investigators noticed a discrepancy when they attempted to match his story to records obtained by the Scottish Hotel. A teletype returned to the Wright County Sheriff’s Office stated that Cornwell checked out on June 13, along with his bandmate – one day earlier than Cornwall had claimed.
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That inconsistency didn’t alarm investigators at the time, yet his possible involvement in Belinda’s disappearance came to light when he was looked at as a person of interest in the Jacob Wetterling case.
A Wetterling connection?
Wetterling was an 11-year-old boy who went missing in October 1989 from Stearns County, which borders Wright County. His case remained unsolved for 27 years until a 2016 confession by Danny Heinrich led investigators to his remains, located near his abduction site.
Portions of Stearns County Sheriff’s Office reports related to Wetterling’s case are included in Belinda’s investigative file, which was obtained by Forum News Service. It is not clear when these files were handed over to Wright County, but they were referenced during the 2008 cold case review of Belinda’s disappearance.
One month after Wetterling went missing, Cornwell told authorities he knew where the 11-year-old had been buried. A task force responded by showing up at his Stearns County home. After briefly refusing to cooperate, he got in a squad car and led investigators on an unsuccessful late night drive throughout rural portions of the county.
After officers sensed Cornwell could be in a state of mental instability, they returned to his home. There, he told an officer he had killed Wetterling and buried him under the dog kennel on his property. He was arrested and taken in for questioning before being sent to a nearby hospital for treatment related to mental illness.
Officials with the Wetterling task force continued to investigate Cornwell, though. A search warrant was executed at his Stearns County property and officials interviewed his ex-wives and friends.
Months after his arrest, hospitalization and treatment, Cornwell was visited by an investigator from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. This time, the questions related to Belinda’s case.
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Focus on Belinda
Cornwell denied having anything to do with Belinda’s disappearance. He recounted his trip to Nashville. He recalled pulling into his driveway, shortly after his mother arrived. He told investigators how he and his mother looked for Belinda throughout the house, but realized she wasn’t there.
Cornwell provided details regarding conversations with Belinda’s father in the days after she went missing. Belinda's father had been over at his residence days before she went missing to fix a blown fuse on an outside power box.
He also recalled telling a close friend that he believed one of his ex-wives could have been responsible for Belinda’s death. He hired Belinda to watch the house because he was afraid the ex-wife would steal his property if it was left unattended.
The BCA investigator followed up with Cornwell’s ex-wives. They all reported his issues with alcohol, mental health issues and physical violence.
One of those ex-wives said something that stood out to Wright County Sheriff’s Investigators when they dove back into Belinda’s case file in 2008.
One of Cornwell’s ex-wives told a BCA investigator that while Cornwell was hospitalized in 1989, he allegedly mentioned a shallow grave under a shed. His ex-wife believed the alleged grave could belong to Belinda.
In 2008, Wright County Sheriff’s Office investigators filled out a BCA Cold Case Card application — an initiative that showcased cold cases on decks of cards — for Belinda’s case. The application would put Belinda’s case back in the spotlight. In order to apply, officials with the Wright County Sheriff’s Office had to provide details regarding the case. It seems this process sparked investigators’ curiosity.
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Months later, a cold case review into Belinda’s disappearance was launched by the Wright County Sheriff’s Office, in conjunction with the BCA — and investigators honed in on Cornwell’s former residence.
Searching the Cornwell property
Thomas Grue purchased Cornwell’s home in 1975. He learned early on that Belinda had gone missing from the residence when investigators knocked on his door shortly after he bought the house.
“When we bought the place, we found out about the situation with Belinda. And then we had investigators who were trying to follow up and find out, and they came out several times and did a walk through of the property,” Grue told Forum News Service in a recent interview at his residence.
Then, more than 30 years later, another set of investigators knocked on his door asking him questions about Belinda.
He showed Wright County Sheriff’s office investigators around the property. He filled them in on improvements he’s made on the home over the years, which includes an addition to the south side and an accompanying basement. During that project, which required extensive digging, he never came across anything he felt was related to Belinda’s case.
Grue made other improvements to the area. He landscaped the yard and updated the barn. He changed the outdoor pole power source. The dirt floor shed remained the same, though.
That shed would later become the site of an excavation dig related to Belinda’s disappearance.
In 2013, a team of investigators led by Wright County Sheriff’s Office Lieutenant Mike Lindquist with the Criminal Investigations Division dug up the area in and around that shed.
“In review of the interior portions of this garage they did notice the floor was dirt. In the southeast corner of this garage they found a location which appeared lower than the other three corners,” Lindquist wrote in his report.
During the search, investigators dug down three feet. On the top layer of the dirt floor they discovered a small, multi-colored beaded necklace. Grue, however, had daughters who grew up on the property.
They also discovered a small animal bone and remnants of an old cloth item with a clasp.
It was the final push to fully investigate Cornwell’s possible involvement in Belinda’s disappearance, and it led investigators to narrow down the suspect pool to one man: Timothy Crosby.
In conjunction with the dig on Grue’s property, Lindquist led a full-scale investigation into Crosby’s possible involvement in the disappearance of Belinda and the death of two women whose dismembered remains were discovered near Eagle Lake in the early 1990s.
Search warrants were executed. A blood-stained sickle left behind at the Crosby cabin was analyzed for DNA comparisons and areas around the cabin were unearthed. An excavation dig was conducted in the field where Crosby had gotten his vehicle stuck the night Belinda went missing. Cadaver dogs were unleashed, and bones were sent in for DNA analysis.
These efforts did lead to the arrest of Timothy Crosby, but not for the crime they initially set out to solve. Instead, the investigation pulled on a string that unraveled evidence supporting his conviction for the use of a minor in a sexual performance.
Editor's note: This ongoing series will continue soon. Follow The Vault for updates.
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