Did Heidi Anfinson murder her baby?

Hoda Kotb Correspondent • Profile

DES MOINES, IOWA - In a sun-splashed home in Des Moines, Iowa, the gifts had been opened, the visitors had gone, and a new family had settled in. It was two weeks after Mike and Heidi Anfinson had brought a baby home from the hospital: a boy, a first-born son, named Jacob.

Heidi Anfinson: [It was] a new world, a new life, a new beginning.

On that Sunday, Mike Anfinson would say goodbye to his wife and son, and leave the house for a day of 4-wheeling with friends.

Mike Anfinson: He was laying right next to me on the  bed while Heidi was getting her shower. I kind of took care of him, which all that amounted to was putting the pacifier in his mouth, and cuddling him, or something.

That would be the last moments he would ever spend with Jacob.

Hoda Kotb, Dateline correspondent: Sometimes people say when something bad happens, they had this premonition.

Mike Anfinson: I had no premonition. I thought everything was fine.

But when Mike Anfinson returned home five hours later, looking forward to seeing his wife and son, he found Heidi asleep in bed. And Jacob, gone.

Kotb: So what did you do when you first realized he wasn’t around?

Mike Anfinson: I started panicking.

Police roared to the house about 3:30 p.m. after Mike’s call for help.

Police searched the home, the yard, the neighborhood. Nothing. Baby Jacob was missing.

Where was baby Jacob? Investigators piecing things together quickly learned that Mike and Heidi had lived together for 10 years before Heidi had gotten pregnant.

Mike was a computer engineer at Norwest mortgage. And Heidi had only recently left Jimmy’s Cafe as assistant manager and most-requested waitress. They’d bought a house, and gotten married, to prepare for Jacob’s birth.

Mike Anfinson: I just cried when he came out, I’d never felt that much joy before.

Heidi Anfinson: It is a big change to leave the house as two people and come back and you’re three.

But now, just 15 days later, Jacob was missing.

And police at the scene found nothing amiss. The house had door and window locks, and an electronic security system that a previous homeowner had installed after a burglary. Investigators wondered, what could have happened here? 

And why, when everyone else was frantically searching, was Heidi Anfinson sitting quietly in the dining room looking at photos, and smoking cigarettes?

Mike Anfinson: We both weren’t thinking correctly at the time. I mean they were asking me a lot of questions. I didn’t know up from down.

Police put the Anfinsons in a patrol car, and drove downtown.

Mike Anfinson: We didn’t understand what was going on. It was hell on earth.

At the police station, husband and wife were separated. Heidi was taken to an interrogation room.

Lieutenant Randy Dawson began the questions.

(police tape) Lt. Randy Dawson: Is it possible you could have rolled over on him?

Heidi Anfinson: Oh no.

Lt. Dawson: You know, if something like that happened it would be an accident.

Heidi Anfinson: I know. No, I didn’t roll over on him.

Heidi insisted she’d gone to sleep with Jacob in a bouncy chair next to her bed shortly after noon, and at some point she thought she heard someone enter the room.

Heidi Anfinson: It’s hard to explain. I just felt like maybe in my sleep and I just thought Mike came in and picked the baby up.

But her husband had been away all afternoon four-wheeling. His alibi checked out. It was Heidi, who had none.

(police tape) Lt. Dawson: We need to find him right now. Right now Heidi, we can’t wait any longer.

Heidi Anfinson: I wanna find him!

Lt. Dawson: You know you need to help us.

Heidi Anfinson: I know. I want to find him!

Lt. Dawson: Can you give us an idea where we can look?

Heidi Anfinson: I have no idea.

Lt. Dawson: People walking into other people’s houses and taking babies? I’ve been here 20 years and that’s never happened to anyone. That’s TV stuff. That doesn’t happen.

Heidi Anfinson: Did you find fingerprints or anything?

Lt. Dawson: We’re doing that now. Will you go with me Heidi?

Heidi Anfinson: I don’t know where to go.

When the exasperated detectives finally ended the first, then a second interview, Jacob had been missing for more than six hours— too long, police thought, too long for a newborn to survive without food or help. Too long for any 15-day old baby  to be left alone.

Then, a break in the case.

Police once again put Mike and Heidi Anfinson in patrol cars—and drove them to a place where they would  find the answer to the question: where was baby Jacob?

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