Alfonso Rodriguez Jr., 50, of Crookston, Minn., appeared in the Polk County Courthouse and agreed to be sent to Grand Fork, N.D., to face a kidnapping charge in the case. He was arrested Monday evening in Crookston, nine days after Dru Sjodin disappeared.
Investigators from Grand Forks interviewed Rodriguez in Crookston after the hearing and said they were respecting his right to counsel. He was to be moved to North Dakota and was expected to make his first court appearance in Grand Forks County District Court on Thursday afternoon.
Rodriguez arrived at the courthouse in shackles, wearing jeans and a dark blue hooded winter coat that obscured his face from the gaggle of media gathered there. The extradition hearing lasted about five minutes, and the only word he said during the hearing was when the judge asked him whether he wanted to waive extradition.
"Yes," he said.
He did not respond when a woman screamed at him in Spanish after the hearing was over: "For your mother's sake, tell us what you did with the girl."
Sjodin, 22, a student at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, was last seen on Nov. 22 in the parking lot of a Grand Forks mall, where she worked at a Victoria's Secret store. Sjodin, from Pequot Lakes, Minn., had been talking on her cell phone to her boyfriend, who told police he heard her say "Oh my God" before the line went dead.
Police have said they have probable cause to believe Rodriguez was in the mall parking lot that evening.
"We believe that Mr. Rodriguez was in Columbia Mall that evening and we believe he was directly involved in Dru's disappearance," Grand Forks police spokesman Sgt. Michael Hedlund said today on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.
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