A handcuffed Aaron Michael Orlando Rathke spun around in his courtroom chair slowly several times Monday as he waited to be sentenced for murdering his 5-month-old son in their Fridley home.

At other times before the hearing, Rathke leaned back and rocked his chair. When his family walked into the Anoka County courtroom, the 24-year-old looked back at them and smiled.

Aaron Michael Orlando Rathke (Courtesy of the Anoka County Sheriff’s Office)

Rathke let out a yawn as Judge Suzanne Brown called his case — and again shortly after she sentenced him to 25½ years in prison for killing Kaiden Michael Rathke, who died of blunt-force injuries on March 1, 2023.

Brown had asked Rathke if he wanted to address the court. “Nope,” he replied.

Rathke entered an Alford plea last month to second-degree intentional murder as part of a plea agreement, which included the length of his prison term. An Alford plea means he maintained his innocence while acknowledging the prosecution likely had enough evidence to convict him.

Despite the plea, Brown noted Monday, Rathke admitted to conduct that would have harmed the child, who she said had both “healing” and “fresh” injuries.

“It is disappointing not to see any remorse from you in the PSI (presentence investigation) or now,” Brown said before handing down the sentence.

Baby’s mother: Dad choked him

Rathke and Ahnisah Simone Waters drove their child to the Fridley police department after the boy stopped breathing. He did not have a pulse. Officers began CPR and the child was taken to Children’s Hospital, where he was pronounced dead a half-hour later.

According to the charges, Rathke told police that he took the baby into a bedroom to change his diaper. He said the infant vomited and stopped breathing. He said he did chest compressions but they were unsuccessful.

They did not call 911, he said, because in other cases when the baby had stopped breathing they had been able to “bring him back,” the charges say.

He said the child would sometimes have trouble breathing or “forget to breathe” and it had been happening since the baby was 4 months old. He said he would do chest compressions with his fingers to get the baby to breathe again.

During further questioning, Rathke told detectives that the baby was a quiet child who would “holler” if he was picked up or touched. He described changing the baby’s diaper by saying “it was hell” and that the baby would “scream his lungs out.”

Rathke said he’d been diagnosed as bipolar, “which results in him getting angry and having ‘mini outbursts’ and ‘blank out,’” where he is unable to remember things. He denied having any of those behaviors with his son.

Less than a week later, Rathke gave another statement to police saying he may have hugged the baby “a little too hard,” adding that he always gave the boy big hugs because “that way, I wouldn’t lose it.”

Later, detectives learned that Waters had sent a message to a friend through Snapchat saying that Rathke had “killed the baby.”

Waters then told police that Rathke had killed their child, saying she had been afraid to tell police what really happened because Rathke had been abusive to her. She said she saw him choke the child when he was 3 months old, and that when she intervened, he pushed her away. She said he told her he would put pressure on his son’s throat to make him pass out when he was having trouble getting him to go to sleep.

‘Devastated’

No one gave a victim impact statement at Rathke’s sentencing.

Prosecutor Brenda Sund said the child “suffered a tremendous amount of harm” during his young life and that she hopes Rathke “reflects on his actions” during incarceration.

“The state is devastated about (Kaiden),” she said.

As Rathke was being led out of the courtroom by a deputy, he nodded at a family member, who blew him a kiss.

Related Articles

After baby book stolen from vehicle in St. Paul, ‘miracle’ returns it to family

Federal prosecutors accuse Woodbury man of extorting minors after coercing explicit images

Jodi Huisentruit case: New billboard, Iowa gathering mark 29 years since disappearance

Fleeing motorcyclist dies week after crashing into State Patrol vehicle in Minneapolis

Arden Hills bar owner admits to hiding gun after his friend fatally shot man

The Washington County Sheriff’s Office will replace its mobile command vehicle next year with a new $1.1 million vehicle from LDV Custom Specialty Vehicles.

The Washington County Board of Commissioners last week approved a contract with the Burlington, Wis., company. The contract, which totals $1,076,140 over 24 months, will be funded with public safety aid ($850,000) and the county’s 2024 contingency fund ($226,140), county officials said.

The sheriff’s office’s current mobile command vehicle was purchased in 2011 for $250,000 and is nearing the end of its life, said Cmdr. Andy Ellickson of the sheriff’s office. Public works staff say the vehicle requires replacement due to current and future mechanical failures associated with the vehicle’s age, he said.

The new command center is an MT55 Freightliner, which is “much more beefed-up” than the old one,” he said. “It has a hood that can flip up, which makes it easier to work on,” he said. “The one we have now is a ‘cab over camper’ design. It doesn’t have a hood, which means maintenance is troublesome.”

The mobile command vehicle is used by all public-safety agencies in the county during small- and large-scale events, including critical incidents, training and community events, Ellickson said.

The vehicle should be completed and delivered in 12 to 18 months, he said.

Related Articles

St. Paul awaits ‘major flood stage’ river crest of about 20 feet Friday; Stillwater prepares for Sunday crest

As rivers rise, Stillwater and St. Paul prepare for flooding

Newport: Updated park for kids now open, next up is one for Fido

Ramsey County Board chair Trista Martinson stepping down to lead Ramsey, Washington waste-to-energy facility

Oakdale child care center reeling after theft of bounce house

It’s been 29 years since television news anchor Jodi Huisentruit disappeared on her way to work in Mason City, Iowa.

Jodi Huisentruit (Courtesy of FindJodi.com)

At 11 a.m. Thursday, friends, family and members of FindJodi.com, a nonprofit website and podcast devoted to solving the case of her disappearance, will gather outside the TV station where she worked, KIMT-TV in Mason City, Iowa, to mark the anniversary.

Patty Wetterling, the mother of Jacob Wetterling, will be the featured speaker. She is a nationally recognized child-safety advocate and educator and the co-author of  “Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope,” the story of how 11-year-old Jacob was taken by a masked abductor near St. Joseph in October 1989. It wasn’t until 2016, when Danny Heinrich confessed to killing and burying Jacob, that the Wetterling family and the nation knew what happened to the boy.

When Huisentruit disappeared, Wetterling was the first person some of Jodi’s friends reached out to for advice, said Caroline Lowe, a FindJodi team member who worked for 34 years as a crime reporter for WCCO-TV.

Huisentruit, of Long Prairie, Minn., interviewed Wetterling on two occasions regarding 11-year-old Jacob’s kidnapping, Lowe said.

“The first time was just months after he disappeared,” Lowe said. “Jodi was a senior at St. Cloud State University in January 1990, studying communications and broadcast journalism, when she and several college friends visited Patty at her home,” she said.

Three years later, when Huisentruit was working at KSAX-TV in Alexandria, Minn., she interviewed Wetterling again for a story that ran on what would have been Jacob’s 15th birthday, Lowe said.

“For me, the cases have always been twin cases,” Lowe said. “Jacob’s case being solved was the one that inspired me to think that Jodi’s could be solved.”

A new billboard was installed near the Mason City Airport in June, just days after Huisentruit’s 56th birthday, Lowe said. The billboard, donated by Reagan Outdoor Advertising, reads: “Don’t sit in silence … the time to talk is NOW,” she said.

An image from a new billboard installed in June 2024 near the Mason City Airport reads: “Don’t sit in silence … the time to talk is NOW.” (Courtesy of FindJodi.com)

“Somebody knows something. We’ve believed that from the beginning,” Lowe said. “The anniversary is a significant date to not only Jodi’s family and loved ones but for the person who abducted her. That’s why we keep the billboard in Mason City. We’re keeping Jodi up there until she is found. Her family wants to bring her home to Long Prairie.”

FindJodi.com officials launched a billboard campaign in 2018 in Mason City to help solve the mystery of Huisentruit’s disappearance; the billboards appeared around the time of her 50th birthday. FindJodi.com has paid for a billboard in the city ever since, Lowe said.

Related Articles

Fleeing motorcyclist dies week after crashing into State Patrol vehicle in Minneapolis

Arden Hills bar owner admits to hiding gun after his friend fatally shot man

Body camera video captures frantic moments, intense gunfire after fatal shooting of Minneapolis cop

Clive Crook: You don’t have to love Trump to fear a partisan U.S. justice system

After plea withdrawal and subsequent conviction, man gets life for slaying on Iron Range trail