On December 15, 1978, 12-year-old Patti Huling was one of four members of the Huling family murdered in their rural Stearns County home near Clearwater, Minnesota. Patti, her 16-year-old sister Susan Wayne, 13-year-old brother Wayne, and their 38-year-old mother Alice Huling were shot to death in an attack that began in the early morning hours; 11-year-old Billy Huling survived after pretending to be dead when the assailant fired at him and missed.

Billy testified he woke about 4:00 a.m. after hearing kitchen noises, muffled sounds and a gunshot. He said a man of medium build wearing a stocking cap entered the upstairs bedrooms, shot Wayne with a shotgun, then shot Susan and Patti in the head. After firing twice at Billy and missing, the attacker fled and Billy ran to a neighbor for help.

A man named Joseph Donald Ture Jr. was arrested four days later at a Clearwater truck stop after being linked to a stolen vehicle; investigators found a metal bar and a toy car in the car that were later connected to the Huling scene. Ture remained a suspect for years, and in 2000 he was convicted of four counts of first-degree murder and given four consecutive life terms; the Minnesota Supreme Court upheld the conviction in 2001.

Did anyone who knew the Huling family or lived in that area in 1978 see anything unusual that night or in the days before the killings?