In 2011, Joy Baker took a leap of faith, quit her job, and started a blog called joy.the.curious and wrote about a weather-beaten beach house on Longboat Key, Florida. She fell in love with the interactivity of blogging and the back-and-forth feedback she received that allowed her to unravel the mystery of Villa am Meer.

When that story started to come to a close, Joy chose to take a look at the 1989 case of Jacob Wetterling, an 11-year-old boy who was abducted at gunpoint while biking home from a convenience story with his friend and younger brother. It was a news story that stopped every Minnesotan in their tracks, and all prayed for a happy ending. Twenty-one years later, they were still searching.

She wrote about the case for three weeks, then set it aside until she was contacted by the newly named “person of interest” in the case. He asked if Joy wanted to know his side of the story, so they met and she listened. That meeting set her on a new path that would change her life forever. In 2016, Jacob’s remains would finally be found, in part because of key information Joy helped uncover that was never fully investigated.

In October 2023, Patty Wetterling (Jacob’s mom and a well-known national advocate for children’s safety) published her memoir with Joy as co-author. Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope tells their combined story and is available now at booksellers, major retailers, and local libraries.