The day Dru Sjodin disappeared from a Grand Forks mall was a “God awful, terrible night,” her father told ABC News’ “20/20” in a program to be broadcast Friday.

The 22-year-old University of North Dakota student had been abducted and her body was later found in a ravine near Crookston, Minn. She had graduated from high school in Pequot Lakes, Minn.

Dru Sjodin (Courtesy photo)

Alfonso Rodriguez, a convicted sex offender, was found guilty and sentenced to death. That sentence was overturned and he’s now serving life in prison.

Allan Sjodin, Dru’s father, is speaking on national TV for the first time since Rodriguez’s sentence changed. He told 20/20, as seen in a preview of the episode, that he got a call on Nov. 22, 2003, saying Dru’s car had been found in the parking lot of the Columbia Mall.

“I was panicked. I jumped in my work truck and took off,” Sjodin said.

Asked by “Nightline” co-anchor Juju Chang what he felt in his gut, Sjodin said, “I think you don’t want to think the worst, you know. You’re trying to be positive.”

He said he pounded on the doors of the police station but no one was around, so he went to the mall. He found Dru’s car and stayed by it.

“You were holding vigil at her car?” Chang asked.

“I was sitting right there, yeah,” Sjodin said.

The two-hour episode, called “Missing from the Mall,” includes interviews with the original detectives on the case, the prosecutor, Sjodin’s brother, a sorority sister of Dru’s, the manager of the Victoria’s Secret where she was working the day she was kidnapped and a woman who was previously attacked by Rodriguez. It airs 8 p.m. Central time Friday on ABC and will be streaming on Hulu the following day.

The program has posted several preview videos on its Facebook page (facebook.com/ABC2020):

Reviews of ex-medical examiner’s work continue

Rodriguez’s death sentence was overturned in 2021. Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Ralph Erickson, who presided over Rodriguez’s jury trial and sentencing in the mid-2000s, wrote the defense attorneys were “ineffective” during the 2007 sentencing trial and said then-Ramsey County Medical Examiner Michael McGee’s testimony about Sjodin’s cause of death was “unreliable, misleading and inaccurate.”

The Minnesota Attorney General’s Office continues an independent review of all cases it prosecuted in which McGee provided testimony, spokesman Brian Evans said this week.

The Ramsey County attorney’s office also launched an outside review of McGee’s work, which is ongoing.

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