ANNANDALE — A Woodbury real estate developer is buying the home of the man who killed 11-year-old Jacob Wetterling in 1989, so he can destroy it.

Tim Thone said the house of Danny Heinrich reminds him of the emotional scars left by the crime. He expects to buy the one-bedroom foreclosed house Friday and tear it down by Christmas, as a present for his adult children. The effort will cost him about $74,000.

The 53-year-old Heinrich confessed in August to abducting, sexually assaulting and killing Wetterling, ending a mystery that had haunted the state for nearly three decades. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison on a child pornography count.

Annandale Mayor Dwight Gunnarson said if Heinrich’s house was left standing, it would always have a stigma.