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KIESTER — A crew from Investigation Discovery/HBO/Cinemax is filming a new documentary on the longtime cold case that originated in 1980 on Interstate 90 near Bricelyn.

Crew members set up Thursday in Kiester at the Urstad House Bed and Breakfast and were expected to interview three people tied to the case of the murder of Michelle Busha before moving to a different location in Mankato on Friday for additional interviews.

Alan and Hope Bauman, who opened the Kiester bed and breakfast almost three years ago, said they had received an email and phone call from the film crew a few weeks ago about taping some of the interviews at their bed and breakfast, but at first the couple was skeptical.

After finding out more about the plans, they began working with the crew on what areas in the house they could use for filming, as well as furniture and other logistics.

Alan Bauman said he grew up in the area all his life and would have been 20 at the time Busha’s body was found, but did not recall hearing about the case before. His wife, Hope, said she was in ninth grade and living near Bricelyn at the time Busha’s murder and vaguely remembers something had happened and her parents being very protective.

Busha, who was 18 at the time of her abduction and murder, was hitchhiking near the Bricelyn exit, and her body was found nearby in a drainage ditch. She was unclothed and had been tortured, raped and strangled.

The case took many years to solve, and the killer, a Minnesota State Patrol trooper, confessed in 1989 after he was arrested for another crime in Texas. The body was buried in Blue Earth and remained unidentified for many years until the body was exhumed and identified in 2015 through DNA testing.

A Blue Earth woman named Deb Anderson was concerned about the Jane Doe buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Blue Earth and was the driving force behind the scenes in helping the body be identified.

The Baumans said the crew on Thursday was expected to interview former Faribault County Sheriff Roger Fletcher, current Faribault County Sheriff Scott Adams and the person who dug the grave for the young woman’s remains at the cemetery. Anderson was expected to be interviewed Friday in Mankato.

The Baumans said they had been busy learning more about the case ahead of the visit Thursday.

They said they posted on their Facebook page about the crew being in town, and have had different emotions tied to it from members of the community.

Hope Bauman said she can’t help but recognize how sad it is, and how much different it would be having a happy event filmed there.

“When you start watching the documentaries, it’s really a sad story,” Alan Bauman said. “The good thing was that this lady was just dedicated to finding who this was even though she had no relationship. Think if it was your child and how much you would really want to know where she is … ”

“It’s somebody’s daughter, so you’re going to do all you can to find out what happened,” Hope Bauman said. “She has a name. She’s not Jane Doe — she has a name.”

The documentary is slated to air this fall.