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Data accurate as of 220-26. Hello. And welcome to My Favorite Murder. That's Georgia Hartstark.
00:02:28
That's Karen Kilgara. Welcome. It's crazy how synced our highs are. Hellos. What do we say?
00:02:35
Hellos. in person rather than over Zoom. It's so much easier to do everything in person.
00:02:40
It's freaked me out like every time we've done it that we aren't exactly in sync.
00:02:44
Yes. It's made difficulties. I think we should go back to Zoom. Okay, bye. I'll see you on there.
00:02:50
Okay. Hey, everyone. This is the second and last episode of our little vacay prerecord.
00:02:57
So we're going to have a quick intro. I'm going to do a story solo. It's long. It's good.
00:03:03
And then we'll be back in your arms on the 4th of July. That's right. Also, just really quick, just a little bit of business.
00:03:11
Don't forget to check out the merch for MFM and all the other Exactly Right shows at exactlyrightstore.com.
00:03:18
There's pins. There's koozies. There's tank tops. It's summertime fun over there.
00:03:23
Get involved. And hey, have you been listening to our podcast and then heard one of our hilarious ads that are like so real and like didn't write down the promo code?
00:03:33
code. And so now you're like, well, how am I going to buy? Quince clothing. Yeah. How am I going to
00:03:37
get my discount if I don't have the promo code? Well, now at myfavoritemurder.com slash promos,
00:03:43
you can see all the promo codes for all the ads we've done. And it really helps the podcast out
00:03:47
when you use those promo codes. So thank you. Yes. Thank you. Tell them we sent you. Also,
00:03:53
lastly, as a favor to us, we would love it if you would rate and review this show
00:03:58
over on Apple Podcasts, really anywhere you listen. But on Apple Podcasts, it actually affects the algorithm.
00:04:06
It affects everything. It affects me? It affects our sleep. Also, if you want to look at us on a Saturday or any day, really,
00:04:16
we have been making videos for Instagram and TikTok for My Favorite Murder. Karen's doing Sinkhole Saturdays where she rates and reviews sinkholes.
00:04:24
I've been doing Get Ready With Me where I have my dog Cookie pick out my outfit.
00:04:28
And I mean, what more does one need? It's called middle age content and you're going to love it no matter what grade you're in.
00:04:39
It's called this is what we've been supposed to be doing for the whole time. All right.
00:04:45
It's Georgia's turn. Take us away. All right. Just down my can of rosé. Perfect.
00:04:50
And you know what that means. Do you know that? I don't know what that means. Do you know what that means?
00:04:55
So today's story straight up is about the murders of two children. Takes place in Tacoma, Washington.
00:05:02
They went unsolved for more than 30 years. One of those ones that I've followed.
00:05:07
It's just heartbreaking. And finally, thanks to the dogged work of some cold case detectives, families that never gave up their quest for answers and advances in technology.
00:05:18
There was eventually some justice for these two girls and these cases were solved.
00:05:23
Great. Yes. This is the story of Jennifer Bastion and Michelle O. Welch. And I think for a lot of people from the 80s in the Tacoma area, this is like an old wound that has stuck with them for sure.
00:05:37
Yes. The main sources I use for this story are an episode of Dateline called Evil Was Watching and an episode of Cold Case Files called Taken in Tacoma.
00:05:45
there's also a book called In My DNA and the book is written by Lindsay Wade who's one of the
00:05:51
cold case detectives who eventually solves this case she really awesome the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes so here we are Tacoma Washington It 1986 Tacoma is a quiet blue collar working class town quintessential Pacific Northwest
00:06:08
safe. It's the 80s. Kids are riding their bikes, you know, till the streetlights go on,
00:06:12
that kind of thing. You know, Jennifer Bastian is 13 years old and lives with her parents,
00:06:17
obviously Patricia and Ralph and her 15 year old sister, Teresa. Her mom says, quote,
00:06:21
Jennifer was a bundle of energy. She was ready to go at a moment's notice. Jennifer loves sports and can never sit still.
00:06:30
Her sister says she was prone to getting up from the dining room table and just starting to do acrobatics like in the middle of the living room during dinner.
00:06:36
She just had a lot of energy. Yeah. It was a big time for back walkovers, the mid to early 80s.
00:06:42
Yeah. Mary Lou Retton was all the rage. We all wanted to be like her. Yeah. So on August 4th, 1986, it's a beautiful day in Tacoma.
00:06:53
Jennifer leaves the house on her bike. She's supposed to go on a long distance cycling trip soon with a group from the YMCA.
00:06:59
And so Jennifer is kind of small for her age. She's pretty and blonde and she's determined not to be the slowest on this bike trip.
00:07:07
So she's been practicing a lot. Usually she goes out with a friend, but today her friend is busy and she goes by herself.
00:07:13
Jennifer heads out to Point Defiance Park. And park is misleading. It's a sprawling 760 acre expanse with densely wooded areas, Pacific Northwest, a zoo, a beach.
00:07:27
It jets out on a little peninsula into the Puget Sound, has sheer cliffs that drop off into the water.
00:07:33
So it's actually like pretty wild. But people are always there. People love it. Her parents know this is her plan. And she leaves a note saying she'll be home by 630.
00:07:42
At 6.30, Jennifer doesn't show up for dinner and her parents just immediately know something is wrong.
00:07:47
At 8.30, they called the police. That evening, Teresa, Jennifer's sister, had been out at the movies and her father picks her up at 9 p.m.
00:07:55
And he tells her that Jennifer hasn't come home. And Teresa says, quote, his voice cracked and I could see he had been crying.
00:08:04
And I knew that something was very wrong. Yeah. Police take a piece of Jennifer's clothing and give it to bloodhounds to try to track her from the park.
00:08:12
The dogs track her to the park to an area called the Five Mile Drive that goes around the peninsula.
00:08:18
But after that, they lose the scent. So over the course of the next three days, police officers are on foot and on horseback, along with volunteers.
00:08:26
And they search the densely wooded park and they don't find any trace of Jennifer.
00:08:30
Meanwhile, back at the Bastion household, Patty, the mother, answers a knock at the door and finds a woman named Barbara Welch there.
00:08:42
Barbara tells Patty she is there to offer emotional support. As just weeks earlier, on the other side of Puget Sound, Barbara's own pretty blonde daughter had gone missing.
00:08:53
Oh, no. Yeah. Hey, everyone. It's Cal Penn. And I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:09:04
This week on the podcast, I am sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook Project Hail Mary.
00:09:13
Massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you wake up alone very far from Earth.
00:09:20
I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections.
00:09:28
And it's like, okay, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it.
00:09:31
I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:09:40
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:09:47
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
00:09:51
It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Data accurate as of 220-26. So we're going back to the morning of March 26th, 1986.
00:11:37
We were in August. Now we're back in March. And 12-year-old Michela Welch is at Puget Park with her two little sisters, Nicole and Angela.
00:11:46
And this story the set of circumstances has stuck with me for so fucking long The girls have a regular babysitter but today Michelle is in charge And the way her sisters describe her she takes great care of them She a really great kind of bossy older sister The girl mom Barbara is raising them on her own and she works hard to support her family
00:12:09
She's recently bought the family home in Tacoma's North End. Michelle has long blonde hair, is on the small side for her age.
00:12:16
She wears glasses. About her sister, Nicole says she was just a beautiful child.
00:12:21
She loved music. She was an amazing artist. She played the piano. She played the violin. She loved to read. Definitely the bossy older sister.
00:12:29
It's spring break. So Barbara, the mom is working, but there's no school. So the girls are supposed to have a piano lesson later that day.
00:12:36
And the piano teacher lives right near Puget Park. So the girls had gotten permission to play at the park for a half hour before the piano lesson.
00:12:45
But the girls decide to bend the rules and they leave like almost three hours before the piano lesson to play around 10 a.m.
00:12:54
At about 11 a.m., the girls realize they'd left their lunch at home. Michelle bikes home to get it.
00:13:01
While Michelle is at home, her sisters need to use the bathroom. So they leave the park and go to a local business because there's no bathroom at the park.
00:13:09
When they return to the playground area, they see their sister's bike. She had come back and their lunch is on a picnic table.
00:13:17
But there's no sign of their sister, Michelle. It's so scary. It looks like Michelle got back when they were using the bathroom and then maybe wandered off to look for them.
00:13:28
My heart breaks for them. Angela says, quote, her bike was locked up and the bag was ripped open.
00:13:35
It was very bizarre. And we went looking, end quote. The two girls do their family call, which, you know, it's the pre-cell phone era.
00:13:43
The family uses this call in crowds to locate each other. It's like a Yoo-Hoo. so they wander around doing the yoo-hoo.
00:13:51
They don't hear anything. So they call the babysitter. The babysitter calls the girl's mom and the police
00:13:56
and Barbara races to the scene and police officers search the park starting at about 3 p.m.
00:14:02
Barbara says about that period waiting for her daughter to be found, quote, there's an emptiness there.
00:14:07
Time sort of stands still. At 11 p.m., police find Michelle's body in the gulch near a makeshift fire pit
00:14:16
about a quarter of a mile from the picnic tables. She has been killed by blunt force trauma to the head as well as a cut to her neck.
00:14:24
And there's evidence that she's been sexually assaulted. God. Michelle's mother, Barbara, is sitting in a police car when she gets the news that her daughter has been found.
00:14:35
In the investigation that follows, police canvass the area and interview everyone they can find who is in the park.
00:14:41
One of Michelle's classmates who was at the park that day says he saw a man standing under a bridge that was near the playground.
00:14:46
He says he noticed this man seemed to be watching the girls. He's able to give enough details for a composite sketch and a long list of people are questioned.
00:14:54
But over the next couple of months, no one emerges as a compelling suspect. So when Barbara hears in August about another young girl going missing in the area, Jennifer Bastian, Barbara decides to act and goes to their house to offer emotional support.
00:15:10
On August 26, 22 days after Jennifer first goes missing, a jogger on one of the wooded trails in the park notices a smell.
00:15:20
He alerts park police. They come and can't find anything. They bring a dog. They don't find anything.
00:15:25
But I think they all kind of knew what they were looking for at that point because of the smell.
00:15:31
So it takes two more days for searchers to find Jennifer's body. She's not far from Five Mile Drive.
00:15:37
it appears she had been sexually assaulted and she had a thin ligature mark on her neck,
00:15:43
which a later autopsy will determine to be the cause of death. And her bike is found nearby about 60 feet away.
00:15:50
The area where Jennifer is found is about 150 feet from the actual trail. And at the time, the coroner says it looks like the area
00:15:57
had been chosen and prepared in advance. So obviously life changes completely for the children in Tacoma
00:16:06
after these two girls, you know, are murdered. They're no longer allowed to go out
00:16:11
and ride their bikes unsupervised. Everyone is on edge thinking there's a potential serial killer
00:16:15
targeting young girls. It's just a terrifying time in Tacoma. Because of the similarities
00:16:20
between Jennifer and Michelle's murders and the similarities between the girls themselves,
00:16:24
they do look like, law enforcement also believes they're looking for one killer.
00:16:28
Puget Park and Point Defiance Park are both in Tacoma's north end. They're only about three miles from each other.
00:16:35
So like in Michelle's case, many people reported crossing paths with Jennifer the afternoon and evening she went missing.
00:16:41
Among them were some classmates of Jennifer's who said they saw a man wearing reflective sunglasses, riding a bike closely behind Jennifer, like seemingly keeping pace with her.
00:16:51
A composite sketch is made of this man too. The two sketches from both cases don't look terribly different from each other.
00:16:57
They kind of look like the same person. So everyone's assuming this is one killer.
00:17:00
Yeah. Detectives get lots of tips, but ultimately the investigation doesn't make any headway. They have nothing to go on. It's the 80s. There's no DNA to like really test. Right. They keep meticulous records of every lead, thousands of names. Eventually the leads dry up and the case goes cold. A patrol officer named Gene Miller works on these two cases when they first happen. And then through the rest of his career, as he becomes a detective and moves up through the ranks, Gene says, quote,
00:17:29
it's a very difficult thing to be intimately involved in these investigations and to not be making progress, end quote.
00:17:37
So still in the summer of 1986, there's another little girl who likes to ride her bike all over Tacoma.
00:17:44
She's 11 and her name is Lindsay Jackson, though we'll eventually know her as Detective Lindsay Wade.
00:17:51
Lindsay says that after the two killings she and her friends were afraid to ride their bikes In her book In My DNA she writes quote Before the killings I was a carefree kid oblivious to the dangers lurking behind my safe middle suburban neighborhood
00:18:06
After learning that two little girls had been murdered while they were out doing the kinds of things I liked to do,
00:18:11
riding their bikes, I was scared. Yeah. So when Lindsay is a sophomore in high school,
00:18:16
she stumbles across a book in the school library. It's Ann Rules, The Stranger Beside Me.
00:18:23
So legendary. I mean, but also like so fateful. Yeah. Everybody found that book around that time where it's like early junior high where you're suddenly like, I need to know what's going on.
00:18:37
It's almost like the librarians at junior highs and high schools are like, we need to at least have one copy of this so the cool lonely girl can come find this.
00:18:45
Well, and especially for the kids in that area at that time where it really. Green River Killer, Ted Bundy.
00:18:51
But like kids specific. Yeah. That's the thing that happened in Petaluma when poly class was taken and eventually found dead.
00:19:00
The kids themselves were changed, like implicitly changed. It's so heavy. Lindsay writes, quote,
00:19:09
After absorbing every detail of the book, I knew I wanted to be a detective just like Bob Keppel.
00:19:14
I wanted to catch men like Ted Bundy and Ann Rule's book inspired the course of my life to come.
00:19:20
Yeah. Incredible. Lindsay graduates from the police academy in 1997 when she's about 22.
00:19:27
Lindsay, who is biracial, is the only woman of color in her graduating class and is one of six women total.
00:19:33
By the early 2000s, when she's in her early 30s, Lindsay is working on Tacoma's special assault unit, which focuses on solving sexual assaults.
00:19:41
That's where she meets Jean Miller, the patrol cop who had been working both cases from the start.
00:19:46
The two of them stay close throughout their careers. And in 2011, Gene starts Tacoma's first cold case unit and Lindsay eventually joins him there.
00:19:56
So this is one of those cases where the evidence is preserved and science gets a chance to catch up, which is great.
00:20:04
In 2006, swabbed from Michela Welch's autopsy are tested, and from them, investigators are able to create a DNA profile for her killer.
00:20:13
The DNA from Michela's body doesn't match anyone in the database, unfortunately.
00:20:18
And Jennifer's body had been too badly decomposed to take the same kinds of samples when she was found.
00:20:25
So from 2006 to 2013, there's no DNA profile from Jennifer's body, but police assume they're looking for the same person who killed Michela.
00:20:34
Then in 2013, Lindsay and Jean send the swimsuit Jennifer had been wearing when she was killed to the lab.
00:20:43
It had been found like around one ankle. So they assume that there wasn't any DNA on it.
00:20:49
So they just wanted to get Jennifer's DNA profile, you know, just in case they need it in the future.
00:20:54
But a few months later, Lindsay gets a call from the lab and the technician is like, do you also want the profile for the male DNA that we found on the swimsuit?
00:21:02
Oh my God. Spermizoa on the swimsuit. The DNA doesn't match anyone in the system, but this in and of itself is a massive revelation.
00:21:12
They would have expected it to match the unknown sample that was entered into the database in 2006 from Michelle's killer.
00:21:20
And for the first time, investigators realize this means there are two different killers.
00:21:25
Oh my God. Of little girls in Tacoma. 1986. Wow. This has obviously huge implications for the investigation going forward.
00:21:32
For one thing, there are many suspects who were initially ruled out because they were in jail or had other alibis for when one of the murders was committed, but not the other.
00:21:40
So they just automatically blanket assumed it was one killer. Which I guess like you can't like it's almost like wishful thinking that there aren't monsters fucking everywhere.
00:21:52
It's wishful thinking, but at the same time, it's Occam's razor. The idea that there are two separate killers of the exact same looking age, everything, little girl, like on a bike is crazy.
00:22:04
Yeah. So in 2015, Jennifer's father sadly dies without ever seeing his daughter's killer brought to justice.
00:22:12
Around that same time, Jennifer's mother, Patty, starts volunteering in the cold case department and she becomes very close with Lindsay Wade.
00:22:20
That same year, Jean retires and Lindsay takes over as Tacoma's lead cold case detective.
00:22:26
Lindsay has followed every new development in DNA with rapt attention. She's like Paul Holes, you know?
00:22:31
And that year, she hears about a new technique that led to the solving of a cold case in Phoenix.
00:22:38
And it uses gene sequence that's passed through the father's line and through genealogical databases.
00:22:43
It matches that sequence with likely last names. So this is like it's genealogical profiling, but it's not as specific as it like you can't go through a family tree as deep, but you can go a little bit and find out the last names.
00:22:57
So Lindsay gets in touch with a scientist at the forefront of this technique, a former rocket scientist turned genealogist named Jennifer Fitzpatrick.
00:23:06
She sends her the DNA sample from the Jennifer Bastian case and the testing reveals three possible last names that a person with that DNA might have.
00:23:15
Isn't that fucking incredible? Yeah, that's weird. How many last names are there?
00:23:20
And you can go down to three. Like genealogy is amazing. The last names are Smith, Holbrook, and Washburn.
00:23:27
So Lindsay doesn't even bother with Smith because it's too common of a name to be useful.
00:23:33
But she scours the case files. It's thousands and thousands of pages for the two other names because luckily they're kind of unique.
00:23:40
There's no Holbrook, but there is a Washburn somewhere in the case files. Lindsay actually finds him not in Jennifer's case file, but in Michella Welch's case file.
00:23:51
After Michella's murder, but before Jennifer's, a man named Robert Washburn had called in a tip saying he had seen someone who made a mistake.
00:24:00
match the composite sketch of Michelle as potential killer in Point Defiance Park,
00:24:05
which is where Jennifer would later be abducted and killed. So he called this tip in in May of 1986, three months before Jennifer died in that very park.
00:24:17
Investigators, they didn't drop the ball on this. He had been interviewed in December of 1986.
00:24:21
I think him calling in a tip probably let their guard down a little bit, but they also didn't have anything suspicious about him to begin with.
00:24:28
But it's that thing we always talk about where like the killers want to get involved in the case.
00:24:33
And it's almost like in retrospect, you look back and it's like, oh, he was pointing to the future murder.
00:24:38
I mean, it's just so gross and weird and sinister. I think some people also think that because he was pointing to the future spot, like he had planned it out and he wanted to connect those two murders and make people think they were connected, which he did.
00:24:50
Yeah. You know, which means he planned it so far in advance. It's just chilling.
00:24:55
she finds it interesting this little piece of information but it's not you know it's no guarantee
00:25:02
the last names might not even be correct so robert washburn's name is added to a very long list
00:25:09
lindsey then takes on the daunting task of hand entering every other man mentioned in the jennifer
00:25:15
bastion case file into a new database because it had never been digitized wow yeah the process
00:25:21
takes months, but once it's done, she can use that database to eliminate 300 names from a list
00:25:26
of 2,300 names based on DNA and incarceration data. It's not much, but it's a start. And from
00:25:33
that list, Lindsay comes up with a shorter list of people to try to get DNA samples from.
00:25:38
A small task force tracks these people down all over the country and requests samples.
00:25:42
Hey everyone, it's Cal Penn. I'm the host of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club.
00:25:52
This week on the podcast, I'm sitting down with Ray Porter, the narrator of Andy Weir's audiobook
00:25:58
Project Hail Mary, massive sci-fi adventure about survival and science and what happens when you
00:26:05
wake up alone very far from earth. I really had to make a decision because I caught myself getting
00:26:11
And that frog in my throat and starting to get teary as I'm narrating some of these sections.
00:26:15
And it's like, OK, yo, yo, yo, is this indulgent? And I really thought about it.
00:26:19
I was like, no, at this point, it would kind of be betraying the trust the author and the listener have in telling this story if I don't go through it.
00:26:28
But there's places in this book that deeply emotionally affected me. And I left it on the mic.
00:26:34
That's great. Because it served the story. People will say like, oh, my God, I cried at the end.
00:26:39
It's like, yeah, dude, me too. Listen to Irsay. The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
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00:28:07
39 and 61 fewer calories than regular plain bagels and noodles respectively Calorie content has been reduced from 270 to 130 and 200 to 80 calories per serving for plain bagels and noodles respectively Data accurate as of 220 So in 2018 Lindsay makes the difficult decision to retire from the
00:28:24
police department and takes a job in the attorney general's office on its task force to end the
00:28:30
state's rape kit backlog. And she said it's a really hard decision, but she thought to herself,
00:28:35
You know, maybe the killer's name is in that backlog. Right. And I'm helping so many women.
00:28:41
Yeah, I can imagine it being a hard decision. Over the past several years, she's been sending batches of DNA to be tested and compared to the sample from Jennifer's bathing suit.
00:28:50
A few weeks after she starts her new job, and this is so like Paul Holes with the Golden State Killer, she gets a call that there's been a match.
00:28:58
And it's Robert Washburn, the man who called in the tip in the Michelle Welch case months before Jennifer was even killed.
00:29:06
So if he hadn't inserted himself into that case, there's no reason why he would have been found.
00:29:13
Wow. He wasn't in, his DNA wasn't in the database. There was no fingerprints. There was nothing tying him to it at all.
00:29:19
That's crazy. So he almost like, he just pinpointed himself. Yeah. And also like that's such good detective work that you looked in the other case file for that name of a tipster.
00:29:29
Like, why would you ever look at that again? And like now it's like, I hope they look every time because that is a thing they do.
00:29:36
Absolutely. And that's why there's good detectives like this. Yeah. He's 58. He lives in Illinois.
00:29:42
He has only one prior arrest for criminal trespass and vehicle prowling in 1985.
00:29:47
Before the murder, that's all he had. Nothing after. In 2017, investigators from the task force had knocked on his door and he had willingly given them a DNA sample.
00:29:58
So that's how they got his DNA. In 2018, when Lindsay gets this news, which is also like, what are you thinking?
00:30:03
Like, what's going on through these predators' minds when they're like, you can't say no, I'm not giving you a DNA sample.
00:30:09
Well, and also back then, they probably didn't know what it meant. Right. It wasn't as like precise.
00:30:13
Right. By 2018, when Lindsay gets this news, she and Patty Bastian have become very close and they had planned to celebrate Mother's Day together that year.
00:30:23
But since Robert wasn't arrested yet, Lindsay couldn't say anything to the mother that the potential killer had been caught.
00:30:32
She has to wait another couple of weeks to tell her. Right. So later in May of 2018, Robert Washburn is arrested for the murder of Jennifer Bastian.
00:30:41
Then only a month later, there's an arrest in the Michela Welch case. Just a month later, they were, you know, it's so wild.
00:30:48
Through genealogical DNA, investigators have been able to narrow down the DNA sample from Michela's body to one of two brothers who lived together in Tacoma at the time of the murder.
00:30:59
The DNA match on file belonged to a cousin, but it was one of those genealogical database matches.
00:31:06
and the genealogist was able to use public records to lead to the brothers. And they don't know which brother it is.
00:31:12
So after surveilling the brothers, investigators get a DNA sample from a discarded brown paper napkin
00:31:17
from a fast food restaurant from one of the brothers. They get it in a different way from the other brother.
00:31:22
But from this paper napkin, they get a match. They arrest a 66-year-old man named Gary Hartman in June of 2018.
00:31:31
He is a psychiatric nurse at a local hospital in Tacoma. I know you had a reaction to that.
00:31:38
That is not good. Yeah. He had never been previously arrested. He was married. He took care of his daughter.
00:31:46
Like, and we actually had a few emails from murderinos who had like worked with him in the past and thought he seemed perfectly normal.
00:31:53
Wow. Yeah. So after Hartman's arrest, the Pierce County prosecutor Mark Lindquist says, quote,
00:31:59
quote, DNA technology is rapidly advancing. If you're a criminal who left DNA at a crime scene,
00:32:04
you might as well turn yourself in now. We will eventually catch you, end quote.
00:32:09
That must have felt good to say. Yeah. Yeah. Coming for you. Yeah. Both men separately said they had been deep
00:32:15
in the throes of alcohol and drug addiction when they murdered these little girls,
00:32:20
which is like, shut the fuck up. Seriously. Robert Washburn pleads guilty and in 2021 he sentenced to 26 years and six months Lindsay Wade is there and says quote I don think there was a dry eye in the courtroom from the judge to one of the cameramen in the courtroom to people in the gallery I remember Patty
00:32:38
the mother, saying, do you know how many birthdays we missed? Do you know how many Christmases we
00:32:44
missed? Washburn gives a bare bones confession to grabbing Jennifer and strangling her,
00:32:51
but not to any other aspects of the crime. He kind of just remains blank throughout the proceedings.
00:32:58
Gary Hartman elects to have a bench trial, which he is aware will result in a guilty verdict,
00:33:05
but he doesn't actually plead guilty, which is shitty because you're putting the victim's family
00:33:08
through this whole trial. Right. And you know you're guilty. Like, you're not saying you're not.
00:33:11
I don't know. It's confounding. Yeah. His lawyer claims at the time of the murder,
00:33:17
he was so out of it, he didn't even remember doing it and only remembered after being arrested.
00:33:21
But the prosecutor says that while he was being investigated, he had told a co-worker, quote, 30 years ago, he had done something terrible and he thought he had been discovered, end quote.
00:33:31
So it just wasn't fucking true. He lived with it for 30 years. Yeah. Oh, I forgot until I got arrested.
00:33:38
But also I was fine with it. Yeah. Like I didn't I wasn't eaten alive by the guilt.
00:33:43
I wasn't like I didn't was not compelled to confess or do anything about it. Totally.
00:33:48
Totally. hartman is found guilty and is also sentenced to 26 years and six months gary hartman sobs throughout
00:33:56
the entire sentencing saying he's sorry while michelle's family gives statements then like why
00:34:02
did you put them through a fucking trial like you know what i mean yeah and i think it's easier
00:34:07
when people are like classic movie style psychopaths yeah so then it's just like yeah good
00:34:14
like you write it off. But then it's like, what do they mean? You're crying for who?
00:34:18
Yourself, maybe? I mean, for sure themselves. But it is like that idea. It's like you didn't hit and run a car.
00:34:24
Yeah. It's a very different thing. Totally. Totally. Michelle's little sister, Nicole, says, quote,
00:34:30
forgiveness is the only way to keep me from being infected by the continual pain and keep furthering it on.
00:34:37
I do not wish any harm to come to him because I would be the same spirit as him.
00:34:42
Though our lives are linked together because of this tragedy. I do not want to be of the same mindset
00:34:47
in harming others, end quote, which is like, holy shit. That is very wise and brave.
00:34:53
Yeah. In 2019, between the two men's legal proceedings, Patty and Teresa worked with Lindsay Wade
00:34:59
to pass Jennifer and Michelle's law in Washington state. This allows law enforcement to collect DNA samples
00:35:07
from deceased sex offenders, which would have significantly called Lindsay's database
00:35:11
when she was working on the cases. So it's just like, why do I have to file all this fucking paperwork to get this DNA sample?
00:35:18
Right. That should already be there. Yeah. It also requires people convicted of indecent exposure to give a DNA sample.
00:35:24
It's signed into law in May of 2019. And Patty Bastian and Jennifer's sister, Teresa, are there to see it happen.
00:35:32
Patty says she feels a sense of relief and accomplishment at what she, Lindsay, and lawmakers have gotten done in their home state.
00:35:39
But she also has her eyes set on the federal law. And that is the story of the murders of Jennifer Bastian and Michelle O. Welch,
00:35:47
the detectives who never gave up on finding their killers and the technology that eventually caught up with the evidence.
00:35:53
Unbelievable. Horrible. Yeah. And shocking. And like the idea that two little girls were killed that closely together in Tacoma is like,
00:36:04
it must have been so horrifying. And it was two different monsters. Two different people.
00:36:10
Yeah. Wow. Chilling. Thanks for giving a cold case a good ending. That's very satisfying.
00:36:17
Thank you. I was talking to Alejandra recently about like upcoming stories I could do. And I was
00:36:22
like, I think they're a little sick of the unsolved cold cases. Can we not do that?
00:36:28
I mean it terrible because there are so many And it frustrating when police agencies treat it Like oh well Yeah Like that is the part that does not drive me crazy that it feels like could be changing a little bit in that people are It like the cold case department is not this kind of afterthought anymore
00:36:52
It's like they're really working on stuff like that. Right. Yeah, for sure. Well, great job.
00:36:57
It's another great, concise, yet also kind of long, short episode. I think before we go on vacation, should we read everyone what they're doing right now?
00:37:07
Yes, we should. All right. You guys, we've asked you to tell us, hashtag, what are you even doing right now in comments
00:37:13
or emails or wherever you see fit? We really do love this window into your life as you listen to this podcast.
00:37:19
It's very exciting. So this one is from Ms. Beekman. It's from Instagram. And it says, what am I doing right now?
00:37:26
I'm getting ready to go on the first of many cottage vacations with the love of my life.
00:37:31
After spending years struggling with my value and connecting with others, I found someone
00:37:35
who loves every single part of me. Thank you for being an ally to the 2SLGBTQIA plus community
00:37:43
and keeping me company for many long lonely years with your words of comfort and encouragement.
00:37:48
Happy Pride Month. Hell yeah. Isn't that great? Get that love. Happy Pride. Gay rights.
00:37:55
Okay, here's a good one that you should look into as a summer job. This is from Tanya3334 on Instagram.
00:38:02
I'm listening while going to get a serotonin boost from my clients because I'm a professional pet sitter. Shout out to my clients consisting of
00:38:11
dogs, cats, a couple of goats, a few deer, and a gopher tortoise. Dream job for me.
00:38:19
How do you pet sit a tortoise? I mean, you're just like, here I am. I guess I'll just feed you
00:38:26
at four o'clock. And other than that, where I'm going to watch TV, watch TV and eat your ice cream.
00:38:31
We're going to do separate stuff, I guess. Hell yeah. Come together at mealtimes.
00:38:35
Guys, thank you so much for listening to us. We are about to go on vacation. So without further ado, stay sexy.
00:38:44
And don't get murdered. Bye! Elvis, do you want a cookie? Bye! Editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
00:39:07
This episode was mixed by Liana Squalache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Allie Elkin.
00:39:13
Email your hometowns to MyFavoriteMurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at MyFavoriteMurder and Twitter at MyFaveMurder.
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00:39:57
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