00:00:00
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Tacoma,
Washington, 1986. 12-year-old Michella Welch
and her two younger sisters
00:00:18
playing in a park
near their home. NICOLE EBY: I just
remember being scared a little
bit, like, uh-uh,
00:00:27
you know, where's Michella. And I think. At that time, I realized
something's really wrong.
00:00:35
NANCY GRACE: Later that
evening, Michella Welch's body discovered. RICH ROBINSON: Her clothes
had been ripped off,
00:00:41
she had clearly been beaten. She had been sexually assaulted. It didn't leave much
to the imagination
00:00:47
to investigators as to
what happened to her. NANCY GRACE: Then,
just five months later,
00:00:52
the body of another
young girl discovered just four miles from where
Michella Welch last seen alive.
00:01:01
These two murders, together,
ended Tacoma's innocence. NANCY GRACE: This
is the story of two
00:01:09
little girls, both kidnapped
and murdered just months apart. Are their cases connected?
00:01:16
Will they ever be solved? I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
00:01:47
Tacoma, Washington. 35 miles South of
Seattle in 1986, and has the feel
of a small city.
00:01:55
RICH ROBINSON: It was
a city, of course, but also had a distinctly
small town American feel.
00:02:01
Parents at that time
were able to feel assured that their
children would be safe.
00:02:09
Michella liked to create. She was very inventive
and liked to play games and create things.
00:02:13
And she loved to draw. So they would do-- they would
do a lot of drawing at home.
00:02:18
I had a record player
and we listened to music. And we would dance around
and sing songs and color.
00:02:25
NICOLE EBY: It was just the
three of us girls and my mom. That was pretty much my
whole life growing up.
00:02:32
She was a single mom
with three little girls. So we were our own
little family unit.
00:02:39
I think we all looked
out for each other. I know I looked up to
Michella just so much.
00:02:44
I was a little pain, and
she was my big inspiration. So, yeah. NANCY GRACE: It's 10:00 in
the morning on March 26, 1986.
00:02:55
12-year-old Michella Welch
takes her two little sisters, 11-year-old Angela
and 9-year-old Nicole,
00:03:02
to Puget park, where
there's a playground. It was my first
week at work and it was the girls' spring break.
00:03:10
The girls were old
enough not to have a babysitter for
a couple of hours until Linda could
come and check in.
00:03:15
So I went to work, Michelle
decided she wanted to take her sisters to the park. NICOLE EBY: At that
time, it was kind
00:03:23
of like, send your kids
off to go up play outside and, you know, come
home for dinner.
00:03:29
We arrived and we played
on the playground equipment for just a little bit. I don't know that any of
us really had a watch.
00:03:38
I don't remember that. I just remember getting hungry. RICH ROBINSON: Michella
realizes that they don't have
00:03:46
their lunches so
she volunteers to go back to allow her two younger
sisters to keep playing.
00:03:52
It's a beautiful day. And so she, as the older sister,
decides to get on her bike
00:03:57
and go back home and
get their lunches. The two younger sisters, they
have to go to the restroom
00:04:02
and so they leave the park
to go find a public restroom. By the time the two younger
sisters get back to the park,
00:04:09
they realize that their sister
Michella has been there, that she's left her
bike and it's locked up.
00:04:15
So they look around,
but they don't see her. The girls start to get worried. They call out for her.
00:04:21
They don't hear any response. NICOLE EBY: I just
remember being scared a little
bit, like, uh-uh,
00:04:29
you know, where's Michella? The park was right
next to a bridge, and you go over the bridge and
the bridge had this deep gully.
00:04:37
And that's where we had
been playing down there. And we went down looking
for her, calling for her.
00:04:44
But I remember the
babysitter showing up. And she was up at
the top of the hill.
00:04:49
And I remember she called us. She was like, Angie, Nikki. And my heart leapt. I was like, oh,
there's Michella.
00:04:59
And it wasn't. And I think, at that
time, I realized something's really wrong. MARK LINDQUIST: We don't
know a lot about what
00:05:09
happened after she returned. We know the lunches got there,
we know her bike got there.
00:05:16
And a witness reported
seeing her talking to a man who was pointing down a trail.
00:05:20
The babysitter, who was
starting to grow concerned, contacted Michella's mother.
00:05:26
Michella's mother
reported this to police. But back then, police didn't
want to immediately start
00:05:33
looking for kids because
it was normal for a kid to be absent for a few hours. BARBARA LEONARD: I left my
work, and this was about noon.
00:05:41
I drove over the speed limit
because I was suddenly alarmed. And Linda was there and
the girls were there,
00:05:47
but Michella was not there. So that's when I called 911. They told me, sorry, I had to
wait 24 hours before I could
00:05:54
file a missing person report. And I said, no, you
don't understand. She's 12 years old.
00:05:59
They said, well, she
probably went to the mall or with their girlfriends. And I said, no, she
wouldn't do that.
00:06:04
She doesn't have any money. I just had this big,
big fear in my heart. That was the feeling that I
had constantly after Michella
00:06:17
disappeared from the park. It was just a terror that's
tightening in your throat.
00:06:25
You don't know where
she is and who took her, or where she went. NANCY GRACE: Tacoma Police
want to wait 24 hours
00:06:34
before sounding the alarm,
but Michella's mother, Barbara, pushes them to start
searching for her daughter now.
00:06:43
Because Michella's
mother was insistent, police did take
the report and they did start looking for Michella.
00:06:50
And furthermore,
they called in people from around the community. There were volunteers searching.
00:06:56
There were first
responders searching. And they even had
a tracking dog. Word spread pretty
quickly in the community
00:07:03
that Michella was
missing, which is one of the reasons there
were so many volunteers
00:07:07
assisting the police. NANCY GRACE: The search
last well into the night. Just before midnight, a horrible
discovery is made by someone
00:07:16
searching with a tracking dog. RICH ROBINSON:
Michella's body was found in a deplorable state.
00:07:23
Her clothes had been ripped off,
she had clearly been beaten, she had been sexually assaulted.
00:07:28
It didn't leave much
to the imagination to investigators as to
what happened to her.
00:07:33
And it was despicable
and disgusting. Even the police were
shocked by this crime.
00:07:41
They hadn't seen anything like
it that they could remember. NICOLE EBY: I was in the
back of a police car,
00:07:46
and it was a female
police officer. And she explained
that they'd found her. And at the time, you
know, being nine,
00:08:05
I was just eating the
cookies and I just thinking, OK, my sister's not coming back.
00:08:16
I don't remember too many
conversations with mom. She just closed down. I think she wanted
to be strong for us
00:08:24
and she couldn't
process any of it. And it was just too painful. NANCY GRACE: Police
gather physical evidence
00:08:37
from the crime scene,
hoping it will lead to Michella Welch's killer. MARK LINDQUIST: Fortunately,
police collected everything
00:08:46
at that scene,
including semen samples, even though we didn't
yet have the technology
00:08:53
to pull DNA from those samples. RICH ROBINSON: One early
investigative action that was taken was to
look at the current list
00:09:02
of known sex offenders who lived
in the area around the park. And the police did
their due diligence.
00:09:09
And they quickly were able to
rule out all of those people. They all had alibis, or
were not in the area.
00:09:16
So they couldn't have
committed the murder. BARBARA LEONARD: They had told
me they had over 1,200 names
00:09:22
that they had gone through. And the case file
was a very thick one. They had lots of leads,
but nothing had panned out.
00:09:30
NANCY GRACE: Despite
their very best efforts, Tacoma Police cannot find
Michella Welch's murderer.
00:09:37
There's a child
killer on the loose. Parents in Tacoma
living in fear. The police did
not know who did it.
00:09:46
There was no good leads. And their children
could be next. I mean, it was absolutely
earth-shattering for parents,
00:09:56
and it also had lasting
impressions on many people. Just five months later,
in the summer of 1986,
00:10:07
another young girl
found murdered. Is there a serial
killer stalking Tacoma? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:10:18
[AUDIO LOGO] Tacoma, Washington, 1986. 12-year-old Michella
Welch goes missing while playing with her own
sisters in a small city park.
00:10:36
Hours later, Michella
found viciously murdered. Police stumped, they
can't find her killer.
00:10:44
Five months later, another young
girl in Tacoma goes missing. RICH ROBINSON: Tacoma is on
edge all throughout the summer.
00:10:55
But then things go to another
level on August 4, 1986. On that day, Jenny
Bastian from Tacoma
00:11:04
is on her bike, a brand
new Schwinn bicycle. She's excited. She's looking forward
to competitively using
00:11:12
this bike in upcoming races. She goes to Point Defiance Park. She's there in broad
daylight on her bike.
00:11:20
And it's the last time
that she's seen alive. PATTIE BASTIAN: She had been
practicing cycling in Point
00:11:27
Defiance because it
was nearby the house, near in terms of
a mile and a half. She rode usually with a friend.
00:11:35
And the two of them would ride
around the five mile drive and then lounge in the
grass by the duck pond,
00:11:41
and then they'd come home. On August 4th,
the friend she was normally riding with
was busy and so she
00:11:49
sent a note to her father. I saw a note from Jenny
on the kitchen table, and it said she was going for
a bike ride at Point Defiance
00:11:56
Park and she'd be back at 6:30. And I wrote a note saying
I was going to the movies.
00:12:03
And I left my note
next to her note. My dad picked me up
from the theater. And I walked up to the
car and I could see he was
00:12:11
crying in the driver's seat. So I knew something
was very wrong. And he just looked at me
and he said Jenny hasn't
00:12:17
come home from her bike ride. NANCY GRACE: Jennifer's father
frantically searching the park.
00:12:24
Shortly after, the
family calls police. Given that Michella's murder
had happened only a few months
00:12:31
before, police
responded immediately to the disappearance
of Jenny Bastian, and they responded in force.
00:12:40
I don't think
it was 10 minutes and there were two officers
on our front porch. MARK LINDQUIST: There
was a massive search
00:12:48
that night involving police
first responders, volunteers. And it went on for days,
and days, and days.
00:12:59
PATTIE BASTIAN: We were assigned
a detective, a detective that came every morning
to our front porch
00:13:06
to tell us where they were going
to look for Jennifer that day. And that same
detective came back
00:13:14
to the house in
the evening to tell us the results of that search. I can't imagine a
human having that task.
00:13:23
To go in the morning, to talk
to parents of a missing child, and go at night and admit
they still hadn't found her.
00:13:34
NANCY GRACE: Days
turn into weeks and Jennifer's family
fears the worst. Then, they get a visit from
the mother of Michella Welch,
00:13:42
the little girl who was murdered
in another Tacoma park, just five months before.
00:13:49
She was very angry. She would admit, she said,
I did not want to see you. She said, I wouldn't
not want to admit
00:13:56
that's what happened
to my daughter, that she had been murdered. PATTIE BASTIAN: She
gave us her sympathy,
00:14:01
talked about how hard it was
and that she was there for us. I mean, very, very well meaning.
00:14:08
But I also remember after she
left and I closed the door, I said to my friend, I don't
know what she's doing here.
00:14:17
Her daughter's dead, mine's not. NANCY GRACE: Any mom
can understand just how Pattie Bastian feels
when she gets a visit
00:14:27
from Michella's mom Barbara. If there's any hope,
a desperate parent will never admit
something horrible
00:14:35
has happened to their child. Four weeks after
Jennifer's disappearance, Pattie Bastian gets
a visit from a Tacoma
00:14:43
Police family liaison officer. PATTIE BASTIAN: I was up on
the ladder with the roller,
00:14:50
painting the dining room when
he walked in the front door. It was hot. It was August.
00:14:56
The doors were open. And by then, he was
part of the family. He walked in, he took the
roller out of my hand,
00:15:03
he sat me down in a chair,
and he said, we found her. That was how I found out
that they had found Jennifer.
00:15:13
RICH ROBINSON: Four weeks
after her disappearance, a jogger discovers a foul odor
while running through the park.
00:15:23
This triggers a
cascade of events that lead to the discovery
of Jennifer's body.
00:15:29
MARK LINDQUIST: Because
almost a month had passed, the body was
somewhat decomposed.
00:15:34
Police, of course, collected
everything they could, including her
clothing, which would
00:15:40
later prove to be critical. RICH ROBINSON: Jennifer's body
was totally unrecognizable.
00:15:46
She had been out in the
elements for four weeks. She had been strangled to death.
00:15:52
She had been sexually assaulted. Her bicycle had been covered
intentionally by debris
00:15:59
and leaves, and so had her body. MARK LINDQUIST: We
don't know, and we will never know
exactly what happened
00:16:06
shortly before Jenny's death. We do know, however,
from Jenny's injuries that she likely
fought very hard for her life.
00:16:17
Police now on the hunt. They're investigating two
homicides of two girls, both of similar
age, both kidnapped
00:16:27
from Tacoma city parks. Their murders separated
by just five short months. Investigators suspect a
serial killer on the loose.
00:16:36
Police also need to
keep Jennifer's remains for an extensive autopsy. They have to tell
grieving parents
00:16:45
they're not ready to
release the little body to the family for burial. PATTIE BASTIAN: I
would say, as a parent,
00:16:55
that is among the hardest
things you will ever do. And I hope nobody
ever has to do it.
00:17:02
When the poor officer
was telling me that they could not
release her body, I just started pounding on him.
00:17:09
What do you mean you
can't release her body? We can't have a
funeral without a body.
00:17:13
And he finally just hugged me
to get me to stop hitting him. And ultimately, they
said that her body
00:17:21
would be in the coffin. She would be brought to church. And then after the
service, they would
00:17:26
take her back to the
medical examiner's office. The parish priest
really did a nice job
00:17:33
in trying to include all
of Jennifer's friends who were present and
the whole community.
00:17:39
Because the funeral
service was attended by a real cross-section
of the entire community.
00:17:47
And a lot of law
enforcement were there too. MARK LINDQUIST: This was a
huge case for the community.
00:17:54
There was massive effort applied
by Tacoma police department. And yet, both of
these cases went cold.
00:18:03
PATTIE BASTIAN: They were
telling us they weren't going to call these closed
or cold cases,
00:18:08
but they were not going to be
as active as they had been. There were no more leads
for them to follow up on.
00:18:16
And of course, it made sense. NANCY GRACE: Solid
evidence is hard to come by despite the similarities
between the two child murders.
00:18:26
RICH ROBINSON: The murders have
a tremendous amount in common. Obviously, they both
happen in parks.
00:18:31
They both take place
in the daytime. They're both preying on the
same profile of individual,
00:18:37
both young girls who
frankly look very similar and have similar
physical features.
00:18:43
It doesn't take an expert
investigator to look at that and say, we got somebody who's
targeting specific people
00:18:50
in our community. And so the police, obviously,
think that they're connected. Put yourself in the position
of the people of Tacoma.
00:19:01
In a matter of five months,
you have two little girls, cute, innocent little girls.
00:19:09
Both blond, both blue-eyed, who
have gone completely missing. And then were found killed.
00:19:17
The suspect, completely
on the loose. The police have no good leads. Put yourself in that position.
00:19:27
In their mind, there is
a serial killer preying on the children of this city. And the police have no
clue how to stop them.
00:19:37
NANCY GRACE: As we see next
on "Bloodline Detectives," it will take another 30
years before a new generation
00:19:44
of detectives can
unmask whoever stole the lives of little Jennifer
Bastian and Michella Welch.
00:19:53
[AUDIO LOGO] Tacoma, Washington, 1986. 12-year-old Michella
Welch disappears one morning while playing
with her little sisters
00:20:09
in a small city park. Just hours later, her body
found in a remote area. Then five months later,
13-year-old Jennifer Bastian
00:20:22
goes for a bike ride
in another Tacoma Park. A month after, her
body discovered.
00:20:29
Police hunt down
every available lead. But ultimately, both
child murders go cold.
00:20:37
Then, 2011,
pioneering DNA science gives investigators a shot at
cracking these child murders.
00:20:49
RICH ROBINSON: The police
are able to determine that, in fact, it was
two separate people who
00:20:54
committed these heinous crimes. They're able to come
to this understanding because of even further
developments in DNA technology.
00:21:05
The two profiles from the two
semen samples on the two girls don't match. They're two different
people, two different men.
00:21:14
And that means two
different killers. The manner of death
is so similar. The locations are so similar.
00:21:23
The places where the bodies
are found are so similar. We could go on and on. And it turns out that
they're not connected.
00:21:31
Shocking. NANCY GRACE: Detectives
now place their hopes with CeCe Moore and her team at
Parabon NanoLabs, specialists
00:21:41
in forensic genetic genealogy. They are using a new scientific
technique that is already
00:21:48
solving many, many cold cases. Our goal is to
provide the smallest number of persons of interest
possible to law enforcement.
00:21:58
And that is really the power
of investigative genetic genealogy, that we can
rule out the vast majority
00:22:04
of the population
when we do this work. And then, DNA
phenotyping can help to narrow it down even
further and eliminate
00:22:12
more of those individuals. And so it really helps
to make investigations much more efficient
and much more focused.
00:22:19
In this case, the
phenotyping predicted that Michella's
killer had brown hair, brown eyes, and fair skin.
00:22:27
Now, of course, that's
not that unique. There's millions of
people who would fit that,
00:22:31
but it does help
us to potentially eliminate people who
have lighter hair, lighter eyes, darker skin.
00:22:40
Researchers at
Parabon NanoLabs are making significant
progress, but it's still not enough to narrow
down possible suspects.
00:22:49
CeCe Moore and her team
turned to genetic genealogy to try and build the
killers' family tree.
00:23:00
So fortunately, we had
enough data on this case for me to be able to
formulate a hypothesis
00:23:07
in only about two days. Once I get a little
further back in the tree, I can connect into those
traditional genealogical
00:23:14
records, like census
records, birth records, marriage records. But it is often a real
challenge to get to that point.
00:23:22
So I spend a lot of time
in newspaper archives and obituaries, on social media,
using people search databases.
00:23:30
Just trying to figure
out who these people are, who their parents
and grandparents are.
00:23:35
It gets easier once I
get back to the level of great grandparents
or so because then I
00:23:40
can use those traditional
genealogical records. But in order to
get to that point,
00:23:45
it often takes a
lot of creativity. What I'm looking for
is that one person or that set of siblings that
is related to all of those top
00:23:53
matches. And when we're able
to find matches that connect to multiple
branches of someone's family
00:24:00
tree, that gives us a really
high confidence theory about who that killer might be.
00:24:06
NANCY GRACE: Using a high
quality DNA sample extracted from the killer's sperm,
the team at Parabon NanoLabs
00:24:13
makes a remarkable breakthrough. I was able to come to a
really strong hypothesis
00:24:19
about who Michella's
killer might be. Now I could only narrow
it down to this one
00:24:25
immediate family,
which meant there were two persons of interest. Because there were two
brothers in this family
00:24:30
and they both lived
in the area, they were both in the right
position in the tree
00:24:35
and had the correct ancestral
mix to be Michella's killer. I can't take it any
farther with investigative
00:24:41
genetic genealogy. At that point, I have to
turn that information over to law enforcement.
00:24:52
RICH ROBINSON: Parabon
NanoLabs is able to give investigators gold, amazingly. Their technology
is able to figure
00:25:02
out the last name
of the suspect's DNA that they're looking at. And the name they
give them is Hartman.
00:25:12
CECE MOORE: When I
presented my hypothesis about who Michella's killer
could be, they were blown away.
00:25:19
You know, this was
really early days for investigative
genetic genealogy. It was one of the first
successful identifications
00:25:26
using these techniques. And so I'm not
sure how confident they were that I would
actually be able to narrow
00:25:33
it down so dramatically. They had looked at dozens,
if not hundreds, of persons of interest over the decades
of investigating this case
00:25:42
and they had never
heard of Gary Hartman. And so when I said that
name, I don't think
00:25:48
they initially recognized it. It wasn't somebody
they had investigated. It wasn't somebody who'd
been under suspicion.
00:25:55
He wasn't in their file. And so they were just blown
away when they got that name.
00:26:01
And I know as I
was presenting all of my evidence
and my hypotheses, they immediately
started jumping in,
00:26:08
entering his name
into their databases and seeing what they could find. And so, I don't have access
to law enforcement databases,
00:26:15
I can only use
public information. And so I can only
take something so far, whatever's out
there in the public.
00:26:21
And I couldn't find much
information about him. And so the detectives
on this case
00:26:26
very quickly jumped in and
tried to find everything they could about
these two brothers,
00:26:31
and specifically
about Gary Hartman. NANCY GRACE: Gary
Hartman becomes the prime suspect in the
murder of Michella Welch.
00:26:40
But there's still
another active child murder investigation from 1986. Remember Jennifer Bastian?
00:26:48
Detective Lindsey Wade
turns her attention to the other Tacoma
child murder. RICH ROBINSON: Lindsey
Wade is a very interesting
00:26:57
character in this story. First of all, she's from Tacoma,
and was an 11-year-old girl
00:27:04
at the time of the murders. So she was very, very
influenced by what happened. THERESA BASTIAN: She's amazing
and tenacious and so smart.
00:27:17
Mom had set up a visit
to the Tacoma Police so I got to meet Detective
Wade and actually see
00:27:23
the binders of leads that had
been called in on my sister's case over the years.
00:27:29
So she had them make
a computer program so that every male name, whether
they called in a tip or they
00:27:36
were named in a tip, it went
in this computer system. She matched them
against the database
00:27:41
to see if they were ever
convicted of a crime, charged with the crime. And then she color coded it.
00:27:46
If it was a violent crime
or crime against a person, it was a different color. So then, those are the
ones she went after first.
00:27:53
Because if she could get DNA
from their previous crimes or if they would offer their
DNA, it would be a quick match
00:28:00
or rule out. And she just went methodically
down this list of names. RICH ROBINSON: She's able to
get those multiple thousands
00:28:10
of people's names. They're able to get it down
to a group of 160 people. Those 160, and
Detective Wade's mine,
00:28:19
are the most likely suspects. And she wants to get
voluntary DNA evidence from all of those individuals.
00:28:27
So who does she call? The FBI. The Federal Bureau
of Investigations works with Detective Wade.
00:28:35
And they go alphabetically in
a systematic fashion in groups of people to get DNA
from these individuals
00:28:42
on a voluntary basis. NANCY GRACE: Detective
Lindsey Wade and the FBI worked methodically through the
list of 160 potential suspects.
00:28:52
One man, Robert
Washburn, becomes the POI, person of interest. Washburn was one of the
many potential suspects
00:29:03
that the FBI asked for
voluntary DNA samples from. And interestingly, when Washburn
was contacted by the FBI,
00:29:15
one of the first
things out of his mouth was, I didn't kill
that little girl. NANCY GRACE: Then the case
takes a strange twist.
00:29:23
Back in 1986, in the months
following the murders, Robert Washburn calls police
to offer a tip he says
00:29:31
would help their investigation. MARK LINDQUIST: Obviously, there
is something wrong in Robert
00:29:36
Washburn's head. Once he gave a DNA
sample to the FBI, he had to know we would
be coming for him.
00:29:45
He had been on the TDP
radar since the day he called in a tip on the
Michella Welch murder.
00:29:55
It's taken 30 long
years to narrow down the suspect list to
just two men, Gary Hartman and Robert Washburn.
00:30:04
But is the evidence
strong enough to convict either one of them? That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives."
00:30:12
[AUDIO LOGO] Tacoma, Washington State, 1986. Two young girls murdered
just months apart.
00:30:27
The first victim,
12-year-old Michella Welch, murdered in a small Tacoma park. The second child victim is
13-year-old Jennifer Bastian.
00:30:38
Her body found five months after
little Michella is murdered. Jennifer disappeared
from another Tacoma park.
00:30:47
One month later,
her body discovered. Both homicide investigations
ultimately go cold.
00:30:55
Pioneering DNA technology
provides a breakthrough. Parabon NanoLabs, specialists
in forensic genetic genealogy,
00:31:04
identify now 70-year-old Gary
Hartman as the prime suspect in Michella Welch's murder.
00:31:13
Meanwhile, Tacoma detectives
ID another suspect, Robert Washburn, as their main interest
in Jennifer Bastian's homicide.
00:31:25
Gary Hartman, at this point,
he's an unsuspecting average looking guy. He's a nurse.
00:31:32
He certainly doesn't fit
the profile of a murderer. The police have to
get more evidence.
00:31:38
It's not enough to take what
a private company gives you with some new science
that wouldn't have been
00:31:44
admissible a few years prior. They need more. So they hone in on Gary
and they follow him.
00:31:51
They tag him. And they eventually are able
to follow him to a restaurant where he's having lunch
with some coworkers.
00:31:58
They watch him
throw away his tray. And after everyone leaves, the
investigator goes and grabs
00:32:06
some DNA off of a napkin. That DNA is tested
and it matches the DNA provided by the
genealogy test done earlier.
00:32:16
That was our hit
on Gary Hartman. That was our
probable cause, that was our nail in his coffin,
that was enough to move on.
00:32:25
With the DNA hit, we
had our probable cause. We had enough for
an arrest warrant.
00:32:30
And we picked Hartman
up, and we charged him with murder and rape. My best friend up
in Washington State
00:32:37
called me and she said,
Nikki, did you hear? It's just on the news
that they arrested someone
00:32:43
for the murder of your sister. And I was floored. ANGELA VELASQUEZ:
After 30 years,
00:32:49
we've changed quite a bit. I wouldn't have
recognized him at all. If I had seen him that day
or if he had approached me,
00:32:59
I would not have recognized him. He could very well
have been the man that was at the park that day.
00:33:05
After the arraignment,
I found out that he had lived not
far, if not right across,
00:33:10
from the park. So he could have
watched us that day. NANCY GRACE: 30 long
years after the murder
00:33:17
of 12-year-old
Michella Welch, now 70-year-old Gary Hartman charged
with her vicious killing.
00:33:25
He agrees to a
non-jury bench trial. That's when a judge, not
a jury, hears the evidence
00:33:33
and determines
guilt or innocence. In our business, we sometimes
call this a slow guilty plea.
00:33:41
I wanted to hurt him but I
knew that the court system, the justice system, would
take care of what they need
00:33:48
to if he indeed was the one. And he fit-- he fit the picture,
but he didn't look like it.
00:33:53
He did not look like a criminal. MARK LINDQUIST: Throughout
the sentencing, Hartman cried.
00:34:00
He sobbed loudly. When the victim's family
spoke, he apologized. But I think he was just
sorry he was caught.
00:34:11
While the sentence itself
was relatively lenient in my opinion, 26
years, he's still going
00:34:18
to end up dying in prison. NANCY GRACE: Police and
prosecutors satisfied. Justice is served in
Michella Welch's murder case.
00:34:28
Gary Hartman will never again
be a danger to little girls. Now Tacoma detectives
turn their attention
00:34:37
to Jennifer Bastian's murder. That's next on
"Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO]
00:34:51
Tacoma, Washington. Detectives make a
solid arrest in one of two horrible child
murders taking place
00:34:59
five months apart back in 1986. One was the murder of
12-year-old Michella Welch.
00:35:06
Now, investigators turn their
attention to 61-year-old Robert Washburn, the main suspect
in the brutal murder of
00:35:16
13-year-old Jennifer Bastian. MARK LINDQUIST: Washburn gave up
his DNA voluntarily to the FBI.
00:35:26
He knew this day was coming. And so I wasn't surprised when
he stepped up and pled guilty.
00:35:33
NANCY GRACE: Robert Washburn's
guilty plea finally brings relief to Jennifer's family.
00:35:39
And he gets a long jail
sentence, effectively life behind bars, sparing Jennifer
Sebastian's loved ones
00:35:47
the pain of a lengthy trial. THERESA BASTIAN:
Standing trial, facing that was frightening to me.
00:35:56
On occasion, it made me really
sick because I didn't want to hear anything about the how.
00:36:05
I didn't want to hear
anything like that. I know that probably sounds
strange that a mother wouldn't
00:36:14
want to know all the details. But I don't know. I didn't. I got the cause of death,
I knew where she was.
00:36:25
In my mind, Ralph and I both
made up this wonderful story about, if the last
thing she saw on Earth
00:36:32
were the gorgeous trees
in that forest, at least she saw the beautiful
trees in the forest.
00:36:42
NANCY GRACE: Three
decades later, the mothers of Michella
Welch and Jennifer Bastian
00:36:48
are now close friends. Their bond forged by
tragedy, yet a bond that gives them both comfort.
00:36:58
Pattie and I get
together on the phone and we talk every once in
a while about the situation
00:37:02
and what's going on in our
lives and with our children. Pattie is a great
person to know.
00:37:07
She's been a very
good comfort to me. NANCY GRACE: Two little
girls, their lives taken.
00:37:14
A community changed forever. It takes more than
30 years for Tacoma to finally face the reality
of how the world around them
00:37:24
has changed. One of the things that I've
heard from people who spent their entire lives in Tacoma is
that these two murders together
00:37:35
ended Tacoma innocence. These murders changed
the way parents viewed Tacoma, and changed the
way parents viewed the world.
00:37:44
To have both of
these men put away, certainly exercise a boogeyman
in a horror that haunted
00:37:51
that community for many years. NANCY GRACE: These
two 30-year-old murder cases are finally closed.
00:37:59
Pioneering genetic
genealogy solves one of them and relentless detective
work solves the other.
00:38:09
I think it's very safe
to say that if it wasn't for the advent of a new
form of crime fighting
00:38:16
in forensic genetic
genealogy, that these cases would have never been solved. NICOLE EBY: I'm very
impressed with her
00:38:25
as a detective and her
investigative abilities, but I'm also happy
to call her a friend.
00:38:34
NANCY GRACE: The tragic murders
of these two little girls results in some positive
change, a new law passed
00:38:42
in their names, Michella
and Jennifer's law, a law that allows
the use of technology
00:38:48
to solve homicide cases. We worked with
Senator Tina Orwell to get designed this law so
that upon arrest of a felony,
00:39:03
DNA would be taken. And it was a two-year
process getting it through the legislature
but it happened, and we're
00:39:10
very, very pleased that it did. NANCY GRACE: But even after
30 years, the pain of loss
00:39:16
remains very real
to their families. I loved my sister. I had such a connection yet,
I don't have that anymore, so.
00:39:35
I think going through the
healing, the counseling I've been going through,
it's helped me
00:39:42
to realize that I need
to cultivate a deeper relationship with Angie. Sad that it's taken me
this time in my life
00:39:56
to come to that
conclusion, but I think that tragedy can
separate people, but it also can
bring them together.
00:40:06
NANCY GRACE: The brutal
and tragic murders of Michella Welch
and Jennifer Bastian
00:40:12
have forever scarred
their families, their siblings, their mothers. The family's grief that
they live with every day
00:40:21
has been helped somewhat by
forensic genetic genealogy and the miracles that it can work.
00:40:32
Their shared
experience as mothers also eases a pain that
will never go away. They rely on each other to keep
their daughter's spirits alive.
00:40:46
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us
here on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]