0:01

This is Exactly Right. I'm

0:08

Kate Winkler Dawson, a journalist, author,

0:10

and podcast host. And I'm

0:12

Paul Holes, a retired investigator with experience

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solving some of America's most notorious cold

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Bones, a historical true crime podcast

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on the Exactly Right Network. Each

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history and use our years of experience

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and 21st century forensics to bring new

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the time the sausage king of Chicago's wife

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0:59

Hello. And welcome. To my

1:01

favorite murder. That's

1:04

Georgia Hartstark. That's Karen Kilgara.

1:07

Welcome. It's

1:09

crazy how synced our highs are.

1:11

Hello's. What do we say? Hello's?

1:14

In person. Yes. Rather

1:17

than over Zoom. It's so much easier to do everything in person.

1:19

It's freaked me out. Like every time we've done it that we

1:21

weren't exactly in sync. Yes.

1:23

It's made difficulties. I think we should go back to

1:25

Zoom. Okay. Bye. Okay.

1:29

Hey everyone. This is the second and

1:31

last episode of our little vacay prerecord.

1:34

So we're going to have a quick

1:36

intro. I'm going to do a

1:38

story solo. It's long. It's

1:41

good. And then we'll be back in your arms

1:43

on the 4th of July. That's right.

1:45

Also, just really quick, just a little bit

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of business. Don't forget to

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lastly, as a favor to us,

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we would love it if you would rate and

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review this show over on Apple

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podcasts, really anywhere you listen, but

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on Apple podcasts, it actually

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affects the algorithm. It affects everything.

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So it affects

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our sleep. Also

2:49

if you want to look at us on

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a Saturday or any day, really, we

2:54

have been making videos for Instagram and

2:56

TikTok for my favorite murder. Karen's doing

2:59

sinkhole Saturdays where she rates and

3:01

reviews sinkholes. I've been

3:03

doing get ready with me where I

3:05

have my dog cookie pick out my

3:07

outfit and I mean, what more does

3:09

one need? It's called middle age content

3:11

and you're going to love it no

3:13

matter what grade you're in. It's

3:16

called this is what we've been supposed to

3:18

be doing for the whole time. All

3:22

right. It's George's turn. Take us away. All

3:25

right. Just down my can of Rosé. Perfect.

3:27

And you know what that means. Do you

3:31

know that? I don't know what that means. Do you know what

3:33

that means? So today's story straight

3:35

up is about the murders of two

3:37

children. Takes place in

3:39

Tacoma, Washington. They went unsolved for

3:42

more than 30 years. One of

3:44

those ones that I followed. It's

3:46

just heartbreaking. And finally,

3:48

thanks to the dogged work of some

3:51

cold case detectives, families that never gave

3:53

up their quest for answers and advances

3:55

in technology. There was eventually some

3:57

justice for these two girls and these cases

3:59

were resolved. Great. Yes. This

4:01

is the story of Jennifer Bastian

4:04

and Michelle Welch. And

4:06

I think for a lot of people from

4:08

the 80s in the Tacoma area, this is

4:10

like an old wound that

4:13

has stuck with them for sure. Yes.

4:16

The main sources I use for the story

4:18

are an episode of Dateline called Evil Was

4:20

Watching and an episode of Cold Case

4:22

Files called Taken in Tacoma. There's also a

4:25

book called In My DNA and the book

4:27

is written by Lindsay Wade, who's one of

4:29

the cold case detectives who eventually solves this

4:31

case. She's really awesome. The

4:33

rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. So

4:36

here we are Tacoma, Washington. It's

4:39

1986. Tacoma is a quiet

4:41

blue collar working class town,

4:44

quintessential Pacific Northwest, safe.

4:46

It's the 80s. Kids are riding their bikes, you

4:48

know, tell the street lights go on, that kind

4:50

of thing. You know, Jennifer Bastian is

4:53

13 years old and lives with her parents,

4:55

obviously Patricia and Ralph and her 15 year

4:57

old sister Teresa. Her mom says,

4:59

quote, Jennifer was a bundle of energy. She was

5:01

ready to go at a moment's notice. Jennifer

5:04

loves sports and never can never

5:06

sit still. Her sister says she

5:08

was prone to getting up from the dining room

5:10

table and just starting to do acrobatics like in

5:12

the middle of the living room during dinner. She

5:14

just had a lot of energy. Yeah. It was

5:16

a big time for back walkovers. The mid

5:19

to early 80s. Yeah. Mary Lou Renton was

5:21

all the rage. We all wanted to be

5:23

like her. Yeah. So on August 4th, 1986,

5:25

it's a beautiful day in Tacoma.

5:29

Jennifer leaves the house on her bike.

5:32

She's supposed to go on a long

5:34

distance cycling trip soon with a group from

5:36

the YMCA. And so Jennifer is

5:38

kind of small for her age. She's

5:40

pretty and blonde and she's determined not

5:43

to be the slowest on this bike trip.

5:45

So she's been practicing a lot. Usually

5:47

she goes out with a friend, but today her friend

5:49

is busy and she goes by herself. Jennifer

5:51

heads out to Point Defiance Park

5:54

and Park is a misleading. It's a

5:56

sprawling 760 acre expanse. with

6:01

densely wooded areas, Pacific Northwest,

6:03

a zoo, a beach. It

6:06

jets out on a little peninsula into the

6:08

Puget Sound, has sheer cliffs that drop off

6:10

into the water. So it's actually like pretty

6:12

wild, but people are always there, people

6:14

love it. Her parents know this is her plan

6:16

and she leaves a note saying she'll be home

6:18

by 6.30. At

6:21

6.30, Jennifer doesn't show up for dinner and

6:23

her parents just immediately know something is wrong.

6:25

At 8.30, they called the police that

6:28

evening. Teresa, Jennifer's sister had been out at the

6:30

movies and her father picks her up at 9

6:32

p.m. And he

6:34

tells her that Jennifer hasn't come home

6:37

and Teresa says, quote, his voice cracked

6:39

and I could see he had been

6:41

crying and I knew that something was

6:43

very wrong. Yeah, police

6:45

take a piece of Jennifer's clothing and give it

6:47

to bloodhounds to try to track her from the

6:50

park, the dogs track her to

6:52

the park to an area called the Five

6:54

Mile Drive that goes around the peninsula, but

6:56

after that, they lose the scent. So

6:59

over the course of the next three days,

7:01

police officers are on foot and on horseback

7:03

along with volunteers and they search the densely

7:05

wooded park and they don't find any trace

7:07

of Jennifer. Meanwhile,

7:10

back at the Bastion household, Patty,

7:12

the mother, answers a knock at

7:14

the door and finds

7:16

a woman named Barbara Welch

7:18

there. Barbara tells

7:20

Patty she is there to

7:23

offer emotional support as

7:25

just weeks earlier on the other side

7:27

of Puget Sound, Barbara's own pretty blonde

7:29

daughter had gone missing. Oh no. This

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off your first purchase of a website or

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domain. Goodbye. So

8:47

we're going back to the morning of March

8:49

26th, 1986. We

8:52

were in August, now we're back in March and

8:54

12 year old Michelle Welch is

8:57

at Puget Park with her two

8:59

little sisters, Nicole and Angela. And

9:01

this story, the side

9:03

of circumstances has stuck with me for so

9:05

fucking long. The girls

9:07

have a regular babysitter, but today Michelle is

9:09

in charge and the way

9:12

her sisters describe her, she takes great care

9:14

of them. She's a really great kind

9:16

of bossy older sister. The

9:18

girl's mom Barbara is raising them on her own

9:21

and she works hard to support her family. She's

9:24

recently bought the family home and Tacoma's North End.

9:27

Michelle has long blonde hair, is on

9:29

the small side for her age, she

9:31

wears glasses. About her

9:33

sister Nicole says she was just a beautiful

9:35

child, she loved music, she was amazing artist,

9:37

she played the piano, she played the violin,

9:40

she loved to read, definitely the bossy older

9:42

sister. It's

9:44

spring break so Barbara, the mom is working, but there's

9:46

no school, so the girls are supposed to have a

9:49

piano lesson later that day and the

9:51

piano teacher lives right near Puget Park.

9:53

So the girls had gotten permission to

9:55

play at the park for a half

9:57

hour before the piano lesson. But

10:00

the girls decide to bend the

10:02

rules and they leave like almost

10:04

three hours before the piano listen to

10:06

play around 10 a.m. At

10:09

about 11 a.m., the girls realize they'd

10:11

left their lunch at home. Hmm. Michelle

10:14

bikes home to get it. While Michelle is

10:16

at home, her sisters need to use the

10:18

bathroom so they leave the park

10:20

and go to a local business because there's no

10:22

bathroom at the park. When they

10:24

return to the playground area, they see their

10:27

sister's bike. She had come back and

10:29

their lunches on a picnic table. But

10:32

there's no sign of their sister,

10:34

Michelle. So scary. It

10:37

looks like Michelle got back when they were using the

10:39

bathroom and then maybe wandered off to look for them. Heartbreaks

10:44

for them. Yeah. Angela

10:46

says, quote, Her bike was locked up and

10:48

the bag was ripped open. It was very

10:50

bizarre. And we went looking and quote the

10:53

two girls do their family

10:55

call, which is the pre

10:57

cell phone era. The family uses this

10:59

call in crowds to locate each other.

11:02

It's like a you who. So

11:04

they wander around doing the you who they

11:06

don't hear anything. So they call the babysitter.

11:08

The babysitter calls the girls mom and the

11:10

police and Barbara races to the scene and

11:13

police officers search the park starting at about

11:15

three p.m. Hmm. Barbara

11:17

says about that period waiting for her daughter

11:19

to be found. Quote, There's an emptiness there.

11:22

Time sort of stands still. At

11:25

11 p.m., police find Michelle, his

11:27

body in the Gulch near

11:29

a makeshift fire pit about a quarter of a

11:31

mile from the picnic tables. She

11:34

has been killed by blunt force trauma to the head as

11:36

well as a cut to her neck. And

11:39

there's evidence that she's been sexually assaulted.

11:41

God. Michelle, his mother,

11:43

Barbara, is sitting in a police car when

11:45

she gets the news that her daughter has

11:47

been found. In

11:50

the investigation that follows police canvassed the area

11:52

and interviewed everyone they can find who is

11:54

in the park. One of Michelle

11:56

is classmates who is at the park that day says he saw

11:58

a man standing under was near the

12:00

playground. He says he noticed this man seemed to be

12:02

watching the girls. He's able to

12:04

give enough details for a composite sketch. And

12:06

a long list of people are questioned. But

12:08

over the next couple of months, no one

12:11

emerges as a compelling suspect. So

12:14

when Barbara hears in August about

12:16

another young girl going missing in

12:19

the area, Jennifer Bastian,

12:21

Barbara decides to act and goes to

12:23

their house to offer emotional support. On

12:26

August 26, 22 days after

12:28

Jennifer first goes missing, a jogger on

12:31

one of the wooded trails in the park notices

12:33

a smell. He alerts

12:35

park police. They come and can't find

12:37

anything. They bring a dog. They don't find

12:39

anything. But I think they all

12:41

kind of knew what they were looking

12:43

for at that point because of the smell. So

12:46

it takes two more days for searchers to

12:48

find Jennifer's body. She's not far

12:50

from 5 Mile Drive. It

12:52

appears she had been sexually assaulted. And

12:55

she had a thin ligature mark on her neck, which

12:57

a later autopsy will determine to be the cause

13:00

of death. And her bike is

13:02

found nearby, about 60 feet away. The

13:05

area where Jennifer was found is about 150 feet from the actual trail.

13:09

And at the time, the coroner says it looks

13:11

like the area had been chosen and prepared in

13:14

advance. So

13:17

obviously, life changes completely for

13:19

the children in Tacoma after these

13:21

two girls are murdered. They're

13:24

no longer allowed to go out and

13:26

ride their bikes unsupervised. Everyone is on

13:28

edge thinking there's a potential serial killer

13:30

targeting young girls. It's just terrifying time

13:32

in Tacoma. Because of

13:34

the similarities between Jennifer and Michelle as murders

13:36

and the similarities between the girls themselves, they

13:38

do look like law enforcement also

13:40

believes they're looking for one killer. Puget

13:42

Park and Point Defiance Park are both

13:45

in Tacoma's north end. They're only about

13:47

three miles from each other. So

13:50

like in Michelle's case, many people reported

13:52

crossing paths with Jennifer the afternoon and

13:54

evening she went missing. Among

13:56

them were some classmates of Jennifer's who said they

13:58

saw a man wearing her fur. reflective sunglasses,

14:00

riding a bike, closely behind Jennifer, like

14:03

seemingly keeping pace with her. A

14:06

composite sketch is made of this man too.

14:08

The two sketches from both cases don't look

14:10

terribly different from each other. They kind of look like

14:12

the same person. So everyone's assuming this is one killer.

14:16

Detectives get lots of tips, but ultimately

14:18

the investigation doesn't make any headway. They have

14:20

nothing to go on. It's the eighties. There's

14:22

no DNA to like really test.

14:26

They keep meticulous records of every

14:28

lead, thousands of names. Eventually

14:30

the leads dry up and the case

14:32

goes cold. A patrol officer named Jean

14:34

Miller works on these two cases when

14:37

they first happen. And then

14:39

through the rest of his career, as he becomes a

14:41

detective and moves up through the ranks, Jean

14:43

says, quote, it's a very difficult thing

14:45

to be intimately involved in these investigations

14:48

and to not be making progress. End

14:50

quote. So still

14:52

in the summer of 1986, there's

14:55

another little girl who likes to ride her

14:57

bike all over Tacoma. She's 11 and

14:59

her name is Lindsay Jackson, though

15:01

we'll eventually know her as detective Lindsay

15:04

Wade. Lindsay

15:06

says that after the two killings, she and

15:08

her friends were afraid to ride their bikes.

15:11

In her book, in my DNA, she

15:13

writes, quote, before the killings, I was

15:15

a carefree kid, oblivious to the dangers

15:17

lurking behind my safe middle-class suburban neighborhood.

15:20

After learning that two little girls have been

15:22

murdered while they were out doing the kinds

15:24

of things I liked to do, riding their

15:26

bikes, I was scared. So

15:29

when Lindsay is a sophomore in high school, she

15:31

stumbles across a book in the school library. It's

15:35

Anne Ruhls, The Stranger Beside Me. So

15:38

legendary. I mean, but

15:41

also like so fateful.

15:44

Everybody found that book around that time, where

15:46

it's like early junior high, where you're suddenly

15:48

like, I need to know what's going on.

15:50

It's almost like the librarians at junior highs

15:52

in high schools are like, we need to

15:54

at least have one copy of this so

15:56

the cool lonely girl can come find this.

16:00

especially for the kids in that

16:02

area at that time where it

16:04

really- Green River Killer, Ted Bundy.

16:07

But kid specific, that's the thing

16:09

that happened in Petaluma when Polyclass

16:11

was taken and eventually

16:14

found dead. The kids themselves

16:16

were changed, like

16:18

implicitly changed. It's

16:21

so heavy. Lindsey writes, quote,

16:23

after absorbing every detail of the book, I

16:25

knew I wanted to be a detective just

16:27

like Bob Keple. I wanted

16:29

to catch men like Ted Bundy and

16:31

Anne Ruhl's book, inspired the course of

16:33

my life to come. Yeah, incredible.

16:37

Lindsey graduates from the police academy in 1997 when

16:39

she's about 22. Lindsey, who's

16:42

biracial, is the only woman of color

16:44

in her graduating class and is one

16:46

of six women total. By

16:48

the early 2000s, when she's in her

16:50

early 30s, Lindsey is working on Tacoma's

16:52

special assault unit, which focuses on solving

16:54

sexual assaults. That's where she

16:56

meets Jean Miller, the patrol cop who had

16:59

been working both cases from the start. The

17:01

two of them stay close throughout

17:03

their careers. And in 2011, Jean

17:06

starts Tacoma's first cold case unit

17:08

and Lindsey eventually joins him there.

17:10

So this is one of those cases

17:12

where the evidence is preserved. And

17:15

science gets a chance to catch up, which

17:18

is great. In 2006,

17:20

Swab from Michelle Welch's autopsy are

17:22

tested. And from them, investigators are

17:24

able to create a DNA profile for her killer.

17:27

The DNA from Michelle's body doesn't

17:30

match anyone in the database, unfortunately.

17:32

And Jennifer's body had been too

17:34

badly decomposed to take the same

17:36

kinds of samples when she was

17:38

found. So from 2006 to 2013, there is no DNA

17:40

profile from

17:43

Jennifer's body. But police assume they're looking for

17:46

the same person who killed Michelle. Then

17:49

in 2013, Lindsey and Jean send

17:51

the swimsuit Jennifer had been wearing

17:54

when she was killed

17:56

to the lab. It had been found

17:59

around one angle. so they assumed

18:01

that there wasn't any DNA on it.

18:03

So they just wanted to get Jennifer's DNA

18:05

profile, just in case they needed it in the

18:08

future. But a few months later, Lindsay

18:10

gets a call from the lab and the technician

18:12

is like, do you also want the profile for

18:14

the male DNA that we found on this swimsuit?

18:16

Oh my God. Sperma Zoa on

18:19

the swimsuit. The DNA

18:21

doesn't match any one in the system, but

18:23

this in and of itself is a massive

18:26

revelation. They would have expected it to match

18:28

the unknown sample that was entered into the

18:30

database in 2006 from

18:32

Michelle's killer. And

18:35

for the first time investigators realized this means

18:37

there are two different killers. Oh my God.

18:39

Of little girls in Tacoma, 1986. Wow.

18:43

This has obviously huge implications for the investigation

18:45

going forward. For one thing, there are many

18:48

suspects who were initially ruled out because they

18:50

were in jail or had other alibis for

18:52

when one of the murders was committed, but

18:54

not the other. So they just automatically blanket

18:57

assumed it was one killer. Which

19:00

I guess like you can't, like

19:02

it's almost like wishful thinking that

19:05

there aren't monsters fucking everywhere. It's

19:07

wishful thinking, but at the same

19:09

time, it's Occam's razor. The idea

19:11

that there are two separate killers

19:13

of the exact same looking age,

19:15

everything little girl like on

19:17

a bike is crazy. Yeah. So

19:20

in 2015, Jennifer's father sadly dies

19:22

without ever seeing his daughter's killer

19:24

brought to justice. Around

19:27

that same time, Jennifer's mother Patty

19:29

starts volunteering in the cold case

19:31

department. And she becomes very close

19:33

with Lindsay Wade. That same

19:35

year, Jean retires and Lindsay takes

19:37

over as Tacoma's lead cold case

19:39

detective. Lindsay has followed every

19:41

new development in DNA with rapt attention.

19:43

She's like Paul holes, you know? Yeah.

19:46

And that year she hears about a new technique

19:49

that led to the solving of a cold

19:51

case in Phoenix. And it

19:53

uses gene sequence that's passed through

19:55

the father's line and through genealogical

19:57

databases. It matches that

19:59

sequence. with likely last names. So this

20:01

is like, it's genealogical profiling, but it's not

20:04

as specific as it, like you can't go

20:06

through a family tree as deep, but you

20:08

can go a little bit and find out

20:10

the last names. Okay. So Lindsay

20:13

gets in touch with the scientists at the forefront

20:15

of this technique. A former

20:17

rocket scientist turned genealogist named

20:19

Jennifer Fitzpatrick. She sends

20:21

her the DNA sample from the Jennifer Bastian

20:23

case and the testing reveals three

20:25

possible last names that a person

20:27

with that DNA might have. Isn't

20:30

that fucking incredible? Yeah, that's weird. Like how

20:32

many last names are there? And

20:35

you can go down to three, like genealogy is amazing. The

20:38

last names are Smith, Holbrook and

20:40

Washburn. So Lindsay

20:43

doesn't even bother with Smith because it's

20:45

too common of a name to be

20:47

useful, but she scours the case files.

20:49

It's thousands and thousands of pages for

20:51

the two other names because luckily they're

20:53

kind of unique. There's no

20:55

Holbrook, but there is a Washburn somewhere

20:58

in the case files. Lindsay

21:00

actually finds him not in Jennifer's case

21:03

file, but in Michelle Welch's case file.

21:06

After Michelle is a murderer, but before

21:08

Jennifer's, a man named Robert Washburn had

21:10

called in a tip saying

21:13

he had seen someone who matched the composite

21:15

sketch of Michelle as potential killer in Point

21:18

Defiance Park, which is

21:20

where Jennifer would later be abducted

21:22

and killed. So

21:24

he called this tip in in May of 1986, three

21:28

months before Jennifer died in that very

21:30

park. Investigators, they didn't drop the

21:32

ball on this. He had been interviewed in December

21:34

of 1986. I think him

21:36

calling in a tip probably let their

21:39

guard down a little bit, but they also like didn't have

21:41

anything suspicious about him to begin with. But it's that thing

21:43

we always talk about where like the killers want to get

21:45

involved in the case. And

21:47

it's almost like in retrospect, you look back and

21:49

then it's like, oh, he was pointing to the

21:52

future murder. I mean, it's just so gross and

21:54

weird and sinister. I think some people also think

21:56

that because he was pointing to the future spot,

21:58

like he had planned. it out and he wanted

22:00

to connect those two murders and make people think

22:03

they were connected, which he did, you know? Which

22:07

means he planned it so far in advance. It's just

22:09

chilling. She

22:11

finds it interesting, this little piece of

22:13

information, but it's not, you know, it's

22:15

no guarantee. The last

22:17

names might not even be correct. So

22:20

Robert Washburn's name is added to a

22:23

very long list. Lindsay then takes on

22:25

the daunting task of hand-entering every other

22:27

man mentioned in the Jennifer Bastian case

22:30

file into a new database

22:32

because it had never been digitized. Wow. Yeah.

22:35

The process takes months, but once it's done, she

22:38

can use that database to eliminate 300 names

22:40

from a list of 2300 names based on

22:42

DNA and incarceration data. It's not much, but

22:45

it's a start. And from that list, Lindsay

22:47

comes up with a shorter list of people

22:49

to try to get DNA samples from. A

22:52

small task force tracks these people down all

22:54

over the country and requests samples. When

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L U M E D

26:19

E O D O R A N

26:22

t.com promo code murder So In

26:26

2018 Lindsay makes the difficult decision to

26:28

retire from the police department and takes

26:30

a job in the attorney general's office

26:33

On its task force to end the

26:35

state's rape kit backlog and she said

26:37

it's a really hard decision But she's

26:40

thought to herself, you know, maybe the

26:42

killer's name is in that backlog, right?

26:44

And I'm helping so many women Yeah,

26:47

I can imagine being a hard decision Over

26:50

the past several years She's been sending batches of

26:52

DNA to be tested and compared to the sample

26:54

from Jennifer's bathing suit a few weeks

26:56

after she starts her New job and this

26:59

is so like Paul holes with the Golden State

27:01

Killer She gets a call that

27:03

there's been a match. Mm-hmm And it's Robert

27:05

Washburn the man who called in the tip

27:08

in the Michelle O Welch case months before

27:10

Jennifer was even killed So

27:12

if he if he hadn't inserted

27:14

himself into that case There's

27:17

no reason why he would have been found

27:19

Wow He wasn't in his DNA wasn't in

27:21

the database. There was no fingerprints. There was

27:23

nothing tying him to it at all It's

27:26

crazy almost like he just pinpointed himself. Yeah

27:29

And also like that's such good detective work that

27:31

you looked in the other case file for that

27:33

name I'm a tipster like why would you ever

27:35

look at that again? And like now it's like

27:37

I hope they look every time Because

27:39

that is a thing they do. Absolutely. And

27:42

that's why there's good detectives like this. Yeah

27:45

He's 58 he lives in Illinois He

27:48

has only one prior arrest for criminal trespass

27:50

and vehicle prowling in 1985 before the murder

27:54

That's all he had nothing after in

27:56

2017 investigators from the task force had

27:58

knocked on his door and he had

28:00

willingly given them a DNA sample. So

28:03

that's how they got his DNA. In 2018, when Lindsay gets this news, which

28:07

is also like, what are you thinking? Like, what's going on

28:09

through these predators' minds when they're

28:11

like, you can't say, no, I'm not giving

28:13

you a DNA sample. Well, and also back then,

28:15

they probably didn't know what it meant. Right, it

28:18

wasn't as like precise. Right. Yeah. By

28:20

2018, when Lindsay gets this news, she

28:22

and Patti Bastian have become very close,

28:25

and they had planned to celebrate Mother's

28:27

Day together that year. But

28:29

since Robert wasn't arrested yet, Lindsay

28:31

couldn't say anything to

28:33

the mother that the potential

28:35

killer had been caught. She has to wait

28:38

another couple of weeks to tell her. Right.

28:40

So later in May of 2018, Robert

28:43

Washburn is arrested for the murder of Jennifer

28:45

Bastian. Then only a month later,

28:47

there's an arrest in the Michelle Welch case.

28:50

Just a month later, they were, you know,

28:52

it's so wild. Through genealogical

28:54

DNA, investigators have been able to

28:56

narrow down the DNA sample from

28:58

Michelle's body to one of two

29:00

brothers who lived together in Tacoma

29:02

at the time of the murder. The

29:05

DNA match on file belonged to

29:07

a cousin, but it

29:09

was one of those genealogical database matches, and

29:12

the genealogist was able to use public records to

29:14

lead to the brothers, and they don't know which

29:16

brother it is. So after

29:18

surveilling the brothers, investigators get a DNA sample

29:20

from a discarded brown paper napkin from a

29:22

fast food restaurant from one of the brothers.

29:24

They get it in a different way from

29:26

the other brother. But

29:29

from this paper napkin, they get a match.

29:32

They arrest a 66-year-old man named

29:34

Gary Hartman in June of 2018. He

29:37

is a psychiatric nurse at a local

29:39

hospital in Tacoma. I know you had

29:42

a reaction to that. That is not

29:44

good. He had never

29:46

been previously arrested. He was married. He

29:48

took care of his daughter. And

29:52

we actually had a few emails from murderinos

29:54

who had worked with him in the past

29:56

and thought he seemed perfectly

29:58

normal. Wow. Yeah. So

30:01

after Hartman's arrest, the Pierce County prosecutor, Mark

30:04

Lindquist says, quote, DNA technology is rapidly advancing.

30:06

If you're a criminal who left DNA at

30:08

a crime scene, you might as well turn

30:10

yourself in now. We will

30:13

eventually catch you, end quote. That must

30:15

have felt good to say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Coming for

30:17

you. Yeah. Both men separately

30:19

said they had been deep in the throes

30:21

of alcohol and drug addiction when they murdered

30:24

these little girls, which is like, shut the

30:26

fuck up. Seriously. Robert Washburn pleads guilty, and

30:28

in 2021, he sentenced to 26 years and

30:30

six months. Lindsay

30:33

Wade is there and says, quote, I don't

30:35

think there was a dry eye in the

30:38

courtroom from the judge to one of the

30:40

cameramen in the courtroom to people in the

30:42

gallery. I remember Patty, the

30:44

mother saying, do you know how many

30:46

birthdays we missed? Do you know how

30:48

many Christmases we missed? Oh. Washburn

30:51

gives a bare-bones confession to grabbing

30:54

Jennifer and strangling her, but not

30:56

to any other aspects of the crime.

30:59

He kind of just remains blank throughout

31:01

the proceedings. Gary

31:04

Hartman elects to have a bench trial,

31:06

which he is aware will result in

31:08

a guilty verdict, but he doesn't actually

31:10

plead guilty, which is shitty, because you're

31:12

putting the victim's family through this whole

31:14

trial. And you know you're guilty. You're

31:16

not saying you're not. I don't know. It's

31:18

compounding. Yeah. His lawyer

31:21

claims at the time of the murder, he was so

31:23

out of it, he didn't even remember doing it and

31:25

only remembered after being arrested. But the

31:27

prosecutor says that while he was being investigated,

31:29

he had told a coworker, quote, 30 years

31:32

ago, he had done something terrible and he

31:34

thought he had been discovered, end quote. So

31:37

it just wasn't fucking true. He lived with it

31:39

for 30 years. Yeah. All

31:41

I forgot until I got arrested. But

31:44

also I was fine with it. Yeah. It

31:47

wasn't eaten alive by the guilt. I

31:49

wasn't like I was not compelled to

31:51

confess or do anything about it. Totally.

31:54

Hartman is found guilty and is also sentenced

31:56

to 26 years and six months. Gary

32:00

Hartman sobs throughout the entire

32:02

sentencing, saying he's sorry

32:04

while Michelle's family gives statements. Then

32:07

why did you put them through a fucking trial? You

32:10

know what I mean? Yeah. I

32:12

think it's easier when people

32:15

are classic movie-style psychopaths. So

32:17

then it's just good, like

32:20

you write it off. And tears, what do

32:22

they mean? You're crying for who? Yourself, maybe?

32:24

I mean, for sure, themselves. But it is

32:26

that idea. It's like you didn't hit and

32:28

run a car. Yeah. It's

32:30

a very different thing. Totally. Totally. Michelle's

32:33

little sister Nicole says, quote, forgiveness is

32:36

the only way to keep me from

32:38

being infected by the continual pain and

32:40

keep furthering it on. I

32:43

do not wish any harm to come to him because

32:45

I would be the same spirit as him. Though

32:47

our lives are linked together because of this

32:50

tragedy, I do not want to be of

32:52

the same mindset in harming others. And quote,

32:54

just like, holy shit. That is very

32:57

wise and brave. In

32:59

2019, between the two men's

33:01

legal proceedings, Patti and Teresa work with

33:04

Lindsay Wade to pass Jennifer

33:06

and Michelle's law in Washington

33:08

state. This allows law

33:10

enforcement to collect DNA samples from

33:13

deceased sex offenders, which

33:15

would have significantly culled Lindsay's database when she was

33:17

working on the cases. So it's just like, why

33:19

do I have to file all this fucking paperwork

33:22

to get this DNA sample that should already

33:24

be there? It also requires

33:26

people convicted of indecent exposure to give

33:28

a DNA sample. It's signed

33:30

into law in May of 2019, and

33:33

Patti Bastian and Jennifer's sister Teresa

33:35

are there to see it happen. Patti

33:37

says she feels a sense of relief and

33:40

accomplishment at what she, Lindsay and lawmakers

33:42

have gotten done in their home state,

33:44

but she also has her eyes set on

33:46

the federal law. And

33:48

that is the story of the murders

33:51

of Jennifer Bastian and Michelle O'Welch, the

33:53

detectives who never gave up on finding

33:55

their killers and the technology that eventually

33:57

caught up with the evidence. Unbelievable. horrible

34:02

and shocking and like the idea that

34:04

two little girls were killed closely

34:08

together and Tacoma is like it

34:10

must have been so horrifying. And it

34:12

was two different monsters. Two

34:15

different people. Yeah. Wow. Chilling.

34:18

Thanks for giving a cold case a good ending. That's

34:21

very satisfying. Thank you. I

34:24

was talking to Alejandra recently about like upcoming stories

34:26

I could do and I was I think they're

34:28

a little sick of the unsolved cold cases. Can

34:30

we not can we not do

34:32

that? I mean, it's

34:35

terrible because there are so many. Yeah.

34:39

And it's frustrating when police

34:41

agencies treat it like, oh, well, yeah,

34:43

like that is the part that does

34:45

not drive me crazy that it feels

34:48

like could be changing a little bit

34:50

in that people are

34:52

it's like the cold case department

34:54

is not this kind of

34:56

afterthought anymore. It's like they're really working on

34:58

stuff like that. Right. Right. Yeah, for

35:01

sure. Well, great job. It's another

35:03

great concise yet also kind

35:05

of long short episode. I

35:08

think before we go on

35:10

vacation, should we read everyone what they're doing right

35:12

now? Yes, we should. All right. You guys, we've

35:14

asked you to tell us hashtag what are you

35:16

even doing right now in comments

35:18

or emails or wherever you see fit. We

35:21

really do love this window into your life

35:23

as you listen to this podcast. It's very

35:25

exciting. So this one is from Ms. Beakman.

35:28

It's from Instagram. And it says, what am

35:30

I doing right now? I'm getting ready

35:32

to go on the first of many cottage vacations

35:34

with the love of my life after

35:36

spending years struggling with my value and connecting

35:39

with others. I found someone who loves every

35:41

single part of me. Thank you

35:43

for being an ally to the

35:45

two s l g b t q

35:47

i a plus community and keeping me

35:49

company for many long, lonely years with

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your words of comfort and encouragement. Happy

35:54

Pride Month. Hell yeah. Isn't that

35:56

great? Get that love. Happy Pride.

35:59

Gay right. Oh my God. Okay,

36:01

here's a good one that you should look into

36:03

as a summer job. This is from Tanya3334 on

36:05

Instagram. I'm

36:08

listening while going to get a serotonin

36:10

boost from my clients because I'm a

36:12

professional pet sitter. Shout

36:15

out to my clients consisting of

36:17

dogs, cats, a couple of goats,

36:19

a few deer and a gopher

36:21

tortoise. Dream job for me. How

36:25

do you pet sit a tortoise? I

36:27

mean, here I am. I

36:30

guess I'll just feed you at four o'clock. And

36:33

other than that, where I'm gonna watch TV. I'm gonna

36:35

watch TV and eat your ice cream. We're gonna do

36:37

separate stuff I guess and come together at meal times.

36:41

Guys, thank you so much for listening to

36:44

us. We are about to go on vacation.

36:47

So without further ado, stay

36:49

sexy. And don't get murdered.

36:54

Elvis, do you want a cookie? This

36:58

has been an exactly right production.

37:00

Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck.

37:03

Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton. Our

37:06

editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode

37:08

was mixed by Liana Squilache. Our

37:11

researchers are Maren McClashan and Allie Elkin. Email

37:14

your hometowns to myfavoritemurderatgmail.com. Follow the

37:16

show on Instagram and Facebook at

37:18

myfavoritemurder and Twitter at myfavemurder. Goodbye.

37:22

Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye.

37:26

Bye. Bye.