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The 1986 killings of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian in Tacoma, Washington, prompted detectives to launch a decades-long investigation. Authorities later solved the case using DNA, bringing two separate killers to justice. Both girls were murdered within months of each other under similar circumstances.
At first, according to the community, both Michella and Jennifer were murdered by the same perpetrator. Authorities at the time had only found DNA on the former's body. A subsequent discovery changed the course of the investigation, and developments in DNA technology aided in tracking two suspects - Gary Hartman and Robert Dwane Washburn. Both were eventually sentenced for the murders.
This Tuesday Dateline: Secrets Uncovered on Oxygen will further delve into Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian's cold case murders. The episode titled, Evil Was Watching, airs on the channel at 9:00 pm ET on July 4, 2023.
Here's the official synopsis for the same:
"The 1986 murders of Michella Welch and Jenni Bastian in Tacoma, Wash., remained unsolved for decades until someone else their age grew up to become a detective and looked into their deaths."
Jennifer Bastian was murdered five months after Michella Welch's killing under similar circumstances in 1986
According to Oxygen, 12-year-old Michella Welch rode her bike to Puget Park with two of her two younger sisters on March 26, 1986, when she went missing. The sisters came across Michella's bike, but she was nowhere to be seen. A search dog located her body near a makeshift fire pit that same night. She had been beaten and s*xually assaulted, and her throat was slashed.
During the investigation, one of Michella's classmates informed authorities about having seen a man looking at the victim and her sister at the park that day and even provided a description of the suspect. They collected DNA from the semen found in the victim's body. But the evidence failed to produce results.
An NBC News report stated that about five months later, in August, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian failed to return home after going on a bike ride at Point Defiance Park, located close to the area where Michella was murdered.
Following a prolonged search, Jennifer's badly decomposing body was found three weeks later, on August 28, hidden in an underbrush. She had been s*xually assaulted and strangled to death. Her bike was found concealed beneath leaves and branches nearby.
How were the murders of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian solved after nearly three decades?
Detectives followed unsuccessful leads for years before both the cases of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian went cold until Tacoma Police Detective Lindsey Wade re-opened the case in 2009.
The Oxygen report mentioned that Wade grew up in the area and was only 11 years old when both girls were murdered. She started working on the case, following all previous leads, tips, witnesses, and potential suspects.
In 2013, investigators made a crucial breakthrough when Wade tested Jennifer's swimsuit and found male DNA that was different from the one found in Michella's body. This discovery proved that the girls were murdered by two different killers who were still evading justice. The investigation continued for five more years.
According to NBC News, with the development of DNA technology, Wade sought the aid of forensic genealogy and collected at least 160 samples before the developments led them to Robert Washburn, who was arrested for Jennifer's murder in 2018. Robert later pleaded guilty and was sentenced to almost 27 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Gary Hartman, who was arrested for Michella's murder at the same time as Robert's arrest, was linked to the slaying after his DNA was extracted from a used napkin and matched with the one found in her body. Gary pleaded not guilty and was convicted of first-degree murder by a judge in 2022 after a bench trial. He was given 26-and-a-half years in prison.
Learn more about the case on Oxygen's Dateline: Secrets Uncovered this Tuesday at 9 pm ET.
