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Jennifer Bastian and Michella Welch, two Tacoma schoolgirls whose separate bike rides in 1986 ended in brutal slayings, will return to the spotlight when Dateline airs Evil Was Watching on Saturday, June 14, 2025, at 10/9c. The broadcast revisits five chilling facts about the murders, in which both victims were abducted in broad daylight from popular parks.
Welch’s throat was slashed, and she was s*xually assaulted within hours, while Jennifer Bastian was strangled and hidden beneath some brush for three weeks. Detectives first chased a single phantom until DNA in 2013 proved two killers.
Tipster-turned-suspect Robert Washburn ultimately confessed to murdering Jennifer Bastian after his DNA matched semen on her swimsuit, and a discarded fast-food napkin linked registered nurse Gary Hartman to Welch’s homicide, leading to his tearful 2022 conviction.
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The episode also shows how retired detective Lindsey Wade, an 11-year-old Tacoma resident when the crimes occurred, spent years using forensic genealogy to separate and solve the cases. Today, Robert Washburn and Gary Hartman remain in Washington prisons, unlikely to see freedom again as their sentences stretch well into the mid-century.
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5 key details about Jennifer Bastian and Michella Welch's murder explored
1) Broad-daylight kidnappings in two different parks
Both crimes unfolded in public, family-friendly spaces. Michella Welch, 12, vanished from Puget Park on 26 March 1986 while fetching lunch for her sisters; a police dog found her that night, her throat cut, and there was evidence of s*xual assault.
Five months later, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian disappeared during a solo ride in Point Defiance Park. Searchers located her strangled body three weeks later, hidden under brush with her Schwinn bike carefully concealed nearby. The twin daylight settings stunned Tacoma and shaped parents’ behavior for years to come.
2) Detectives spent decades chasing the wrong suspect profile
For nearly 30 years, investigators assumed one predator was responsible because the girls were the same age, looked alike, and disappeared from parks just miles apart.
That theory collapsed in 2013 when DNA recovered from Jennifer Bastian’s swimsuit did not match the semen collected from Welch’s body, forcing detectives Gene Miller and Lindsey Wade to split the file and to start two parallel hunts instead of one.
3) Robert Washburn’s own tip eventually exposed him
Back in 1986, Robert Washburn phoned Tacoma police about a “suspicious jogger.” When Wade’s team revisited 2,300 names, he was still on the list. A voluntary DNA swab in 2018 matched the profile from Jennifer Bastian’s clothing, leading to his arrest. According to the Oxygen report dated April 6, 2022, Washburn pleaded guilty in 2019 and received a 27-year sentence.
“I knew exactly who it was, but I could just not believe it,” Detective Wade later stated.
4) A discarded fast-food napkin trapped Gary Hartman
Parabon NanoLabs traced the Welch-scene DNA to two North Tacoma brothers. Investigators tailed psychiatric nurse Gary Hartman and grabbed a napkin he left at a restaurant.
The lab confirmed a match to the semen found on Michella Welch. Hartman waived a jury trial and, in 2022, Judge Stanley Rumbaugh sentenced him to 26 years and six months. As per a KOMO News report dated March 24, 2022, in court, Hartman sobbed.
“I’m so sorry. God knows I’m so sorry. That doesn’t help. I’m just sorry,” he said.
5) Both killers are behind bars
Washington Department of Corrections records place Robert Washburn’s earliest release in the mid-2040s and Gary Hartman’s in 2048–49, dates that, given their ages, amount to life terms. For security reasons, each man is housed at an undisclosed DOC facility.
Their imprisonment and the forensic genealogy that secured it form the spine of Dateline’s episode Evil Was Watching, airing Saturday, June 14, 2025, at 10/9c. Keith Morrison’s report will show how modern DNA science, relentless file reviews, finally brought justice for Jennifer Bastian and Michella Welch.
Stay tuned for more updates.
