90. Jenni Bastian and Michella Welch - The Bicycle Abductions
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- Hey everybody, welcome back to our podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. - And I'm Garrett Moreland. - And he's the husband. - I'm the husband. - We want to say thank you to all of you who are listening. If you're watching on YouTube, please give this video a thumbs up if you like it and leave us a comment down below. We do read all the comments and we love responding to them.

So that helps us so much. And if you're just listening on podcast, hi, hello, we love you. If you're able to leave us a review, that would help us so much. If not, we're just happy that you're here listening. Just an update. We've done some pretty cool Patreon episodes recently. So if you're interested in that, you can check it out both in the YouTube link or the podcast links. It'll be both there. And I don't

And I don't know if everyone knows this, but our Patreon does have video version, ad-free, early release Patreon, just like the audio version. So if you are a watcher on YouTube, you can still watch on Patreon. So we do an early release for both the audio and the video on our Patreon. And also there's bonus episodes each month. All right, before we hop into this, I just want to let everyone know that I hurt my neck. So if you're watching, luckily audio can't tell, but if you're watching on YouTube or any other video platform,

Um, I might look a little stiff, a little stiffer than normal. I might be staring at the wall across from us the entire time. Not the camera. Not the camera. So I'm trying. I'm sorry. I guess. All right. Was that your 10 seconds? That is not my 10 seconds. My 10 seconds is I surprised Peyton. Yep. I found out one of my surprises. We mentioned it last week. It's her Christmas surprise.

Yes, because I'm a spoiled little girl. Spoiled little girl. But we're super excited. Should we tell them what it is? Yeah. Oh, might as well. Well, actually, by the time you're listening to this, they'll already know. Yeah. If you follow our social media. Yes. Peyton and I are going on vacation Wednesday, and we haven't been on a vacation just us and like...

Three years? Since our honeymoon. Since our honeymoon. So I don't know how long ago that was. But even though we're always together, we haven't been on like a vacation. With just us two in like, yeah, since our honeymoon. So I'm really excited about it. I just cried when he told me. I'm so happy. I'm so excited. And yeah, we'll be there while you're listening to this. So it should be really fun. Yeah, we're going to eat a lot of food. Yeah, that's what we're most excited for. And get a lot of sun.

I need it. You see me? Oh, also, I did just want to say we were tagged in so many people's Spotify raps this last week. And it was so cool. Such a surreal feeling. Like the whole day, it was just kept coming and coming. And I was just like, oh, this is not real. It was definitely a very cool moment. So we just want to say thank you guys so much for always supporting and always loving us. All right. Our case this week involves children. So I did just want to give a warning about that.

Our case sources are Wikipedia, King5.com, LinksOnline.co, USA Today, Findagrave.com, and a Dateline episode titled Evil Was Watching. Our case begins in March of 1986 in Tacoma, Washington.

Barbara Leonard's life is finally turning around. Her husband had just recently left her on her own to raise her three daughters by herself. And it was a very challenging time for Barbara. Her life just completely turned upside down. But she had finally found a good job as a real estate agent and found a home for her and her daughters.

Nicole was the youngest daughter, Angela was the middle child, and the oldest was Michelle, who was almost 13.

And at the time of this story, it was around spring break in Tacoma, Washington, and Michelle was a 13-year-old tween who was ready to be 16. She was finally interested in hanging out with friends, getting out of the house. She's at that age where your mom has now become uncool and doing anything that's not at your own home is better than being in your home. So over this spring break, Michelle begged Barbara to let her take her younger sisters to the park.

The girls actually had piano lessons that day, so if they hurried, they could hit the park before their piano lessons. And the park that Michelle wanted to go to was actually called Puget Park, and it was on the north end of Tacoma, right across the street from where they took piano lessons. The park and piano lessons were only a couple miles away from their home. So Barbara looked at her three daughters and decided, okay, fine, it'll be all right.

But you guys can only go for 30 minutes before your lessons start. So it was decided the girls would leave early for piano and ride their bikes to the park that's across the street from piano and then head to their lesson. But.

30 minutes just wasn't enough for the three girls. Of course. So they agreed to their mom's terms and then proceeded to leave about two and a half hours earlier to hang out at the park all day. Sneaky, sneaky girls. Two and a half hours. So they all get on their bikes and they make their way all the way to the park where they begin playing. And soon after getting there, the sisters realized that they had forgot their lunches they had packed to eat at the park.

But not to worry, 13-year-old Michelle volunteered to ride back really quickly and grab all of their lunches and bring them back to the park so they could continue on their fun day. I mean, she's the oldest. She's the oldest sister. It's kind of her duty. So once Michelle left, Angela and Nicole realized that they needed to use the restroom.

There actually wasn't a bathroom at the playground, the park that they were at. So they too got on their bikes and rode down the street to like another public restroom. Okay. Both Angela and Nicole knew that by the time they got done at the restroom and got back to the park, Michelle would most likely be back to with their lunches. So they hurried up and made their way back to the park.

but when they pulled in and parked their bikes they were confused michella's bike was there it was locked up like they always did but she wasn't they looked around they called out for her they even did their family call which was a noise that they would make in a crowded place to like find each other but michella never answered she never showed up was there a lot of people at the park i think there

I think there were people in and out throughout the day, but it wasn't like super crowded. No. And although young Angela and Nicole knew that Michelle not answering the family call was bad. Where could she be? If her bike was there, they began to grow scared. Barbara sped home from work after finding out that nobody could find Michelle. The authorities were called and police began searching. They searched the park, they searched the neighborhood, but nobody could find her.

It was growing dark, and so they brought search dogs. Maybe they could find in the dark what police hadn't been able to. Barbara was waiting in a police car, worried sick, and time almost stood still. Where was Michelle? Where was her daughter? Why hadn't she been at the park? That's got to be the worst feeling. I mean, I don't have kids, so I can't even imagine that feeling. I'm sure a lot of you that have kids can. Oh, it's your biggest fear. Yeah.

So sitting in the car, Barbara eagerly listened as someone walked up to tell her that they had found something. But it wasn't the news anybody wanted to hear. Oh, no. While searching the wooded area, the dogs had come across 13-year-old Michelle's dead body. What? That fast? That fast. She was found near a makeshift fire pit. Her throat had been cut. She had been physically and sexually assaulted as well. Remember that it's the 80s.

And although we know plenty of crap was happening in the 80s, the idea or understanding that the world could be dangerous wasn't as accepted in small communities or neighborhoods like it is today. And I think America was just barely getting in like heavy into strangey-dangey. Strangey-dangey? How did that even happen? I don't know.

And I think America was just barely getting heavy into stranger danger at this point. But even today, facts about child abduction seem to be so skewed by personal fear and what we see in the media. Like I grew up on Elizabeth Smart, who was a young girl who lived near my region that was abducted.

in the middle of the night out of her bedroom. And her sister was actually sleeping in the same room with her. It was national news. The abductor had used a knife to cut through a window screen. And basically from that point on, I slept with my bedroom door locked and a metal bar in the base of my window frame so it couldn't be open. Like Elizabeth Smart's kidnapping terrified me. She did go on to actually be found

which was crazy and a miracle, but it still scared me. Like at that age, I was just like, oh my gosh, bad things happen in this world. But according to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, 99% of abducted children are taken by a relative. So what happened to Michelle? A relative took her from a park in the middle of the day and killed her nearby? Probably not. No way.

So police begin investigating while her family just tries to survive, basically. They begin asking questions, talking to nearby houses, other people who had been at the park that day. And this is when they find a classmate of Michelle's who had been at the park earlier and noticed a man watching Michelle and her sisters playing. With not much to go on, police decide to bring this young girl in to help them with a sketch.

And when it's done, they release the image to the public. Once the image is released, the tips come rushing in. Everyone has seen or knows this man. And now obviously most tips are incorrect, but there was one that worried police. Are they all saying it's the same person or are they saying it's different people? Different people. And like I said, I know I'm like, oh, it's the 80s. But also I think

in the 80s, like just crime wasn't as well accepted or well known. So when a sketch was released, everyone was like, oh,

I think I can help in this case. Whereas nowadays, I feel like if a sketch is released, I mean, I'm sure there's still a flood of tips. Also, just a reminder, Peyton and I did not live through the 80s. So feel free to correct us if you did live through the 80s and we are sorry. I actually did research a timeline for Stranger Danger and everything to make sure I was correct in the fact that this is what was happening during the 80s.

But the tips come rushing in and obviously most of them are incorrect, but there was one tip that kind of sparked the attention of police. A man who claimed that he had actually seen the man in the sketch at a different park, a park called Point Defiance Park.

This park was a few miles away from the park that Michelle was found in. And the tip says that the man was just kind of watching kids and it alarmed the tipster. And so when he saw the sketch, he knew he was like, oh my gosh, that is the same person who I saw in this park watching kids. Like what a creep. Everyone's like, was the same man who might have harmed Michelle already looking for his next victim. He had already moved on to a different park, ready to strike again.

Meanwhile, Barbara is growing more and more paranoid. It had been months and police still hadn't captured who had done this to her daughter. She bought a gun. She began carrying it around with her. She doesn't think she will ever feel safe again. It's now the summer of 1986 and

months have gone by and people in town are trying to return to normal after such a scare that is kind of still looming over everyone. And a few miles away from Puget Park, where Michelle had been found, Patty Bastion is at home with her 13 year old daughter, Jenny. Jenny was a blonde hair, blue eyed rock star of a kid. She loved sports and had just got a brand new bike that she was so excited about.

So excited, in fact, that she was training for a local bike tour. Although young, she knew if she practiced, she could keep up and do it. She had even convinced her friend to do it with her. And so this specific day in August, they were planning to get together and train for their event. Now, this is in the same town. It's been about six months since they found Michelle's body. But last minute, Jenny's friend backed out of practice and

So a determined young 13-year-old Jenny decided to train on her own that day. Jenny asked her dad if she could ride the five-mile loop around Point Defiance Park. Yes, this is the park that the tipster thought he spotted the suspect at months earlier. This park was populated and beautiful. The five-mile loop was paved. It was a busy park. Like think of a very big park. Okay.

Jenny's dad said, sure, she could ride the loop. She'd done it before, but she had to be home by 630, I'm sure, in time for dinner. So later that night while at work, Patty gets a call from her husband who demands that she get home. 630 had come and gone and Jenny had not made it home from her bike ride. No way. The fear and panic begins to set in.

The Tacoma police force now experiencing deja vu as they begin searching Point Defiance Park in search for a missing 13-year-old. Darkness is looming. They've done this before, not even six months earlier. Time passes with nothing to show, and around 11 o'clock, Patty, who is sitting at home just in case they get a call or Jenny arrives, hears a knock at her front door. Do you know how far the...

That park is from the other park? Just a couple miles. Okay. She opens the door to police standing on her porch with bloodhounds. They need a piece of Jenny's clothing to give her scent to the dogs. And as Garrett's pointing out, can you imagine the terror that just courses through Patty's veins in this moment? She's like, oh my gosh, like they're searching for a body.

The night passes as the search continues, but the police nor the dogs find Jenny that night. And although they've, you know, closed the park and they continue searching all through the next day, they don't find her then either. Almost sure that the two cases are connected and they most likely have a serial criminal on their hands. Police are concerned. Had the suspect changed his M.O., was Jenny not in the park like Michelle had been?

Were they not looking for a body? Had Jenny not even been kidnapped? Was she just hurt somewhere due to a bad accident? These are all the thoughts that are running through everyone's head. Despite these unanswered questions, Patty was waiting at home a couple days later when Barbara showed up to talk to her. Now, Barbara is Michelle's mom. Two mothers, two eerily similar situations, two 13-year-old girls who disappeared off their bikes.

Barbara tries to console Patty to talk to her as a mom who'd gone through exactly what she's going through. But when Barbara leaves, Patty is furious. - Why? - Jenny isn't Michelle in her head. Jenny isn't dead. And why would Barbara come to her house and assume that they are even in the same situation? Barbara was everything that Patty was desperately trying not to be in this moment. The mother of a child who is gone forever.

And I think this exchange is so telling. Both sides are accurate. Both sides have reason and value, but how do you navigate this situation? One mom trying to help. There's no right answer. Right? Okay, you guys, shifting my wardrobe from summer to fall can be a challenge, but I'm telling you right now.

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So days go by and Patty is beginning to go crazy. The police are like, you have to stay home just in case she shows up. So she's stuck at home. So she decides to repaint her dining room in hopes of distracting her mind. She's like, I can't just sit around and go crazy. And it was roughly 25 days since Jenny had gone missing as Patty was up on a ladder painting her walls that a detective showed up to her home. He helped her down from the ladder. He took the paintbrush away and he told her he had news.

They had found Jenny. Dang. So it's definitely, I mean, at this point, a serial killer, correct? Or is there like, like how many killings does there have to be to be? Multiple killings. So yeah, I would say you have a serial, especially because the MO is so similar. Abducted from a bike. Also so close. Six months back to back. Yes. That's very close. Same area. Jenny was found in a wooded area near a footpath still in the park.

She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Her new bike was hidden near her body. And suddenly Patty had become her worst fear. She had become Barbara. He killed her in a different way. Yes. Yes. Which is that normal?

Like, is that part of an MO or does it just depend? I mean, I think it just, yes, it would be considered part of an MO, but everyone's MO are different. Like it doesn't have to be consistent. Both Jenny and Michelle were blonde, blue eyed and riding a bike in a city park.

Any speculation that these cases might not be connected was basically now squashed. And suddenly every kid in Tacoma was not allowed to ride their bikes alone. Parents chaperone their kids everywhere. Long gone were the days of roaming around to find your friends while your parents were at work. Like that innocence just didn't exist anymore for this town.

The whole place was invested in this case and more tips came flooding in. Another sketch was created from people who had been in Point Defiance Park the day that Jenny had gone missing. But the sketch comes out, tips come in, police find the guy and it's a dead end. He has absolutely nothing to do with the murders. Did any of the sketches at all match the other sketch from the other park?

No, they were completely different. They were different sketches. Okay. So police collected DNA from the crime scenes, but there was nothing to test it with. DNA was new. They would just have to hope that someday it would work out. And I actually think about this a lot when we hear about these cases where DNA was collected even without means of testing it because props to the people who decided that every bit of evidence should be collected before they even knew it was evidence. Yes.

Like how did they one day know they would be able to test that? They didn't, but they still collect it anyways. I just think that's pretty insane.

But either way, the town police and families keep searching for justice for these two murdered girls. Everyone waiting for the next kidnapping. Everyone waiting for the assailant to strike again. Like they have a serial killer on their hands. But months turn to years. And before long, it had been two decades, 20 years since the kidnappings. So at that point, you figure...

Maybe these cases weren't matched. Like maybe they were just random, right? Because it's been so long or no. So I think you, this is where my mind would go is number one, the guy got arrested for a different crime and went to jail. So he got it. Keep offending. Okay. Number two, he moved States and kept doing this, but in a different state, which it's hard to kind of, you know, tie two cases together. That's my thought is that this guy is just no longer able or willing to do it here because it had been

20 years without another little girl getting snatched off her bike in the middle of the day and 20 years without justice for these families. And a lot changes in 20 years, right? It's a long time. So by this point, people had grown, they had moved on. Kids were riding their bikes again. Jenny and Michelle were still in the back of people's minds, but it had been so long with no movement on either of their cases.

But one detective all these years later still remembered the kidnappings as if they had happened yesterday. And that's because for Tacoma detective, Lindsay Wade, who was only 11 back in 1986, the attacks of Michelle and Jenny were her Elizabeth smart.

She was 11. She identified with these little girls riding their bicycles during the summer of 1986. She was one of them. She wasn't close friends with either victim, but she lived in the area and the panic and fear hit her and her family like any other family at that time. It scarred her. It changed the way she thought it took away her innocence. And by high school with the killer of Michelle and Jenny still on the loose, Lindsay constantly thought about that case.

She eventually read a book about serial killer Ted Bundy, who was also from Tacoma. Whoa, he's from Tacoma as well? Yeah. No idea. And she was terrified and fascinated all at the same time. She's one of us, you guys. She's like, this is awful, but also why the heck did this happen? Yeah. And after graduation, she knew what she wanted to do, what she had to do.

For Michelle and Jenny, she needed to join the Tacoma police force and eventually find these killers, solve these cases. And who also knows, who knows how old he is? He's in his 40s. He's in his 60s now. Right. Like that's a... It's a long... I mean, we saw that with the Golden State Killer. Like people were like...

why did all of a sudden he just stop? And it's like, well, I mean, look at him now. Like he's so old. He just seems like another old grandpa. It seems like he can't. Yeah. Yeah. Can't get around the same. We probably. Yeah. So Lindsay did her time in the Academy. She worked her way all the way up taking years in the force. And by 2013, now detective Lindsay Wade joined the local cold case unit that had just been founded years earlier. It had,

Oh my gosh.

The first task she tackled was relooking at every tip that had been sent in back in the 80s and 90s. Every name that someone had submitted, she ended up with about 2,300 names of men who had been brought up in the original investigation somehow, whether that was through a tip or whatever. I'd even comb through all that. Right.

She assumed it was a man because semen had been collected from Michelle's body. Remember the semen had actually been run through CODIS years after the murder, but there wasn't a match. Was the semen matched the other killing as well? So no semen was collected from Jenny's body. Is there a reason?

Like they couldn't find any? No, they couldn't find any. They looked, they couldn't find any. Okay. But Lindsay decided to have the swimsuit that Jenny had been wearing that day sent to the lab to be tested for any possible bodily fluids. I don't know if that just like wasn't a thing when they were first investigating. But now she's like, we should test this piece of clothing that she's wearing for fluids, not just her body. Got it.

So it had never been tested back then. When the lab results came in, it was concluded that semen had been found in the crotch of Jenny's swimsuit. Okay. So Lindsay now had an official way to possibly tie these cases together for good. To prove it was the same assailant, even though they didn't really need to, they all knew. But are you ready for this bomb? Oh,

Oh no, it was not the same person, was it? DNA doesn't lie. I knew that was going to happen. And the semen found on Michelle was not from the same man whose semen was found with Jenny. So then technically, maybe we don't have a serial killer in our hands, correct? Correct.

So everyone in this case had to double check, triple check. This case just got turned upside down. Lindsay was horrified. There was absolutely no way that there were two separate monsters in Tacoma at the, in the same six month period. Um,

This really was a nightmare. Like they were both kidnapped off their bikes in the middle of the day in a park. Tacoma, what's going on? You got Ted Bundy. Right. You got these two guys. So to make matters worse, Jenny and Michelle's families can't believe it either. Like where does this leave them for 20 years? They believe that there was a serial killer who had attacked these two families. And now they're even like one step back further from where they could have been. You know, what does everyone do now?

So after wrapping their minds around what had happened, police settled down and realized they now have a new piece of evidence at least. So they rushed the new DNA through CODIS. They're like, okay, well, worse comes to worse. We find one of the killers. But like everything else in this case, they hit a wall. There is no match. They were back to where they started. Which is crazy because that means that they have never been arrested. Correct. Because they run through CODIS.

Which I feel like doesn't, I mean, I guess it does happen a lot, but it's just crazy that if you kill someone that like you. You can go on and live a clean record. Yes, exactly. I feel the exact same way. That's insane. Or that you hadn't already done something previously, right? Yeah. So by 2014, Lindsay Wade had been promoted to head of the cold case unit and Jenny's mother actually began volunteering with Lindsay to kind of help her out.

She couldn't help with Jenny or Michelle's case, but she could volunteer with any other case. And I think this just goes to show that this is something we see commonly with victims' families is they then take their hurt and their trauma and put it into helping other people who are going through the same thing. And that is just such a courageous thing to do.

And while Patty was doing that, helping out with cold cases, Detective Lindsay decided to look at the DNA through a new lens, something that was kind of popping up, something called forensic genealogy. Now we know about this. They've caught many a serial killer recently because of their relatives.

It's basically the biggest development in DNA testing that we've had since DNA testing became a thing. The fact that we could link DNA through the family tree. That's crazy. It's insane. Who knew we would ever be able to do that? Yeah. But could this method be used for the DNA in these two cases?

Detective Lindsay would try. Remember, it's only 2014 and this new testing was not nearly as popular as it is today. So trying to link them saying they're family members or just trying to link other family members to them? Yes. Individually. So how it would work is they would go to the genealogy places that work with police departments on collecting DNA. There's some that do, there's some that don't. And they would create profiles individually.

for this DNA. So if you're doing like 23andMe, you spit in a little thing, you send it in and then you get a profile created for your DNA. So they're just basically doing that. They're going to take this DNA, send it into these places and see if they can match them into a family tree. So all of a sudden it's like, oh, well they have grandpa.

- And they have- - Yes. So we might not have this person's DNA- - The second cousin. - Yeah, in CODIS, but now we figured out who this person, this unknown person's second cousin is. So we can go to them and say, "Hey, how do we find this person? Do you know this person?" That type of thing. - Got it, okay. That's pretty awesome. - No, that's how it works and it really is awesome.

So they enter the DNA from both cases into some genealogy bases and there were no exact matches. So it didn't come up like, boom, this person has already sent their DNA in and here they are. But some family names did come up. So some names down the line, you know, this person married this person, this person might be related to this DNA. Right.

And Lindsay cross-checked these possible names with local names and people like, well, if this last name was living here, then we can go talk to them. They might be suspect, right? - Yeah. - So she investigated the family trees to see if anyone jumped off the page.

And one name did the last name Washburn. Washburn was the last name of the tipster who was jogging through point defiance park and claimed that he saw the man in the sketch wandering around the park, watching people. Remember way that he tried to call in.

That would be insane. So you and Lindsay is thinking the same thing his last name came up linking him to the profile of Jenny's not Michelle's so the timing really didn't make sense because that would mean that the person who killed Jenny happened after Washburn told police about the man in the sketch who killed Michelle. So that would mean that

Like he did it before he then went on to, do you know what I mean? - Yeah, I know what you're saying. - So Lindsay was like, okay, this has to be Chance's last name. There's plenty of people in this area with this last name. It's really not that weird to find like a last name pop up like this. So she keeps it in the back of her mind and then she decides to work a new angle. She calls a company called Paragon that turns DNA profiles into computer generated images of their suspects.

What? Okay. Yes. That's a thing? Yes. So what they do is they take the DNA. No way. They send it to Paragon. And then Paragon, they read the DNA and they construct a face based off of what the DNA says. So based off of this DNA, this is what we think this person would look like. I want to test that. I want to send them my DNA and see if they make a picture like me. It's so cool. That's crazy. So the Tacoma Police Department then released the computer images to the public and

They explain that they now believe it's two separate people who did these murders back in 1986, and they're asking for tips. This is a new technology they've used, and this might be what the people who did this looked like.

And through the many tips that the images generated, there was one name that kept coming up over and over. One person that looks so much like one of the sketches that multiple people called in about him. But when police looked into the man, they eliminated him.

How is this possible? How did this sketch get released and multiple people call about it and then they're like, oh no, it wasn't him. You know, it doesn't even surprise me. This stuff just always happens. It does. So Detective Lindsay made her way back to the 2,300 names that she had originally collected at first and begins narrowing them down to a couple hundred that she would like to collect DNA from. She throws Washburn the tipster into the mix because it was still in the back of her mind. She's like, Kate, these are the good chunks of names that we're going to have tested. Yeah.

So the FBI helped the Tacoma Police Department as they tracked these men down one by one to collect DNA to compare to the samples. That's so cool. We're talking hundreds of people. That is so cool. It's been years. Like these people might not even live here. They're having to travel to states. You know what I mean? So they end up collecting about 160 DNA samples using this method. But now the hard part, testing the DNA. This would take time and resources. Right.

Another year goes by as the lab tests most of the DNA, but every batch they send over turns up negative. No one was a match. Even that one guy that they ruled out? Well, so time went on and by 2018, Detective Lindsay Wade was ready to retire. She had had a good career. She had been investigating this case for years, but still had not done what she hoped to do.

There was still no justice brought to Michelle or Jenny's cases. 2018, that was just a couple years ago. Choosing to leave was hard and Detective Lindsay felt like she was giving up on the families. Before she left, she sent over the last 18 DNA samples to be tested.

finishing up all of her, you know, hard work at this point, not even sticking around for the results. Like they had tested 140 at this point and she's like, none of them were a match. I'll send over the last batch and then retire. And so she does. She retires and she says goodbye and she ends her good career.

But you probably all know where this is going right now. Oh, yes. Sometimes it's the last ditch effort that makes up for all of the losses. 25 days after retiring, Detective Lindsay Wade received the news that there was a match of the Jenny Bastian DNA testing test.

Someone they had collected DNA from had semen inside Jenny's swimsuit. Holy crap. When Lindsay asked, okay, well, what's the name of the profile? Like, who is it? It's what Garrett just saw coming. The name was Robert Washburn.

The person that Lindsay had been putting off because what were the chances? That's so insane. He was tested solely because he had the same last name that popped up on the genealogy site. He wasn't even related to the name that popped up. He just had the same last name. But now there was no doubt. The same man who had called in a tip on the Michelle case, who is a different assailant, by the way. Was his brother or something? No, then went on to kill Jenny.

Why? Were they related at all or just happened to be two completely different? So I'll get to that in a minute because we don't have an answer. I have a theory. Okay. Either way, police decide to try and find Washburn. Did he go on to kill more in a different place? Like where was he living? Had he done damage elsewhere? Had he been in prison? But police were stunned when they tracked Robert Washburn down. He was living in Illinois. He had a good job. He paid his taxes and he had never been in trouble. Wow.

Wow, like I just said. Yes. Police showed up to his home and arrested him for the murder. He told them he didn't do it, but once again, DNA does not lie. After 32 years, Lindsay told Patty that they had arrested Jenny's killer. How old was he at this point? 61-year-old Robert Washburn pled guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to 27 years in prison. Holy crap.

He confessed in court that Jenny was just riding her bike in the park on August 4th, 1986, when he just grabbed her, pulled her into a secluded spot and strangled her. Why do you confess? Because he was pleading guilty for a lesser sentence. Got it. He did not answer as to why he submitted a tip for Michelle's murder, only to turn around and then do the same exact thing.

And this is my theory. This is not on record anywhere. I think that when he heard about Michelle's murder, it lit this fire in him of something that he had been wanting to do. He was not a good person. He had been thinking about doing this. He probably had thoughts about doing this. And then when he heard about the story, he thought, oh, well, if I just go do the same thing in Point Defiance Park...

they'll blame it on that guy. They won't think it's me because they're going to think like everyone did that this is a serial killer. So I think he got the idea from Michelle's murder and then turned around and did the same thing. Now why he called and gave a tip, I don't know. Because he probably honestly never thought that DNA testing would advance to where it is now.

Most killers back then didn't even know that you could test semen. So he got caught and he's like, what? Yes. Like, how is this even possible? How did I get caught before they caught Michelle's murderer? But...

Like I just said, what about Michelle? What about her family? What about her justice? Barbara was happy for Patty and Jenny, but she knew it wouldn't help her daughter's case. They weren't related. Yeah. So after closing this case, the Tacoma police are not wanting to give up on Barbara and Michelle. They're like, okay, well, we still have one more. We have to close.

So they reach out to a woman named Cece Moore, who is a genealogist. Cece had actually just helped in solving the Golden State Killer case and would go on to solve more murders later. So she's really good at what she does. And I mean, they really had nothing else to go on. They had tested all 160 DNA profiles that they had collected. None of them were a match for Michelle's case.

So Cece agrees, and once again, they are running this DNA all over again. And when she does, she comes back and mentions a pair of brothers down the line that kind of came up that would have been the right age and lived in Tacoma when Michelle was killed, but they don't have their DNA.

So a detective begins following the brothers and stalks them into a restaurant where one of the brothers uses a napkin multiple times while he's eating. No way. When the brothers get up to leave, the one leaves the napkin and the detective swipes right in and grabs the napkin to be tested against the semen DNA. And

And on June 20th, 2018, Barbara gets a call from police that they had arrested a man named Gary Charles Hartman for the murder of 13-year-old Michelle. It's so insane to me that...

A napkin. A napkin. Like that is, that's insane. 67 year old Gary Hartman, who was a nurse in a psychiatric hospital with no history of violent crimes. He was a nurse in a psychiatric hospital. Had killed Michelle back in 1986 and a family tree that led detectives to DNA from a napkin had now just solved this case.

Gary Hartman was charged with murder in the first degree and rape in the first degree. He pled not guilty. And if I'm reading the court documents correctly, I think he's either in trial right now or will be soon, but it's really going to be hard to argue semen on her body. So I don't think that I think this is going to be a very quick trial or he might possibly change his plea. That's insane. 32 years after their similar murder,

Yet unrelated abductions and murders, Jenny and Michelle's killers were somehow caught in the same year. 32 years those cases had been cold and they were solved in the same year. So do you think they were just one-time killings and then they never killed anyone else? I mean, they've never been caught for killing anybody else if they have. Because I guess if they got matched for that, it wouldn't have gotten matched to anything else that's in the system? Yes, yes. Okay.

So I would also like to mention that at the time in 1986, Gary and Robert lived on the same street in Tacoma. Oh my gosh. And then went on to kill two girls separately, probably didn't even know that it was each other that had done it. It's so sad that they were 13 years old. They were so young. They were just riding their bikes. And I still can't comprehend it. These guys just grabbed them and killed them.

And then just went on to not ever do it again. So messed up. It's the thing that people just can't comprehend about true crime. It just doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. Like what, where and why? And also heartbreaking for these girls and their families. Like this is just not fair. And Michelle's sisters say that she was a forced to be reckoned with back in 1986. She was so inspired and determined and would have achieved great things had she been able to live the rest of her life. The

They explained that the loss of a child changed their mother forever and there are times where they can still see the pain in her eyes. Jenny was driven and had a beautiful smile. Her mother holds her near every day and today we can think about these young girls who were taken way too soon.

We can take a moment to remember them for who they were and are, as well as keeping their families in your thoughts today as you listen to this. And that was the case of Jenny Bastion and Michelle Welch. All right, you guys, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We love all of you. Thank you so much for the support. And we will see you guys next week with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.