MURDERED: Michella Welch & Jennifer Bastian

Update: 2024-09-16

Digest

This episode delves into the chillingly similar murders of two young girls, Michelle Welch and Jennifer Bastion, in Tacoma, Washington. The episode begins by detailing the disappearance of 13-year-old Jennifer Bastion on August 4, 1986. Jennifer, a responsible and punctual girl, went for a bike ride in a local park and never returned home. Her parents, Patty and Ralph, immediately launched a search effort, but Jennifer and her bike were nowhere to be found. As the search for Jennifer continues, police begin to suspect an abduction. Witnesses report seeing a man on a bike following Jennifer in the park. Police release a composite sketch of the suspect and Patty pleads for Jennifer's safe return. The episode then introduces Barbara Welch, the mother of Michelle Welch, who disappeared four months earlier. Barbara shares the similarities between her daughter's case and Jennifer's, including the girls' ages, bike rides in local parks, and physical similarities. After weeks of searching, Jennifer's body is found in the park, hidden under brush. She was found with signs of sexual assault and strangulation. The discovery of Jennifer's body further strengthens the connection between her case and Michelle's. Police investigate both cases, focusing on the similarities between the murders. They find evidence, including a sperm sample from Michelle's body, but face challenges due to the time elapsed and the lack of a national DNA database. In 2009, Detective Jean Miller forms a cold case unit in Tacoma and begins investigating Michelle and Jennifer's cases. He discovers two other teen girls, Denise Sally and Kimberly Payne, who were murdered by strangulation in 1986. Detective Miller applies for a federal grant to fund DNA testing for cold cases. He partners with Detective Lindsay Wade, who is personally invested in the case. They run the DNA profile through CODIS, but it doesn't match any profiles in the database. Detective Wade learns that DNA from residents of the Special Commitment Center, a facility for sexually violent offenders, has never been collected. They test these samples, but they don't match the DNA profiles. Detective Wade learns about familial DNA testing and creates a database of names from the case files. She sends YSTR DNA from Jennifer's killer's profile to a genealogy expert, who identifies three potential last names: Smith, Holbrook, and Washburn. Detective Wade recognizes the name Washburn from the case files. Robert Washburn had called in a tip about seeing someone who looked like the composite sketch in Michelle's case, but the park he mentioned was the same park where Jennifer went missing. The FBI obtains a DNA sample from Robert Washburn, who is a match to the DNA on Jennifer's swimsuit. He is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. With Robert's arrest, the investigation into Michelle's case continues. Police use Jedmatch, a public genealogy database, to identify two brothers, Gary and David Hartman, who share DNA with Michelle's killer. Gary Hartman is arrested and charged with first-degree rape and first-degree murder. He pleads not guilty, but his DNA is a match to the sperm sample found on Michelle's body. Robert Washburn pleads guilty to Jennifer's murder and is sentenced to 26.5 years in prison. Gary Hartman is found guilty of Michelle's murder in a bench trial and receives the same sentence. Detective Wade and Patty Bastion work to close the DNA collection loophole that they discovered during the investigation. They advocate for legislation that requires DNA samples to be collected from deceased offenders and those convicted of certain crimes.

Outlines