Michella Welch and Jenni Bastian Murders: How Did They Die?

Michella Welch and Jenni Bastian Murders: How Did They Die? Who Do You Think Killed Them?  Well, This is the question that is generating so much consternation these days. So, let’s take a closer look at this person’s life to find out more about who they are and how they died. Also, it would be an understatement to say that things in Tacoma were positively free-flowing back in the mid-1980s, but everything changed tragically when two young girls died tragically in a short amount of time. After all, as seen on ‘Dateline: Evil Was Watching,’ Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian were murdered five months apart in the most horrible ways imaginable. So, if you’re curious about the circumstances surrounding their horrible deaths, the protracted investigations, and their (surprisingly) varied assailants, we’ve got you covered.

Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian Murder: How Did They Pass Away?

Michella Welch agreed to accompany her two younger sisters to Puget Park on March 26, 1986, at 10 a.m., entirely unaware that the journey would end in calamity. The small 12-year-old went home to get lunch for the trio around 11 a.m., and when she returned, she left the food on a table and locked her bike next to her sisters’ before going to find them. Her siblings eventually sought help from a babysitter, who alerted their parents and the authorities, but Michella’s death was discovered at 11:30 p.m. that night.

Michella was found in a ditch near a makeshift fire pit a quarter-mile from the play area, raped but dead from blunt force trauma to the head and a deep cut to the neck. In addition, five months later, on August 4, 1986, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian went missing while riding her bicycle in nearby Point Defiance Park. Jennifer was last seen alive at 6 p.m., but her body was found three weeks later in a rural area off Five Mile Drive, where she’d also been sexually assaulted before being strangled to death.

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Who Killed Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian?

Because of the proximity and similarities between the two savage yet clear-cut homicides, the authorities came to the (logical) conclusion that a single person was responsible. In Michella’s case, they did have a teen eyewitness who claimed to have seen a strange man under Proctor Bridge on that bleak day who kept staring at the tiny girls, but he couldn’t be identified at the time. Despite the fact that DNA was gathered from her crime scene/body, nothing significant was ever discovered owing to the technology available at the time. Jennifer’s clothing were only examined decades later and revealed similar facts.

The investigators, however, were more concerned with seeking justice for the two little girls than with anything else, and they moved on as soon as DNA testing in 2013 disproved their theory of a link. They’d taken every unique sample from the crime scenes and compared it to other samples (as well as the national database), but no matches were identified. In short, investigators discovered that not only were there two different criminals but also neither had any prior criminal history, pushing them to turn to modern technologies.

They used every resource at their disposal, including forensic genealogy, in-depth DNA analysis, and family genetic processes, until Gary Hartman and Robert Dwane Washburn were identified as the two suspects. She freely submitted a DNA sample when questioned by the FBI in March 2017 in connection with Jennifer’s murder, which was later discovered to be a match in May 2018. After rigorous monitoring (of Gary and his brother), the police obtained Gary’s sample of a brown paper napkin, and that, too, was an excellent match in June 2018.

As a result, after more than three decades, the first (and last) arrests in connection with Jennifer Bastian and Michella Welch’s case were made. A court convicted Gary of Michella’s first-degree murder after a bench trial in early 2022, while in January 2019, Robert pleaded guilty to Jennifer’s murder. During their respective court appearances, they both expressed regret for their actions, but the sad reality is that nothing they say or do now will alter the past or better the situation.

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