The Murder of 12-Year-Old Michella Welch | Bloodline Detectives with Nancy Grace | Forensic Files

[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: Tacoma, Washington, 1986. 12-year-old Michella Welch and her two younger sisters
playing in a park near their home. NICOLE EBY: I just remember being scared a little bit, like, uh-uh,
you know, where's Michella. And I think. At that time, I realized something's really wrong.
NANCY GRACE: Later that evening, Michella Welch's body discovered. RICH ROBINSON: Her clothes had been ripped off,
she had clearly been beaten. She had been sexually assaulted. It didn't leave much to the imagination
to investigators as to what happened to her. NANCY GRACE: Then, just five months later,
the body of another young girl discovered just four miles from where Michella Welch last seen alive.
These two murders, together, ended Tacoma's innocence. NANCY GRACE: This is the story of two
little girls, both kidnapped and murdered just months apart. Are their cases connected?
Will they ever be solved? I'm Nancy Grace. This is "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC]
Tacoma, Washington. 35 miles South of Seattle in 1986, and has the feel of a small city.
RICH ROBINSON: It was a city, of course, but also had a distinctly small town American feel.
Parents at that time were able to feel assured that their children would be safe.
Michella liked to create. She was very inventive and liked to play games and create things.
And she loved to draw. So they would do-- they would do a lot of drawing at home.
I had a record player and we listened to music. And we would dance around and sing songs and color.
NICOLE EBY: It was just the three of us girls and my mom. That was pretty much my whole life growing up.
She was a single mom with three little girls. So we were our own little family unit.
I think we all looked out for each other. I know I looked up to Michella just so much.
I was a little pain, and she was my big inspiration. So, yeah. NANCY GRACE: It's 10:00 in the morning on March 26, 1986.
12-year-old Michella Welch takes her two little sisters, 11-year-old Angela and 9-year-old Nicole,
to Puget park, where there's a playground. It was my first week at work and it was the girls' spring break.
The girls were old enough not to have a babysitter for a couple of hours until Linda could come and check in.
So I went to work, Michelle decided she wanted to take her sisters to the park. NICOLE EBY: At that time, it was kind
of like, send your kids off to go up play outside and, you know, come home for dinner.
We arrived and we played on the playground equipment for just a little bit. I don't know that any of us really had a watch.
I don't remember that. I just remember getting hungry. RICH ROBINSON: Michella realizes that they don't have
their lunches so she volunteers to go back to allow her two younger sisters to keep playing.
It's a beautiful day. And so she, as the older sister, decides to get on her bike
and go back home and get their lunches. The two younger sisters, they have to go to the restroom
and so they leave the park to go find a public restroom. By the time the two younger sisters get back to the park,
they realize that their sister Michella has been there, that she's left her bike and it's locked up.
So they look around, but they don't see her. The girls start to get worried. They call out for her.
They don't hear any response. NICOLE EBY: I just remember being scared a little bit, like, uh-uh,
you know, where's Michella? The park was right next to a bridge, and you go over the bridge and the bridge had this deep gully.
And that's where we had been playing down there. And we went down looking for her, calling for her.
But I remember the babysitter showing up. And she was up at the top of the hill.
And I remember she called us. She was like, Angie, Nikki. And my heart leapt. I was like, oh, there's Michella.
And it wasn't. And I think, at that time, I realized something's really wrong. MARK LINDQUIST: We don't know a lot about what
happened after she returned. We know the lunches got there, we know her bike got there.
And a witness reported seeing her talking to a man who was pointing down a trail.
The babysitter, who was starting to grow concerned, contacted Michella's mother.
Michella's mother reported this to police. But back then, police didn't want to immediately start
looking for kids because it was normal for a kid to be absent for a few hours. BARBARA LEONARD: I left my work, and this was about noon.
I drove over the speed limit because I was suddenly alarmed. And Linda was there and the girls were there,
but Michella was not there. So that's when I called 911. They told me, sorry, I had to wait 24 hours before I could
file a missing person report. And I said, no, you don't understand. She's 12 years old.
They said, well, she probably went to the mall or with their girlfriends. And I said, no, she wouldn't do that.
She doesn't have any money. I just had this big, big fear in my heart. That was the feeling that I had constantly after Michella
disappeared from the park. It was just a terror that's tightening in your throat.
You don't know where she is and who took her, or where she went. NANCY GRACE: Tacoma Police want to wait 24 hours
before sounding the alarm, but Michella's mother, Barbara, pushes them to start searching for her daughter now.
Because Michella's mother was insistent, police did take the report and they did start looking for Michella.
And furthermore, they called in people from around the community. There were volunteers searching.
There were first responders searching. And they even had a tracking dog. Word spread pretty quickly in the community
that Michella was missing, which is one of the reasons there were so many volunteers
assisting the police. NANCY GRACE: The search last well into the night. Just before midnight, a horrible discovery is made by someone
searching with a tracking dog. RICH ROBINSON: Michella's body was found in a deplorable state.
Her clothes had been ripped off, she had clearly been beaten, she had been sexually assaulted.
It didn't leave much to the imagination to investigators as to what happened to her.
And it was despicable and disgusting. Even the police were shocked by this crime.
They hadn't seen anything like it that they could remember. NICOLE EBY: I was in the back of a police car,
and it was a female police officer. And she explained that they'd found her. And at the time, you know, being nine,
I was just eating the cookies and I just thinking, OK, my sister's not coming back.
I don't remember too many conversations with mom. She just closed down. I think she wanted to be strong for us
and she couldn't process any of it. And it was just too painful. NANCY GRACE: Police gather physical evidence
from the crime scene, hoping it will lead to Michella Welch's killer. MARK LINDQUIST: Fortunately, police collected everything
at that scene, including semen samples, even though we didn't yet have the technology
to pull DNA from those samples. RICH ROBINSON: One early investigative action that was taken was to look at the current list
of known sex offenders who lived in the area around the park. And the police did their due diligence.
And they quickly were able to rule out all of those people. They all had alibis, or were not in the area.
So they couldn't have committed the murder. BARBARA LEONARD: They had told me they had over 1,200 names
that they had gone through. And the case file was a very thick one. They had lots of leads, but nothing had panned out.
NANCY GRACE: Despite their very best efforts, Tacoma Police cannot find Michella Welch's murderer.
There's a child killer on the loose. Parents in Tacoma living in fear. The police did not know who did it.
There was no good leads. And their children could be next. I mean, it was absolutely earth-shattering for parents,
and it also had lasting impressions on many people. Just five months later, in the summer of 1986,
another young girl found murdered. Is there a serial killer stalking Tacoma? That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[AUDIO LOGO] Tacoma, Washington, 1986. 12-year-old Michella Welch goes missing while playing with her own sisters in a small city park.
Hours later, Michella found viciously murdered. Police stumped, they can't find her killer.
Five months later, another young girl in Tacoma goes missing. RICH ROBINSON: Tacoma is on edge all throughout the summer.
But then things go to another level on August 4, 1986. On that day, Jenny Bastian from Tacoma
is on her bike, a brand new Schwinn bicycle. She's excited. She's looking forward to competitively using
this bike in upcoming races. She goes to Point Defiance Park. She's there in broad daylight on her bike.
And it's the last time that she's seen alive. PATTIE BASTIAN: She had been practicing cycling in Point
Defiance because it was nearby the house, near in terms of a mile and a half. She rode usually with a friend.
And the two of them would ride around the five mile drive and then lounge in the grass by the duck pond,
and then they'd come home. On August 4th, the friend she was normally riding with was busy and so she
sent a note to her father. I saw a note from Jenny on the kitchen table, and it said she was going for a bike ride at Point Defiance
Park and she'd be back at 6:30. And I wrote a note saying I was going to the movies.
And I left my note next to her note. My dad picked me up from the theater. And I walked up to the car and I could see he was
crying in the driver's seat. So I knew something was very wrong. And he just looked at me and he said Jenny hasn't
come home from her bike ride. NANCY GRACE: Jennifer's father frantically searching the park.
Shortly after, the family calls police. Given that Michella's murder had happened only a few months
before, police responded immediately to the disappearance of Jenny Bastian, and they responded in force.
I don't think it was 10 minutes and there were two officers on our front porch. MARK LINDQUIST: There was a massive search
that night involving police first responders, volunteers. And it went on for days, and days, and days.
PATTIE BASTIAN: We were assigned a detective, a detective that came every morning to our front porch
to tell us where they were going to look for Jennifer that day. And that same detective came back
to the house in the evening to tell us the results of that search. I can't imagine a human having that task.
To go in the morning, to talk to parents of a missing child, and go at night and admit they still hadn't found her.
NANCY GRACE: Days turn into weeks and Jennifer's family fears the worst. Then, they get a visit from the mother of Michella Welch,
the little girl who was murdered in another Tacoma park, just five months before.
She was very angry. She would admit, she said, I did not want to see you. She said, I wouldn't not want to admit
that's what happened to my daughter, that she had been murdered. PATTIE BASTIAN: She gave us her sympathy,
talked about how hard it was and that she was there for us. I mean, very, very well meaning.
But I also remember after she left and I closed the door, I said to my friend, I don't know what she's doing here.
Her daughter's dead, mine's not. NANCY GRACE: Any mom can understand just how Pattie Bastian feels when she gets a visit
from Michella's mom Barbara. If there's any hope, a desperate parent will never admit something horrible
has happened to their child. Four weeks after Jennifer's disappearance, Pattie Bastian gets a visit from a Tacoma
Police family liaison officer. PATTIE BASTIAN: I was up on the ladder with the roller,
painting the dining room when he walked in the front door. It was hot. It was August.
The doors were open. And by then, he was part of the family. He walked in, he took the roller out of my hand,
he sat me down in a chair, and he said, we found her. That was how I found out that they had found Jennifer.
RICH ROBINSON: Four weeks after her disappearance, a jogger discovers a foul odor while running through the park.
This triggers a cascade of events that lead to the discovery of Jennifer's body.
MARK LINDQUIST: Because almost a month had passed, the body was somewhat decomposed.
Police, of course, collected everything they could, including her clothing, which would
later prove to be critical. RICH ROBINSON: Jennifer's body was totally unrecognizable.
She had been out in the elements for four weeks. She had been strangled to death.
She had been sexually assaulted. Her bicycle had been covered intentionally by debris
and leaves, and so had her body. MARK LINDQUIST: We don't know, and we will never know exactly what happened
shortly before Jenny's death. We do know, however, from Jenny's injuries that she likely fought very hard for her life.
Police now on the hunt. They're investigating two homicides of two girls, both of similar age, both kidnapped
from Tacoma city parks. Their murders separated by just five short months. Investigators suspect a serial killer on the loose.
Police also need to keep Jennifer's remains for an extensive autopsy. They have to tell grieving parents
they're not ready to release the little body to the family for burial. PATTIE BASTIAN: I would say, as a parent,
that is among the hardest things you will ever do. And I hope nobody ever has to do it.
When the poor officer was telling me that they could not release her body, I just started pounding on him.
What do you mean you can't release her body? We can't have a funeral without a body.
And he finally just hugged me to get me to stop hitting him. And ultimately, they said that her body
would be in the coffin. She would be brought to church. And then after the service, they would
take her back to the medical examiner's office. The parish priest really did a nice job
in trying to include all of Jennifer's friends who were present and the whole community.
Because the funeral service was attended by a real cross-section of the entire community.
And a lot of law enforcement were there too. MARK LINDQUIST: This was a huge case for the community.
There was massive effort applied by Tacoma police department. And yet, both of these cases went cold.
PATTIE BASTIAN: They were telling us they weren't going to call these closed or cold cases,
but they were not going to be as active as they had been. There were no more leads for them to follow up on.
And of course, it made sense. NANCY GRACE: Solid evidence is hard to come by despite the similarities between the two child murders.
RICH ROBINSON: The murders have a tremendous amount in common. Obviously, they both happen in parks.
They both take place in the daytime. They're both preying on the same profile of individual,
both young girls who frankly look very similar and have similar physical features.
It doesn't take an expert investigator to look at that and say, we got somebody who's targeting specific people
in our community. And so the police, obviously, think that they're connected. Put yourself in the position of the people of Tacoma.
In a matter of five months, you have two little girls, cute, innocent little girls.
Both blond, both blue-eyed, who have gone completely missing. And then were found killed.
The suspect, completely on the loose. The police have no good leads. Put yourself in that position.
In their mind, there is a serial killer preying on the children of this city. And the police have no clue how to stop them.
NANCY GRACE: As we see next on "Bloodline Detectives," it will take another 30 years before a new generation
of detectives can unmask whoever stole the lives of little Jennifer Bastian and Michella Welch.
[AUDIO LOGO] Tacoma, Washington, 1986. 12-year-old Michella Welch disappears one morning while playing with her little sisters
in a small city park. Just hours later, her body found in a remote area. Then five months later, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian
goes for a bike ride in another Tacoma Park. A month after, her body discovered.
Police hunt down every available lead. But ultimately, both child murders go cold.
Then, 2011, pioneering DNA science gives investigators a shot at cracking these child murders.
RICH ROBINSON: The police are able to determine that, in fact, it was two separate people who
committed these heinous crimes. They're able to come to this understanding because of even further developments in DNA technology.
The two profiles from the two semen samples on the two girls don't match. They're two different people, two different men.
And that means two different killers. The manner of death is so similar. The locations are so similar.
The places where the bodies are found are so similar. We could go on and on. And it turns out that they're not connected.
Shocking. NANCY GRACE: Detectives now place their hopes with CeCe Moore and her team at Parabon NanoLabs, specialists
in forensic genetic genealogy. They are using a new scientific technique that is already
solving many, many cold cases. Our goal is to provide the smallest number of persons of interest possible to law enforcement.
And that is really the power of investigative genetic genealogy, that we can rule out the vast majority
of the population when we do this work. And then, DNA phenotyping can help to narrow it down even further and eliminate
more of those individuals. And so it really helps to make investigations much more efficient and much more focused.
In this case, the phenotyping predicted that Michella's killer had brown hair, brown eyes, and fair skin.
Now, of course, that's not that unique. There's millions of people who would fit that,
but it does help us to potentially eliminate people who have lighter hair, lighter eyes, darker skin.
Researchers at Parabon NanoLabs are making significant progress, but it's still not enough to narrow down possible suspects.
CeCe Moore and her team turned to genetic genealogy to try and build the killers' family tree.
So fortunately, we had enough data on this case for me to be able to formulate a hypothesis
in only about two days. Once I get a little further back in the tree, I can connect into those traditional genealogical
records, like census records, birth records, marriage records. But it is often a real challenge to get to that point.
So I spend a lot of time in newspaper archives and obituaries, on social media, using people search databases.
Just trying to figure out who these people are, who their parents and grandparents are.
It gets easier once I get back to the level of great grandparents or so because then I
can use those traditional genealogical records. But in order to get to that point,
it often takes a lot of creativity. What I'm looking for is that one person or that set of siblings that is related to all of those top
matches. And when we're able to find matches that connect to multiple branches of someone's family
tree, that gives us a really high confidence theory about who that killer might be.
NANCY GRACE: Using a high quality DNA sample extracted from the killer's sperm, the team at Parabon NanoLabs
makes a remarkable breakthrough. I was able to come to a really strong hypothesis
about who Michella's killer might be. Now I could only narrow it down to this one
immediate family, which meant there were two persons of interest. Because there were two brothers in this family
and they both lived in the area, they were both in the right position in the tree
and had the correct ancestral mix to be Michella's killer. I can't take it any farther with investigative
genetic genealogy. At that point, I have to turn that information over to law enforcement.
RICH ROBINSON: Parabon NanoLabs is able to give investigators gold, amazingly. Their technology is able to figure
out the last name of the suspect's DNA that they're looking at. And the name they give them is Hartman.
CECE MOORE: When I presented my hypothesis about who Michella's killer could be, they were blown away.
You know, this was really early days for investigative genetic genealogy. It was one of the first successful identifications
using these techniques. And so I'm not sure how confident they were that I would actually be able to narrow
it down so dramatically. They had looked at dozens, if not hundreds, of persons of interest over the decades of investigating this case
and they had never heard of Gary Hartman. And so when I said that name, I don't think
they initially recognized it. It wasn't somebody they had investigated. It wasn't somebody who'd been under suspicion.
He wasn't in their file. And so they were just blown away when they got that name.
And I know as I was presenting all of my evidence and my hypotheses, they immediately started jumping in,
entering his name into their databases and seeing what they could find. And so, I don't have access to law enforcement databases,
I can only use public information. And so I can only take something so far, whatever's out there in the public.
And I couldn't find much information about him. And so the detectives on this case
very quickly jumped in and tried to find everything they could about these two brothers,
and specifically about Gary Hartman. NANCY GRACE: Gary Hartman becomes the prime suspect in the murder of Michella Welch.
But there's still another active child murder investigation from 1986. Remember Jennifer Bastian?
Detective Lindsey Wade turns her attention to the other Tacoma child murder. RICH ROBINSON: Lindsey Wade is a very interesting
character in this story. First of all, she's from Tacoma, and was an 11-year-old girl
at the time of the murders. So she was very, very influenced by what happened. THERESA BASTIAN: She's amazing and tenacious and so smart.
Mom had set up a visit to the Tacoma Police so I got to meet Detective Wade and actually see
the binders of leads that had been called in on my sister's case over the years.
So she had them make a computer program so that every male name, whether they called in a tip or they
were named in a tip, it went in this computer system. She matched them against the database
to see if they were ever convicted of a crime, charged with the crime. And then she color coded it.
If it was a violent crime or crime against a person, it was a different color. So then, those are the ones she went after first.
Because if she could get DNA from their previous crimes or if they would offer their DNA, it would be a quick match
or rule out. And she just went methodically down this list of names. RICH ROBINSON: She's able to get those multiple thousands
of people's names. They're able to get it down to a group of 160 people. Those 160, and Detective Wade's mine,
are the most likely suspects. And she wants to get voluntary DNA evidence from all of those individuals.
So who does she call? The FBI. The Federal Bureau of Investigations works with Detective Wade.
And they go alphabetically in a systematic fashion in groups of people to get DNA from these individuals
on a voluntary basis. NANCY GRACE: Detective Lindsey Wade and the FBI worked methodically through the list of 160 potential suspects.
One man, Robert Washburn, becomes the POI, person of interest. Washburn was one of the many potential suspects
that the FBI asked for voluntary DNA samples from. And interestingly, when Washburn was contacted by the FBI,
one of the first things out of his mouth was, I didn't kill that little girl. NANCY GRACE: Then the case takes a strange twist.
Back in 1986, in the months following the murders, Robert Washburn calls police to offer a tip he says
would help their investigation. MARK LINDQUIST: Obviously, there is something wrong in Robert
Washburn's head. Once he gave a DNA sample to the FBI, he had to know we would be coming for him.
He had been on the TDP radar since the day he called in a tip on the Michella Welch murder.
It's taken 30 long years to narrow down the suspect list to just two men, Gary Hartman and Robert Washburn.
But is the evidence strong enough to convict either one of them? That's next on "Bloodline Detectives."
[AUDIO LOGO] Tacoma, Washington State, 1986. Two young girls murdered just months apart.
The first victim, 12-year-old Michella Welch, murdered in a small Tacoma park. The second child victim is 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian.
Her body found five months after little Michella is murdered. Jennifer disappeared from another Tacoma park.
One month later, her body discovered. Both homicide investigations ultimately go cold.
Pioneering DNA technology provides a breakthrough. Parabon NanoLabs, specialists in forensic genetic genealogy,
identify now 70-year-old Gary Hartman as the prime suspect in Michella Welch's murder.
Meanwhile, Tacoma detectives ID another suspect, Robert Washburn, as their main interest in Jennifer Bastian's homicide.
Gary Hartman, at this point, he's an unsuspecting average looking guy. He's a nurse.
He certainly doesn't fit the profile of a murderer. The police have to get more evidence.
It's not enough to take what a private company gives you with some new science that wouldn't have been
admissible a few years prior. They need more. So they hone in on Gary and they follow him.
They tag him. And they eventually are able to follow him to a restaurant where he's having lunch with some coworkers.
They watch him throw away his tray. And after everyone leaves, the investigator goes and grabs
some DNA off of a napkin. That DNA is tested and it matches the DNA provided by the genealogy test done earlier.
That was our hit on Gary Hartman. That was our probable cause, that was our nail in his coffin, that was enough to move on.
With the DNA hit, we had our probable cause. We had enough for an arrest warrant.
And we picked Hartman up, and we charged him with murder and rape. My best friend up in Washington State
called me and she said, Nikki, did you hear? It's just on the news that they arrested someone
for the murder of your sister. And I was floored. ANGELA VELASQUEZ: After 30 years,
we've changed quite a bit. I wouldn't have recognized him at all. If I had seen him that day or if he had approached me,
I would not have recognized him. He could very well have been the man that was at the park that day.
After the arraignment, I found out that he had lived not far, if not right across,
from the park. So he could have watched us that day. NANCY GRACE: 30 long years after the murder
of 12-year-old Michella Welch, now 70-year-old Gary Hartman charged with her vicious killing.
He agrees to a non-jury bench trial. That's when a judge, not a jury, hears the evidence
and determines guilt or innocence. In our business, we sometimes call this a slow guilty plea.
I wanted to hurt him but I knew that the court system, the justice system, would take care of what they need
to if he indeed was the one. And he fit-- he fit the picture, but he didn't look like it.
He did not look like a criminal. MARK LINDQUIST: Throughout the sentencing, Hartman cried.
He sobbed loudly. When the victim's family spoke, he apologized. But I think he was just sorry he was caught.
While the sentence itself was relatively lenient in my opinion, 26 years, he's still going
to end up dying in prison. NANCY GRACE: Police and prosecutors satisfied. Justice is served in Michella Welch's murder case.
Gary Hartman will never again be a danger to little girls. Now Tacoma detectives turn their attention
to Jennifer Bastian's murder. That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [AUDIO LOGO]
Tacoma, Washington. Detectives make a solid arrest in one of two horrible child murders taking place
five months apart back in 1986. One was the murder of 12-year-old Michella Welch.
Now, investigators turn their attention to 61-year-old Robert Washburn, the main suspect in the brutal murder of
13-year-old Jennifer Bastian. MARK LINDQUIST: Washburn gave up his DNA voluntarily to the FBI.
He knew this day was coming. And so I wasn't surprised when he stepped up and pled guilty.
NANCY GRACE: Robert Washburn's guilty plea finally brings relief to Jennifer's family.
And he gets a long jail sentence, effectively life behind bars, sparing Jennifer Sebastian's loved ones
the pain of a lengthy trial. THERESA BASTIAN: Standing trial, facing that was frightening to me.
On occasion, it made me really sick because I didn't want to hear anything about the how.
I didn't want to hear anything like that. I know that probably sounds strange that a mother wouldn't
want to know all the details. But I don't know. I didn't. I got the cause of death, I knew where she was.
In my mind, Ralph and I both made up this wonderful story about, if the last thing she saw on Earth
were the gorgeous trees in that forest, at least she saw the beautiful trees in the forest.
NANCY GRACE: Three decades later, the mothers of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian
are now close friends. Their bond forged by tragedy, yet a bond that gives them both comfort.
Pattie and I get together on the phone and we talk every once in a while about the situation
and what's going on in our lives and with our children. Pattie is a great person to know.
She's been a very good comfort to me. NANCY GRACE: Two little girls, their lives taken.
A community changed forever. It takes more than 30 years for Tacoma to finally face the reality of how the world around them
has changed. One of the things that I've heard from people who spent their entire lives in Tacoma is that these two murders together
ended Tacoma innocence. These murders changed the way parents viewed Tacoma, and changed the way parents viewed the world.
To have both of these men put away, certainly exercise a boogeyman in a horror that haunted
that community for many years. NANCY GRACE: These two 30-year-old murder cases are finally closed.
Pioneering genetic genealogy solves one of them and relentless detective work solves the other.
I think it's very safe to say that if it wasn't for the advent of a new form of crime fighting
in forensic genetic genealogy, that these cases would have never been solved. NICOLE EBY: I'm very impressed with her
as a detective and her investigative abilities, but I'm also happy to call her a friend.
NANCY GRACE: The tragic murders of these two little girls results in some positive change, a new law passed
in their names, Michella and Jennifer's law, a law that allows the use of technology
to solve homicide cases. We worked with Senator Tina Orwell to get designed this law so that upon arrest of a felony,
DNA would be taken. And it was a two-year process getting it through the legislature but it happened, and we're
very, very pleased that it did. NANCY GRACE: But even after 30 years, the pain of loss
remains very real to their families. I loved my sister. I had such a connection yet, I don't have that anymore, so.
I think going through the healing, the counseling I've been going through, it's helped me
to realize that I need to cultivate a deeper relationship with Angie. Sad that it's taken me this time in my life
to come to that conclusion, but I think that tragedy can separate people, but it also can bring them together.
NANCY GRACE: The brutal and tragic murders of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian
have forever scarred their families, their siblings, their mothers. The family's grief that they live with every day
has been helped somewhat by forensic genetic genealogy and the miracles that it can work.
Their shared experience as mothers also eases a pain that will never go away. They rely on each other to keep their daughter's spirits alive.
I'm Nancy Grace. Thank you for being with us here on "Bloodline Detectives." [MUSIC PLAYING]

Tacoma, Washington, 1986, 12-year-old Michella Welch is abducted from a public park, sexually assaulted and murdered. Only a few months later 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian is abducted under similar circumstances. Could it be that there is a serial killer preying upon young girls in the Tacoma area? Only investigative genetic genealogy can bring answers 30 years later.

Now in its third season, Bloodline Detectives is the leading true crime series that explores how police departments harness genetic genealogy to solve crimes that were once considered "unsolvable," bringing long-awaited answers to victims' families.

=============== Like, comment and subscribe if you’re ready for more true crime. Your favorite shows like World’s Most Evil Killers, Meet Marry Murder, Forensic Files, Unsolved Mysteries, Murdered At First Sight and Bloodline Detectives are all available to stream 24/7 for free via the FilmRise Streaming Network. You can access The FilmRise Streaming Network through most free App Platforms and Smart TV portals such as Amazon Fire TV, The Roku Channel, Android, iOS and many more.

Brief Summary

Two young girls were murdered in Tacoma in 1986, leading to decades-long investigations and eventual breakthroughs through DNA technology.

Key points

Michella Welch Goes Missing. 12-year-old Michella Welch disappears while playing with her sisters in Tacoma, leading to a frantic search.
Discovery of Michella's Body. Michella's body is found in a deplorable state, shocking the police and community.
Another Young Girl Goes Missing. Five months later, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian goes missing, raising fears of a serial killer.
Jennifer's Body Discovered. A jogger discovers Jennifer's body weeks after her disappearance, confirming the community's worst fears.
Gary Hartman Identified as Suspect. Parabon NanoLabs identifies Gary Hartman as the prime suspect in Michella Welch's murder.
Robert Washburn Pleads Guilty. Robert Washburn's guilty plea brings relief to Jennifer Bastian's family after decades of uncertainty.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I just remember being scared a little bit, like, uh-uh, you know, where's Michella.

Nicole Eby recalls her fear when Michella goes missing.

0:22WatchApr 12, 2023

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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