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New DNA Evidence Used to Solve 2 Cold Cases from 1986
12-year-old Michella Welch and 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian were both murdered in the Tacoma, Washington area. After 30 years, their cold cases were solved.
On March 26, 1986, 12-year-old Michella Welch was babysitting her two younger sisters in Tacoma, Washington. Michella had taken her sisters to a nearby park to play. Around noon Michella got on her bike to go home and make some sandwiches for the girls.
While Michella was gone, her sisters went to a nearby business to use the washroom. They also made a call home to check on their older sister, but no one picked up at the house. Michella returned to the park and was unable to locate her sisters. She was last seen at 1:30 pm, talking to an unidentified man.
Her sisters returned to the park, waited, and when Michella didn’t find them, they went back home and called police. Around 11 pm, a tracking dog located Michella’s body in an isolated area, more than a quarter-mile away from the park. Michella had been raped, and her throat had been slit.
The initial suspect in the investigation was the man that Michella had last spoken too in the park. A witness described the man as tanned, or possibly Hispanic, twenty-five to thirty-five years old, 5'8 with black hair and a possible moustache.
Another suspect was a man seen in the park observing young girls, and he was described as being in his mid-twenties, 5'9, skinny, and wearing dirty, ripped clothing. Police had composite sketches drawn up for both men, but neither men could be identified.
Police had also looked into a known child killer, David Fisher, but the police couldn’t connect him to the crime area. At some point, he was arrested as a suspect in Michella’s murder but was subsequently ruled out.
Several months after Michella’s murder, thirteen-year-old Jenni Bastian went missing while riding her bike in Defiance park, only a few miles away from where Michella went missing. Jenni was found three weeks later, in the underbrush of a remote, wooded area. She had also been sexually assaulted and strangled.
