Now, the family of a cold case murder victim now has justice. Someone in this world sexually assaulted and killed my sister. You can run, you’re wrong. A warning to our viewers. What you are about to watch is a true story. The following program contains content that some viewers may find disturbing.
Viewer discretion is strongly advised. It is a Wednesday in late March and in Tacoma, Washington, spring has not quite arrived yet. The trees in Puget Park are still bare enough to see through and the gulch that runs below the Proctor Bridge is the kind of place that feels deep and wild for a city park.
The kind of place children dare each other to explore. Three sisters came here this morning. The oldest is 12. She has long blonde hair and glasses and a habit of looking after people that she didn’t choose so much as grow into. The two younger ones are playing somewhere in the park while she rode her bicycle home and back again because they forgot their lunch and she was the one who noticed and she was the one who went.
She came back. That part matters. She chained her bike to the rack. She set the brown paper bag down on the picnic table. Sandwiches inside made at home, brought back for her sisters. And then she went to find them. Her sisters came back around 1:15. The bag was on the table. The bike was chained where it always was.
The park was quiet in the way that parks get quiet in the middle of a Wednesday afternoon. They called her name. Nothing. They used the family call, a sound the three of them had made up together, a signal between sisters, the kind of thing that travels through trees and over a gulch and always, always gets answered. The gulch gave it back empty.
The bag sat on the table. The bike sat in the rack. And somewhere below the tree line, in a place she had never intended to go, a 12-year-old girl who had come back to take care of her sisters was already gone. Welcome to Cold Case Unlocked. This case took 32 years to close. And it broke open because a detective who was 11 years old when this happened refused to let it stay cold.
Drop a comment and tell us where you’re watching from. We read every single one. New here? Hit like and subscribe. It keeps us digging. Now, back to Tacoma. Her name was Michella Even Welch, born June 7th, 1973. 12 years old, a sixth-grader at her school in Tacoma’s North End. Petite, small enough that she looked younger than she was.
Long blonde hair, glasses, the face of someone who paid attention to things. She was the oldest of three sisters. Angela and Nicole were younger, and Michella had spent most of her life in the particular way that oldest children in single-parent homes sometimes do. Being a second set of hands, a second set of eyes, a second adult before she had any reason to be one.
Her family described her as fiercely independent, responsible beyond her years, kind. Her aunt Linda McGuire would write more than three decades later that Michella’s murder was the worst and most devastating event in their family. That there was a hole in their lives no one could fill. That is the kind of sentence that takes 30 years to write.
Her mother, Barbara, had been through a hard stretch. Michella’s father had left. By March 1986, Barbara had bought a house, found a new job, and enrolled all three girls in piano lessons. Life had started to turn. They were building something. What it looked like from the outside was a family that had found its footing again. What it looked like from the inside was a 12-year-old who knew her mother was working hard and did what she could to make things easier.
She was the one who noticed they had forgotten their lunch. She was the one who volunteered to go back for it. She was the one who came back. Remember that detail. It becomes the whole story. March 26th, 1986 was a Wednesday, spring break, which meant Barbara was at work and the girls had the morning to themselves.
Piano lessons were scheduled for that afternoon and their mother had told them they could go to Puget Park for a while first. The park was a couple of miles from the house, right across from the lesson location, easy distance, known territory, the kind of place that families in a neighborhood use so often it stops registering as a place at all and becomes just part of the routine.
The three of them arrived around 10:00 in the morning. At some point they realized they had left their lunch at home. Michella, being Michella, said she would go get it. Around 11:00 a.m. she got on her bicycle and rode back home. She came back to the park. She chained her bike to the rack. She made the sandwiches, put them in a brown paper bag, and set the bag on the picnic table.
Then she went looking for Angela and Nicole, who had walked to a nearby business to use the restroom. A 13-year-old classmate of Michella’s was in the park that day. He later told detectives that he had seen a man standing under the Proctor Bridge earlier in the morning watching the girls. White male, mid-20s, 5 ft 9 in thin, torn blue jean jacket, dirty ripped white tennis shoes.
He was never identified. He was never found. Around 1:30 p.m., someone saw Michella near the edge of the gulch talking to a man, possibly Hispanic, 25 to 35, 5 ft 8 in black hair, light-colored clothing. The man appeared to be pointing down a trail. That was the last time anyone saw Michella Welch alive. Angela and Nicole came back to the picnic area around 1:15 p.m.
No Michella. They waited. They played near a cave under the bridge for a while. They came back. The brown paper bag was on the table. The bike was in the rack. Their sister was not there. They stood at the edge of the gulch and called the family call, the sound the three of them used to find each other.
It did not come back. They contacted [music] their babysitter. The babysitter called Barbara. Officers arrived at 3:10 p.m. and began searching. At 11:30 that night, a tracking dog found Michella’s body in the gulch, more than a quarter mile from the picnic table next to a makeshift fire pit. She had been sexually assaulted.
The medical examiner ruled the cause of death as blunt force trauma to the head and a wound [music] to the throat. She had been dead for hours. The brown paper bag with the sandwiches was still on the table. Every case on this channel is weeks of digging through real records, real documents, real families.
If this one is landing with you, hit like and subscribe. It’s what keeps Cold Case Unlocked and keeps cases like Michella’s from being forgotten. Now, back to Tacoma, where the investigation was already carrying the weight of a mistake it didn’t yet know it had made. In the days after Michella’s murder, Tacoma was shaken in a particular way.
The kind of fear that rearranges how a community moves. Parents drove their children places they would have let them walk. Children stopped using the trail shortcut through the park [music] to get to school. The composite sketch of the man under the Proctor Bridge, drawn from the classmate’s description, was distributed everywhere. Nobody recognized him.
Thousands of tips came in. Investigators worked around the clock through 1986. In the first year alone, the task force logged more than 10,000 investigative hours. Then, 5 months after Michella died, something happened that would redirect every resource, every theory, and every hour of investigation for the next three decades. August 4th, 1986.
A 13-year-old girl named Jennifer Bastian left home on her bicycle to ride to Point Defiance Park, 3 miles from Puget Park, on Tacoma’s north end. She left a note saying she would be home by 6:30 p.m. She was training for a YMCA bike tour. She was never seen alive again. Her body was found 24 days later, hidden under a constructed mound of sticks and leaves in a wooded section of the park.
She had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Jennifer Bastian was blonde. She was 13. She was alone in a north end Tacoma park on a bicycle. The similarities to Michella were impossible to ignore. Investigators consolidated the cases. The assumption became official. One killer, two victims.
That assumption would hold for nearly 30 years. It was wrong. Investigators chased the single killer theory through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Tips came in, suspects were interviewed and cleared. The DNA technology to do anything useful with the biological evidence collected from both crime scenes did not exist yet. In 2006, 20 years after Michella’s murder, the technology finally caught up enough to build a usable male DNA profile from the autopsy evidence.
It was submitted to CODIS, the national criminal DNA database containing millions of profiles of convicted offenders. No match. The man who killed Michella Welch had never been convicted of anything that would put his DNA in any database. He was invisible to the only system that could have found him. In 2013, a DNA profile was finally developed from a swimsuit Jennifer Bastian had been wearing the day she disappeared.
Investigators submitted it to CODIS and no match there, either. But something else came out of that testing, something that changed the shape of everything. The profile from Jennifer’s case did not match the profile from Michella’s. Two different men, not one killer working two parks in five months.
Two separate men unconnected who had each committed a murder within miles of the other and then disappeared back into ordinary life. 30 years of investigation built on the assumption that they were looking for one person. Every suspect pool that [music] had ever been narrowed around both cases at once. Every resource shaped [music] by a theory that the DNA had now demolished in a single comparison.
[music] They had been searching for the wrong shape of a crime. The year 2013 [music] also brought a new detective into the cold case unit. Her name was Lindsey Wade. She had grown [music] up in Tacoma. She was 11 years old in 1986, old enough to understand [music] that something had happened in the parks, old enough to feel afraid.
She remembered [music] the years when she thought twice about the trail shortcut through the trees. In high school, she [music] read Ann Rule’s book about Ted Bundy, another killer from Tacoma, and decided she wanted to catch people like him. She spent years moving through the Tacoma PD, from patrol to [music] narcotics to detective, before Gene Miller, who had started the cold case unit in 2009, saw something [music] in her and brought her in.
“She’s got that grit,” Miller said, “that determination, that ability [music] to fight through whatever challenges there are and just make things happen.” Wade inherited [music] the binders, dozens of them. Every report, every interview, every tip, every name that had ever touched either case.
She built a master list of 2,300 men. Every male who had [music] intersected with either investigation in any capacity, witnesses, [music] tipsters, persons of interest, anyone whose name appeared in any file across three decades [music] of paperwork. 2,300 names. The killer was one of them. She didn’t know which one. In 2015 and 2016, Wade worked with Parabon NanoLabs to generate composite sketches from the DNA profiles of both suspects, computer-generated faces built from genetic material, predicting skin tone, eye color, hair color, facial
structure, the Michella Welch suspect was predicted to be fair-skinned, brown-eyed, brown-haired, predominantly Northern European with a small amount of Native American ancestry. The sketches went public. Tips came in. Dead ends, all of them. Wade narrowed the 2,300 down to a few hundred higher probability names and began working through voluntary DNA collections.
160 men agreed to provide samples. The samples were sent to the lab in batches. Most batches came back without a match. One detail in the Bastian file had always been strange. Back in 1986, in the weeks after Michella’s murder, a man had called police to report a tip. Said he had been jogging in Point Defiance Park and had spotted a man matching the composite sketch description for the Welch case.
His name was Robert Washburn. He was interviewed, noted, not charged. He stayed on the radar. Years later, when Wade [music] built her master list of 2,300 names, Washburn’s was on it, precisely because of that 1986 [music] call. In 2017, he was on the list of 160 men asked for voluntary DNA. [music] He agreed. His sample was submitted.
It sat in a batch at the lab. Wade sent the final 18 samples before she retired in [music] April 2018. Days after leaving the Tacoma PD, [music] she got a call. One of those 18 had matched. Jennifer Bastian’s case. The name on the hit, Robert Washburn. The man who had called police in 1986 [music] to report a suspicious jogger near Michella’s murder scene, had, five months after that call, abducted and killed Jennifer Bastian in [music] a different park.
He had put himself into the investigation of one murder while having committed the other. He eventually pleaded [music] guilty and was sentenced to 27 years. Michella’s case still [music] had no match, but something else was already in motion. In February [music] 2017, a year before Wade retired, she had begun working with genetic [music] genealogist Barbara Rae-Venter on the Welch DNA profile.
Rae-Venter is the scientist who would later [music] in 2018 help the FBI identify the Golden State Killer. She was working on Michella’s [music] case before that arrest made genetic genealogy famous. A DNA SNP [music] profile was built from the crime scene evidence and uploaded to FamilyTreeDNA [music] and GEDmatch, public databases where ordinary people voluntarily share their genetic data to trace [music] ancestry.
Rae-Venter and genealogist Nancy Averill searched for [music] familial matches, not the killer himself, but relatives who shared DNA with him. They built family trees outward from every match, traced lines backward to common ancestors, then followed the descendants forward, narrowing by sex, by age, by geography.
The tree converged on two brothers and two of their cousins. All of them had lived in Tacoma’s North End in 1986. One of the brothers was Gary Charles Hartman. In May 2018, the same month Washburn was arrested for Jennifer Bastian’s murder, Parabon NanoLabs contacted Tacoma PD to offer a second opinion on the Welch case using its own genetic genealogy service.
It independently confirmed what Rae-Venter’s work had already found. Two brothers, both in Tacoma in 1986. Both now under surveillance. Detective Steve Riepel followed Gary Hartman for weeks. Hartman was 66 years old by then. He drove to work. He ran errands. He lived on the shores of Steilacoom Lake with his wife.
He collected vintage cars. Neighbors called [music] him cordial. He had no criminal record. He had worked as a community nurse specialist at [music] Western State Hospital for 22 years. A psychiatric facility helping recently discharged patients reintegrate [music] into society. The hospital said he had not a single disciplinary mark in [music] over two decades.
Riepel sat in restaurants 10 feet away from him and watched. Waited. I observed him using the napkin multiple times. He crumpled it up, put it into a bag, then crumpled that bag up, and then voluntarily abandoned that bag as he left the restaurant. And I was able to collect it and get that submitted to the lab. “Sometimes I thought it was never going to come.” He said later.
On June 5th, [music] 2018, Gary Hartman went to work at Western State Hospital, then stopped at a nearby restaurant to have [music] breakfast with a co-worker. He sat down. He ordered. He wiped his mouth [music] on a paper napkin several times. He finished, got up, and left. Riepel told the server he needed the napkin.
He took it to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory. He did not have to wait [music] long. The DNA on that napkin matched the DNA recovered from Michella Welch’s body [music] in 1986. 32 years. One napkin. There was one more thing. In the days leading up to his arrest, while detectives were following him, Gary Hartman sensed something.
He told a co-worker, “30 years ago he had done something terrible, [music] and he thought he had been discovered. He knew they were coming. He could feel it, [music] and he still sat down. And he still wiped his mouth on the napkin, and he still left it on the table. On June 20th, 2018, [music] Gary Charles Hartman was pulled over during a traffic stop in Lakewood, Washington. He was 66 years old.
He was charged with first-degree murder [music] and first-degree rape. Bail was set at $5 million. Barbara Leonard, Michella’s mother, walked into the courthouse for his arraignment and looked [music] at the man in the jail scrubs. “You never expect the face of somebody who has done something this terrible to look normal,” she said.
Besides the jail scrubs, that’s exactly how Gary Hartman looked, normal. He pleaded not guilty. For years, he maintained his innocence. Then, at some point in the county jail, his own defense attorney would later say, “He woke up with the realization that he was the one who had done this.” He had spent years convincing himself otherwise.
The DNA made the lie impossible. He had no more room to hide from it. March 22nd, 2022. Pierce County Superior Court. Gary Hartman was 70 years old. He had requested a bench trial, no jury, just a judge. He walked in with a walker. The trial lasted less than 2 hours. The agreed facts left almost nothing to argue.
Prosecutor Lisa Wagner told the court that the evidence showed the defendant had done everything he could to almost plead guilty. Barbara Leonard stood up and said what she had waited 36 years to say, “I say lock him up and throw away the key. And now he will pay the price. However, it will not bring her back, but justice will have been served.
Michella’s younger sister, Nicole Eby, who was 9 years old in 1986, who had stood at the edge of the gulch calling the family call with no answer, stood up and said this, “I’m thankful to say that through God’s strength that I choose to forgive Gary Hartman. Forgiveness is not forgetting, but it is remembering without pain.
” Aunt Linda Maguire’s statement was read into the record. “Her murder was the worst and most devastating event in our family. There is a hole in our lives no one can fill.” Gary Hartman placed his head in his hands. He cried through the impact statements, his sobs getting louder as each voice spoke.
When the judge gave him his turn, he said, “I’m so sorry. God knows I’m so sorry. That doesn’t help. I’m just sorry.” It’s I’m so sorry. God knows I’m so sorry. And then that doesn’t help. Judge Stanley Rumbaugh sentenced him to 26 years and 6 months, 320 months, the maximum the law allowed for crimes committed in 1986.
Before handing down the sentence, the judge spoke directly to Hartman. “Whatever your life has been subsequent to March 26th of 1986, it cannot erase or moderate the horror of the crime. There are no excusing conditions for your behavior. You are guilty of one of the most malignant and depraved crimes this court has seen.
” He is 70 years old. He is at Airway Heights Correction Center in Eastern Washington. The judge said he will likely die there. After both cases were resolved, Lindsey Wade, the detective who had been 11 years old when and died, who had spent years afraid to ride her bike alone through the park, teamed with the families of both girls to push for a change in Washington state law.
The bill they advocated for, HB 1326, passed in 2019. It is called Jennifer and Michella’s Law. It requires DNA collection from anyone convicted of indecent exposure, a category that had previously been excluded. It allows DNA to be collected from deceased sex offenders whose crimes predate the original law.
It was written to close the exact loopholes that had allowed both Gary Hartman and Robert Washburn to exist for decades without a single entry in any genetic database. Two girls who never knew each other, two men who never knew each other, two parks, 3 miles apart, 5 months apart, in the same city, and now a law with both their names on it.
She was 12 years old, petite, long blonde hair, glasses, the oldest of three sisters, the one who always looked after the others. It was spring break, and her mother was at work, and there was a park across from the piano lesson studio, and they had forgotten their lunch, and she was the one who noticed, and she was the one who went back to get it, and she came back, and she set it on the table, and she went to find her sisters.
The brown paper bag was still there when they found it. The bike was still in the rack. Michella Evan Welch, born June 7th, 1973. She wanted to take care of her sisters. She did that right up until the last moment she could. If you have children who spend time in parks, on trails, on routes they take alone, know those routes. Walk them. Know who your children could call and where they could go if something felt wrong, and teach them this.
The family call is not just for parks. It is for everything. A word, a signal, anything between you and the people you love that means come find me. I need you. Something is wrong. It costs nothing and it matters. If this case stayed with you, leave a comment. Tell us which moment hit hardest. Hit like and subscribe to Cold Case Unlocked.
We’ll see you in the next one.
Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction created for entertainment purposes. Any resemblance to real persons, events, or places is coincidental.
