Cold Case Files - REOPENED: Taken in Tacoma

Episode Date: July 16, 2026

When 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian is abducted and murdered in August of 1986, residents of Tacoma panic. This is the second young girl killed in five months. Convinced a predator is loose, Police embark on a 32-year inquiry to catch the killer.Apartments.com - To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place.Boll & Branch: Go to BollandBranch.com/coldcasefiles and use code coldcasefiles to get 20% off your first order, plus free shipping!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This episode contains descriptions of violence and sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. It was alternately scary, frightening, and questioning. I was terrified. I was thinking some wacko is going to jump out of the bushes and grab me. Who would have done this? It had to be some completely bizarre pervert. This was a case that I grew up with.

This was in the background of my childhood. I was questioning whether we would have her back alive. And I wanted to know what happened. This is crazy. We have two different killers. There are 120,000 unsolved murders in America. Each one is a cold case. Only 1% are ever solved.

This is one of those rare stories. It's August 4, 1986. The weather is warmer than usual, and the sun is shining. in Tacoma, Washington. Tacoma is described as a blue-collar town, just over 30 miles from Seattle. Although it's the third largest city in the state, Tacoma sits on the banks of the Puget Sound

in the shadow of Mount Rainier. One of the most popular places to visit in the area is Point Defiance Park, a waterfront park filled with almost 700 acres of forests and hiking trails. In 1986, it isn't unusual for children to go off around the park, on their own, or with friends, until the disappearances of two young girls becomes

a cautionary tale that strikes fear into the residents of Tacoma. 13-year-old Jennifer Bastion is spending the quiet summer morning with her mother, Patty. Jennifer was up, I got up. I think she got cereal, I got coffee, and we just talked about the day. She was going to go on a YMCA bike riding trip. It was a trip that was a little bit terrible. for her. She was a petite gal riding a 15-speed bike

and trying to master that before the trip. And so she was practicing every day. Jennifer asks her mom for permission to ride her bike to Point Defiance Park. She's made the journey before with friends, but her friends aren't around, so she heads off alone and leaves a note for her parents to say when she'd be back.

She wrote a note saying she'd be home by 6.30, But she wasn't there for dinner. She wasn't there after she had said she would be. It gets very scary. We called a few friends, neighbors, to see if maybe Jennifer had stopped off after her ride to play with their sons or daughters. And then we called the police.

It's worrying. Not only for Jennifer's parents, Patty and Ralph, but for her older sister Teresa, too. We were very close as a family. My dad, you know, he had. kids late in life, so I think he maybe appreciated being a dad even more than if he had had them as a younger man. We had a great relationship.

We had a great fun. I'm two years older. I was definitely a big sister material. That was the more serious one. I was the one who followed more rules. Jennifer was a bundle of energy. She was ready to go at a moment's notice. She was always active, always in motion.

Our dining room was kind of open to the living room. Jennifer would literally get down from the table and go into the living room and start doing cartwheels and walkovers and gymnastics moves. She was having nothing to do with the sitting still part. It's getting late and there are still no signs of Jennifer. My dad picked me up from the movies and right when I got in the car he said Jennifer hasn't come home from her bike ride yet. And his voice cracked and I could see he would have been crying and I knew that something was. was very wrong. I can't tell you what I was thinking.

I can tell you I was feeling extremely anxious. The police had come. I didn't know what to expect the next would be. The police pulled me aside. They wanted to ask me some questions. Were there things that maybe Jenny kept as a secret that she wouldn't want her mom and dad to know? You know, really the answer to all of that was no.

We didn't have any secrets. The police asked for a piece of, of her clothing or something from her room. Ralph and I both went into the bedroom. We got a t-shirt or school peg or I don't know what it was, gave it to them. She could have fallen down, had a flat tire, go through a whole litany of things that could have been. Bloodhounds are brought in to track from Jennifer's house down to the park. They follow her scent around the looping road, known as five-mile drive. But they can't find Jennifer or her bike. As Dawn approaches, the search intensifies.

The five-mile drive is closed down, while searchers on horseback, ATVs, and on foot, search through the vast expanse of Point Defiance Park. There are areas of the park that are coastal, and there's a chance that Jennifer could have fallen off a cliff and been washed out to sea, but there's nothing to indicate that. Flyers are printed and posted through North Tacoma,

and teams of 300-plus volunteers continue to look for Jennifer. By day three of the search, the investigators start to wonder if she is in the park at all. The bastions are beside themselves with worry, but they find comfort in knowing they aren't alone. I think it was on day two or three that the doorbell rang, and I answered it. And there's a lady there. And she said, are you Patty? And I said, yes. And she said, I'd like to talk with you. And introduced herself as Barbara Welsh, Michelle's mom. 12-year-old Michelle Welsh disappeared five months before Jennifer. She was last seen riding her bike near Puget Park, just miles from where Jennifer vanished.

Ten hours after Michelle was reported missing, search dogs found her body. She had been sexually assaulted and murdered. The little girl's killing shocks the community, and her mother Barbara reaches out to Jennifer's mom as the search continues. I know I felt sorry for her having just lost her daughter. I felt just terrible. It's a very, very brave move on her part to have come by. It's been four long days since Jennifer vanished.

And her family is desperate to bring her home. I don't know if it was just what the default was, but it really seemed the police felt that someone had kidnapped Jennifer and was going to contact us for ransom in exchange to get her back. On my dad's birthday, August 8th, the press conference we did in the Pointeofiance Park was actually aimed to the kidnapper. We were told that whoever took her would surely be watching the news and would hear us talking. It was like our plea to this phantom kidnapper. As a result of the media coverage, the investigators receive an influx of calls and reports from people who saw Jennifer in the park on the day she went missing.

so they are certain she was there. Detectives chase down every tip, but none of them lead to Jennifer. It's been just over three weeks since Jennifer was last seen, and a member of the local YMCA Running Club is jogging through the trails at Point Defiance Park. He notices a foul odor off one of the trails, so he calls the police.

They investigate, but they can't locate the source of the odor. K-9 units with the Tacoma police are brought in, but it takes two more days for a search and rescue team to make the grim discovery. On August 28th, 24 days after Jennifer vanished, her family's worst fears became a horrifying reality. Detective Lindsay Wade was just 11 years old at the time, but she recalled the details and public reaction

when she was a child once Jennifer's body was found. It was apparent to the investigators at the time that she had been sexually assaulted just based on the positioning of her body and the positioning of her clothing when she was found. The two cases of Michelle and Jennifer were so similar that a lot of people thought there must be some deranged serial killer on the loose. People were on edge. People were questioning, do we have a serial killer in Tacoma? Is there going to be another victim? There comes a point where sleep just stops being optional. You spend years juggling work, responsibilities, everything else. And then you realize your energy, your mood, your focus, it all comes back to how well you're

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Exclusions apply. Every single day, a police officer named Pat O'Malley had been assigned to come in the morning to inform the family of what the police were going to do to look for Jennifer today. And in the evening, come and tell the family what the results of that were. I never gave up. Never gave up hope.

It's the afternoon of August 28, 1986. And Jennifer Bastion's mother, Patty, has tried her best to remain optimistic since her daughter's disappearance three weeks earlier. Unfortunately, when the officers arrive at her home, they deliver the news no parent wants to hear. I distinctly remember around Noonish being on the ladder painting. I just heard the latch on the screen door go, and it was Pat walking in, and he walked up to the ladder,

and he reached up and he took the paint brush, of my hand, and he helped me down the ladder and sat me in a chair, and he said, we found her. And truthfully, I can't remember who said what or what was said or how it was said. But the two detectives that worked on the case were there and explained as much as they could, as gently as they could. Tacoma police detective, Jean Miller, recalls the scene and defiance point. Her body itself was positioned on its back, arms above her head, knees somewhat bent and out to the side. Her bathing suit was pulled down to her right ankle.

Her bicycle was located maybe 60 feet away. Because of the level of decomposition, it was very difficult to tell for certain, but there was a ligature that was around her neck. And based on everything that we saw and everything that we knew, we believe that was most likely going to be the cause of death. That was subsequently confirmed at autopsy. The murder of a second young girl sparks a wave of fear through Tacoma, and the events of 1986 are cemented into the minds of people who know the area,

like journalist Linda Byron, Detective Wade, and Jennifer's sister, Teresa. I went to college in Washington State in Seattle, and I remember hearing about both of the murders and just being horrified. There's nothing more All-American than kids out riding their bikes in our parks, in our beautiful state. And to have two of them, within a few months of each other, snatched off their bicycles, raped and murdered, with no sense of who's out there doing this. This was in the background of my childhood. I was thinking some wacko is going to jump out of the bushes and grab me. After that summer, I never rode a bike again.

It's September 5th and the people of Tacoma come together to support the Bastion family and say goodbye to Jennifer. As we were leaving, I glanced up and saw that that foyer was filled with law enforcement. Not in uniform. These were moms and dads. These were family people who cared and felt and had journeyed with us. That was a pretty powerful statement. Tacoma police detectives enlist the help. of the Green River Task Force to investigate the number of incoming tips relating to Jennifer and Michelle's murders.

Based on the similarities between the two cases, it was believed that the same person must be responsible for both cases. So detectives were following up on the hundreds of leads that were coming in. Fairly early on, there was a potential suspect identified. He, to some extent, at least, lived out of his van. The thing that was very compelling about him

was that he, spent a great deal of time at Point Defiance Park in the parking lot and somebody that there had been a number of issues with over the years. Once he was identified as potential suspect, it was a matter of locating him and it was my partner and I that located him down on the waterfront of Tacoma. The van was detained, as was he, and the search of the van then took place. During the course of that search, there's a number of things that were interesting to us. One of the items was, you a wooden mallet type thing that was roughly three inches around, and it was actually relatively close in size

to the injury that Michelle had sustained on her head. Additionally, there was a number of drawings within the vehicle that had juvenile females in rather explicit positions, but nothing that was specifically able to be associated with either one of the victims. And he provided a DNA sample voluntarily and was able to be excluded

because of the DNA that had been found in Michelle's case. A year passes by and the leads run out, so the case goes cold and the task force scales back. This case originally had multiple detectives assigned to it as part of this task force, but eventually the leads had pretty much dried up. It's a very difficult thing to be intimately involved in these investigations and to not be making progress.

It was very clear that they had done everything that was possible. They were extremely, extremely professional, and that's got to be hard with the person you're going to see wants an answer, and you don't have it. In 1986, the Green River killer was terrorizing the state. King County police have been finding bodies of young women on the banks of the Green River and in the water. Although the serial killer was operating in a neighboring county,

the investigators had to consider the possibility that Jennifer and Michelle had fallen victim to the notorious multiple murderer. The victimology was totally different. The location of occurrence, Pierce County rather than King County, there was really nothing that suggested that these were or could even potentially be linked to the Green River killer. Really, the department took ownership of these cases and made me want to be a homicide detective one day,

and then subsequently made me want to start the cold case unit. And just that, we've got to find a way to solve them. In the fall of 2008, 22 years after Jennifer's murderer, Detective Gene Miller followed through on his ambition to find a way to solve cold cases in Tacoma. When I began to develop the cold case unit for the Tacoma Police Department, I collected information on all the unsolved homicides that took place in the city at Tacoma.

It was during the course of putting all of that information together that I identified two other juvenile females that had been the victims of sexual assault homicides in 1986. The thing that was very interesting about it was one of the victims, Denise Sally, went missing in January, 1986. Her body was subsequently located just a few days after Michelle had passed. So you have four juvenile females,

all within Pierce County. So I began looking at the overall case files of both Jenny Bastion, Michelle Welch, and then Denise Sally and Kimberly Payne on the county side. Detective Miller notices one name that continues to show up throughout the case files. Timothy Burckhart. I start looking and I'm able to identify a Timothy Ray Burkhart,

and it was when I dug into that name that it piqued my curiosity. Timothy Burkhard at the time that the cases occurred was a 20-year-old male in looking at his criminal history. It's rather limited, but there is one case where he's a suspect in an attempt abduction about a year and a half prior to the Denise Sally case. As I looked further into him,

I actually found that he was listed as a suspect in two homicides that occurred in 2001. I looked further and found that he had actually committed suicide and as a result, those cases were never able to be fully adjudicated. It's the spring of 2009, and using evidence found at the 2001 crime scenes, the state crime lab develops a DNA profile of Timothy Burckhard. What we ended up learning was that Timothy Ray Burckhart's DNA matched the evidence from the Kimberly Payne homicide, so that links him to Kimberly Payne and Denise Sally, but is not consistent with the

profile developed in the Michelle Welch case. It's closure for two families, but disappointing for two others, as Jennifer Bastion and Michellea Welsh's murders remain unsolved, and the cases are cold. It's January 2013, 26 years after the murders, and Detective Miller consults with his old partner from the Sex Crimes Unit, Detective Lindsay Wade. Detective's Miller and Wade speak with a first. forensic expert who advised them to submit Jennifer's swimsuit to the crime lab. The hope is to obtain a reference DNA sample for Jennifer in case it's needed in the future.

So Gene submits Jennifer Swimpsuit to the crime lab, and a few months later, he gets a call from the crime lab, and the forensic scientist says to Jean, hey, are you interested in the male DNA that we found on Jennifer Swimpsuit? It was like, what do you mean male DNA? The scientist tells Gene that there is male DNA in the form of spermatozoa in the crotch of Jennifer's swimsuit. This is a bombshell because not only are we learning for the first time that we do have DNA evidence from an unknown perpetrator, but we also learn at that same time that this DNA profile was entered into the state and the national DNA database, and it did not match the DNA in the Michelle Welch case. This is crazy.

two different killers. Like, what is going on? So the first thing that Gene did was to go back through and look at who had been identified and eliminated previously, either by alibi or in some cases by DNA, and then pull those people back up again and resubmit their samples so that they could be compared against the DNA profile in Jennifer's case. After more than 26 years of investigating the murders as linked incidents, the detectives have to start from scratch.

They submit the DNA found on Jennifer's swimsuit into CODIS. The National Database of DNA samples criminals must submit. But there's no match. At the end of 2014, Detective Jean Miller makes the difficult decision to retire, leaving the case with Detective Wade. Detective Wade is one of those people that if you're a bad guy, you do not want her in your rearview mirror because she will not quit. When Jennifer Bastion was murdered, Detective Lindsay Wade was an 11-year-old girl growing up in Tacoma.

She never forgot the impact it had on her, even after almost three decades had passed. This was a case that I grew up with, and I wanted to know what happened. When I took over the case, I recognized that the cases were so massive that I took on the daunting task of creating a database. so that I could take every single male name that appeared in either one of the cases, and I entered that name into this database, along with whether or not they had DNA in CODIS, whether or not we had collected their DNA as a part of the investigation. Were they dead? Were they incarcerated?

There were like 2,300-plus names in the database. As Detective Wade searches for Jennifer's killer, the Bastian family mourns another loss. In 2015, Jennifer's father dies. He goes to his grave without seeing justice done. Our faith has seen us through a lot. And sure, he wanted to know. You carry the burden you carry.

That's just life and its natural progression. When you've got a burden, you carry it. We all do. I met Patty and Ralph in 2013, working on the case and I can't explain it, but for whatever reason, you know, Patty and I just clicked and she was really inspirational to me. We got to really know each other on a deeper level and, you know, really gained a mutual respect for each other. It's the beginning of 2015 and FBI agent Terry Posma helps Detective Wade with the case by obtaining DNA samples from a wider pool of

possible suspects. One name leads them outside of Tacoma to Aberdeen, Washington. When they arrive at the suspect's location, they discover he's living in the back of a van by the river. The suspect voluntarily provides a DNA sample and analysts compare it against evidence in the case, but it's another crushing disappointment. The DNA from the man in Aberdeen doesn't match the DNA found in Jennifer's swimsuit. I have way too much free time, said no one ever. Work, appointments, family and friends, life is nonstop. And trying to find a new place on top of all that, completely overwhelming.

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This case was so important to me for many reasons. I never dreamed as a youngster that I would be in a position one day to work on the case. Lindsay worked so hard on these two cases. She was 11 years old when this happened to Jenny. There's just something about Lindsay and her total dedication, her total involvement, her intelligence. she gave so much for us as a community. As the leads begin to thin again, Detective Wade learns of a murder case in Arizona

that catches her attention. I had heard about a woman named Colleen Fitzpatrick who had helped the Phoenix Police Department solve these cold cases from, I think it was 1990 or 91. And I had talked to the detectives on that case, and when they told me what she had done, using genealogy, I was intrigued, to say the least. So with the help of the FBI, we were able to pay for Colleen's assistance in working on the case.

Our crime lab basically created a profile from the DNA from the swimsuit, and YSTR DNA that's passed down from father to son. And so theoretically, if you follow the paternal line, the last name should stay the same. We gave Colleen the YSTR profile. She did her research and looked through her genealogy databases and came up with three potential last names for the suspect based on that DNA. The three names were Smith, Holbrook, and Washburn. No one in the case file named Holbrook. So I went back and I looked at Washburn and I saw that a guy named Robert Washburn had called in a tip back in May of 19.

In 1886 in Michelle's case. Months before Jennifer was killed, Washburn had called to report a suspicious person who he believed the police should look at in the Michelle Walsh case. The detectives, they didn't find anything unusual about him. And so they just wrote the report up and moved on to continue investigating. He made it into my high priority offender pile of people that I wanted to get DNA from. But he certainly wasn't the only one. In March 2017, 30 years and seven months after Jennifer's murder, the investigation moves to Eureka, Illinois,

after the detectives take a closer look at Robert Washburn. Agent Postma contacts the local FBI agency and asks them to make contact with Washburn, who consents to providing a DNA sample. The FBI agents feel as though their interaction with Washburn was unremarkable. And the investigators aren't convinced he's their man. I mean, what is going on here? I don't know if we're ever going to get to the bottom of the case.

There were days when I would go into my office and I would look at those stacks of case files and think, this case is unsolvable. It's January 2018. 31 years have passed since Jennifer's murder. And the investigators have been submitting DNA samples to the crime lab without any success. After sending off the second batch of samples, Detective Wade is faced with a difficult choice. I had been approached to apply for a job with the Attorney General's office to work on the sexual assault kit initiative. And I did a lot of soul searching trying to decide, like, do I really want to leave now? But that's ultimately what I decided to do.

The hardest part about leaving is not having solved Jennifer and Michelle's cases. It was just terrible. But there was something in the back of my mind that thought maybe working on the sexual assault kit testing will provide an answer. Maybe one of these untested sexual assault kits will provide a match. My last day was April 13th, 2018. I was gone 25 days and I get a phone call. It's May 8, 2018, 31 years and nine months after Jennifer Bashan's murder. and Detective Wade receives a phone call.

It was from the detective who took over for me, and he said, are you sitting down? And he tells me, we have a match on Jennifer Bastion. I'm speechless at this point, and I'm also, like, tearing up. So I'm like, well, who is it? What's the name? And he says, it's Robert Washburn. I got dressed really quick and then went back to the station

so that I could help dig through the case to pull out the information about Robert Washburn. Washburn had graduated from high school in the Tacoma area before working as an engineer for a time. He then moved to Illinois where he lived a quiet life caring for his disabled daughter. At the time of Jennifer's murder, Robert Washburn was living just nine blocks from the Bashan family. A warrant is issued for Washburn's arrest. They got eyes on Robert Washburn pretty quickly and the SWAT team in Eureka arrest him. Washburn is arrested, and preparations to extrad item to Washington get underway.

Detective Wade has waited for this moment for a long time, and she has dreamed of giving Patty and Teresa Bastian closure for years. I think the arrest took place around 7 a.m., and so immediately one of the assistant chiefs and myself drove from the police department to Patty's home and knocked on her door. I had rehearsed in my head something to say to her. Of course, it all went out the window, and I couldn't remember what I was going to say. Doorbell rings, open the door, and she just says, we got him. Lindsay and I are hugging one another and alternately crying and laughing and crying and laughing. Just the raw emotion.

Just an awesome, awesome reality that took over. And my first thought, I got to come up. call Teresa. She does the whole, I've got someone here who wants to say something to you, and then I heard Teresa, it's Lindsay, we got him. And I dropped to my knees. I just said, tell me everything. When I heard the name Robert Washburn, it didn't mean anything to me. I couldn't come up with anything. I don't know any connection. Washburn is behind bars, and he pleads not guilty to Jennifer's murder. But worries remain about whether the case is strong enough. Will they trust that that DNA was preserved. It's decades old. Was it tested properly? So there is still a very

real fear that he could get away with murder. It's May 2018, and 60-year-old Robert Washburn pleads not guilty to the murder of Jennifer Bastion 31 years and nine months earlier. My overwhelming fear was that this case would go to trial because my mom is in Tacoma alone, and I really was quite anxious and fearful about what that would look like. I think the idea of a trial was the biggest black cloud since his arrest. There's a bunch of things that he may have to say that I don't want to know. As a family, like, no one wants to sit through that. No one wants to sit in the courtroom and look at graphic photographs of their family member

who's been sexually assaulted and murdered. I mean, that's horrifying. The judge sets a trial date for 2019, and after three months, the Bashan family receives a phone call that changes everything. It was the prosecutor saying they felt Washburn was ready to change his plea.

They were clear. It wouldn't necessarily be the longest sentence they would hope for, but under the situation, it would be no trial, and given his age, it kind of made sense to not push the issue. After 32 years, the Bastion family finally get a measure of justice

at a sentencing hearing in January 2019. Walking into the courtroom that day was really intense because it's all kind of like overwhelming to see so many old friends and family and colleagues of my dad, but made it really clear how important this case was still for so many people. I mean, Lindsay tried to prepare me, but I knew I was going to see him. I wanted to see him. And then when it was our time to walk into the courtroom and stand in the same room as him, it was impactful, but it also left a lot to be desired because he didn't make eye contact.

He just kind of sat there. There was no eye to eye. He never raised his head. He looked down the whole time. I went to the sentencing, and it was really emotional. I don't think there was a dry eye in the courtroom. from the judge to one of the cameramen in the courtroom to people in the gallery. I remember Patty saying, do you know how many birthdays we missed and how many Christmases we missed?

I mean, you pretty much have to be a psychopath to sit through that and not tear up. The Bashan family and their supporters watch as Washburn admits that he murdered Jennifer back in 1986. He's strangely stoic in the courtroom. A written statement is read saying, you know, he's sorry. He admits that he grabbed Jennifer and strangled her. He never admits to or talks about the sexual assault. And there's very little revealed about his motives, why he did it, how he did it, other than that he strangled this little girl. He basically confessed in the most bare bones way possible that he had murdered Jennifer, period.

Robert Washburn is sentenced to 26 and a half years in prison. Seeing Jennifer's killer brought to justice is some closure. But Patty Bashan is determined to help other families do their heartache too. That is not the end for Patty and it's not the end for Teresa. This family is determined to make sure that this isn't just about one girl's murder or two girls' murders. This is about keeping young people safer everywhere. They begin to work with Washington State Representative Tina Orwell. So starting in 2015, we teamed up and we introduced a number of bills to really move forward on the DNA collection.

We had people leaving the court that had never given their DNA in all kind of problems. And then in 2018, we passed House Bill 1326 is when we really brought it all together to expand who we collected DNA from and closing the most loopholes. It was bipartisan support, and it was really a huge team effort with Patty and Detective Wade. On May 21st, 2019, the governor of Washington with Patty Bashion by his side signs the new legislation named Jennifer and Michelle's law. On March 22nd, 2019, a Pierce County man, Gary Hartman, is found guilty of Michelle Welch's murder after DNA evidence helps link him to the crime. He is sentenced to more than 26 years in prison.

This country needs a national law about what to do with DNA, when to collect it, when to put it in the database. and it's got to be before a felon is released from prison. It's to help the guilty and the innocent. It's to help parents and people who have lost someone, as well as help prevent, period. Cold Case Files is hosted by Paula Barros. It's produced by the Law and Crime Network and written by Eileen McFarlane and Emily G. Thompson.

Our composer is Blake Maples. For A&E, our senior producer is John Thrasher, and our supervising producer is McCaamy Lynn. Our executive producers are Jesse Katz, Mai Tequiva, and Peter Tarshis. This podcast is based on A&E's Emmy-winning TV series Cold Case Files. For more cold case files, visit AETV.com. Copyright 2017. A&E Television Networks LLC. All rights reserved.

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