Dateline NBC - Evil Was Watching

Episode Date: May 4, 2022

Two young girls in Washington are snatched in broad daylight while riding their bikes. The case goes unsolved for decades, until a new detective with a local connection to the story tries to solve the mystery that haunted her childhood. Keith Morrison reports. 

Anytime a child goes missing, it's a scary thing. You know there's evil out there. She was almost 13. Do you remember what that was like? It was terrifying. It's this sickening feeling that just overtakes you. Bloodhounds came. Police were there. This was a little girl that was doing nothing more than riding her bicycle in a park. The similarities. Blonde, blue-eyed, riding a bike. Somebody who's targeting

young girls. Exactly. I would have a suspect that I was working and I would wonder, okay, could this guy be responsible? My working theory was this guy somehow slipped through the cracks. How many names did you have? About 2,300 names. That's a lot of names. Yes. It's really the first big development in human identification in 20 years. I knew it was a big step in the case. I was like, no way. I just couldn't believe it. I believe in the devil. And people that don't believe in the devil, I think they're in for a big surprise. Again and again she came here, stood under the ancient canopy, walked the damp, narrow paths to the places the killer used to hide what he had done, as if looking once more after all these years would tell her something. As if the dense undergrowth would part and finally reveal the name.

It's so peaceful here. It's not the kind of place you would associate with violent crime, that's for sure. No. No, and nothing like this has ever happened at this park before. Lindsay Wade was just 11 years old that terrible summer in Tacoma, Washington. I just remember that it was really scary to me as a young girl. It was really scary, not just for me, but for everybody. And the questions about that place and that summer followed her. Up through the ranks of the Tacoma Police Department,

until as Detective Lindsay Wade, she came here to wrestle with something like an obsession. A mystery that lay dormant for more than three decades. A story that can finally be told. It was March 1986. Things were finally looking up for Barbara Leonard. Hadn't been easy, she said, after her husband left her, to raise three girls alone. But here in Tacoma, Barbara had at last found a good job, a home, and prospects. I was working in a real estate office

and had just bought a house in the north end of Tacoma. Scraped and saved money. Even a little extra to sign up her daughters for piano lessons. Her youngest was Nicole. There was Angela in the middle, and the eldest was Michelle. She was almost 13. She wasn't a rebellious child, but kids at that age want to be a little more independent. And it was spring break, so Michelle begged her mom. She wanted to go to the park with her sisters and be there before the piano lesson. Puget Park, a patch of green on the north end of Tacoma, just across the street from their lessons, a couple of miles from home.

Michelle and sisters will never forget that day. We were approved to go. For like a half an hour or so. For like a half an hour, but we went like two and a half hours. Freedom. They rode their bikes to the park, where they realized they'd forgotten their lunches at home. So, Michelle, this is like... Oh, I'll go grab them and come back. And then, in the meantime, we had to go to the bathroom, and so... There was no bathroom at the playground back then.

Yeah. So, where'd you go? So, we went down the street. It took a while. And when they finally got back, Michelle should have been there too. But she wasn't. Her bike was there and it was locked

and we started looking. We have this family call and it echoes just far and wide. What's the family call? Woo! Yeah. Okay. Yeah, and so we were... What's the family call? Woo! Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And so we you-hooed for her. Mm-hmm. And we didn't hear anything. That's when it happened. When the cold fear flooded their bodies. And like at that moment, I knew. Knew what? I just knew something had happened.

Yeah, that it was wrong. It was very wrong. Something was really wrong. I left knew something had happened. Yeah, that it was, there was, it was wrong. It was very wrong. Something was really wrong. I left work, I remember that day, and just, I was praying I wouldn't get a speeding ticket, but I was probably doing 70 miles an hour on the little road. Do you remember what that was like? It was terrifying. You're hoping you're going to see the kid come walking around the corner.

Jean Miller was a patrol officer then, Tacoma police. There's a special kind of horror or dread that goes with a little girl going missing like that. Anytime a child goes missing, it's a scary thing. Where was Michelle? The police looked, of course. But as the hours ticked by, my God, there's nothing. There's an emptiness there. You just, time kind of stands still.

Yeah. And then it's all of a sudden, it's gone. I mean, so it was dark. They said, we're going to call in search and rescue because we haven't found her. It was late when they took search dogs into a nearby overgrown gulch. And then...

I was in one of the police cars, and they told me that they'd found her body. And, you know, when you say find a body, it's not the person. It's terrible. Sorry. They've found her near a makeshift fire pit. She'd been beaten and sexually assaulted, her throat cut.

It's this sickening feeling that just overtakes you, and life is never going to be the same as you know it. And I think that it does one of two things to you. It's either going to eat you up, or it's going to motivate you to find the bad guy. Day after day, they searched for the killer. All that dismal spring. One of Michelle's classmates told the police she saw a man in the park looking at the girls. They made a sketch, and tips flooded in.

One of them seemed especially worrisome. A man out jogging reported seeing someone who looked like the sketch in a different park, a place called Point Defiance Park, a few miles away. Scouting his next victim, fear gripped the city. Though for Barbara, it felt more like rage. She got a gun permit, kept the gun in her car. I'd pull up at a stoplight, and I remember looking over, and there was a man in the car, and I was thinking, could you have done this? Did you do this?

Because they had no clues for months, months and months. And it was fog. You're just living in a fog. did you do this? Because they had no clues for months, months and months. And it was fog. You're just living in a fog. Then it was summer. Five months had passed. August that year was fabulous in the Pacific Northwest. And woke up a little late.

Jenny woke up a little late. Just the two of them. Patty Bastion and her 13-year-old Jenny. And we were sitting in the dining room on the floor in front of the patio doors, bathing ourselves in the sun. A moment in time so treasured and so terribly fleeting. About 11 or so at night, there's a knock on the front door. It's somebody with the police department with the bloodhounds. Another missing girl, another anguished family, another awful search. There were literally hundreds of people looking through the park for her.

Everybody wanted to find Jenny. It was summer 1986. A sun-kissed morning. A few miles from the park where they'd found Michelle's body, Patty Bastian was enjoying a quiet moment at home with the younger of her two daughters, Jenny, a blonde, blue-eyed dynamo. If there was a ball, she had it in her hand. If there was a bat, she had it in her hand.

Jenny was 13. She had a brand new Schwinn bicycle. She was preparing for an imminent bike tour. She wanted to master the bike. She didn't want anybody to be waiting for her. She wanted to have the stamina to keep up. She'd planned a training ride with a friend. The friend backed out.

And so that sunny day, August 4th... Jenny called her dad and asked for permission to do the five-mile drive around Point Defiance Park by herself. And he said yes, but be home by 6.30. So she wrote a little note and left it on the kitchen table. P.D. on Jenny's note to her mom stands for Point Defiance, Tacoma's huge and loved urban forest park. Jenny's older sister, Teresa, 15 at the time, worked at a day camp there. It's majestic.

I mean, all these overdone, you know, words of the poets don't begin to describe just the primeval forest, and it's beautiful. The five-mile drive around the park was paved, well-marked, a popular hike. Patty left for her evening shift at a store about 40 minutes away. And then the day just becomes like any other day until a phone call comes in the evening. It's my husband saying that I need to come home. Jenny was hours late. Patty heard the fear in her husband's voice. She drove home, terrified. Police were looking in the park, told her, stay home and wait.

And then about 11 or so at night, there's a knock on the front door. It's somebody with the police department with the bloodhounds. They want a piece of Jennifer's clothing, something they can get a scent off of. They didn't find Jenny that night or the next day. Tacoma Police closed Point Defiance Park for three days. Hundreds of people joined the search.

NBC affiliate King 5 covered it. Jenny's sister, Teresa, pleaded for help. Just take time. Just think back. Sit down and remember. Any little bit would help. Meanwhile, police worked the angles.

Was it a kidnapping? Maybe they were going to ask for ransom. We just didn't know. Or maybe Jenny got lost or was badly hurt. There were literally hundreds of people looking through the park for her. Everybody wanted to find Jenny. Gene Miller helped run down hundreds of suspected sightings. There was a lot of good faith effort on the part of citizens to call in and say, I think I saw her here, I think I saw her there.

Patty waited, still hoping her Jenny would walk right in the door. She was at home when she got a visit from another mother, Barbara, Michelle's mom, there to offer support. It just seemed like the thing to do. She was very, very sweet, very nice. I said, thank you. She left. And I said to a friend who was sitting there, I'm not sure why she came. Jennifer's not dead. You represented the outcome she desperately did not want to have happen. Exactly, exactly. And she didn't want that to be her reality.

But was it? It seemed like all of Tacoma feared the worst. After about, I don't know, 20 days, I decided I needed to do something besides hang out in the backyard drinking coffee. Yeah. And I decided to paint the dining room. I know. And that's where she was when the detective arrived. Took the brush or roller out of my hand, sat, helped me down the ladder,

sat me on the chair in the dining room, and said, we found her. Today's date is August 29th. This is police video from the next day. They had found Jenny in a thickly wooded spot near a narrow footpath. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled, and her killer had hidden her body and her new Schwinn bicycle. And a second mother learned all about permanent heartbreak.

Have you let your mind go to what probably happened to her that day? I have my fairy tale, I think And I'll just live with it She was riding her bike The monster came out of the woods and grabbed her And killed her More than that, I can't wrap my brain around No

Twice in five months. And the victims, very similar. Blonde, blue-eyed, riding a bike in a city park. And after, kids in Tacoma lost the freedom to roam alone just like that. Turned on a dime after 10. Yes, it did. It was immediate. It was like we couldn't go down the street and play with our friends anymore. We chaper a dime after Jenny. Yes, it did. It was immediate. It was like we couldn't go down the street and play with our friends anymore. We chaperoned everywhere. Yeah. Because there was

evil out there. A man, a monster who needed to be found. Everybody, it seemed, wanted to help the police. At one point, I think we were up to nine or ten binders full of just tips. And it was everything from, I saw a strange person in the park that day, to my neighbor has got issues. Police released another sketch of a possible suspect, a man in his 20s wearing mirrored sunglasses. A tip led to the man who drove this van. He was familiar with Point Defiance. He was familiar with the five-mile drive. They took a good hard look at him, but... Dead end. Dead end.

There were many dead ends that year, and in the years that followed. The police collected all the evidence they could, but really there was only so much they could do. The science of DNA was in its infancy. And eventually the murders of Jenny and Michelle went cold. It changed the way people thought of other people. When the bad guy's still out there, and when you don't know who the bad guy is. The whole town kind of carries it around. Absolutely. Absolutely. Miller carried it around too for two decades. And then he met a young detective who was just a kid that summer of 1986. But did she remember? Yes, she did. It definitely scared the heck out of me. Yeah. There would be certain times

where if I was out riding my bike or if I was walking, it would be something that I would think about. Another detective joined the case. And after all these years, old evidence was about to yield a new clue. It was a shocker. Lindsay Wade wasn't friends with Michelle or Jenny, but she certainly could have been. I definitely, I guess, identified with a little girl out riding her bicycle. Oh, sure. She was 11 years old back then, in the summer of 1986. And because she lived in Tacoma, of course she heard about those girls, just like her, how they'd been snatched in broad daylight and murdered.

It definitely scared the heck out of me. Yeah? There would be certain times where if I was out riding my bike or if I was walking, it would be something that I would think about. The layer of that glossy childhood varnish forever stripped away. Probably for the first time made us recognize that there's really bad people out there. Takes away a little innocence, doesn't it? Yeah.

Yeah. Definitely. She got to thinking about bad people. In high school, she read a book about the notorious serial killer, Ted Bundy. Who was from here. Who's from here? Who's from Tacoma, yes.

And I was fascinated by the book and terrified at the same time. And I just decided that that's what I wanted to do for a living. I wanted to catch people like him. But even after she joined the Tacoma Police Department and earned her way through patrol and narcotics and sex crimes, she never forgot about Jenny and Michelle

and the summer of 86. I would have a suspect that I was working and I would wonder, okay, could this guy be responsible? The mystery kept its grip on Gene Miller, too. Inspired him to start a cold case unit here. I mean, things have changed dramatically in how cases are investigated.

There's so much more that can be done. Eventually, in 2013, Detective Wade joined him, eager to dig into the case of Michelle and Jenny. Binders and binders of police reports and interviews and leads, 27 years of dead ends. And point defiance, like a giant ever-present question. So her bicycle was back here in this area, and it was lying on its side. The suspect had taken some of these fern fronds and ripped them out and then laid them across the top of the bike to camouflage it.

And further down the path, deeper into the woods, where they found Jenny. Hidden from view. Very hidden. They discovered her body in a shelter of sorts. One of the original detectives actually described it as something like an igloo almost. So like a cave that was made out of the vegetation. What do you get out of being at the place where she was found? For me, as an investigator, it was important for me to come out here and actually see it, to try to understand a little bit better what happened

and try to get myself into the mindset of the killer. I mean, there were days when I would get frustrated sitting in my office working on the case, and I would just drive down here and park my car and sit down here, hoping that something would come to mind. One thing that did come to mind? Assembling a list of all the names in those binders, persons of interest, witnesses, any male who had intersected with the original investigation. So how many names did you have? About 2,300 names. That's a lot of names. Yes. My working theory at that time was, this guy has got to be somebody who's been convicted of a sex crime or another murder, and somehow he slipped through the cracks. Back in 1986, investigators had recovered semen from Michelle's body. But when

that semen was tested years later, it didn't match anyone in the FBI's national DNA database known as CODIS. They didn't have any DNA from Jenny's body, though they did still have the swimsuit she'd been wearing that day, so Detective Wade sent that out for testing. When the crime lab looked at the swimsuit, they found semen in the crotch of her swimsuit for decades everyone believed the same man murdered both girls and now finally they had a way to prove it but when they compared the two dna samples it was uh a shocker. I was absolutely dumbfounded. I don't think I could speak.

I was like, no way. A revelation was about to change the case. All this time you're looking for one thing and it's actually something else. But it was exciting at the same time because now we had a new lead. They'd also get a cutting-edge new clue. I thought, well, I'm going to give it a shot. Michelle was so fierce. There really wasn't anything that intimidated her at all. She just took life head on.

It never left them, the spirit that was their sister, followed them all around their growing up years and when they had families of their own. And they knew, always did, that their mom had lost a piece of herself. We'd be all together in this family environment and then this just closing would come down over her. Yeah, and she'd just bawl. Yep, you want mom back. The mystery of who killed Michelle and Jenny haunted two families for nearly 30 years. All they knew, or thought they knew, was that some unknown man assaulted and killed those little girls.

This man who had killed once had killed again. Absolutely. There couldn't be two monsters in Tacoma. But they were wrong. DNA doesn't lie. And the male DNA found on Jenny's swimsuit? Did it match the other case? No. There wasn't just one killer. There were two. I was absolutely dumbfounded. Yeah. I don't think I could speak. I was like, no way. I think we were all just, we had to kind of take a moment to regroup. Yeah. Because all this time you're looking for one thing and it's actually something else.

But it was exciting at the same time because now we had a new lead. The DNA from Jenny's swimsuit, a brand new piece of evidence. It might lead them to her killer. But when they entered that into the national database, no match. Once again, they seem to be right back where they started. You're just in the hurry up and wait mode. You're waiting for your offender to get their DNA in the database because of a conviction or whatever. And that could be a long wait. In 2014, Jean Miller retired, leaving Detective Wade in charge of the cold case unit.

And she had a new helper, Jenny's mom, Patty, 29 years after her daughter's murder. My career was winding down. I thought I should probably do something, and so I volunteered to help. Patty wasn't allowed to touch the two girls' murder files, but she could help in other ways. And we just hit it off. She was so supportive and so, and just volunteered for anything she could do to help us make our jobs easier. Around then, Detective Wade decided to try something new with the crime scene DNA. She consulted this woman, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick,

an expert in something called forensic genealogy. In an informal sense, it's been referred to as CSI meets roots. Maybe you've taken a home DNA test. A lot of people have. You can sometimes track down distant relatives by uploading your DNA profile to public genealogy websites. Dr. Fitzpatrick searches all that DNA data to find not necessarily matches, but telling similarities. It's really the first big development in human identification, I think, in years, in 20 years.

Her method can link an unknown DNA profile to possible relatives and therefore possible last names. Detective Wade was skeptical at first. It kind of sounded like smoke and mirrors to me. But I thought, well, I'm going to give it a shot. I mean, I want to solve this case. She sent Dr. Fitzpatrick the two DNA profiles from Michelle's and Jenny's crime scenes. And she did her magic.

She entered into her genealogy databases. There were no exact matches, but there were some possible family names. I certainly dug into the names, and there wasn't anybody who jumped off the page. The only name that seemed remotely interesting was Washburn, because there was a guy by that name in the case file, but he wasn't a suspect. He was a witness. He was the jogger who told police he saw someone in Point Defiance Park who resembled the sketch of Michelle's killer. But even more confusing, Dr. Fitzpatrick's genealogy research had linked the name Washburn to the DNA in Jenny's murder, which Detective Wade knew happened months after Washburn phoned in that tip

about Michelle. So it was all just a fluke, probably. And so it was something that I kept in the back of my mind as we continued on with the investigation. She also went to a company called Parabon that turned DNA profiles into computer-generated images showing what the suspects probably looked like. In 2016, armed with those Parabon snapshots, these two are solvable. The Tacoma Police Department told the public they were searching for two killers and needed help to find them. Jenny's sister, Teresa, was hopeful. I didn't know exactly where it was going to end up, but I knew it was a big step in the case.

We had a tip line open, and we got multiple tips on the same person because he actually looked so much like the sketch. But when they checked him out, they eliminated him as a suspect. So much for new approaches. Detective Wade once again looked at the huge lists she'd made. 2,300 men connected to the two cases. She couldn't test all of them against the crime scene DNA, but... There were several hundred that really did stand out

because they did have documented history for violence and sexual assault. So she set out to collect the DNA of those men. She called them high priority suspects. She also included one guy who wasn't a suspect at all, the witness, Washburn. And though they were scattered all over the country, with the FBI's help, one by one, she tracked them down. We asked people, knocked on their door, literally told them we were investigating a cold case,

and, you know, we'd like to eliminate you as a potential suspect. Would you give us your DNA? We had, in total, about 160 people that we got DNA samples from. 160 samples. They all needed to be compared with the DNA samples from the two crime scenes. Easier said than done. Isn't like the movies. This would take months. No idea if any of it would pay off. So first batch goes out there.

None of these guys are a match. And then I send the next batch out, and it's the same thing. It was really frustrating because there were some people that looked like fantastic suspects up until the point that they were eliminated. Weeks, months, a year of dead ends. And then came the phone call. And I was like, no way.

Four more seasons came and went in Tacoma, Washington. As ever so methodically, in batches of 20, Detective Lindsay Wade sent her collected samples of DNA to the lab. DNA taken from 160 men looking for two killers. First batch goes out there. I wait months, months, and months, and then get a report back that none of these guys are a match and then I send the next batch out and it's the same thing it was really frustrating because there were some people that looked like fantastic suspects up until the point that they were

eliminated a year of DNA tests and not a single match. It was enough to wear any detective down, even one as passionate as Lindsay Wade. She'd given her best, but now she made a tough decision. It was time for me to move on. In the spring of 2018, Lindsay Wade retired from the Tacoma PD. She'd investigated both Jenny and Michelle's cases for years.

And saying goodbye wasn't easy, especially to Jenny's mom. By that time, I'd grown pretty close to Patty. Mm-hmm. Yeah. She's a very special gal. I told her mother I'm going to adopt her. Before she left, Wade sent one last small batch of samples to the DNA lab. No point, really, in waiting for the results.

We're down to the last 18. I'm doubtful that we're going to get a match. So she said goodbye and went on with her life. And 25 days later... My phone buzzed and I looked down it was her replacement on the cold case unit I answered the phone and he said

there's a match on Jennifer Bastian I asked who is it what's the name and he said Robert Washburn and I was like no way I knew exactly who it was but I just couldn't believe it.

Robert Washburn. He was the guy who phoned in a tip about Michelle's murder. He was never a suspect. On her short list, only because of that genealogy analysis. Why did Washburn's name end up on the list to be tested for DNA? Because of his last name. Just the last name? Yes.

Because he was in that list that was sent to you? Correct. At the time, it seemed like a coincidence, a fluke. But now here it was, no doubt. Robert Washburn's DNA on Jenny Bastian's swimsuit. It was head-spinning. And the funny thing is that he was not a high-priority suspect. He certainly hadn't acted like one. They learned that in the years after the murder-rape of Jenny

Bastian, Robert Washburn just blended into middle America. Literally, he moved to Illinois, got a job, paid his taxes, stayed out of trouble. In fact, when investigators came knocking at his door, he voluntarily gave them a DNA sample. Now more than three decades after that terrible day in the park, Washburn was arrested at home. And then the new cold case detective, Steve Riopelle, spoke with him. How did he react? He was scared. He was he react? He was scared.

He was very nervous. He was sweating. He asked me, is this about that swab I gave the FBI a year ago? And then he told me I didn't kill that little girl. With washburn and handcuffs, it was time to let Jenny's mom know. And that job went to retired detective Wade. So, of course, I had rehearsed what I was going to say, and it all went out the window by the time I got there.

I couldn't remember what I was going to say. And she walked in. I could tell she had been crying. And she said, We got him. And that's really all I could say. The next thing we were doing is crying and hugging each other. After 32 years, Jenny's alleged killer was finally in custody. But what about Michelle's murderer?

His identity was still a mystery. Of the 160 men whose DNA was tested, none matched. Did you get to the point where you thought, this is just, we'll just live with this, never going to be solved? Oh, yeah. Whether it was solved or not was never going to bring her back. But I did not ever want that to happen to other children. So in my mind, it would be a great idea to find this guy.

Remember, back in 2016, Parabon made a sketch based on the suspect's DNA, but it didn't lead to a suspect. So in 2018, the company decided to try a newer, more advanced version of forensic genealogy. And what do you know? How could you find somebody? How could somebody still be out there? One mother still seeking answers. And one more phone call out of the blue. I believe in the devil. And people that don't believe in the devil, I think they're in for a big surprise.

It's a hole. It's a big hole that nothing else can fit, no amount of comfort The loss of her daughter, Michelle, hit Barbara Leonard like one of the sufferings of Job And the grief There's never an end to it And there won't be, I don't think, until I see her again and I have that hope and promise The Bible is true, and the Bible says that the dead are sleeping. They will be resurrected. That's where you find your comfort, huh?

Of course it is. That's how I've been able to maintain a relationship and understand other people's pain. Of course, Barbara was glad for the Bastian family when she heard there'd been an arrest in Jenny's case in May 2018. But she knew it wouldn't shed any light on Michelle's murder. It was two different people, two different distinct persons. So maybe they solved the other case, but they'd never solve yours. Yeah. So it seemed for 40 days and 40 nights until June 20th, 2018, when Barbara's phone rang.

Police chief calls and says, we've apprehended the man we feel is responsible for your daughter's murder. After 32 years, the breakthrough was, once again, genealogical DNA. Through this process, two brothers were identified as possible suspects. At the Chief's press conference, Detective Steve Riopelle told how he shattered one of the brothers

to a restaurant, where he got lucky. I observed him using the napkin multiple times, and I was able to collect it and get that submitted to the lab. And it was a match. It was surreal because after all this time,

how could you find somebody? How could somebody still be out there? Michelle's alleged killer, Gary Hartman, was a nurse of all things in a psychiatric hospital. A working-class guy with no history of violent crime, just like Robert Washburn. I believe in the devil. I believe fully in the devil.

And people that don't believe in the devil, I think they're in for a big surprise. Barbara Leonard and her daughters were in court the day Hartman was charged with Michelle's murder. I was looking at him, and I thought, who is this person? How could someone that looks so normal do something like this?

In January 2019, Robert Washburn, the suspect in Jenny Bastian's murder, was back in court. This was the final step in a plea deal. How do you plead? Guilty. Washburn pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He was sentenced to 27 years in prison. I had prayed that he would not go to trial.

I just wanted it to be over. As part of the plea agreement, Washburn had to tell the court about the murder. In a statement read by the judge, he said, he grabbed Jenny by the arm, brought her into the woods, and strangled her. And that was it, which for Patty Bastian was not enough at all. I will always have this question in my head. So you woke up on August 4th. It was a beautiful sunny day. You went to the park. Did you intend to kill a little girl?

Why? Why did you do this? Did you know what you did? Do you know how many birthdays you missed? How many Christmases? How many smiles? How many laughs? Do you have any expectation that he's going to answer that why question or any hope that he will? Yes. Yes. And the reason for that is not for me. The reason is for future.

To help psychologists, parents, detectives understand what can be in a human being. What made him this person? And also, why did Washburn call in a tip about Michelle's murder months before he killed Jenny? That's another question that we would all like to know the answer to. Could he have been planning it all that time? I don't know. Watching for somebody? Certainly possible. Three years after Jenny's killer pleaded guilty, March 2022, Lindsay Wade sat in another courtroom along with Michelle's mom and sisters as Gary Hartman was found guilty of

first-degree murder for killing Michelle. Finally, after all these years and choked-back emotions, tears of crying and wondering whose black heart of darkness could have done this, this is the day he faces the judge. I say lock him up and throw away the key. The judge sentenced Hartman to 26 years in prison. Two killers now behind bars for what will likely be the rest of their lives, in large part thanks to the determination of Lindsay Wade. But she wasn't quite done.

Each state gets to determine their own laws regarding DNA collection, who they can collect DNA from and when. Doesn't make it easier for you folks, does it? No. No, it doesn't. So she decided to do something about that in Washington state. The governor signed a law that expanded DNA collection and made sure it got into a national registry right away. With this bill, we may be able to solve more crimes...

It's called Jennifer and Michelle's Law. It's one way to honor those two little girls, two innocents, riding their bikes through a park on a sunny day.