True Crime with Kimbyr - Part 2: Teen's Dog Came HOME, But SHE DIDN'T! Murder In a Small Town

Episode Date: October 26, 2025

After years of unanswered questions, the truth behind Amanda “Mandy” Stavik’s murder finally begins to surface. In True Crime with Kimbyr Part 2, Kimbyrleigha reveals how one unexpected DNA breakthrough and the courage of a few determined women unravelled a secret hidden for nearly 30 years. From the small-town whispers to the shocking arrest that stunned everyone who thought they knew the killer, this episode dives deep into the twists that finally brought justice for Mandy. How did one mother’s intuition and modern forensics solve what once seemed unsolvable? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Two pillowcases are found near the sweatpants off that same logging road, which was about five miles south of Mandy's last known point. One pillowcase is a gold color. The other one is kind of off white with a diagonal wave on it in gold and aqua. Now that's very distinctive. Distinctive enough that investigators think someone might recognize them. Lab work that they did showed hair fragments that matched Mandy's color in one pillowcase. And the other one has.

a male DNA stain on it and unidentified hairs. Now the stain, I believe, from what I read, was not a complete profile and it wasn't usable. They could tell what it was. It was seminal fluid, but they couldn't get a profile from it, but it was there. Detectives are hoping that this is going to jog someone's memory. They get attention for a while on the case,

but they don't get a break that they were hoping for. And weeks turn into months. The holiday season is rolling back around again. This time, without a while. Mandy at Thanksgiving dinner. And there's something else missing. Any leads in her case? Years go by. And here's where a lot of cases will completely fade. But this one didn't. It got reopened time and time again. In 2003, a third sheriff gets transferred Mandy's files. And he goes out. He reinterviews her family. Mary is now in her 70s, but she's still as sharp as ever.

She was actually chopping wood when he showed up. But it was It was all the same questions and no answers. And years drag on. By 2007, Watcomb County basically says, we're not letting Mandy be a cold case file just stuffed in a cabinet. They reassign people, they dust up all the boxes, and they start rewalking the old ground again. All the reward money, it eventually gets redirected

into a scholarship fund in Mandy's name at Mount Baker High School, because that felt right at the time. She wanted to help people. So that was something that would keep helping kids every single spring. And Central Washington University even planted a tree outside Sparks Hall for her. These were small things, but they're important because they keep Mandy present. People will see those things and they'll be reminded of her case. But now I want to introduce you to rookie, well, he's now detective, Kevin Bowie.

He's not a stranger to this case at all. When Mandy was killed, he was just starting his career on the force. He was helping in the search. and he also attended Mount Baker High School. So the places in all the reports he was reading are places he actually knew. And now he's on the case. And the first thing he does,

he sits down with three massive binders. We're talking three to four thousand pages each, and he reads them from front to back, not skimming, reading every line. He starts pressure testing a bunch of old leads, and one name kept coming up for him in the file back then. A man named John Wisnuski. He was a local deal with a local deal with,

dealer who had kind of once hinted that he might know something about Mandy's murder. His DNA did not match the sample, but Bowie was like, you know what, I just have a gut feeling and I can't let it go. So he flew all the way to Cambodia in 2010 just to be face to face with this guy. But guess what? No match, no evidence. There was nothing there. Was this annoying for him?

Did you all that? Yes, but was it necessary? Also yes, because I hate to keep saying it. but years are going by, and at least they're ruling things out if nothing else. And then in 2013, a coworker of Bowies mentions a book called The Blooding. Now, I have never heard of this before, but now I kind of want to read it. It's about the first big DNA sweep that was done in a landmark case out in England. It was one where cops just basically asked almost every man in town to give them a swab of their DNA until they found a

profile that matched their killer. Bowie and the crime lab scientist, Catherine Woodward, decide this might be a good idea. And they started pulling up a list of men that were in the area in 1989. And they start knocking on doors. Now, obviously, they have to willingly give you the sample. If you don't have probable cause or warrant, you can't force anyone to give their DNA. But, you know, most people are going to willingly give it to you if they have nothing to hide. It's a really good way to solve this case.

And it's just like, hi, we're here again. We're going to talk about Mandy. And then also, can we just swab your cheek? But it was grueling for this lab tech. They once sent her 30 samples at once, and she had to run all of them against the unknown male profile from 1989. But the answer was always no match over and over again. I can try to imagine what that would be like.

Getting the sample, maybe being excited that you're finally going to find something and you're disappointed again and again. For her family, it was like emotional whiplash back and forth. There's movement in her daughter's case for Mary and then another dead end, year and year and year after year. She's obviously in support of all this, absolutely, but Mary also admits to herself that if it does finally match someone, it's going to reopen every wound. There's no version of justice that doesn't mean that it's going to cost her something, whether that's her time, her energy, heartbreak. But she really thought that this case would never be solved.

She kind of, you know, resigned herself to that reality. That maybe it was just someone passing through. They weren't even from this area. So even if officers are going around getting people's DNA, how were they ever going to find this stranger who probably doesn't even live here? But now, finally, the moment you have been waiting for and the part that I love the most, especially because in this case,

it was basically two ordinary moms that changed everything. Yes, they crack this case wide open, nearly 30 years after Mandy was killed. Two moms, also former Mount Baker students, Heather Baxter and Mary Lee Anderson, and they're chatting while their kids are splashing around at a water park, and somehow this ordinary conversation shifts to talking about Mandy's Unsolved Murder. These women weren't even close. They basically had mutual friends. They were all hanging out in the same group because of their kids.

And at this point, they had never actually talked about Mandy together. However, unbeknownst to either one of them, they both had private lingering suspicions about someone that they thought might be responsible for killing Mandy. And finally, Heather turned to Mary Lee and admitted she thought she knew who the killer was. And that's when Mary Lee didn't even hesitate. She's like, oh, I do too. And it wasn't like it was in a competitive way. It was because both women had very creepy encounters with the same man.

And they both finally said his name out loud, Timothy Bass. Now, I know you might be thinking, because I know I was, I'm a lot like you guys. My first thought was, wait a minute. For 30 some years, you thought you knew who might have done this and you didn't come forward? And yes, that's right. and it was a deliberate choice for both of these women. I just told you, though, they both had experiences with this man, and I said encounters.

I meant very uncomfortable situations, and they were terrified of what would happen to them if they came forward and accused him of such a heinous crime. He might do something to them if he was guilty or if he wasn't guilty, and they put his name out there in a small town where you have to live right near someone, you fear, you would be really reluctant to come forward. But now that they're both talking, they feel a new sense of confidence. By this time, Tim had gotten married, he had kids, he moved

away, and they felt braver. Tim's mother still lived in Acme. Actually, the house that Tim, his younger brother Tom, and his mom and dad lived in was on Strand Road. The very same road that Mandy jogged down every day, four years. Mary Lee decides to reach out to a friend. His name is Detective Ken Gates, Detective, but also another Mount Baker graduate. And she gives him the information. And he gives it to Bowie.

And here's the detail that just, mm, just makes me so angry. Tim Bass's name was technically already on this long list of men they were going to get DNA samples from. They were doing that sweep, that outreach. But it was just buried really, really low on the list. Well, and I cringe thinking about this. You know why he was never questioned in the beginning back when Mandy went missing? Because he came from a good family.

A well-known family in town. That's right. Tim would have been 22 when Mandy was killed. Maybe he didn't exactly fit the profile because I think when they're looking for someone who would do this to a young woman, they're probably thinking 30s, 40s. And this was a hardworking family who kept them. themselves, kept their head down, was known in the community as stable, ordinary, a husband, wife, and their two boys.

Tim graduated in 1986, three years ahead of Mandy. And people remember him as being awkward and quiet and not in Mandy's circle of friends at all. She actually knew his younger brother, Tom, but not him. After they get that call for Mary Lee, Tim's name is no longer low priority anymore. He's at the damn top of the list. Why? Well, he checks off a lot of boxes.

He's in the area at the time. He lives on the street. He jogs along. People said he's awkward, especially after the stories that Heather and Marily shared. First of all, Heather was only 15.

And this was the summer before Mandy was killed. She and a bunch of her friends were at a softball game, and then they decided to all get some ice cream for dessert. She was riding the back of a pickup truck and right next to her was Tim. She didn't know him. He was merely in acquaintance

in the group of friends she was with and he was much older than she was remembered. He was 22 at the time. And he started sitting really close to her, looking at her. She was a blonde with blue eyes. He was complimenting her saying, your eyes are so beautiful. And then he started to do something very inappropriate

that made her feel uncomfortable. He took an object, she thinks it was a pen, and he rubbed it against her thigh. Who does that? A creep. And this made her. her feel very uncomfortable. And you think that's bad. Mary Lee's story is even worse. She was actually a young mom at the time. She was home alone with her infant son, and this was 1991. So about two years

following Mandy's murder. Her husband's not home. And she gets a knock on her front door. She opens it and it's Tim. She already knew he was really creepy and alone or an awkward, but he merely asked, can I use your phone? Tim's story, was that he had been out hunting and he needed to let his wife know where he was. Now, it kind of didn't make sense to Merrily at the time, but she was being a good neighbor and she let him inside. She's sitting there listening. And I don't know if you remember the sound that a cordless phone or house phone would make. It was like the type of sound where you dialed something incorrectly or there was no service anymore. You would get this weird tone. I'll play it.

Sorry. Well, that's what Marily heard. So already she's like, No, there's something weird about this situation. I don't like it. And her instincts were on point. Out of nowhere. Tim hangs up the phone, starts walking back to her bedroom. He knows exactly where it is.

And he starts talking about how he's always had a major crush on her. He's in love with her. He's always driving by and looking at her house and thinking of her. And then he just blatantly said, and I don't like the way he put it. He said he wanted to make love to her. I don't like when people use that phrase or the whole, sleep with you or I slept with them. That's not what's happening here.

I think you know what he was asking. He was basically saying, I want to have my way with you. And she was terrified. She started yelling for him to get out of her house, but he wouldn't until she told him she was going to call the police. That's when he retreated. It had been years, but these two women were still in fear of this man.

Now, he now lived a town over in Everson, and he was married to the same woman, and he had three children. And Bowie showed up at his door. And what makes me want to roll my eyes so far back in my head, as far as they would go, was that when Detective Bowie shows up, and he tells this man, we're here about Mandy Stavik. Tim, he has a confused look on his face.

Kind of like he's thinking hard, trying to figure out who are they talking about. Now, here's the thing. That wouldn't happen. When you mentioned Mandy's name to anyone in this community that grew up in Acme, this was the biggest case that happened there. Mandy's name and face was everywhere. There's no way in hell he wouldn't know who she was. So that was the first red flag of many. Of many of the ones we already have, but of this case.

Tim was finally like, oh, that was the girl who went missing, and then later they found her in the river. The next red flag was Tim's refusal to provide a DNA sample. You know what he says? He says, oh, I watch a lot of cold case shows on true crime and I know how the system works. You're going to pin the crime on people, people who didn't even do it. And I'm sitting here thinking, is that what happens? Or do you know that they're going to diligently run your DNA and you're going to be busted?

But Tim just says, no. He didn't say, let me think about it. Let me talk to my attorney. Just know I'm refusing to do it. He says, I don't trust the police. And of course, refusal alone doesn't mean that a person's guilty. but it just means, you know what, we better look a little closer at you. And this is when the case pivots

because of one person who refused to ignore her gut feeling. Another woman in town, Kim Wagner. She worked with Tim at Franz Bakery. He was one of their delivery drivers. Detectives had already tried to follow Tim around town and get his DNA because they were hoping he would drop something like a cigarette butt or a cup. But he was careful.

purpose and they noticed that. So they needed a little extra help. So they asked his workplace if they could swab the inside of his truck that he drove. But Kim declined. Detectives cannot legally tell her to do anything and at first she sends them to HR because she doesn't want to get involved. Kim doesn't know the reason that detectives are interested in Tim. They give her very limited information. But a few days later, Kim and her husband are out with friends and she happened to mention to the the group that detectives came by and wanted to collect Tim Bass's DNA. And one of her friends responds with, that guy's a weirdo. And then another person says, you remember he used to live on Strand Road when Mandy

disappeared and that his bedroom window faced the road and he could easily have watched her jogging. And like many other people in that town, Kim grew up in that area. Mandy's case was the first time that she was She actually heard about something so horrific happening to someone her age. She was 19 at the time. And that was the first time in her life. She really didn't feel safe there. And it was in that moment that a light bulb went off and Kim said.

She's like, wait a minute, this might be connected. Maybe they think Tim killed Mandy. So when she gets back to work, she starts watching Tim. The way that you would watch someone after your brain finally connected the dots. She notices. He never turns in his uniform to get cleaned like every other driver. His truck is always spotless. There's no wrappers, no cups, no trash.

He wears gloves handling bread. Is that a crime? No. Is it weird? Yes, especially when you're looking at someone and they're being very careful about not leaving DNA behind. So now Kim is on board. She tells the detectives, I'll do what I can.

But if she's being completely honest, she was terrified. I would be too. More and more information was coming out about this man, and people were whispering about it all around town. Kim had her thoughts. She always viewed Tim as kind of weird, and she said, you just never knew what version of him you were going to get from one day to the next.

He had a really short views, so she would just keep her distance. The one thing that really stuck out to her, She could tell he did not respect females at all. Why? Well, in her perspective, it was because he wouldn't even call her by her name. Instead, he would refer to her as woman. Hey, woman, when does my shift start? Hey, woman.

Where is the paperwork for this order? Just rude. But let's talk about the life that Tim built right after Mandy was killed because the timing matters. He'd been casually dating a woman named Gina Malone. She met Tim at her grandfather. grocery store when he was getting his hunting license. He asked her out and it was normal. It was sweet.

He was complimenting her a lot. And Gina wasn't used to getting that much attention, so she was all in. She was a senior in high school at the time. And they were waiting till she graduated to get more serious. Now, Gina did know Mandy from school, but she wasn't a close friend of hers.

Mandy just had a familiar face that she would pass in the hallway. And then, just weeks after Mandy's killed, It was January 1990. All of a sudden, six weeks later, Tim, out of nowhere, asked Gina to marry him, even though she hadn't graduated yet. And Gina's friends are like, wait a minute, this seems very rushed. Everything was happening really fast. They quickly did get married, moved out of the area, into their own home, and eventually go on to have three children together.

On paper, it's the picture you would expect in the small town, a young couple, husband with a steady job, trying to make it work. but they dug up records. And it showed that back in 2010, Gina actually filed for restraining order for herself and protection for her children. Now, that alone really tells you the temperature of this relationship and of their home. And later, she did rescind.

She, you know, canceled it. And a lot of survivors do that. Their fear is fixed into their life at this point. And they've built a life at this point. She told her loved ones and her friends that she would never go back to Tim She was away from him for about two months at the time, but she did it for the kids.

She didn't want to lose them. When Detective Bowie came to the door for Tim's DNA, and to question him, it was actually Gina who answered, and she did not hesitate to let them know he would be home soon, and she didn't alert her husband to the fact that the cops were there. It seemed to them like a woman who wanted out and had a lot of secrets. Also, it wasn't hard to notice that Gina, looked a lot like Mandy back when Tim and her got together.

Just one other detail to add to the list. Same short, blonde, wavy hair, big, pretty white smile, athletic. But jumping back to Tim's workplace, weeks go by. The office gets a brand new water cooler. And sure enough, Tim can't help himself. He pours himself a drink in a plastic cup, and this is the moment. He drops it into the trash right in front of Kim before he heads into the bathroom.

This was her chance. Her heart was pounding, and she takes the cup, and she quickly gets it out of the trash and throws it into one of the drawers in her desk. She did it. She later, for good measure, even was able to get a discarded Coke can as well.

And she calls Bowie. He comes and retrieves the goods. Catherine Woodward swabs the items, and she pulls up that 1989 profile and makes a comparison but it does take three whole months to get the results. They check it once, they check it again, and again, and they've got a match.

The probability comes back at 1 in 11 quadrillion. Yeah, there's no mistaking it right. And if you're not good in math, that I'm not good either, is 15 zeros. It's 2017. This is the door finally opening after 28 years of knocking. Bowie actually broke down in, tears. I mean, this was a very emotional moment. He went out to Franz Bakery, confronted Tim

asking, were you ever in an intimate relationship with Mandy? This would almost give him an out as to why his seminal fluid would be found inside of her body. But Tim denies ever having anything to do with Mandy. He said, no, never, never kissed her, never held her hand, nothing. And finally, Bowie said, really? Well, then how do you explain, your DNA being a match to our sample collected from her body. All he wanted to know was what DNA? I never gave you my DNA. It was on December 12th of 2017 when the arrest was finally made.

Tim was now 50. He was charged with rape, kidnapping, and murder. Bowie had waited way too long to be able to say the words, you're under arrest for the murder of Mandy Stavik. That must have felt so good. But their work was nowhere near done. They needed to build a solid case against him. And here's where I think things got even more interesting. Tim's wife Gina immediately filed for divorce.

If that's not a sign, I don't know what is. Now that he was behind bars, Gina felt safe to leave and to come forward about who Tim really was. And wow, just wow was the only word that came to my mind hearing all this. First of all, when she was asked why she married him, she said she was young. She was trying to get out of her parents' house. She wanted to be more independent. He was older.

She had no idea that he would basically make her his servant. He would demand her to do things for him all the time, and he towered over her. So she listened to every command, whether it was getting him a drink, making him food, what she was allowed to wear, who she could talk to. He was super possessive and controlling. And he wasn't shy to do it in front of other people. Even his own brother heard him tell Gina to shut up more than once. Being married to him, Gina said, was like being in prison.

When she left for that two months, he threatened her. He said, if you try to get a divorce, I'll lie to the judge and I'll get your children taken away from you. And she was so scared that she went back. I don't know why, but my brain went right to imagining having to play house with a man like that. just to pretend you want to be near him when you don't. And just like with his coworker Kim, Tim wouldn't even call Gina by her name. Instead, oh my gosh, it was the worst of the worst names,

things like bitch, slut, whore. I mean, it was just cruel. And if she protested, he would laugh at her. He's like, you can't take a joke. I don't see what's funny about that. It's a power trip. And Jita remembers how he would loom over her. He would get real,

close to her when he was mad and he would bring his fists this close to her face like he was going to punch her. It's just terrifying. And he did hurt her once physically. He took her and he threw her into the bathroom wall hard enough that it left a bruise on her back. And there's another detail that sticks with detectives. Something he kind of mentioned before. True crime. He didn't just casually watch it. Gina said he had an obsession with true crime shows and murder mysteries, especially cold case files. Hmm, I wonder why. She said he would make comments that just give you this sick feeling he would call the killer stupid for leaving evidence behind and he would say, oh, I would never be that dumb. If I killed someone, I would know

where to hide the body so it would never be found. It's the kind of thing you don't forget someone saying because it sounds like they're bragging, that they're pretending they're this armed her detective, then they got this theory about what they would do. But on the other hand, it's strange. And when he wouldn't give over his DNA, Gina just kept adding these things up. She asked him why. She was like, why don't you just do it?

You have nothing to hide. What's the big deal? She said her husband turned to her and he was like, you know the cops frame people all the time. They just want to solve the case. They're out to get me and pin Mandy's murder on me. Of course, his wife was stunned. Tim was always a bit unstable, and it all began, according to his brother, Tom, when Tim's high school girlfriend broke things off with him. Tom told detectives he recalled his brother being up in his room on the phone with his girlfriend and freaking out.

He was yelling that he was going to, I have to say it in this way, inflict harm on himself and he had a pistol in his hand. He was that angry about this whole breakup that he actually shot that gun into the air. And after that, everyone noticed a new, negative transformation in Tim. He hated women. He despised them. He disrespected them and he felt like they were only there to serve his needs. I just don't know how any woman would be able to get into a relationship with a man like this, but he did date. And eventually, as you know, he married Gina. But she was young, he was manipulative, he loved bombed her. He gave her a lot of attention. Tom said he and his wife had witnessed how many times Tim was mean and would degrade his own wife.

yelling for her to shut up right in front of them. He believed that women were inferior to him. Once Tim was detained, Bowie did the next thing he'd been waiting for for years. He went to Mary's house, and he told her, we got him. It had been so long that poor Mary was confused, and she was taken aback.

She was like, who? Who, you got who? But once he explained it, it was bittersweet. It was actually her 81st birthday that day. What a gift to her. receive, right? But now the real work begins. When Tim was arrested, he acted cold, he was detached, he was emotionless. And at this point, they do sit him down for a formal interview at the police station. And the first thing he wants to know was how they got his DNA. He knows he didn't volunteer it. You could almost see the mental math in his head, like, where did I slip up? What happened?

He thinks that they're bluffing. So he maintains he had nothing to do with Mandy's killing and that they have the wrong guy. Then he asked if they saw, snuck around and got his DNA in Bowie was like, of course I did. So once they proved they have a DNA match, his story flips. And this part made me sick because suddenly he's like, oh,

actually, I've been meaning to tell you something for years. I just didn't really trust you. I just want you to hear it yourself. Oh, this man makes me so mad. I've been told not to say stuff. And, uh, I'm hell with it. I can't do it. I can't, uh, I trust you guys.

I'm just like, I can't. If you didn't catch that, he was saying that he's been told not to say stuff, but hell with it. And then he's like, oh, I can't do it. I can't trust you. This bites me in the ass. If this is not what I'm supposed to do, then whatever. I don't, I don't get .

I slept with her. And there it is the whole Slep with her phrase. And again, Hate that phrase, slept, slept. And I understand, even on YouTube, they don't like the real S word that ends with X. But you see what this guy is doing, right? He started telling them about a supposed secret relationship that he'd had behind the scenes with Mandy. The detective wants to know how long?

When did this happen? When was it going on? And I found this part to be very, very interesting and so important. When people are lying, they tend to pull in pieces. of the truth, number one, because it's easier for them to remember and recite, and it's more believable when you're mixing the truth with a lie. So he tells detectives that he remembers meeting Mandy with his dad. They were riding their bikes around the neighborhood, and they saw Mandy as she was out jogging. And his dad being the kind of person he was, he struck up a conversation with Mandy. This probably happened, considering Mandy lived there for years.

She grew up in the area. I'm sure that she crossed paths with neighbors before. She was friends with his brother. So this part of the story seems like it could be true. Maybe his dad says something like, it's a lovely day, or it's a great road for exercise. Who knows? Small talk in the neighborhood. But Tim goes on to say that he starts talking to her that day as well. And then he would see her as he biked up and down the Strand Road, seeing her jogging again and again. And still, this is probably the truth. But then he adds, this was the spring before she left for college. So this was recent to the time she was killed, which to me would be a red flag. You just happen to start a secret relationship with the girl who's about to leave for college, who's been dating the same guy since

she was a freshman in high school. Small talk with a neighbor, sure, but this is starting to sound like where the lie really begins. Of course, you'd want proof, right? Did you call her? Did you send her a letter while she was in school? How did you make plans to meet up? Especially because, you know, what's the excuse for your DNA being inside her body. And he tells detectives, oh, no, no, no, no, no. You see, whenever she came home from college, she would say, I'll just see you when I come back in town. The thing that everyone knew about Mandy was that she was not a shallow person.

All the relationships she had, whether it was a friendship or romantic, she put effort into those relationships. And the way that this guy was describing his relationship with her, he was basically and did call it a booty call, his word. He knew nothing about Mandy. He couldn't tell them anything about who she was as a person, and that's another red flag. All he saw was this beautiful girl.

Because we all know what a booty call is about, right? It's about one thing. So it's almost like a Freudian slip on his part because that that's probably what he was interested in when he saw her jogging up and down the street. He wanted that. He said, it was a friendship, and it grew into something more. But that's the thing.

When you have a friendship, you know things about your friends. If they're really talking to you, what are they talking about? They would be confiding you about something, right? It can't be both a shallow and a deep relationship at the same time. And he claims, oh, you know, we didn't really have intercourse that many times.

It was just mostly kissing and stuff, maybe a couple times before she left for college and then the one time when she came back into town. So let me get this straight. She has a boyfriend. She also is at a college full of guys that she could at any point start a relationship with or something shallow if she wanted. But she chooses to link up with some random, quiet, weird, socially awkward, mean, creepy neighbor. I guess it could happen, but it's highly unlikely.

Because these investigators had gotten to know everything about Mandy. I mean, you know more about Mandy than this guy would have ever. known and could tell them about her. They just knew it didn't make sense. Also, everyone that knew Tim knew he bragged about everything. So if he ever got with a girl like Mandy, he would let it be known.

He would even risk Mandy's relationship with her boyfriend being ruined because he's selfish. He would have told people, I'm, you know, with Mandy, I'm her thing on the side. They were like, trust me, it didn't happen. Mandy's older sister, Molly said it blind. She said there's no way my sister would ever have a physical relationship with Tim Bass. She was way, way out of his leak.

But Tim insisted it was true. He even told his daddy all about it. Now it would have been great if investigators could have asked his dad, but his dad was deceased. So I guess he took the secret to his grave. And they weren't buying it. After this, the cops held a press conference with all the original detectives there, there, and now the community knew who was being charged with Mandy's murder.

And it shocked a lot of people, mostly because of the fear of the unknown. So many girls had rode their bikes or jogged down that neighborhood road time and time again, and they never knew a monster was living right there inside that house using his window as a peek into the world of his prey. What made me really emotional, I mean a lot of things did in this case, but maybe Mary wanted to know who retrieved Tim's DNA. Like, who helped them get the profile. That was Kim Wagner. She really didn't want her name out there.

She was scared, but she finally got to meet Mary. And it was a very emotional moment because Kim did this so that this mother could have some kind of closure. But I do need to get to the trial. Now, this was extraordinary because the former district attorney, who initially worked on Mandy's case, had been waiting all of these years. to charge someone.

And he retired, but he came out of retirement. He's an old man now, just so that he could prosecute Tim Bass. And I thought that was just amazing. Bail was set at $1 million, and Tim, of course, pled not guilty. The trial began in May of 2019, 30 years after Mandy was killed, and this courtroom was full. We already know what the prosecution's theory is,

that Tim watched her, he waited for his opportunity, and this time she was alone. He either parked in the woods or hid there on foot, but either way, he used a weapon, and he was able to force Mandy into his vehicle. He took her three miles away into the woods, where her sweatpants were later found, forced her at gunpoint to have relations with him,

and afterward, she ran, right through the blackberry bushes to escape. But Tim caught up with her, hid her over the head or slammed her into a tree, and then threw her body, unconscious, into the river where she drowned. But you haven't heard the defenses are. It was that lots of people saw Mandy that day. One witness placed her within 100 yards of her home.

They said that only gave Tim a minute, Tops, to abduct her in broad daylight, on his own street without being seen. They were leaning hard on the idea that DNA proves contact, but it doesn't prove murder. They said they had an expert named Dr. Elizabeth Johnson and that she would say that the DNA could have been deposited, they used that word,

up to 48 hours before Mandy's death. Enough time for that secret relationship to exist in theory and them had relations before she was murdered by someone else. Then came the witnesses one after the other. Friends saying Mandy never talked about Tim, his own ex-wife Gina saying that he told her to lie for him. And at first she did. She said she was with Tim the day Mandy was kidnapped.

But she wasn't. Tim's own brother took the stand against him and said that while Tim was in jail, he began alibi building. Tim called his brother, told him, look, my DNA has been found on Mandy. He's like, listen. I'm kind of hoping that you could say that you slept with Mandy too. Basically, trying to make her look promiscuous. And Tom refused. What kind of ask is that?

Tim was like, you believe me, though, right? I'm innocent. The cops are out to get me. I need a really strong alibi or I'm going to prison. And I have to say, probably because you did it. You wouldn't need an alibi if you didn't commit the crime because you would have an alibi. But it got crazier. Tim passed a note to his mom while he was in jail asking her if she would lie and say they were out Christmas shopping the day Mandy disappeared.

And when that wasn't strong enough, he comes up with a new strategy, so to speak. He asked his mother, can we say that dad did it? What? I was thinking which part? Your dad and you don't have the same DNA, so you're talking about you're saying your dad murdered her? It made no sense, and of course his mom refused

to go along with this plan. His defense attorney made me so mad. Both of them did. There was a man and a woman that were defending him, but I know it was just her job. She was making excuses as to why he could have been asking people to essentially lie for him. She was like, you know, innocent people, they get flustered.

They do things they wouldn't normally do. And I'm like, no. I'm sorry, but this is not that. They even tried to counter all of the arguments about how Mandy was out of his league. They told the jury, sure, you're looking at this man now in his 50s, but let's put a picture up of what Tim looked like back in the 1980s. Look at him in this photo. Isn't he handsome?

What a hunk. Those were not the exact words. This is actually what his attorney said. It's easy to make the assumption that this pretty young woman would never have anything to do with Mr. Bass. But this is Mr. Bass, circa the late 80s. Just because somebody hadn't seen them together doesn't mean that they hadn't been together at some point. But you know when they say that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, this one isn't.

Because everyone that knew this man knew, his looks could be disson. He was creepy. His personality was creepy. Remember Marley and Heather? It doesn't matter what this guy looked like on the outside? Ted Bundy, anyone? He acted weird. It was the way he acted that made it very unlikely that Mandy would ever be with him unless he forced it. I did like how all the original detectives and even the same medical examiner came to testify. And the medical examiner who completed the autopsy on Mandy refused. that expert that the defense had. He said the DNA had not been there up to two days. He said there were indicators on her body that point to it being there much sooner. And I'm going to tell you, his testimony held so much more weight because he actually examined her body. I've said this many times before. If it was the case where Tim had been with her and his DNA got there from consensual relations,

he must be the most unlucky person in the world, right? because then soon afterward, someone kidnapped her and then killed her for an entirely unrelated reason, so not related to being forced into that act, and then they threw her in the river. Doesn't make sense. I'd have so many questions like, where did you meet up? Did she come into your house to, you know, be with you? Did anyone see her? When did she leave?

She was only home for a very short amount of time before she was killed. And that night she had plans to go to the movies and her college roommate was waiting for her. So you mean to tell me, She's out getting a booty call and then steps out of this man's house, or wherever they were doing it, maybe it was in the woods. Again, doesn't make sense. And someone else killed her. Come on.

The jury deliberated, came back with a guilty verdict. I don't think that's a surprise. And when the judge had to choose how much time Tim would serve, he gave them the maximum, 320 months, just shy of 27 years. I know what you're asking. Why wasn't it life? Well, without premeditation, which they knew they weren't going to be able to prove in this case, there was no other option.

Tim had spent nearly 30 years free, so now he would spend about the same time locked up. And this was the time he finally spoke. What do you think he said before I play it? I will play the clip. I would first like to say that I'm 100% innocent of this crime. Furthermore, I don't believe I received a fair trial. In saying that, though, a better man in me says I should say very little today. I give the state to the staff.

He said, I'm innocent. It was an unfair trial, the usual. And he wished and hoped that her family would have peace. I'm sorry, that does not move me at all. And it definitely didn't move the judge. He essentially said, you've lived 30 years without accountability. While your family and this entire community have lived with the hole that you made in their lives.

Mary, who once accepted that she might never know who killed her, her daughter, sat through that trial every day. She even stood when the jury walked in every time. Even though the judge told her, you can stay seated because of her age. She said, no, I'll stand. And that minor detail says so much about this woman. That's why I told you. She herself was an extraordinary woman.

She did say she feels closure. Not that's erasing what happened. That won't ever happen. But she feels like she can breathe. Mandy's sister Molly actually named her daughter after Mandy in her memory. And this verdict would never bring Mandy back. She would never be at another Thanksgiving table. But it gave them something.

It gave them the knowledge that the man who silenced her voice had a name now and that he was no longer free. She was taken during the season meant for gratitude and giving thanks. And they were grateful that they finally knew the truth. And what's scary in all of this is that monsters can be right next door. I thank you so very much for being here for Mandy's story. I feel so heartbroken for her entire family. She was an extraordinary person, and I'm glad you got to know her.

Thank you so very much for being here. I will see you in my very next video. Bye.