Latest / PNW Haunts & Homicides / Two Girls, Two Parks, Two Killers: Michella Welch & Jennifer Bastian | Tacoma, Washington

Transcript

Two Girls, Two Parks, Two Killers: Michella Welch & Jennifer Bastian | Tacoma, Washington · PNW Haunts & Homicides

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The belief that the North End was insulated from major
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: violent crime evaporated seemingly overnight. Parents stopped letting children play outside, unattended,
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: neighborhood watch program surged, and a pervasive sense of fear
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: gripped the community for decades.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: And that's a pretty hard turn.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: You go from basically being able to ride your bike
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: to a park, you know, a mile or two away
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: to not being able to like leave your house unsupervised,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: particularly after Tacoma had been honored with the All American
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: City Award by the National Civic League in nineteen eighty four.
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: So are you just gonna like do the intro with
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: me and just see if anybody notices or I don't know,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: should we introduce you and nounce you something more official
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: or do you think they'll even notice.
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: Nobody cares about me. I don't think they're going to care.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: But don't you think they're going to realize that you're
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: not Cassie?
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: Like halfway through the episode? I think they might.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Wait a minute, wait a second.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: This is PNW Hants and Homicides, where we chat about
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: true crime, the parent normal, and all things spooky in
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: the Pacific Northwest And what is occasionally become accustomed. Now
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: is a little bit of like puppy ASMR. Depending on
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Charlotte's mood, we do a little bit of that, and
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: then we also do a Tarot reading at the end
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: of every episode for a little bit of deeper insight
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: into our topic. Yes, yes, and I'm really excited because
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: I have a brand new tarot deck, so maybe we'll
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: use that today.
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I see it. Say it.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, I saw it before and I see it again.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're like, she's always showing me her Shenanigans, love Shenanigans.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: In case you.
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Noticed already, and not halfway through the episode. I'm Caitlin,
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: but that is not Cassie.
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Oh hi, oh hi.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, very convincing though you're doing You're really you're nailing
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: it so far.
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: Great. This is my husband, Chris.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Hello, it's been a little while since you've done an
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: episode with me.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah. It's always wonderful yet worrisome. Yeah, because it's great
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: to be here. But I have no idea what I'm doing. Yeah,
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: but I'm just gonna fake it till I make it.
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: That's perfect. It's a strong strategy.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: Honestly, it's worked for me, all right. Well, hopefully when
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: you say you enjoy being here, you mean that the
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: content isn't, uh like the worst part.
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: Of your day. That's the worrisome part, the worries some part.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I mean that's fair enough. You kind of
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: know what you're getting into. But on the other hand,
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: you really have no idea what you're getting into.
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: It's always still so shocking, it is. I'm still surprised
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: at how awful people can be.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: You've got stunned Pikachu face over there, how spooky shit
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: can be. All right, well, I will get into it.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: We'll get started.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Tacoma in nineteen eighty six was a working class city
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in transition. It still bore in part the industrial identity
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: that had defined it for generations, still carrying the faint,
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: sulfurous smell of Poulp mills that gave rise to its nickname,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: the Tacoma Aroma.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Oh I love Ryman. I know, I know you'd like.
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: That alliteration in rymen.
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: That's all I need. It's the best.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: But it was also beginning to reach towards something different.
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: The North End neighborhood where Michelle Welch lived was a quieter,
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: middle class pocket of the city. It had tree lined streets,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: modest homes, and then there was Puget Park. It was
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: a heavily wooded ravine park that families used freely and
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: children roamed without adult supervision.
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: Because it was the eighties, What a wonderful time. I mean,
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: I couldn't say.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Come home when street lights come.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: On, right, Yeah.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like there were a couple of different people
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: that really commented on how that's sort of the trope
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: of growing up in the eighties, and they were like,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: it really was true. It was the kind of park
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: where kids disappeared into the trees for hours and parents
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: didn't worry until they had reason to. Michelle's mother, Barbara Leonard,
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: was a single mom to three girls, Nicole nine, Angela eleven,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and Michelle twelve. According to her family and friends, Michelle
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: was confident and energetic, and she loved riding her bike.
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: She was also a very kind and responsible older sister
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: that loved to read and played both the piano and
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: the violin. Wow, pretty well rounded kid. On the afternoon
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: of Wednesday, March twenty sixth, nineteen eighty six, Michelle and
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: her sisters rode their bikes to nearby Puget Park. They
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: had the day off from school at least it was
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the week of spring break, and the girls had an
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: afternoon piano lesson Because they all took piano lessons. Their
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: mother happy that as a single mother, that not only
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: was she able to provide a nice home for them
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: in this neighborhood, but also like this type of little extra,
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: which three kids and piano lessons, that doesn't.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Feel so little, like well done mom, I know, good
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: for her. Oh the eighties.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: I can't even imagine trying to raise three kids on
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: a single I can barely raise myself on a single income.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: It's well documented, just a different time.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Pugett Park is a steep, heavily wooded ravine popular for jogging.
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: The wild urban green space is populated with numerous native
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: plants with dense tree cover. But it was very familiar
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: territory Michelle had visited countless times. It was roughly two
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: miles from their house from what I was hearing.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Not that far back then.
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: No, No, especially on a bike too. I feel like
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: that goes pretty quick. Yeah, and you're twelve, so you
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: have boundless energy, no responsibilities really to speak of, of course,
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: sounds like a dream. It was around eleven eleven thirty
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: when the girls realized that they had forgotten their lunches.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: Whoops, whoopsies.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: So Michelle, of course, you know, being the good big sister,
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: she rode home to fetch their sandwiches. While she was gone,
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: her sisters them were like, shoot, we need to use
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: the restroom.
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: Of course they did.
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's three little girls, somebody is going to have
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: to pee. It's just a statistical inevitability. And back then
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: this park didn't really have like public restrooms, so they
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: went to a nearby business.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: To use their facilities.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: While they were there, they used the phone to call
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: their homes landline, but no one answered. They made an
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: additional call to a babysitter, though at the time Michelle
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: and her sisters were not actually under that babysitter's care.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: But I think they were starting to get a little
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: bit concerned, just because enough time had passed that.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: They were like, well, she should probably be back.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: So they assumed that Michelle was already on her way
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: back to the park. They thought, you know, maybe she's
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: already back at the park, and so they decided they
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: would just return as well. So they arrived back at
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: the park around one pm, So, I mean that is
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: a pretty good chunk of time considering how close they lived.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: By two pm, there was still no sign of Michelle,
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: though the sisters had found her bike, as well as
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: the sandwiches that she had laid out on a picnic table.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: That's not a good sign. It's not a good sign.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: No. Her sudden disappearance was reported to law enforcement. Officers
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: arrived at the park by three ten pm. So, I
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: mean it's a surprising turn of events because I feel
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: like so many, especially back in the eighties, people would
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: just be told, your kid just ran away.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: They'll come home.
• 8:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, they'll be back tomorrow.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe when they feel like it.
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: Officers arrived at the park by three ten pm and
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: conducted a preliminary search of the area. Though the investigation
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: was quickly initiated, the park's dense vegetation, the public nature
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: of the space, and the limitations of nineteen eighty six
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: forensic science created many obstacles that they likely didn't anticipate would.
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Literally take decades to overcome. Oh my spoilers, that was yeah, yeah,
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: I was like, drop that little nugget in there.
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: Michelle's body was discovered several hours later in an isolated
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: fire pit area near a playground.
• 9:28
  Speaker 2: At the park.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: So that is sick.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It's a lot of yikes for so many reasons, because
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: obviously nothing good has happened to her.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: But also I think.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: About what it would do to a kid if they
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: were the one that stumbled on her body. It's like
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: nightmare fuel that you're never getting out of your head.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: A later probable.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: Cause affidavit states she was found on her back. Her
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: top hadn't been completely moved, but it was raised, while
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: the bottom half of her body was nude. Her pants
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: and underwear left near her right ankle.
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: Gross. Yeah, I know. It was like shit, Maybe I
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: should have prepped you a little bit for this one.
• 10:18
  Speaker 2: I was like nicky.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: Her March twenty seventh autopsy revealed a three inch depressed
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: skull fracture on the right side, as well as a
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: seven inch laceration to her neck. Michelle's cause of death
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: was blunt force trauma to the head owing to the fracture.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: A rape kit was collected and semen was present on
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: one of the swabs.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: So I hate that, yeah, but also not something to
• 10:49
  Speaker 3: work with.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I know, it's kind of one of
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: those situations where you're like, I'm trying to find a
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: silver lining in a pile of shit, and yeah, yeah,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: thinking that way in a sense does kind of make
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: you feel like a literal devil's advocate. Two men were
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: seen in the park that day. I'm sure, actually, you know,
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: maybe a lot of men, but these two particular men
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: were ones that witnesses basically described seeing or like interacting with.
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: One spotted under the bridge by a classmate of Michelle's,
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: was described as a white male in his mid twenties.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: The other seen talking to Michelle was described as possibly
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Hispanic and somewhat older. Neither was ever publicly identified. Physical
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: evidence was collected and preserved, but the technology to analyze
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: most of it meaningfully just didn't exist yet. I think
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: we all kind of inherently understand that with a case
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: that's sold. Just a few months later, on August fourth,
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, thirteen year old Jennifer Bastian went for
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: a bike ride at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So these parks are like very close by to each other.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: What the fuck there's more?
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, he's like, what that's I feel like
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: that's fair enough.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: I feel like that's probably what the people of Tacaba
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: were saying, you know. Yeah, it was about two thirty
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: when Jenny headed off on her now Shwin bike. She
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: was training for the upcoming San Juan Island's bike tour,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: so that was something she commonly did.
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: She rode at this park frequently. She biked a lot.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: She had left a note behind at home that she
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: would return by six thirty PM. Some of the reporting
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: that I came across said that she had talked to
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: her dad and he said, sure, you know, go ahead,
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: you can go to the park, but you need to
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: be home by six thirty, and so the note confirmed
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: that she was like, Okay, I'm going to do what
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: I'm supposed to. However, when she hadn't returned home by
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: eight point thirty, she was reported missing. Point Defiance is
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: significantly larger than Puget Park, with both inner and outer
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: loops of five mile drive. The inner loop provides vehicle
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: access to the park's attractions because like there's literally an aquarium,
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: there's all of these other aspects of the park aside
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: from just like biking, hiking. Back in nineteen eighty six,
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: the outer loop was also open to vehicle traffic, but
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: following an erosion assessment in twenty twenty two, only non motorized.
• 13:48
  Speaker 2: Vehicle access is allowed.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Based on witness statements, Jenny was riding the outer loop.
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: Sightings of her in or near the park were reported
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: up until six pm, so should have given her, I
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: would think, enough time to ride home. She was probably
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: getting ready to leave soon, I imagine By five thirty am
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: on August fifth, the following day, the police and bloodhounds
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: had searched the entire outer loop of five mile Drive
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: with no sign of Jenny. The exhaustive search efforts at
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: the park continued weeks went by. On August twenty sixth,
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six, around eight pm, a YMC jogger informed
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: police they had encountered an odor along.
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: Their path.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: And given that this is the second disappearance in a
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: handful of months.
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: It's not fresh cut flowers.
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: It's certainly not correct. When police searched the area roughly
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: an hour later, they found nothing. Two days long later,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: around two pm, search dogs discovered the body of Jennifer
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: Bastian hidden in an area with dense brush, her bike
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: nearby also obstructed by the landscape. It was camouflaged by
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: fern Franz, which is probably one of my favorite things
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: to say now Franz. Yeah, not because of this, just
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: because it's fun to say. Yep, it feels good. Though
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: her manner of death strangulation was different from Michelle, she
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: too had been sexually assaulted. The Tacoma Police Department worked
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: alongside detectives from the Green River Task Force to process
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: the crime scene. Patty, her mother, who had been struggling
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: in the week since Jenny's disappearance, was trying desperately to
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: channel her energy and anxiety into something, keeping herself busy
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: literally however she could. She had been visited by Michelle's mother, Barbara,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: as search efforts were being undertaken for Jenny. So really
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: sweet because the mother of, you know, one of these girls,
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: the first to go missing. Michelle goes to her and
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: is like, I know what you're going through.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I just went through this. Yeah.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: She said it just seemed like the thing to do,
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: which like, honestly kind of made me sob harder than
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: almost anything, because I was like, it's just such a
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: rare kind thing for someone to do, and I feel like,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: unfortunately some of these really awful experiences can bring out
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: this just incredible kindness in people, And I feel like
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: it's just like a little tidbit that feels like so
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: significant about this whole huge story that we're gonna unravel. Obviously,
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: but Barbara might have been one of the only people
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: reaching out to support Patty that could truly understand what
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: she was going through.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: After all, when.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Barbara had left the Bastion home, Patty kind of like
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: almost chuckled to herself. She told her friend that was
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: there at the house with her. I'm not sure why
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: she came. Jennifer's not dead.
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: Oh, holding on, that's yeah.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: She felt for the woman who had so recently lost
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: her own daughter, but was so clearly focused on her
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: hope of a different outcome in Jenny's case, And it
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: makes sense. She was painting in the dining room of
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: their family home when a detective showed up at her
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: home with the news, and I thought, I feel like
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: so many people must think that's such a weird thing
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: to do, But I feel like painting is kind of
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: one of those things where you can sort of do
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: it absent mindedly, you're keeping yourself occupied. Like I feel
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: like it's such a healthier coping mechanism to do something
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, I mean, I didn't think it was
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: that weird.
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: Why do other people think that was weird?
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: I'm sure a lot of people do. On the surface,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: it seems kind of odd.
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're you're weird.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: The proximity in time, the city, and the circumstances led
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: investigators to assume that a single serial killer potentially was
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: responsible for both crimes. That assumption shaped the investigation for
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: thirty years.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: And the proximity alone and the similarities between the two
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: girls specifically, it's not hard to understand how that was
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the case, right, Yeah, I mean sort of researching, I
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: was like, but kind of the mo is so different
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: because they died in such vastly different ways strangulation versus
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: like a head injury and you know, laceration really different,
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: both very like personal I feel like, but I don't
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: think you see a lot of killers that switch it
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: up on their method.
• 19:22
  Speaker 2: It depends.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: It's all debatable, right, and every case is different, and
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: so I just felt like, God, you know, they did
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: a lot right, and they just had a lot stacked
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: against them. Unfortunately, tips were pursued, suspects were examined, and
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: the cases were reviewed multiple times, always linked as a pair.
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: Really though the assumption seemed logical. As Patty Jennifer's mother
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: put it, there couldn't be two monsters in Tacoma.
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: I disagree. But and.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: These horrific crimes in ninety teen eighty six may not
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: have changed the neighborhood's long term socioeconomic status or I mean,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: this neighborhood is really like it's a cool, like architectural
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: wise neighborhood. So it didn't change that piece of what
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: appealed about the neighborhood, but it completely altered the lifestyle
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: and the psychology of the residents. And it's something that
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: I heard so many people that were connected with each
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: of these cases talk about, like how their mentality completely shifted.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it would have to.
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: The belief that the North End was insulated from major
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: violent crime evaporated seemingly overnight. Parents stopped letting children play outside,
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: unattended neighborhood watch program surged, and a pervasive sense of
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: fear gripped the community for decades.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And that's a pretty hard turn.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: You go from basically being able to ride your bike
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: to park, you know, a mile or two away to
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: not being able to leave your house unsupervised.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: It's understandable.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: It's a hard turn, though, particularly after Tacoma had been
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: honored with the All American City Award by the National
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: Civic League in nineteen eighty four. The organization and accompanying
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: award recognized communities that leverage civic engagement as well as
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: inclusiveness and innovation to successfully address local issues. Tacoma, however,
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: began making national headlines as crime spiked in the area
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: broadly speaking in the late eighties and early nineties. This
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: was actually happening all over the country, nineteen ninety one,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: marking the absolute peak of violent crime spiking in that era.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: Nineteen ninety one is like gnarly, I remember it. I
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: live through it.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: Sure you've You were just enough older than me that that,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: like you would be able to actually remember that more.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: You were pretty young though. Still.
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean kids remember seeing stuff in the
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: news and things like that. Sometimes I I do not,
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: because I was.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I remember, okay, I was outside, all right, Yeah, that's right, rid,
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: But yeah, well, no, I know it happens.
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: Though it was hardly the most accurate picture of the
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: city in the hearts and minds of many Americans. Tacoma
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: was established as one of the most dangerous places in
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the country. And when you look at it, it makes
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: sense because in terms of just homicide alone or like
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: even more broadly violent crime as a whole, it spiked,
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: Like the homicide rate was almost double the national average
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: for a lot of that pure in Tacoma, But it
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: was nowhere near some of the actual most dangerous cities
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: in that era, which would have been Washington, d C.
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: New Orleans, and Detroit. Nowhere near I.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: Mean to this day. Yeah, yeah, that was in the water.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: They're hard to beat.
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: Both cases remained unsolved through the late eighties and into
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: the nineties. They were reviewed periodically by Tacoma police, but
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: without the forensic tools needed to move forward, there was
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: little progress. The preserved physical evidence from nineteen eighty six
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: satin storage waiting for science to catch up. Over the years,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: investigators vetted thousands of potential suspects across both cases. In
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: one of the cases, I know that they reviewed over
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: two thousand suspects.
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Wow, which is pretty crazy.
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure that you know some of those people
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: are maybe getting more of a cursory review, but I
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: mean to think about the time that that takes, takes
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: a little bit, a little bit. Still, none could be
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: conclusively tied to either crime, let alone both. The linked
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: case theory meant resources were directed at finding a single
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: person who could account for both murders. In retrospect, that
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: framing of the investigation may have narrowed the search in
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: counterproductive ways. That's the benefit of hindsight. Though by twenty thirteen,
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: investigators finally had a lever. Previous testing had failed to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: recover a usable.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Male DNA profile.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: However, the swimsuit she had been wearing was preserved.
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: That's why we hold the evidence good on them.
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why it's so maddening in some cases, which
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: I think like West Memphis that case, they're like, oh,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: oh no, we don't have the evidence anymore, and we're like, listen, they.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Don't think it's important at the time.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Well they should have, because especially in that case where
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: there's already a lot of you know, sort of insinuation
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: about the authorities actually being involved in some sort of
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a cover up.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: Well, actually I know a lot about that case, and
• 25:20
  Speaker 3: here are my thoughts on it.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: I was so excited. Very briefly, I'm.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: Oh, I could have bullshited my way through it real good.
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, I couldn't you know too much about it?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: I do. What are you talking about.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: It's been a while since I've looked at it, and
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: I've obviously not like researched and written it up because
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: uh but yeah, I think I would have caught on eventually,
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: but I should have known from the jump, so who knows.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: Although the swimsuit had been examined years earlier, due to
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: advances in DNA technology and the urging of an out
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: side panel of experts, detectives had it retested this time.
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: They got a male DNA profile that could be used.
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: They also recovered hair.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: His hair presumably fuck yeah. When they compared it against
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: the profile from Michelle's case, the samples didn't match. The
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: results were unambiguous on one critical point. The DNA from
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: the Welsh crime scene and the DNA from the Bastion
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: crime scene did not come from the same person. Okay,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: after nearly three decades of chasing a single predator, they
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: were looking for two.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: I think this is literally an investigator's worst nightmare. Yeah.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: I feel actually really bad for them because it does
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: seem like a lot of effort went into these cases
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: and to just find out, like, holy shit, your theory's
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: blown out of the water.
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: Yikes.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nearly thirty years of linked case theory collapsed. Two
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: separate killers, two separate investigations, which is pretty wild. Given again,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the proximity. It just it blows my mind, It really does,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: because the similarities are so similar.
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: Rape and murder from the same town.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean just so close together, and both blonde haired,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: blue eyed little girls riding bikes in a park. I
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: get it, they're you know, little girls, and so there
• 27:38
  Speaker 1: are bound to be some striking similarities. You know, probably
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of cases. But it just I can't get
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: over it. He's unimpressed.
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: Just yeah, like, okay, there's a couple, yeah, similar things.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: But it wouldn't be enough for me to be like, oh,
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: the same person, we have a serial.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Killer on our hands.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: No, for sure, I means, wow, we're outlawing bikes.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Now.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: I mean the fact that it was less than six
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: months between the two.
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: I think that's a big part of it. And obviously we.
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: Understand that something happens when like the fear is activated
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: in your brain, you know, it changes the way that
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: people think the Tacoma Police Department partnered with Parabond Nanolabs,
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: and Detective Lindsay Wade engaged genetic genealogist Barbara ray Venter,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: the very same researcher whose work would soon identify the
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: Golden State killer.
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: That Barbara yeah R WHOA.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: She applied investigative genetic genealogy to the Welch case and
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: uploaded the killer's profile to family tree, DNA and jedmatch,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: a public genealogy data. From there, she began building family
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: trees from partial DNA matches, working outward from distant relatives
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: to narrow the field of possible suspects. It's really interesting.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: They surfaced two second cousins, one in Washington, and built
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: the tree out to third and fourth cousins and pointed
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: police eventually.
• 29:24
  Speaker 2: At two brothers. The Bastion case took a different path.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: Robert Washburn had called Tacoma police in May of nineteen
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: eighty six, before Jenny was even killed, claiming to have
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: seen a suspect matching a sketch developed in the Welch
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: case while jogging in Point Defiance Park.
• 29:45
  Speaker 2: So he says, I saw that guy.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: His name sat in the case file for thirty years
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: after DNA proved the Welch and Bastion murders had been
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: committed by different men, Detective Lindsay Wade rebuilt Jennifer's suspect
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: list from the ground up. She talked about it at length,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: literally thousands of people while reviewing decades of reports.
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: One name caught her attention. Washburn.
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: He had inserted himself into the investigation in nineteen eighty six,
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: and his surname stood out among the names detectives had
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: never fully eliminated. In twenty sixteen, Wade added him to
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: a new list of high priority suspects.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: For DNA elimination.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: Now, I watched I believe it was Dateline about these
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: two cases, and she said that they had I don't
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: remember the exact number, but I over one hundred and
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: sixty DNA profiles that they were going to try to
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: process for elimination.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: Yuck.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: I mean, the gathering of all of that and just
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: the possibility that you're, like, we've narrowed it down and
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: it's still one hundred and sixty people that were just like,
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: you know, taking shots in the dark. The following year,
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: investigators contacted Washburn in Illinois because he had moved where
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: he voluntarily provided a DNA swab.
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: Idiot.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: I know he implicated himself in the first place by
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: reporting this tip to the police, and then he gives
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: over his DNA.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: I don't know what he was thinking.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Instead of eliminating him the sample match the male DNA
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: recovered from Jenny's swimsuit. Maybe he just fully had a
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: complete lack of understanding about how DNA works.
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: The genetic genealogy work on Michelle's case eventually narrowed to
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: a family in Tacoma's North End. Investigators identified Gary Hartman,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: a sixty six year old nurse at Western State Hospital,
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: as a person of interest. He was one of the
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: two brothers to confirm detectives needed a voluntary DNA sample
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: or a sneaky one, because they decided they couldn't really
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: ask him directly without tipping their hand, so both of
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the brothers were surveilled basically so that they could collect
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: discarded DNA, which I think you know now this has
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: become something of a common practice.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: We all know.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: You know some of the ways that it's been done
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: over time, or the ways that certain people like Coburger
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: have actually avoided potentially leaving DNA that could be recovered
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: in this way. After his brother was excluded, they focused
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: on Gary. On June fifth of twenty eighteen, detectives followed
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: him to a restaurant and retrieved a napkin he'd used
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: while dining with a coworker from the hospital. The DNA
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: from the napkin matched the DNA preserved from Michelle Welch's
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six murder scene. After arrest, a warrant reference
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: sample confirmed it at one in six quadrillion.
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: Damn.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So we would literally have to gather six quadrillion
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: of our closest friends and in that sample, the statistical
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: likelihood that anybody else did this that like, that's what
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: that means, because I mean, we it's very fresh in
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: my memory still the case where it was one in
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: one hundred and thirty two. So like at a high school,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: there could be four people, you know, in a large
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: class that would potentially match versus.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: One in six quadrillion. I feel like I feel comfortable
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: with those kind of odds.
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: And that's just the DNA right then you couple on
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: the fact that he lived in that area, Yeah, exactly,
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: already factor in that end.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: I mean presumably, you know, if in this case it
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: doesn't sound like he ever came on to their radar,
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: like because geographically he was close, maybe eventually they would
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: have gotten there, maybe somebody would have come forward. I mean,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: after all this time, it seems unlikely like if anybody
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: had seen him clearly, like that connection wasn't made. So
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: really like the genetic genealogy is how they came to
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: Gary Hartman.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: We got him, We got him.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Gary Hartman was arrested during a traffic stop in Lakewood.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Gary Hartman had lived in Tacoma's North End in nineteen
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: eighty six, the same neighborhood as Michelle Welch. His brother
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: also lived in the North End at the time. He
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: was a nurse by profession, a detail that adds particular
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: weight to the violation of trust and just.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: Yuck, what else did you do? Gary? Right?
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: I know, it really makes you think there was no
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: prior criminal record that had flagged him. During the original investigation.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: He was by essentially every outward measure and ordinary community member.
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: But I mean, no, he wasn't.
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Nope, people thought maybe he was, But people also thought
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: that about you know, John Wayne Gacy and Dahmer so
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Gary Hartman was charged with first degree murder and first
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: degree rape of a child.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: He elected for.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: A bench trial, meaning that it wouldn't be a jury
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: deciding his fate, rather a judge. During the trial, the
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: prosecution presented the genetic genealogy evidence and the Napkin DNA
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: match as the centerpiece of its case, because I mean
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: that kind of was their whole. I mean, I don't
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: know what else they presented, if they, you know, came
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: up with anything else, but I feel like that one
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: was kind of a slam dunk.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: They're like, I don't know that we really need anything else.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: In under two hours, the judge convicted him on both
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: counts because didn't have to debate with anybody pretty quick.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: At sentencing, Hartman appeared in court using a walker and
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: addressed the court, apologizing for the horrific crime through sobs.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: So he admitted to it, then, he yeah, he did.
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: He received a sentence of twenty six years and six months,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the maximum sentence available under the guidelines applicable to the
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six offense, which is super annoying because I mean,
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: he's old enough now that I don't think it'll matter
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: he would be like, I want to say, ninety.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: Six by the time he would be released.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: In theory, which is essentially what I saw was that's
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: basically what the judge said. The judge was like, yeah,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: he's he's gonna definitely die in prison. So bye, So
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: nice to not meet you. In twenty eighteen, Robert Washburn
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: was arrested in Eureka, Illinois. He was extradited to Washington State,
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: where his confession about the decades old crime finally put
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: long awaited closure in the case within reach. He was
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: charged with first degree murder and convicted in January of
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: twenty nineteen. He was sentenced to three hundred and twenty
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: to three hundred and forty months in prison, roughly twenty
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: six and a half to twenty seven years, So they
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: got like almost identical sentences, which is really interesting, with
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: a minimum of twenty years before parole eligibility. I mean,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I guess if that was the maximum allowable based on
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: the date that the crime occurred. It makes sense because
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: they're both heinous and everybody said throw the book at him.
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: And how old might he be?
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I think Robert was maybe a little bit younger, but
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: Hartman was like said when he was arrested. So I mean,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: they're both in all likelihood going to die behind bars,
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: and I've made my piece with it.
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: Personally, I'm okay with it. Yeah, I feel good about it.
• 38:14
  Speaker 1: Actually, Washington State's response to these cases extended beyond conviction.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: In twenty nineteen, Governor Jay Insley signed Jennifer M. Michelle's law,
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: legislation that expanded mandatory DNA collection for convicted felons in
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: Washington State. Okay, the law directly addressed one of the
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: core systemic failures exposed by both cases that without expanded
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: DNA databases, cold cases involving physical evidence can go unresolved
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: for decades, even when the answer is preserved at the
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: crime scene, because you got to have something to test
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: it against. The law stands as a tangible legislative legacy
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: for both girls, a systemic change that will affect the
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: resolution of future cases for generations. There were some additional
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: legal proceedings, and I kind of looked at the documentation
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: about it. In relation to Hartman. I found a document
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: it's State v. Hartman, and kind of in summary, it's
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: not just that he was convicted, but he actually tried
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: to fight against the fact that they.
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: He was like, you's no my DNA and.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: They were like, I don't understand why you have to
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: be such a little bit about it.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: You threw it away, bro. Yeah.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: So the state fee Harman opinion, it's a precedent setting
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: published opinion on an issue kind of for the first
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: time in the state of Washington, and it gets at
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: essentially whether or not you have a p privacy interest
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: in DNA your relatives voluntarily upload to one of these
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: you know, public sites like Jetmatch, and the court said nah,
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: and separately that there's no privacy interest in DNA abandoned
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: at a crime scene, which.
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: I think I'm not familiar with any.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Cases where they, you know, a court has said oh no, yeah,
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: you're right, they shouldn't have taken your DNA.
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: That's your private information or whatever benefits far out in
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: the negatives, it absolutely does. Yeah. So the other thing
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: is Jetmatch.
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: From what I understand, I don't think that they used
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: to let law enforcement utilize their database.
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: They flipped on that kind of around the time that
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: these cases, you know, like we're getting the convictions and
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: everything you do have to opt in. So like it
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: kind of comes down to like individual opt in for
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: like the person that's providing their sample, which maybe that's
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: kind of a.
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: More fair compromise.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: It's like, then you're consenting because technically, you know, if
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: it's a family member, I guess you know, do you
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: want the right, the responsibility, the role of deciding, like, Hey,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: if one of my relatives did this, do I want
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: my DNA to be able to like convict them?
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Welcome? Yeah, I think so too.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: It's about one hundred and eighty five thousand of the
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: individual users out of about one point three million that
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: have actually opted in. So it'd be super cool if
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: the remaining one million people ish would go and just
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: opt in now.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: But and then there's.
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: Still states that actually require warrants for it too. The
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: legality of all of this stuff is very interesting to me.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I am curious to see kind of what happens moving forward,
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: But we'll see.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: And then, do you remember I said that.
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: The park went to non motorized vehicle or pedestrian access only.
• 42:19
  Speaker 2: On the outer loop. I've been waiting to hear.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: This, and I specifically cited that that changed when they
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: did the erosion report in twenty twenty two. Well, it
• 42:30
  Speaker 1: just seemed really I don't know. I couldn't decide if
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: this was poignant or like a dumb thing. But both
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: of these cases when unsolved for you know, multiple decades,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: literally while a portion of the landscape where these crimes
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: occurred literally eroding into the Puget Sound. It's just like
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: all of these crazy monumental things that are happening on
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: this planet, and sometimes they are happening like simultaneously in
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: the same place.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: But I don't know, it just made me feel so small.
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: I once saw a video the size of Earth versus
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: the size of other things in the universe, and that
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: made me feel really small.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: So I don't know.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: It just something about like kind of thinking about that
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: and how you know, it's like the physical landscape versus
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: thinking about how emotionally psychologically like these crimes changed like
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: the landscape of like these neighborhoods in those ways.
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: And it was just, I don't.
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: Know, like the impact of all of the things that
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: just happened quietly sometimes on a daily basis around us.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: It was just like whoa can be poetic, It can
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: be I don't know if that was, But I don't
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: know either.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: I'm just trying to talk it out.
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: I like it. Should we do some taro about it?
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I would like to do that. I need some
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: more insight into this. Why the fuck did this happen?
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: And why did it take so long to figure it out?
• 44:11
  Speaker 3: Tell us taro. Let me hear those wise words so
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: I can make.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: Sense of this. I want to use the new tarot
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: so to give.
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: You a visual.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a blue box.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: It's called dog Tarot, and there is a dog on
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: a couch laying down while he or she probably she
• 44:37
  Speaker 3: is reading tarot.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Oh.
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: And you know what, if you'll notice there's a little
• 44:41
  Speaker 3: bites out of some of the cards there.
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: Because you are correct taking a bit. That's so funny.
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: Oh and when you open it, the opening here looks
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: like the roof of a doghouse does.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: And you know what, like the little dog on the side. Yeah,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: you see that. It looks like he's poking out of.
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: It, poking out of the doghouse.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: It's very cute.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: I got this on and outing with Cassie and some
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: other friends.
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: So you will see photos on the socials. So check
• 45:19
  Speaker 3: it out the socials, like and subscribe, y'all.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: Sorry.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: I went through the deck and I pulled out a
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: couple specifically to show off.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: Was there a little doxy? You know there was.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: I'm going to start with this one because it's pretty cute.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: It's the High Priestess. It's just a little bulldog wearing
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: a witch's hat.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Now did you did you pick this one out?
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: Or you just grabbed it from the bulk?
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: These ones aside because I just thought they were particularly cute,
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: or they carry some significance.
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: Magician, you know this is my card? Cute?
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: There is a little white terrier. Yeah, and like an
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: autumn background maybe yeah, I love orange.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: For a treat. Oh yeah, we all have to do that. Yeah.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: And then this one is Cassie's card, the fool. Oh
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: that's cute. A little golden retriever. I want to go
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: for a while. I want to go for a while.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: It's got a little leash in its mouth.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: So cute. The Devil Wait.
• 46:23
  Speaker 3: A minute, Okay, I get it. I was like, that's
• 46:27
  Speaker 3: a cat. This is your dog, terre? What is this
• 46:30
  Speaker 3: the devil?
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: And then the death card?
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: Oh fireworks?
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: Oh no, it's a sad little doggie. Yeah.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: I don't like the fireworks.
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: I like it at all. And then the one you've
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: been waiting for.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: Wait before we move on, did you have you told
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: the story about Fourth of July?
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: I haven't. I should tell it? Should I tell it
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: before I show you?
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: As so many people know, Fourth of July and fireworks
• 46:59
  Speaker 3: are is the single day of the year where.
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: Most dogs and other animals run away and a fear
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: of all of those loud booms.
• 47:13
  Speaker 3: And we were at a friend's house in Washington, Yeah,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: and we were enjoying some fireworks ourselves, and there was
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: a dog running down the street and Caitlin picked up
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: this little pup. She was a she, right, yeah, And
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: they just went from door to door, knocking on people's doors.
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: Are you missing a dog?
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: And she found that little pup's home.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: And we were pretty lucky.
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: We figured she was very small, She's just a little
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: she looked like the Taco bell dog.
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: She was a tuma.
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a little chee chee.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: But you know, we only had to knock on a
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: handful of doors because I was a little bit worried,
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: like what if we don't find her house right here
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: in the neighborhood, Like, oh no, It's like I don't
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: want to take her to a shelter if I don't
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: have to just because I'm like, oh, I just worry,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: like will they be reunited?
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: It worked out, it did.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Apparently she was a retired service animal, so she had
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: a very complex backstory.
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: A hero saving another hero.
• 48:24
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: I look at that. Oh you flat a bear? All right?
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: What's this last card? Okay?
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: The last one is as requested a doxy And I
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: feel like there's a commercial that was on the Super
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: Bowl like a few years back. It reminds me of like,
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: this reminds me of it.
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think I know what you're talking about. Okay,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: and me wand's it has a huge it's not a stick.
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: It's basically just a tree branch. Yeah, run and around
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: the sun in the sky, mountains and trees in the background.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: It's a beautiful it is it is, I mean to
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: be honest, Like the size of the stick in proportion
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: to the docs and carrying it. I was like, who
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: gave that doc a chainsaw? That's just dangerous Now it
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: ripped it off.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it noted often that was a whole lass tree. Okay,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: do you want to give them a good shuffle out
• 49:27
  Speaker 2: the deck?
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: All right?
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: That's a deep cut.
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm gonna do what Cassie and I have been
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: doing of late. I'm going to lay them out across
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: when we're recording remotely. She I will put them out
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: right in front of my keyboard, and she'll say, I'm
• 49:45
  Speaker 1: thinking like kind of to the left. Or she'll be like,
• 49:48
  Speaker 1: is there a card that's close to the pe on
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: your keyboard? I'm feeling like the letter.
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: P because she feels like she names a P. Probably, yeah,
• 49:57
  Speaker 2: just gotta go. That's the heard, all right?
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: Do you want to help me weigh in here? It's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: a brand new deck, so I am feeling a little intimidated. Hmmm,
• 50:07
  Speaker 1: I'm feeling I'm feeling here like on the right hand.
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: Side, that's exactly the one I was thinking. Do you
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: want to describe the card for our lovely listeners?
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: It is a winter theme. I don't know what this
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: card is, okay, five.
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: Of it looks like it is the five of wands. Okay,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: so there's an I X down in the bottom. Right?
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: Did I miscount the sticks?
• 50:38
  Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know.
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: I famously don't know Roman numerals. Cassie, the love of God,
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: that would be nine? Right? Is that nine?
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: The one before? My gosh, I'm so black to ten, right,
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: and so you have one the I before the ten,
• 50:56
  Speaker 3: which would make it nine. So it's a winter theme.
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: There's a snowman, a very sad snowman. His eyebrows are
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: indicating that he's said, and there is a dog that's
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: jumping up on the snowman I think, ready to take
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: his little stick arm. Oh, and that's why the snowman.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Said for sure.
• 51:17
  Speaker 3: So if there was nine, I see one, two, three, four,
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: five sticks in the snow above them, and then he's
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: got little two stick arms. So that's only seven. I
• 51:29
  Speaker 3: don't see nine.
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: Counting, but it does say yeah, I X yeah it
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: is the nine of ones because it has a little
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: tiny picture in the little book.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: The photos match. Yeah, confirmed, that was a close one.
• 51:45
  Speaker 3: Put more sticks on your curd.
• 51:47
  Speaker 2: Come on, yeah, come on, don't cheap out on the sticks.
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: What are we pain by the stick here?
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: I love it?
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: Okay, So we're going to read from the Little Dog
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: Tarot book, and then I will go to the main
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: interpretation from our big book. You find yourself on another
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: bend in the path where obstacles present themselves, and you're
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: tired of fighting.
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: Keep going.
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: You'll eventually reach those sticks even if you have to
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: wait for that snowman.
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: To melt a little bit. Hmm interesting.
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to read the upright interpretation, then we'll
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: go to the big book. You can see your goal
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: in this case, the snowman's stick arms confirmed but despite
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: challenges snow and exposed pop heads.
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: Yikes, that's in the book. I'm not saying that. Oh okay.
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: The nine of One's reminds you that you've got this.
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: You know, your tenacious, strong and tough. Those sticks didn't
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: stand a chance.
• 52:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, those cases took a long time to solve,
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: and if they're weren't you know some tenacious people, people
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: who kept that in memory and worked on it all
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: over again. Yeah, this would have remained unsolved, but it
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: did not. I know, they kept going around the bend,
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: they kept after those sticks, and they got they got
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: what they needed.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to see what the what the big
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: book says. But I feel like that, I mean that
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: was nice.
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I nailed it.
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: I don't even I don't even know what else you
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: could possibly say. They would like really clarify any more
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: than that. But we'll see for the nine of Wan's keywords,
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: are courage, recovery, strength, success, and conquest. The nine of
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: wand shows you defending your territory. You've demonstrated courage and
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: tenacity and proved yourself to be a powerful force. Now
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: you're in a strong position where you command respect, support
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: and rewards. This is also a card of recovery after
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: a setback or illness. Nine's represent completion and fulfillment. When
• 54:09
  Speaker 1: the nine of wands appears upright in a reading, it
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: indicates you've finished a job and done it well.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: I'm in come on seriously.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: As a result of oppositions you've faced and triumphed over.
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: You've grown stronger, You've demonstrated self discipline, skill and wisdom
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: and come out on top. In a reading about money,
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: the upright nine suggests you've suffered losses in the past
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: but gotten matters into hand.
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: Now you're in a more stable position.
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: In a reading about work, this card says the worst
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: is over, stay the course, stand your ground.
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: You've recovered from.
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: Setbacks, and success lies ahead. In a reading about love,
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: the nine shows you and a partner resolving difficulties. It
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: promises happier times in your few sure perhaps you've both
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: learned something important about yourselves and the relationship. There's an
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: extra excerpt. It says, tie knots, the last of the
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: single digit numbers. Nine signifies fullness and power as a
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: result of three times three. It holds magical symbolism in
• 55:23
  Speaker 1: spell work. To encourage the speed and effectiveness of an
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: amulet or talisman, you can tie nine knots.
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: To close it, Well, there was a lot there. I'm
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: glad those little girls got some justice. And yeah, their
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: mothers and their families and the community. And I already
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: forgot those guys' names because fuck them. They fucking suck.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: And good for you.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: You're able to probably just barely overpower a little girl. Yeah,
• 55:55
  Speaker 3: few pieces of shit.
• 55:57
  Speaker 1: Seriously, congrats on sucking the absolute most. It's funny though that,
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: like in the interpretation in the Big Book, in that
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: little extra excerpt, it specifically says to close it, there's
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: sometimes these words that like I kind of glom onto
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: and I'm like closing a case, like closing two cases.
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: Well, not everybody gets that closure, So yeah, we can
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: take some solace in this case that there was some closure. Yeah,
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: and I'm going to remember them for them playing outside
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: and riding their bikes.
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: I know, Patty kind of talked about that in particular.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: You know, of course, knowing everything now and the way
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: that it's worked out, I'm sure it's a lot easier
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: to like, you know, kind of feel like you you
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: have closure for whatever that's worth. Right, But you know,
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: she was being asked a lot about kind of how
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: do you feel knowing like everything thing that happened.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: She was like, I have my own fairy tale.
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: She kind of you know, has accepted things as they occurred,
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: but for her to think about it, she really just
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of tries to imagine that the suffering
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: was as little as possible.
• 57:20
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, yeah, I'm sure it was. I hope
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: it was. Yeah, I think that's what anyone would want.
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for doing this to me. I'm sorry
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: inviting me.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: That's what I said.
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: There you go, you put his husband hat back on. Well,
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: should we say goodbye?
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: Do you know the thing? The thing? Okay?
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Have ay, We'll see you next Thursday.
• 57:58
  Speaker 3: Your levels sound good.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: I think they sound pretty good. Boom boom boom boom
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: boom boom boom. Okay, yeah, it seems to be enjoying
• 58:12
  Speaker 2: that to put in her to sleep. Yeah, it's like
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: her lullaby Wow three six nine, damn your fine. My
• 58:20
  Speaker 2: puppy is disturbed.