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The Murder of Mandy Stavik - Murder Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

0:12
Speaker 1: I probably took that picture of Mandy and our younger
0:18
Speaker 1: brother Lee. This has got to be up in Palmer,
0:23
Speaker 1: Alaska in the wintertime in the snow. We love to
0:33
Speaker 1: play in the snow and ride horses snee that wintertime
0:40
Speaker 1: in Alaska, we'd tie a sled to my horse. We'd
0:45
Speaker 1: ride around the yard taking turns pulling each other on
0:47
Speaker 1: the sled.
0:49
Speaker 2: That was a lot of fun.
0:54
Speaker 1: My sister loved animals and she loved cats and horses.
1:00
Speaker 1: It was our one thing that we really connected with
1:03
Speaker 1: was wass horses and cats. Horses and cats were our thing.
1:09
Speaker 1: Mandy was very confident and happy kids. She had lots
1:13
Speaker 1: of friends, and she was very active.
1:18
Speaker 3: Mandy's personality, I would say vivacious. She was a hard
1:23
Speaker 3: worker at everything she did. When she committed to something,
1:27
Speaker 3: she really committed to it and succeeded at so much
1:31
Speaker 3: of what.
1:32
Speaker 4: She did too.
1:36
Speaker 1: The day after Thanksgiving on November twenty fourth, nineteen eighty nine,
1:40
Speaker 1: Mandy left with caira our German shepherd, for her run
1:45
Speaker 1: down to the end of the road and back down
1:48
Speaker 1: to the river.
1:49
Speaker 2: Mandy never came home.
1:53
Speaker 5: She would have fought off attackers, so we believe that
1:57
Speaker 5: it would have had to have been through force, like a
1:59
Speaker 5: weapon of some type to get her into the vehicle
2:02
Speaker 5: to kidnap her. Mandy's dog was very protective, but if
2:06
Speaker 5: the dog is overcome by force or weapon was forced
2:10
Speaker 5: away from her, I think the dog would.
2:11
Speaker 6: Have not been able to defend her.
2:15
Speaker 1: My mom was calling everybody. She called all of her friends,
2:19
Speaker 1: and they didn't know where she was. Mandy's not someone
2:22
Speaker 1: who would just take off. We knew there had to
2:25
Speaker 1: be foul play.
2:27
Speaker 7: We did have leads, but they never really materialized into
2:32
Speaker 7: any real prime suspects.
2:35
Speaker 8: Typically the victim and the offender will know each other,
2:38
Speaker 8: there's a relationship. When that doesn't exist, police have almost
2:41
Speaker 8: nothing to go.
2:42
Speaker 7: Off of, and it was an investigation that just went
2:47
Speaker 7: on well for twenty eight years.
2:51
Speaker 1: I mean, she was so close. How can she disappear
2:54
Speaker 1: that close to home? We were all just broken. I mean,
3:01
Speaker 1: this shouldn't have happened.
3:29
Speaker 2: It's a picture of.
3:30
Speaker 1: Mandy and I and my older sister, Mary Alice, but
3:33
Speaker 1: just graduated.
3:36
Speaker 2: It was a happy day.
3:40
Speaker 1: Mary Alice is seven years older than I am, which
3:43
Speaker 1: means she's ten years older than Mandy. Mandy was born
3:49
Speaker 1: in Anchorage, Alaska on April sixteenth, nineteen seventy one. Back then,
3:57
Speaker 1: we were just kind of your normal family. Mom was
4:02
Speaker 1: home and dad worked. In nineteen seventy four, my parents divorced,
4:07
Speaker 1: and my mom moved out and took with her Mandy
4:13
Speaker 1: and left me and Mary aliceon Brent with our father Glynn.
4:21
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, my family moved to Washington from Alaska.
4:40
Speaker 3: Acne is a safe place to raise a family.
4:45
Speaker 4: It's a rural community.
4:48
Speaker 3: A lot of people live on farms down in the
4:51
Speaker 3: Acne Valley, probably populated by what you might call hippies,
4:59
Speaker 3: a little bit back to the earth.
5:03
Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty three, Mandy joined Mount Baker High School.
5:08
Speaker 3: Mount Baker High School in the eighties definitely had big hair.
5:12
Speaker 4: It was a close knit school.
5:14
Speaker 3: Everyone wanted to go to the football games, everyone wanted
5:17
Speaker 3: to go to the dances, and it was quite a community.
5:21
Speaker 3: I was Mandy Stavick's band director. In nineteen eighty three,
5:27
Speaker 3: Mandy joined band and she played saxophone. She was really vivacious,
5:35
Speaker 3: really paying attention. She very quickly made a lot of
5:38
Speaker 3: friends and kept those friends throughout high school.
5:44
Speaker 1: Mandy was amazing. She was very active in high school.
5:47
Speaker 1: She did just about every sport she could think of,
5:53
Speaker 1: and my mom would kind of joke with her and
5:56
Speaker 1: she's like, you can't do softball and basketball.
6:00
Speaker 2: She's like, watch me.
6:03
Speaker 1: She was popular, she was bubbly, she was happy, very friendly.
6:09
Speaker 1: She would make people feel comfortable. People kind of gravitated
6:14
Speaker 1: to her. In nineteen eighty nine, Mandy graduated from Mount
6:22
Speaker 1: Baker High School and then in the fall she went
6:27
Speaker 1: to Central Washington University.
6:31
Speaker 3: Mandy was ready to take on the world. She just
6:35
Speaker 3: had everything going for her and she knew where she
6:38
Speaker 3: wanted to go and she was ready to pursue it.
6:56
Speaker 1: Mandy and her roommate came home from Central to and
7:00
Speaker 1: the Thanksgiving holiday with the family. I remember hearing her
7:06
Speaker 1: talk with my mom about, you know, school and how
7:09
Speaker 1: much fun she's having and you know, her plans, But
7:11
Speaker 1: right now she was more focused on who she was
7:15
Speaker 1: going to get together with and reconnect with after Thanksgiving.
7:26
Speaker 1: The day after Thanksgiving, on November twenty fourth, Mandy had
7:30
Speaker 1: stayed at the house and she hung out with her friend.
7:33
Speaker 1: In the morning, me and Ali leftovers, had pumpkin pie,
7:36
Speaker 1: and her and her roommate we're going to go for
7:40
Speaker 1: a walk first, and then after their walk, Mandy was
7:44
Speaker 1: going to go for a run and they were going
7:48
Speaker 1: to get ready for you know, a movie or whatever.
7:51
Speaker 1: Mandy left with caira our German shepherd, down to the
7:56
Speaker 1: end of the road and back down to the river
8:00
Speaker 1: forty five miles total. It's kind of a straight shot
8:03
Speaker 1: to the river and back. It was an easy, flat
8:06
Speaker 1: run and she did it all the time. I do
8:20
Speaker 1: remember my mom calling me and telling me that Mandy
8:26
Speaker 1: was missing, and I was just like, what.
8:32
Speaker 2: She goes, Yeah, Mandy, she went for a run and
8:34
Speaker 2: didn't come home.
8:37
Speaker 1: And Kyrite the dog just returned, but she was not herself.
8:42
Speaker 1: I want to say that she might even have been
8:44
Speaker 1: limping a little bit. My mom called the police immediately.
8:55
Speaker 9: Being a police officer remains to me, serving the community
9:00
Speaker 9: and just making the community safer for myself and my
9:04
Speaker 9: family to live in. I started out as an explorer
9:09
Speaker 9: with the Bellingham Police and I was hired by the
9:12
Speaker 9: Sheriff's office in January of eighty nine. I also attended
9:18
Speaker 9: Mount Baker High School, just like Mandy did. Once Mandy
9:25
Speaker 9: was reported missing, search and rescue was called out.
9:30
Speaker 6: I was seventeen. We all hung out with Mandy. We
9:33
Speaker 6: all knew Mandy.
9:34
Speaker 5: I was attending the same school that she did, Mount
9:36
Speaker 5: Baker High School, and our dads helped I recall schoolmates
9:42
Speaker 5: helped because it was not a normal thing that happened
9:45
Speaker 5: in that area for a girl to go missing.
9:49
Speaker 9: Mandy started at her house, which is behind me, and
9:52
Speaker 9: then ran in this direction. A lot of the times
9:56
Speaker 9: her mom would ride her bicycle with Mandy. She just
10:00
Speaker 9: happened to be right in that day.
10:03
Speaker 7: And they told me right away that this young woman
10:06
Speaker 7: was missing. They were really very fearful that something had
10:09
Speaker 7: happened to her. Mandy was seen by a number of
10:13
Speaker 7: people between two thirty and three o'clock and she was
10:16
Speaker 7: coming back to her house. A friend of hers had
10:20
Speaker 7: seen her running and had pulled into a house and
10:23
Speaker 7: was waiting for her to run by, and she never did.
10:28
Speaker 5: We know that her brother Lee saw her at a
10:31
Speaker 5: residence just down the road from her house.
10:35
Speaker 6: We believe that she was abducted.
10:37
Speaker 5: Between the last time she was saw by her brother
10:41
Speaker 5: Lee and between her.
10:42
Speaker 7: House, Mandy's dog had come home alone and the dog
10:54
Speaker 7: was covered with silt on its hind quarters and looked
10:57
Speaker 7: like it had gone through a traumatic event.
11:01
Speaker 9: The neighbors and communities got together. There was fifteen or
11:04
Speaker 9: twenty people that searched the roadway, the railroad tracks, the
11:09
Speaker 9: area within the home, and the route that Mandy normally ran.
11:16
Speaker 9: The resources to look for Mandy were citizens, family, friends, horses, helicopters,
11:24
Speaker 9: and they had a boat in the river.
11:30
Speaker 7: We had a human tracker that went out that night
11:33
Speaker 7: and he was trained to look at dirt alongside the
11:36
Speaker 7: road and he found traces of a car stopped and
11:41
Speaker 7: a person got in on the passenger side, and alongside
11:45
Speaker 7: the vehicle was a ditch and it was filled with
11:47
Speaker 7: water and silt. The family dog was cowering and wouldn't
11:52
Speaker 7: come with the tracker to go down, so we felt
11:55
Speaker 7: that she had been taken at that location. We thought
11:58
Speaker 7: the dog had been kicked into the ditch and that's
12:00
Speaker 7: why the dog had silt on it.
12:04
Speaker 1: As a family, we didn't have any information other than
12:07
Speaker 1: you know that she's missing and they're looking.
12:09
Speaker 2: But they, you know, they.
12:10
Speaker 1: Did keep us up to date, obviously, But.
12:15
Speaker 10: I seem to kind of wave between total denial and
12:19
Speaker 10: hysteria and I can't I haven't been able to sleep,
12:23
Speaker 10: and I just I mean, you know, you you remember
12:27
Speaker 10: all the things you read in the paper, the Ted
12:30
Speaker 10: Bundy and the Green River killings, and all of these
12:34
Speaker 10: terrible things, And all you can think of is, it
12:38
Speaker 10: doesn't happen to you. It doesn't happen here on Strand Road.
12:43
Speaker 9: But it did.
12:46
Speaker 1: We kept hoping, you want to hope for the best.
12:51
Speaker 1: Of course, that didn't work out well.
13:12
Speaker 9: Mandy's body was found on November twenty seventh of nineteen
13:16
Speaker 9: eighty nine in the South Fork River.
13:22
Speaker 7: Officers had been searching the river, walking all up and
13:26
Speaker 7: down the banks, and they had a patrol boat that
13:30
Speaker 7: had gone down the river, and the patrol boat spotted
13:33
Speaker 7: her body.
13:35
Speaker 9: Mandy's body was found right here. She was facing downriver, outstretched,
13:41
Speaker 9: face down. She had tennismes and sucks and a watch
13:47
Speaker 9: on and that was it.
13:49
Speaker 7: We catal by looking at the body that she had
13:52
Speaker 7: not been carried very far down the river, so we
13:58
Speaker 7: felt that she had been dept did there and it
14:02
Speaker 7: looked as though she had drowned, and it would have
14:04
Speaker 7: been very close to where we found her.
14:13
Speaker 9: One of the hardest parts of the job is notifying
14:16
Speaker 9: family members that their loved one has passed or died.
14:22
Speaker 2: I was at home with my mom kind of waiting,
14:26
Speaker 2: and the police arrived and let us know.
14:33
Speaker 1: That they found her body. I was shattered. I was
14:40
Speaker 1: just absolutely floored and shattered. I was mad that this
14:47
Speaker 1: was happening. I remember running out into the field behind
14:52
Speaker 1: our house and just screaming, just guttural, as loud as
14:59
Speaker 1: I can and as long as I could, just.
15:05
Speaker 2: Anger like.
15:08
Speaker 1: At everything, at God, Why, you know, how could he
15:11
Speaker 1: let something.
15:12
Speaker 2: Like this happen to us.
15:15
Speaker 3: On Monday, after school, we had another staff meeting and
15:20
Speaker 3: we kind of knew it might be bad news, and
15:24
Speaker 3: we went to the meeting and it was announced by
15:28
Speaker 3: our principle that Mandy's body had been found. It was
15:35
Speaker 3: devastating to find out she had died. Such a vibrant
15:39
Speaker 3: young lady, seemingly for no reason, had died. It was
15:46
Speaker 3: a very somber moment. There were people crying, just total
15:52
Speaker 3: shock for everybody.
16:01
Speaker 5: When Mandy's body was removed from the crime scenes, she
16:03
Speaker 5: was taken to the Walkm County Medical Examiner's office where
16:06
Speaker 5: she's examined thoroughly by the medical examiner.
16:11
Speaker 9: They found scratches on her legs was indicated she'd run
16:15
Speaker 9: through the brush in an attempt to get away.
16:19
Speaker 7: We believe she was trying to escape and was running
16:22
Speaker 7: through BlackBerry bushes. We also discovered a chematoma which was
16:27
Speaker 7: bleeding under the scalp and it was on the top
16:30
Speaker 7: and right side of her skull that was examined very carefully.
16:36
Speaker 9: This large bruise indicated she was struck or hit, and
16:40
Speaker 9: they found water in her lungs which indicated that she had.
16:43
Speaker 7: Drowned, and it appeared she was just allowed to flow
16:48
Speaker 7: with the stream and then was caught up at the
16:50
Speaker 7: branches where we found her body. Our medical examiner also
16:55
Speaker 7: determined that Mandy events actually assaulted.
17:00
Speaker 1: It made me feel sad that she had to endure that,
17:05
Speaker 1: angry that it happened. She was probably terrified and running
17:12
Speaker 1: for her life.
17:19
Speaker 5: The crime scene where Mandy's body was found was important
17:23
Speaker 5: to preserve evidence in the form of footprints in the sand,
17:26
Speaker 5: to do canvas of the area for clothing or objects,
17:30
Speaker 5: or anything to that effect. At that time, in nineteen
17:34
Speaker 5: eighty nine, DNA was a new testing program that the
17:38
Speaker 5: FBI was doing.
17:39
Speaker 7: Mostly the FBI worked with in the laboratory and the
17:44
Speaker 7: Sheriff's office and came up initially with a couple of suspects,
17:48
Speaker 7: and I got search warrants for them, and we cleared
17:51
Speaker 7: them through DNA analysis and we eliminated them from the investigation.
17:57
Speaker 7: We checked all the sex offenders, and the officers are
18:01
Speaker 7: going door to door and checking on people and looking
18:04
Speaker 7: for anyone that could possibly be a suspect. This went
18:07
Speaker 7: on for a long time. We had a number of
18:13
Speaker 7: people that they were looking at.
18:14
Speaker 8: Initially, there was a lot of suspicion by police that
18:19
Speaker 8: this murder was committed by the Green River Killer, who
18:23
Speaker 8: was later identified as Gary Ridgeway. The Green River Killer
18:27
Speaker 8: would prey on women running in rural areas on trails
18:32
Speaker 8: outside of Seattle. He would attack them, rape and murder them,
18:37
Speaker 8: exactly what happened in this case, the exact same pattern,
18:41
Speaker 8: with the exact same timeframe. It was a lot that
18:43
Speaker 8: would link this case to this very infamous serial killer.
18:48
Speaker 8: This very plausible lead that the Green River Killer had
18:52
Speaker 8: actually just moved a little bit and had actually been
18:54
Speaker 8: responsible for the murder in this case didn't end up
18:58
Speaker 8: panning out because the DNA found in Mandy's body and
19:02
Speaker 8: DNA found in the other victims' bodies of the Green
19:05
Speaker 8: River Killer were not the same.
19:09
Speaker 5: I believe the case was held back by lack of evidence.
19:13
Speaker 5: You have biological evidence in the form of seamen, however,
19:17
Speaker 5: we have no way to test that or compare that
19:20
Speaker 5: against people at that time, so it was very important
19:23
Speaker 5: to preserve that evidence for future testing.
19:35
Speaker 3: After finding out that Maddy had died, we were all devastated,
19:39
Speaker 3: from seventh graders to twelfth graders in this little, tight
19:43
Speaker 3: knit community.
19:45
Speaker 7: The whole community was really impacted by this murder. And
19:51
Speaker 7: to think that a beautiful young girl who was so
19:53
Speaker 7: filled with promise could be abducted, raped, and then killed
19:57
Speaker 7: was just shocking.
20:00
Speaker 1: Mandy's death destroyed my mom absolutely. Losing a child is
20:06
Speaker 1: just unimaginable. And part of her was killed too. My mom,
20:16
Speaker 1: who is eighty eight now, she's starting to have signs
20:22
Speaker 1: of dementia as far as memories of Mandy. Her forgetting
20:26
Speaker 1: that is, in my opinion, maybe a good thing, because
20:32
Speaker 1: memories of Mandy are painful, and I don't.
20:35
Speaker 2: Want her to be in pain.
20:50
Speaker 1: Mandy's funeral took place at the high school auditorium. It
20:55
Speaker 1: was a packed house. There were so many people there,
21:00
Speaker 1: it was just crazy.
21:03
Speaker 3: Mandy had been on that stage many times. I had
21:07
Speaker 3: our jazz band of which Mandy had been a member.
21:10
Speaker 3: A jazz band played a song at this memorial service,
21:14
Speaker 3: and we played Here's that Rainy Day.
21:17
Speaker 4: I remember the song real clearly. It just seemed appropriate.
21:29
Speaker 5: The investigation turned to who haven't we talked to in
21:33
Speaker 5: this area. They continued talking to classmates, old boyfriends, people
21:40
Speaker 5: that lived in the area, people that committed violent crimes,
21:43
Speaker 5: and nothing was coming to the forefront of who did
21:47
Speaker 5: this to Mandy Savoc.
21:50
Speaker 2: But investigators never let it go.
21:52
Speaker 8: In fact, many detectives had pictures of Mandy on their
21:56
Speaker 8: desks because they didn't want to forget this victim and remembering,
22:01
Speaker 8: we have to keep working this, and they did. In fact,
22:05
Speaker 8: investigators in this case kept writing to the FBI asking
22:09
Speaker 8: were there any updates? Did they rerun the DNA and
22:12
Speaker 8: find any hits? But unfortunately none of those ever panned out.
22:17
Speaker 9: As time progressed, it felt like this case would go unresolved.
22:24
Speaker 9: Mandy's family was kept appraised of the status of the case,
22:29
Speaker 9: as well as letting them know that we had not
22:32
Speaker 9: given up and that it was still a sign to somebody.
22:36
Speaker 1: As time went on, people started losing interest and it
22:40
Speaker 1: wasn't quite such a big story, and I didn't think
22:46
Speaker 1: they would ever find him, and in some ways I
22:50
Speaker 1: kind of put it away.
23:03
Speaker 9: I was assigned as a primary investigator to Many Static
23:08
Speaker 9: in two thousand and seven. I feel a case that
23:13
Speaker 9: happened twenty years ago versus just happening are equally important,
23:20
Speaker 9: and I had the opportunity, because of my seniority, to
23:24
Speaker 9: pick which cold case I wanted to work on, and
23:27
Speaker 9: I purposely chose the Many Static case, not only because
23:32
Speaker 9: I went to Mount Baker, but because it was in
23:34
Speaker 9: my community and I felt that I had something to give.
23:41
Speaker 7: By this time, we had a huge mass of reports,
23:45
Speaker 7: seven thousand pages of reports. Kevin Bowie took all of
23:49
Speaker 7: the reports, sat down with me, and he organized those.
23:54
Speaker 9: Had it spread out over my living room and reorganized
23:58
Speaker 9: it regards being persons of interest. There were still twenty
24:05
Speaker 9: to thirty people that needed to be contacted, as well
24:08
Speaker 9: as one person needed to be followed up on. I
24:14
Speaker 9: visited Mandy's family on several occasions, as well as making
24:19
Speaker 9: phone calls to let them know that I was still
24:22
Speaker 9: assigned and that I was not going to give up.
24:27
Speaker 1: Every couple of years or so, they would touch base
24:30
Speaker 1: with us and say hey, you know, we haven't forgotten.
24:33
Speaker 2: We're still looking. You know.
24:44
Speaker 9: The only evidence that we were able to recover from
24:48
Speaker 9: the scene was DNA evidence found on our body, which
24:52
Speaker 9: we were able to preserve. So we started out doing
24:57
Speaker 9: DNA suites of individuals that live in this area or
25:01
Speaker 9: were registered sex offenders. In twenty ten, myself and an
25:08
Speaker 9: FBI agent traveled to Cambodia to interview a suspect in
25:13
Speaker 9: this case. His DNA was collected, However, it did not
25:19
Speaker 9: match that that was left on Mandy's body.
25:24
Speaker 5: In twenty twelve, I asked the lead detective, Kevin Bowie,
25:28
Speaker 5: if I could review the case. My belief was that
25:32
Speaker 5: it could be a local person as far as the
25:34
Speaker 5: DNA not coming back into the system, either the person
25:37
Speaker 5: hasn't been caught for another crime or the person hasn't
25:40
Speaker 5: been booked.
25:42
Speaker 6: In twenty thirteen, a schoolmate of.
25:44
Speaker 5: Mine came to me and said she had some information
25:47
Speaker 5: to tell me of some suspicious happenings to her that
25:52
Speaker 5: may be in aligned with what happened to Mandy Stabbic.
25:56
Speaker 7: It was during the summer a number of women were
26:00
Speaker 7: at a water park in Blackham County. One of the
26:03
Speaker 7: women said, you know, one person I thought could have
26:05
Speaker 7: been involved in this was Timothy Bass, and she described
26:09
Speaker 7: an incident she had with Bass where he had tried
26:11
Speaker 7: to grope her. The other woman said she had a
26:16
Speaker 7: similar experience. He had come to her house, wanted a
26:19
Speaker 7: glass of water, then refused to leave unless he had
26:22
Speaker 7: sex with her, and so she said she finally had
26:25
Speaker 7: to throw him out and was really concerned. So they said,
26:28
Speaker 7: you know, we should go to the sheriff's office and
26:30
Speaker 7: tell him that he is someone that should be looked at.
26:38
Speaker 9: Both of the women that came forward described Tim as
26:43
Speaker 9: being odd, anti social, and sexually aggressive.
26:49
Speaker 7: We looked at Tim Bass and found that his family
26:52
Speaker 7: lived on the same road that Mandy always ran on.
26:56
Speaker 7: She would run by his house every day. Right after
27:01
Speaker 7: this murder, he had moved out of the area to
27:03
Speaker 7: another city in Watkam County and had not been involved
27:08
Speaker 7: in the search for her.
27:10
Speaker 9: Detective Ken Gates knew Tim he was friends with Tim's brother,
27:15
Speaker 9: so Ken Gates and I went out to Tim Bass's house.
27:26
Speaker 5: During that contact. It was very odd to me, he
27:30
Speaker 5: claimed he didn't remember who Mandy Stabock was. Even though
27:33
Speaker 5: it was a huge case for the community. It was
27:35
Speaker 5: odd to me that he would make that statement.
27:39
Speaker 7: We knew from other people that he had watched her
27:41
Speaker 7: play basketball. She was a star basketball player in high school,
27:45
Speaker 7: so the fact that he said he didn't know her
27:48
Speaker 7: was really suspect.
27:49
Speaker 9: He kind of looked up at the ceiling and repeated
27:53
Speaker 9: Mandy's name a couple of times, saying Mandy, Mandy, kind
27:57
Speaker 9: of like pretending to search for who she might be,
28:01
Speaker 9: and then made the comment, Oh, yeah, she's the gal
28:04
Speaker 9: that they found on the river. Right.
28:06
Speaker 5: We asked him Basset at that time, in October of
28:09
Speaker 5: twenty thirteen, for his DNA sample. He refused. He did
28:14
Speaker 5: mention that he watched crime shows and saw innocent people
28:18
Speaker 5: go to jail. We left his house knowing that that
28:21
Speaker 5: was his frame of mind.
28:24
Speaker 8: Now, that could be a sign that he is guilty,
28:27
Speaker 8: but it could also be a sign that this is
28:28
Speaker 8: someone who wants their civil rights respected.
28:38
Speaker 9: So the next step was to see if we could
28:41
Speaker 9: get a DNA sample from his place of employment.
28:46
Speaker 5: We went to his work in ass management, and they
28:50
Speaker 5: did not give us permission to do that. They advised
28:52
Speaker 5: to seek a warrant.
28:54
Speaker 9: This stage of the investigation, we did not have enough
28:58
Speaker 9: evidence to put Tim with Mandy. Therefore, a judge would
29:03
Speaker 9: not have issued a warrant, so that was not an option.
29:08
Speaker 9: From twenty thirteen till twenty seventeen, we kept an eye
29:12
Speaker 9: on Bass.
29:13
Speaker 4: We even went out.
29:15
Speaker 9: And followed Tim during his delivery route, waiting for him
29:20
Speaker 9: to this card an item which would.
29:22
Speaker 4: Have had DNA on it.
29:24
Speaker 9: Unfortunately, he never discarded an item and he wore rubber gloves.
29:31
Speaker 1: The impact of Mandy's murder affected our whole family. It
29:35
Speaker 1: made me more guarded, more skeptical of people, just made
29:41
Speaker 1: me less trusting. I worried about my daughter and wanting
29:45
Speaker 1: her to be careful. I know that they were still
29:47
Speaker 1: working on it, and they didn't have a lot to
29:49
Speaker 1: go on, just it was frustrating.
30:03
Speaker 9: In August of twenty seventeen, we had followed Tim on
30:08
Speaker 9: his route and his supervisor.
30:11
Speaker 4: Made this statement, well, I know what you want.
30:13
Speaker 9: You want Tim's DNA, and she said that she could
30:19
Speaker 9: get his DNA. She told me that she had a
30:24
Speaker 9: cup which he had drank from, as well as a
30:27
Speaker 9: coke can that she had collected out of the garbage
30:30
Speaker 9: which he threw away. So I collected the can and
30:36
Speaker 9: the cup to have it shipped down to the State
30:39
Speaker 9: Crime Lab. In December of two thy seventeen, I got
30:44
Speaker 9: back to the office and my coworker had stated that
30:49
Speaker 9: he had gotten an email from the State Crime Lab
30:53
Speaker 9: wanting to know what my phone number was. I called
30:58
Speaker 9: the State Crime Lab and she said, Kevin just wanted
31:02
Speaker 9: to let you know that the DNA matched that of
31:05
Speaker 9: Tim Basses.
31:08
Speaker 5: And Kevin Bowie contacted me and said, can we got
31:11
Speaker 5: a match?
31:16
Speaker 4: It was like when in the lottery.
31:18
Speaker 9: I was in shock and kind of disbelief, but in
31:21
Speaker 9: the same sense, I was relieved and a static.
31:28
Speaker 7: I was extremely happy when I got to that call.
31:30
Speaker 7: We had worked for twenty eight years in this case
31:33
Speaker 7: and we did everything we could possibly think of to
31:35
Speaker 7: solve it.
31:38
Speaker 5: Now the next steps were too okay, what has he
31:42
Speaker 5: done the last twenty eight years? We developed a strategy
31:56
Speaker 5: to arrest Tim Bass. We did not want to have
31:59
Speaker 5: an instant at his house because he had children, he
32:02
Speaker 5: had his wife, so it was decided that we would take.
32:06
Speaker 6: Him down at his place of work.
32:09
Speaker 9: We drove out to Tim's place of employment. It was
32:14
Speaker 9: about eight o'clock in the morning. He was walking from
32:19
Speaker 9: the warehouse to his truck. We stepped in front of him.
32:25
Speaker 9: I asked him, you remember me, and he said yes.
32:29
Speaker 9: He looked at us and said, well, what's going on.
32:32
Speaker 9: What's this about? And I said, well, I believe you
32:35
Speaker 9: know what this is about. And he was arrested.
32:47
Speaker 2: It was in the afternoon. I was in the living
32:50
Speaker 2: room when I got.
32:53
Speaker 1: The phone call and he said, we found Mandy's murder.
33:04
Speaker 1: And the ironic thing was it was my mom's birthday.
33:08
Speaker 1: We were notified on my mom's birthday, her eighty first birthday,
33:16
Speaker 1: December twelfth, twenty seventeen.
33:20
Speaker 2: It's like, man, what a birthday present.
33:26
Speaker 4: I was in the bandroom at Mount Baker High School.
33:29
Speaker 3: I checked my email and I saw that they had
33:34
Speaker 3: arrested someone in Mandy's case. The first thing I see
33:38
Speaker 3: as I scroll up is Mandy's picture, and I just
33:42
Speaker 3: jumped away from the computer because I was not expecting that.
33:49
Speaker 3: It brought so many feelings back about the time when
33:53
Speaker 3: she had disappeared, and throughout all those years when nothing
33:58
Speaker 3: was happening, and then all of a sudden someone was arrested,
34:03
Speaker 3: and it was a hopeful moment, but it was shocking.
34:06
Speaker 4: It was shocking to me.
34:15
Speaker 5: Tim Bess was brought into the station where detectives interviewed him, Tim,
34:20
Speaker 5: could I get those off of you there please?
34:22
Speaker 4: And he denied everything.
34:25
Speaker 7: When we talked to you at your work, you said repeatedly,
34:29
Speaker 7: I know I didn't have contact.
34:31
Speaker 4: I didn't know her.
34:32
Speaker 6: I had no you know, I didn't kiss her, I
34:34
Speaker 6: didn't touch her.
34:34
Speaker 4: I didn't have sex with her.
34:36
Speaker 6: And we asked in different ways.
34:38
Speaker 7: We asked it multiple times.
34:40
Speaker 9: We asked him if he ever dated Mandy. He said no,
34:46
Speaker 9: that he had never dated her, he never had any
34:49
Speaker 9: sexual relationship with her, that he just watched her basketball games.
34:56
Speaker 5: When Tim Bess was notified that his DNA was a
34:59
Speaker 5: MAS to the semen, it was almost like he was
35:03
Speaker 5: trying to think of another story.
35:06
Speaker 9: I don't remember given DNA.
35:09
Speaker 3: I'm trying to figure out.
35:13
Speaker 1: How that presence.
35:15
Speaker 6: Would be there. I don't know what to do here.
35:20
Speaker 5: He engaged in conversation again, at first stating he didn't
35:26
Speaker 5: know much about the case, didn't know Mandy at all,
35:29
Speaker 5: but ultimately ended up saying that he had some type
35:31
Speaker 5: of relationship with her.
35:33
Speaker 9: We were kind of sneaky because she had boyfriend and
35:36
Speaker 9: had a girlfriend basically, so had you know. I pretty
35:40
Speaker 9: much thought it was probably done because she's going to college.
35:44
Speaker 5: Tim was asked about dating her. What they did on dates?
35:49
Speaker 5: Did they come to her house? Did she come to
35:51
Speaker 5: his house? Locking him into a story to try to
35:55
Speaker 5: take him back to nineteen eighty nine to see where
35:56
Speaker 5: he was at the time.
35:58
Speaker 6: I'm being told not to say stuff, and.
36:04
Speaker 8: Kay, to hell with it.
36:07
Speaker 4: I can't do this.
36:08
Speaker 9: I can't.
36:10
Speaker 4: I trust you, guys.
36:11
Speaker 8: I'm just like, I can't.
36:13
Speaker 4: This fits me.
36:14
Speaker 8: And they asked, this is not what I'm supposed to.
36:16
Speaker 6: Do, then whatever, I don't, Okay, nice leveler.
36:27
Speaker 1: There's no way that she would m even give him
36:31
Speaker 1: the time of day.
36:35
Speaker 2: Maybe in his you know, his dreams. There's no way.
36:40
Speaker 2: It was just laughable that he would say it.
36:44
Speaker 9: We knew this was a lie when we pressed him on, well,
36:48
Speaker 9: do you know why Mandy was going to school?
36:51
Speaker 6: Do you know what she was wanting to study? That's
36:54
Speaker 6: not ringing a bell. I can't remember.
36:56
Speaker 9: I think for a seconds, he had no idea, which
37:02
Speaker 9: proved that they had no relationship. Otherwise they would have
37:06
Speaker 9: talked about whether she was enjoying college or she wasn't.
37:10
Speaker 9: He had no idea of any part of her life.
37:15
Speaker 9: I think I'm so enough, are you wanting a lawyer
37:18
Speaker 9: or not?
37:19
Speaker 6: You said that you should have a lawyer. Yeah, okay, okay.
37:31
Speaker 7: I knew by the evidence we had we had probable cause,
37:34
Speaker 7: and I felt we had enough evidence to convict him,
37:36
Speaker 7: and so it didn't matter to me at that point
37:38
Speaker 7: what he did say.
37:40
Speaker 9: Once we were done talking with him, Tim was booked
37:43
Speaker 9: in charge with murder as well as rape and kidnapping.
37:50
Speaker 5: After Tim Bass was arrested, we discovered that he didn't
37:53
Speaker 5: have much of a criminal history. He was pretty squeaky
37:57
Speaker 5: clean as far as criminal activity.
38:01
Speaker 7: I was going to retire at the end of twenty eighteen,
38:04
Speaker 7: but I've worked on the case for at that point
38:08
Speaker 7: twenty nine years, and I really wanted to see it concluded.
38:11
Speaker 7: So I came back and tried it in May of
38:14
Speaker 7: twenty nineteen. It was an extremely important case, so I
38:18
Speaker 7: was very very happy. In fact, I did it as
38:21
Speaker 7: a volunteer.
38:33
Speaker 1: When Mandy's a murder trial began, I did go to
38:38
Speaker 1: most of it, but there was a lot that.
38:41
Speaker 2: I just could not sit through.
38:46
Speaker 1: I didn't want to see autopsy photos.
38:49
Speaker 2: They showed everything. It was horrible.
38:54
Speaker 1: I don't think my mom did either. I think when
38:56
Speaker 1: that happened. We just said, no, we can't do this.
39:01
Speaker 7: The focus, of course was DNA, but we built up
39:05
Speaker 7: a lot of attended facts. We showed where he was living,
39:09
Speaker 7: We could show the access he had to Mandy. We
39:13
Speaker 7: could show that some of the stories that he told
39:16
Speaker 7: officers were not true. We could show by the timeline
39:20
Speaker 7: that he moved to a different city when we were
39:23
Speaker 7: right in the middle of the investigation and we felt
39:25
Speaker 7: that he was trying to get out of sight, out
39:28
Speaker 7: of mind. We could show the other involvement he had
39:31
Speaker 7: with women. So we had a variety of things that
39:35
Speaker 7: circumstantially pointed to him. And then of course we had
39:39
Speaker 7: the DNA which was irrefutable. His brother also provided some information.
39:46
Speaker 7: He showed that Tim was wanting him to lie and
39:49
Speaker 7: give him an alibi, which his brother refused to do.
39:55
Speaker 1: The first time that I saw Tim at the trial,
40:00
Speaker 1: feelings were anger. Discussed that he got to spend the
40:06
Speaker 1: last twenty eight years free after doing what he did.
40:12
Speaker 2: I was mad, I was angry.
40:16
Speaker 7: I met with Mandy's family on a number of vacasions.
40:20
Speaker 7: We really tried to keep real close contact with them.
40:23
Speaker 7: They're extremely nice people and we really wanted them to
40:27
Speaker 7: understand what we were doing.
40:30
Speaker 2: He maintained his innocence.
40:33
Speaker 1: When we're sitting in court listening to Tim Bass live
40:36
Speaker 1: blatantly live, it was it was infuriating.
40:42
Speaker 2: We knew he was lying.
40:54
Speaker 9: I was a little concerned that he may get away
40:58
Speaker 9: with it, but in my heart of hearts, I knew
41:02
Speaker 9: that the jury would be able to put everything together
41:06
Speaker 9: and come up with the guilty plea.
41:10
Speaker 5: On May twenty fourth, twenty nineteen, Tim Bass was sentenced
41:13
Speaker 5: to twenty seven years in prison.
41:17
Speaker 7: The judge gave him the maximum and we hope that
41:20
Speaker 7: that's enough that he would never ever get out and
41:22
Speaker 7: see the light of day again.
41:25
Speaker 6: After the trial, we met with the family.
41:29
Speaker 5: They were delighted, overwhelmed, emotional about the verdict and the
41:33
Speaker 5: sentencing of Tim Bass.
41:37
Speaker 1: Seeing Tim being a sentence was quite a relief. We
41:41
Speaker 1: were very appreciative to all of the juries.
41:45
Speaker 2: He said, thank you to every single.
41:46
Speaker 1: One of a I will never be able to forgive
41:50
Speaker 1: Tim Bass for what he did to my sister.
41:54
Speaker 2: Never iut the guy rots in jail.
42:01
Speaker 3: I was in the same room that I used to
42:03
Speaker 3: teach Mandy, and when I found out the verdict, I cried.
42:09
Speaker 4: I just burst into tears.
42:12
Speaker 5: This case made it more personal because I went to
42:14
Speaker 5: school with her. Mandy was a smart person, always nice
42:21
Speaker 5: to me, always nice to people. The last memory I
42:25
Speaker 5: have of Mandy is walking down the aisle during graduation.
42:37
Speaker 2: What happened to Mandy broke my mom's heart.
42:40
Speaker 1: And I've seen her cry on several occasions and me too.
42:46
Speaker 1: We cry together, you know, in response to that. It's difficult.
42:58
Speaker 3: Over the years, the of Mandy meant less to the
43:02
Speaker 3: kids because they were.
43:03
Speaker 4: So young when Maddy died.
43:07
Speaker 3: The one place that we would get discussion going in
43:11
Speaker 3: the band room at Mount Baker there's a plaque with
43:14
Speaker 3: Maddy's picture, and kids periodically we'd ask, what's this all about,
43:18
Speaker 3: so we'd tell the story.
43:20
Speaker 1: Then our biggest connection was our horses.
43:26
Speaker 2: We would ride. We would ride together, and that was
43:29
Speaker 2: really cool. That was fun. Yeah, she was a great rider.
43:34
Speaker 2: She was definitely all American girl.
43:40
Speaker 9: I really question whether justice is ever served when somebody's
43:44
Speaker 9: killed or murdered. But I'm glad that Mandy's story is
43:48
Speaker 9: still alive and that her memory is still in everyone's
43:55
Speaker 9: heart and on their minds.
44:01
Speaker 1: If I could say one last thing to Mandy, it's
44:05
Speaker 1: just a let her know that I love her. You
44:08
Speaker 1: don't always say it, you know, it's kind of an
44:11
Speaker 1: assumed thing, But it would be nice to be able
44:14
Speaker 1: to tell her that I loved her
45:00
Speaker 2: As