Other Views: To Unthaw More Cold Cases, Collect More DNA

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Sometimes, happy endings aren’t in the cards. Sometimes, the best we can hope for is justice.

It’s a revelation made tangible by the recent arrest in the murder of Tacoma’s Jennifer Bastian more than three decades ago. Robert D. Washburn, 60, was apprehended in Illinois May 10 and will return to Pierce County this week to face charges for first-degree murder.

Justice was made possible not only by remarkable advances in forensic science, but by the tenacity of family, friends and law enforcement professionals who never gave up hope Jennifer’s killer would be found.

Jennifer’s story is one Tacoma could not forget: In 1986, the 13-year-old girl went for a summer bike ride in Point Defiance Park. It’s easy to imagine Jenni’s eager young face as she pedaled up the hills of Five Mile Drive training for a bicycle tour in the San Juan Islands.

What happened next is the stuff of nightmares. She was sexually assaulted, strangled and left in a grave detectives believe had been prepared beforehand. Her shiny, new bike was found nearby.

Detectives initially tried connecting the dots to another murder that took place a few months prior. Michella Welch, age 12, was also killed in a North End park. She, too, was on her bike.

Police Chief Don Ramsdell said there were “overwhelming similarities between the two crimes,” but in 2013, DNA evidence concluded they weren’t linked.

Thousands of investigative hours went into solving both crimes, but without suspects, the cases stalled.

At the time the girls were killed, DNA forensic science was in its infancy; the federal government had yet to establish the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), a set of national, state and local databases available to law enforcement agencies across the country.

Police knew advances in technology, coupled with an ever-increasing DNA databank, would be the most likely keys to unlocking the mystery. It was such evidence, after all, that brought detectives to the door of the Green River killer.

By 2011, TPD launched a cold-case unit. Gene Miller, a detective who’d worked the Bastian case, cited the Bastian-Welch homicides as a reason it was created. But it wasn’t until this year, after police collected additional samples, including Washburn’s, that they were able to make a hit in Jennifer’s death.

Forensic casework is dependent on two things: sophisticated technology and a large DNA database. It’s why the Bastian and Welch families transformed their pain into action and joined 

last year with state Rep. Tina Orwall, D-Des Moines, on House Bill 1111. Together, with former Tacoma detective Lindsey Wade, they advocated for Jennifer and Michella’s Law, aimed at expanding CODIS.

The bill, backed by several Tacoma-area legislators, would improve law enforcement’s ability to collect DNA by obtaining samples from deceased offenders with previous felony convictions. In addition, anyone convicted of indecent exposure would be required to provide a DNA profile for CODIS.



As Wade said, “When it comes to sex offenders it (indecent exposure) can kind of be a gateway crime or maybe it’s something they start out doing and then leads to contact offenses.”

It makes sense to expand the list of non-felony crimes that include harassment, stalking, and patronizing a prostitute, for which DNA is collected upon conviction.

But HB 1111 never made it out of a House committee in 2017 or 2018. The arguable position was that collecting biological evidence was a violation of privacy, despite all 50 states having laws requiring DNA samples from certain categories of offenders.

We believe Washington leaders’ responsibility to seek justice and their duty to prevent further crimes takes precedence over a convicted individual’s right to privacy in many cases.

Thousands of violent crimes remain unsolved in Washington; increasing the CODIS database will unthaw many of these cold cases.

Orwall tells us she hasn’t given up on the bill, which is good to hear. Jennifer and Michella’s Law should be given another chance.

Too many families wait for answers, including Yvette Gervais of Tillicum, who lost her 10-year-old daughter Adre’anna Jackson in 2005. Her body was found in a thicket of brambles.

Or the loved ones of Lindsey Baum, the 10-year-old girl from Grays Harbor County who went missing in 2009 and whose remains, identified with DNA evidence, were found by hunters last year in eastern Washington.

The 32-year-old Welch case also remains unsolved.

The arrest of Jennifer Bastian’s alleged killer may not relieve grief, but it can provide solace to those waiting for answers. Science is on their side. Monsters who kill innocent children cannot hide forever.

On Friday, law enforcement officers announced that DNA had helped crack yet another Washington cold case: the murder of an 18-year-old woman whose body was found in a Skagit County ditch in 1987.

Pattie Bastian, Jennifer’s mother, told reporters last week: “After all this time, justice is Jenni’s.”

It’s certainly shaping up that way. Others deserve the same.