GUILTY WA - Jennifer Bastian, 13, Tacoma, 4 Aug 1986 *ARREST*

KING 5 News has learned Tacoma Police are about to release new information about Jennifer Bastian’s murder and the murder of another child around the same time. The Police Department is taking the unprecedented step of activating their Child Abduction Response Team to seek new leads in the two cold cases. A news briefing is scheduled for Thursday, followed by a joint event April 6 involving the FBI, Tacoma Police, the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management Center and South Sound 911. A phone bank will be taking tips and detectives will be standing by to respond to leads immediately, according to Tacoma Police Detective Lindsey Wade.

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Jenny and Michella’s stories faded from headlines years ago, but Pattie Bastian said she’s confident police never gave up.

“In 30 years, I’ve never lost track or hope or knowledge of the fact that this police department is all over this case,” she said.

Now, Detective Wade said she’s uncovered brand new information that she fully expects to turn up new leads.

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On Thursday, the cases took a surprising turn when police announced they no longer believe the same man killed Welch and Bastian.

“There are two separate suspects for two separate cases,” police spokeswoman Loretta Cool said.

Few details about the new twist were released but more information is expected to be released Wednesday. That’s when the department will activate its Child Abduction Response Team (CART) and begin investigating the deaths of Welch and Bastian as if they just happened.

CART typically activates when an Amber Alert is sent out regarding a child abduction. This is the first time Tacoma police will use it to work on a cold case, a practice they said they might continue if it proves successful in the Welch and Bastian cases.

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JusticeWillBeServed said:

Tacoma police release composite images of suspects in 1986 slayings

http://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/crime/article70289402.html

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Jim_M said:

Not sure whether to edit above, so I'll just make a separate post.

Is there a way that they could perform age progression on the 'DNA suspect' in Jennifer's case? Or any of the other cases this new technology could be used on?

I realize the suspect information (Northern European, hmm?), and picture, could help jog someone's memory from 1986. Still, would be interesting, and helpful, to see what our suspect might look like, 30 years later.

I also just wondered. Did the community have a foreign exchange program at any of their schools? Perhaps that was already looked into? Thinking outside of the box here!

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Examples of age progression and accessorization with Snapshot Forensic Art Services. By default, Snapshot produces composites from DNA at 25 years of age (A). Composite (A) shown after age progression to age 50 years (B); with the addition of a light beard (C); after further age progression to age 75 years with reading glasses (D); and with a full beard (E)

Our Forensic Art Department — under the direction of Thom Shaw, who is certified by the International Association for Identification (IAI) in the discipline of forensic art — offers age progression, BMI alteration, and accessorization services, which may include the addition of facial hair, eyeglasses, piercings, etc. We can also create composite sketches from eyewitness accounts and combine them with traditional Snapshot composites; in this way, corroborating the witness account or adding objective phenotype information to help produce the most accurate composite possible.

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After more than three decades, Tacoma police have arrested the suspected killer of 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian.

Bastian disappeared Aug. 4, 1986, after she went for a bike ride in Point Defiance Park. Her body was found 14 days later in a wooded area off Five Mile Drive.

The suspect has not been named and lives out of state. He is being transferred to Pierce County Jail to face charges.

For decades, detectives believed the deaths of Bastian and Michella Welch, 12, were linked.

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AskMeNoQuestions said:

http://www.week.com/story/38164060/suspect-in-decades-old-cold-case-arrested-in-eureka

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

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cybervampira said:

#BREAKING SUSPECT ARRESTED: In 1986, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian left her home riding an 18-speed Schwinn bicycle to Point Defiance Park to train for an upcoming bike tour in the San Juan Islands.

Her body was later found in a wooded area.
https://www.facebook.com/KIRO7Seattle/posts/2079484918737917

TACOMA, Wash. - Tacoma police said Thursday they have developed probable cause to arrest an identified suspect in the 1986 child murder case of Jennifer Bastian.

Police said they never closed the case and continued to investigate new tips.

[...]
https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/tacoma-police-identify-suspect-in-1986-child-murder-case/747248050

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EUREKA, Ill. (WLS) --

An arrest in Illinois could solve the cold case of a Washington state teen who was murdered 32 years ago.

Illinois State Police found 60-year-old Robert D. Washburn in Eureka, which is just outside of Peoria.

He was held at Woodford County Jail and will be extradited to Tacoma, Washington, to be charged in the death of Jennifer Bastian.

On Aug. 4, 1986, Bastian left her home in Tacoma around 2:30 p.m. on her bicycle, leaving a note that said she'd return by 6:30 p.m., Tacoma police said in a statement.

She had planned to ride her bike to Point Defiance Park to train for an upcoming bike tour in the San Juan islands, but never returned.

Several witnesses reported credible sightings of her around the 5-mile drive of Point Defiance Park as late as 6 p.m. that day, police said. Her body was found Aug. 28 in a wooded area near where witnesses had spotted her.

Jennifer's murder case was never closed, authorities said.

Illinois State Police assisted in the case after the Tacoma Police Department and Pierce County Prosecutor's Office developed probable cause to arrest the suspect, authorities said.

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TACOMA, Wash. -- Friends of Jennifer Bastian, the 13-year-old girl raped and murdered more than 30 years ago in Tacoma, are reacting to police saying the suspect charged in the case was on their radar for nearly the entire time.

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Court documents say Washburn became a suspect because he called police dispatch to give a tip about the murder of Michella Welch, a 12-year-old killed in Tacoma five months before Jenny died. (Police said Washburn's DNA did not match the evidence found in Welch's slaying.)

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Documents say in 2013, police found DNA on Jenny's clothes. Law enforcement was able to connect the DNA to Washburn, court documents say, with a 1 in 57 trillion probability that it could match an unrelated person in the U.S.

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