Suvechha Sarkar
The morning of March 26, 1986, started like any other spring day for 12-year-old Michella Evon Welch. However, her life came to an abrupt halt when she was brutally killed in Tacoma, Washington. What followed was over three decades of investigation, unanswered questions, and lingering heartbreak for her family and community. NBC’s ‘Dateline: Evil Was Watching’ revisits Michella’s case alongside another similar heartbreaking case of Jennifer Marie Bastian, exploring the details of those fateful days and an astonishing DNA forensics breakthrough. It also features interviews with their loved ones and the officials whose efforts finally brought justice.
Michella Welch Was Found Dead at a Park a Few Miles Away From Her Home
Michella Evon Welch was welcomed into this world on June 7, 1973, in Georgia, by her father and mother, Barbara Leonard. She began growing up surrounded by their love. It wasn’t long before she became a caring big sister to her younger sisters, Angela and Nicole. However, hard times arrived when her father left Barbara behind. However, her mother never gave up, and by March 1986, she had already bought a house and settled in northern Tacoma, Washington, with her three little girls and a new job. Life began to take a turn for the better as Barbara also managed to sign up Michella and her sisters for piano lessons.
Michella’s family remembers her as a fierce individual who wanted to be a little independent and take life head-on. However, everything turned upside down on March 26, 1986, on a normal sunny day during her spring break. 12-year-old Michella wanted to go to Puget Park in Tacoma, Washington, a few miles away from her home, with her sisters before the piano lessons. As the sisters reached the park around 10 am, they realized that they had forgotten to bring their lunch. Michella decided to head back home around 11 am to get lunch. In the meantime, Nicole and Angela went down the street searching for a restroom. When they returned around one and a half hours later, they found their lunch on the table and Michella’s bike chained to one of theirs.
However, when Nicole and Angela could not find Michella even after looking for her, they became afraid. With the help of a babysitter, their mom was notified, who then informed the police. Although they began searching for the area, they could not find her. Things took a turn when the search and rescue team, along with search dogs, was brought in. Around 11:30 pm, a tracking dog finally traced back to Michella’s remains at a makeshift fire pit in a nearby overgrown gulch at the park. Upon inspection, officials found evidence that she was attacked and sexually assaulted. The autopsy determined her cause of death to be a fatal wound to her neck that led to massive blood loss.
Improved DNA Technology Brought Michella’s Killer to Light After 32 Years
When detectives began investigating, they discovered from one of Michella’s classmates, who was at the park during that time, that a man was looking at the sisters. A sketch of the man was made, but it led to a dead end. However, multiple tips began coming in. Among them was Robert Washburn, who claimed to have witnessed a suspicious jogger at Point Defiance Park, which was a few miles away from the crime scene. On August 4, 1986, another 13-year-old girl, Jennifer Marie Bastian, went missing from Point Defiance Park. Her body was found on August 28, 1986, revealing that she was also sexually assaulted before she was killed. Since both her and Michella’s cases had the same nature and occurred around the same area, officials believed the same individual committed the crimes.
Despite multiple tips, both these cases eventually became cold. In May 2006, DNA collected from the evidence of Michella’s case was entered into the database, but it provided no match. In 2013, a new lead detective, Lindsey Wade, joined the cold case unit. She assembled a list of around 2300 names of witnesses, persons of interest, or any male figure who was involved in the investigation of both these cases by any means. A new male DNA was discovered from Jennifer’s swimsuit but did not match the one on Michella’s remains. That revealed that there were two different killers. In 2016, Lindsey sought help from a company, Parabon, that could turn DNA into computerized images. After the developed image in Michella’s case was made public, several tips came forward for a person who looked similar. Unfortunately, that turned out to be a dead end as well.
160 DNA samples were collected from the top list of suspects from the list of 2300 people. On May 8, 2018, a match came in Jennifer’s case for Robert Washburn. However, no DNA matches came forward for Michella. In 2018, Parabon used its further improved DNA genealogy, which helps find the family members of an unknown DNA sample. This brought up the names of Gary Charles Hartman and his brother, who lived in Tacoma during the Michella’s murder. Detectives obtained Gary’s DNA from his used napkin at a restaurant. They discovered that it matched Michella’s crime scene, and he was finally arrested on June 20, 2018. Two days later, he was formally charged with first-degree murder and first-degree rape. Gary was convicted during a bench trial for both charges and sentenced to 26 years and 6 months in prison combined on March 22, 2022. He is serving his time at Airway Heights Corrections Center in Airway Heights, Washington.
Read More: Gary Hartman: Where is Michella Welch’s Killer Now?
