This is Jeppah Roberts with 2020. For more than four decades, 2020 has brought you an incredible variety of compelling stories. Well, now we're going to bring you back to some of the most heart-stopping ones from the 2020 true crime vault. And we're going to give you updates on what happened to the people involved. Thanks for listening. Coming up. You've got to be kidding me. I couldn't possibly imagine it'd be somebody we knew. Her dog came home without her. This is a case that rocked the community. An extensive search for a missing teenager. 18-year-old Amanda Stavik suddenly disappeared. I can't believe something like this could happen to such an innocent person. My name is Bill Elfo. I'm the Sheriff of Watcom County. I'm the third sheriff to take this case on. What everyone in this small community had hoped wouldn't happen did happen. I was a reporter for KOMO TV. It was a huge story. She would not have just gone off and gone someplace without telling me, period. She wouldn't. The thought of her mom never having an answer of who did that to her daughter. I wouldn't wish this on even my worst enemy.

It was on everybody's radar. The case was never closed. It was constantly being investigated. I remember turning on the TV and just seeing an arrest had been made. Tonight, investigators say they cracked the case. I saw a picture of Mandy. Oh, my gosh. Is this really what I think it is? Oh, my God. It was stunning. How could this have happened after so long? I'm John Quineones. Mandy Stavik, an 18-year-old college freshman, home for Thanksgiving break. But the warm embrace of a weekend with the family she loved would end with her body being found in the cold waters of a local river. For three decades, the small town of Acme, Washington, grieved its residents, wondering who could have taken Mandy's life. As we first reported in 2019, when the truth was finally revealed, they had learned her killer had been one of them, and still living nearby for all those years. The story of Mandy Stavik is the story of a young woman's disappearance from a tight-knit, rural community. It's the story of a family devastated and a whole community devastated. It was a big deal. I was initially appointed sheriff in 2003. I went out and spoke with Mandy's mother, Mary, and told her that I was going to make every effort that we would solve this case.

Mary Stavik is a very sweet woman, but she's a very tough woman. I remember the first time I went out to meet her, she was out splitting wood in her front yard, and she was in her 70s at that time. I don't think I ever believed, ever, that they would catch the guy. The Stavik family lived out in Acme, which is a little tiny town down Highway 9 in rural Watcom County. This is about 15 miles east of Bellingham. Bellingham is the largest city in the county. Watcom County is the most northwest county in Washington State. It is quite beautiful. You have the snow-covered peaks of the Cascade Mountains. You have fast-rushing rivers. You have meandering streams, you have verdant rolling hills. You literally had little white houses with little white picket fences. It's rural, so it's not a lot out there, open roads and lots of cows. We have very little crime out in that area. So it was a place where people don't lock their doors. They leave the car keys in the Ignition. It's a very tranquil and a very nice community. My memory of their house is that it's set back from the road quite a bit.

It was like ideal. It was on a dead-end street, a mile from the highway. It was quiet and peaceful. The lots were all between 10 and 25 acres. Absolutely the nicest neighbors anybody could ever have. You knew your neighbor, you talked to your neighbor. Everybody knew who was coming in, who was leaving. They probably set their clocks by, There goes Mr. Jones, or headed to work, and he should be coming back pretty soon. Land had been owned by families for generations. People could tell stories about what your grandma did to my grandma years and years and years ago. When you live in a small town, you don't know everybody, but you know somebody who knows everybody. You just have this feeling that bad things aren't going to happen because people know each other, and that in most cases, is true. Everyone that lived out there, even today, knows about Mandy Stavik and what happened to her. Mandy had just graduated from high school. She was in her first year at Central Washington University. She came home for Thanksgiving break. Mandy left her home on the day after Thanksgiving in 1989. She wanted to get in a run.

It was in the late afternoon. She had a daily route that she used to jog that took her down the road that her house was on, on strand Road down to the Nucsac River and back. She went with their dog, Kyra, a German Shepherd dog. It was an older dog, but it was very protective of Mandy. I normally went with her. I rode my bike, she ran, and the dog handed along after us. But that last morning that she disappeared, I didn't go with her because my sister was there, and so I kicked myself. The houses along the way, there can't be more than 10-12 houses. I mean, they're just many people. She turned around and I was running back home where she was seen by a neighbor as well as her brother, Lee. Lee, my son, he was at the Anderson's house, which is about halfway between my house and Highway Nine down strand Road. And he was there visiting his friend, Jeremy. He remembered seeing her jog by coming home. She was maybe a quarter mile from from her home. Definitely should have been there before Lee had gotten home. And when she didn't show up, there was concern.

When she didn't come back when she should have come back, and then the dog came back without her, I was panicky. First person I called was her boyfriend. Mary was worried that Manny was missing. Then I got worried. The dog came home alone after about two hours, and they suspected something terrible had happened to her. It was so unusual that people started looking immediately. As the minutes and hours pass, you can't believe anything other than something bad has happened. And so they called the police. I called the sheriff, and I called everybody else I could think of. And I had everybody I knew out searching for her. Any missing person call is a 911 call. It requires immediate response, and a deputy will go out and talk to the reporting party. What I remember hearing from them is this is something we got to move on right away. It's not right. You can tell that this is not somebody who runs away from home. There's no history. There's no past reports. I think the anxiety increased and increased. In any investigation like this, you're going to look at boyfriends, anybody that they might have had trouble with, Fingerprints, everything, questioned by a couple of detectives.

Mom called me, she said, Mandy is missing. And I just, it's like, this can't be happening to us again. 18-year-old Mandy Stavik, back from college for the Thanksgiving holiday, has gone out for a run and not returned home. Mandy's mother, Mary, sensed immediately her daughter was in danger, and now an entire community is about to mobilize in search of the missing teen. I was panicked the minute she didn't get home on time. And then I was doubly panicked a few minutes later when the dog was there, and she wasn't. All the neighbors were all looking at canvas the whole area. The hope was that they'd find her alive. We just prayed that they would find her alive. You think to yourself, God, maybe she's just hurt. She can't get home. So you've got one person getting information as far as clothing, picture what they look like. Well, you have other deputies out there searching the roadway from her running route. She was wearing a light colored sweatshirt, teal green sweatpants, light blue running shoes with a purple stripe, and she had a walkman. She was listening to music as she ran. In any investigation like this, you'd have to figure out who Mandy was, what she was about.

She was very everything. I don't know whether there are words to describe her. One of my favorite Mandy stories in the summertime, in order to keep my seven and a half acres of pasture eaten down, I would borrow some cows from a neighbor I had. One summer, he brought over just four, and he said, Well, these are bulls. And one day when Mandy was about two years old, she was short enough so that she could run under our fence without hitting the hot wire. She went out to play with the bulls, and I was scared to death. I mean, those bulls weighed probably 2,000 pounds a piece, and they were huge. Here she is. They froze. Those bulls absolutely froze. She could have gone right up to them if I hadn't caught her first. She was not a verydressed to do anything that she set out to do. Mandy Stavik was a bright, vividacious, gregarious, 18-year-old, graduated from Mount Baker High School, was in her very first semester at Central Washington University. Andy loved anything athletic. She could do things that I could never do. She could jump on a horse bareback and take off running across the field.

She loved softball. She loved track. She loved baseball. She loved basketball. She played everything she could. I said to her, You can't turn out for track and play basketball at the same time. And she says, You want to bet? Never bet with Mandy. She always wins. In '89, I was the band director at Mount Baker. I remember her as a basketball player, and she was just tenacious. Especially on defense, it was so much fun to watch her being a good defender, and she was fast and quick, and smart. Mandy wanted to be the best at whatever she was doing. We spent a lot of time going for walks and things and just talking. And we talked about relationships and just different things and things that you would talk about as young teenage girls. What I loved about her, she's independent. I met Mandy when I was a sophomore, maybe when she was a freshman. I was a year ahead of her. Our first big love, of course. And for some reason, she loved me. I think she was way out of my league, but you know. Everybody liked her, so she wasn't the typical student that may have one or two enemies.

Live from Seattle, this is Komo, news four. Good evening. I'm Kathy Gertsen. And I'm Dan Lewis. An extensive search for a missing teenager. Her brother, who was visiting a neighbor actually saw her run one direction and then a few minutes later, run the other way. He was the last person to see her. Every TV station, radio station, newspaper from across the state and even outside the state national media were covering it. I was in my first year as a reporter at the Bellingham Herald. I was in the town of Bellingham at the time. I hopped in my car and I drove out and interviewed Mary. She understood that there was a chance that we could help. And then we called everybody, all the neighbors and all of our friends just to see if anybody had seen her. Mandy's mother is a school bus driver for the Mount Baker district. She's a survivor with everything that she's gone through. Mandy's family had come from Alaska. Her parents were divorced. Mary had come down with three kids, Mandy and Molly and Lee, and settled in Acme. Mom called me, she said, Mandy is missing. And I just...

It's like, This can't be happening to us again. She had had an older brother who was killed in Alaska years before. My oldest son's name was Brent. We live very close to Fort Richardson in Anchorage, and he had permission from them to hunt on base. And one day, somebody shot him. They called me and said they had his body. He had 17, 22 shells in his back. There was a lot of investigating. It was basically an insult, murder. I still don't know who it was. She said, I thought I had lived through the worst thing that could happen when Brent died. It's like Molly said, This can't be happening to our family again. I think I said to her something like, Oh, of course it can't happen. We're going to find her. It'll be okay. Even though I didn't really believe that. But I just wanted to give her hope. Rick Zender was Mandy Stavik's boyfriend. And as is typical in murder investigations, they wanted to question him. We dated for about three years. We've probably broken up two or three times. It's just one of those, I'd say, high school things. That point in relationship, it was on and off, on and off.

But he had brought her home from college. They checked to see where her ex-boyfriend was. Oh, I want to be viewed as a suspect. I mean, that's what they should do. That's her job. Usually, it's the person closest. That's the killer. They spoke to him. He was extremely forthcoming. He came in, gave a statement. The authorities ultimately cleared Rixander, but of course, they had to look at him. The first night didn't hear anything. So by the second day, it was pretty obvious that this was even more serious than we originally thought. It was such a mystery. I mean, beautiful 18-year-old, smart, strong women don't just vanish. They don't do that. The whole town practically was combing everywhere. They had patrols going through fields that were adjacent to our house. We're checking a lot of side roads and found something that I thought was a little bit suspicious. The first thing I did was take a video. Over to the left on top of some other debris, appeared to be an article of clothing, pair of green sweatpants. Mandy was wearing green sweatpants. The search effort to find Mandy was really extensive. The whole town, practically, was combing everywhere, looking for clues, hoping to find her alive.

They've called out the Border Patrol helicopter and the sheriff's posse. We're going to get into some of the areas that you wouldn't be able to drive in with the four-wheel drive vehicle. An exhaustive search goes into its second day since 18-year-old Amanda Stavik suddenly disappeared yesterday afternoon. I had every mode of transportation to search from riding motorcycles, Jeeps, going door to door, walking the ditches, bringing in blood hounds. One of her friends' dad had his pilot's license, and so he took his plane up and his daughter talked him into searching. And so he flew the area and looking. They had patrols going through fields that were adjacent to our house. We had specifically trained people that are called man trackers. My name is Joel Harden. I was the Border Patrol's expert tracker for 20 years. The biggest conception about when someone says tracker is someone is down on their hands and he's looking for shoe impressions, footfall, they call it. It's so much more than that. I see in the surroundings, in the ground cover and so on, that which other people see but are not conscious of. I took several classes, and the instructor would say, Look at this leaf, turn it over.

See this mark? That's a bruise. That's probably four to five hours old. When a branch on a live bush is broken, it bleeds and it scars. And by looking at that, you can pretty well predict when it was broken. Expert trackers use the term sign to indicate any discoverable evidence that could be linked to the missing person. I went to the house and talked to the family and learned what Mandy's normal route was and followed the sign and found the evidence that it was her sign that was coming out onto that road. It was her tracks and followed it to a place where the tracks just stopped and it shouldn't have. Her dog was running with her and the dog track stopped there also. It makes you think probably someone pulled her into a car and took off with her. I mean, that's the worst. She's not going to be forcibly taken forcibly unless two or three guys grabbed her. And there was no evidence of that on the road. There was no scuffling and pushing and shoving and that type of thing. The question was, was it just somebody driving by that drove up that road and sees this beautiful girl running with a dog and decides to grab her?

Or was it somebody that knew her? Our man tracker went to the Stavik home, talked to Mary Stavik, to Mandy's mother, and the dog had come home alone. The dog was on the porch. It was a German Shepherd. She was upset. She didn't know what to do with herself. I said, Where's Mandy? Where's Mandy, Kyra? What did you do? Where is she? Our man tracker trying to get the dog to come down, taking the dog could lead him to where she had last been. And the dog would come off the porch and the dog cowered. He thought something by looking at the dog had happened to the dog. We believe that the dog was kicked or hit or something to control the dog. We actually believe maybe even kicked into the ditch where it couldn't fight back or protect Mandy. Enough people along strand road had seen her heading out and then coming back that they knew pretty close to the time that she had disappeared. Her brother had seen her, some neighbors had seen her. We call it a neighborhood canvas where we go out door to door, find neighbors that had seen her, and then leap frog from there.

You get numb and you just get focused on searching for her and hoping that you'll find or somebody that will discover something. On Sunday, two days after she disappeared, the Skagia County Search and Rescue team were checking a lot of side roads and pull-offs, anything, and they found something they thought was a little bit suspicious and wanted us to look at it. The first thing I did was take a video of the entire area. The only opening in the foley chair has been made by the lane. The situation was an overgrown road and everything on that road looked old, wet. I've been there for a long time. Over to the left of this area, on top of some other debris, appeared to be an article of clothing, a pair of green sweatpants. Mandy was wearing green sweatpants. Mandy's mother, Mary, was brought to the scene and shown those pants. I didn't remember exactly what she was wearing, but I didn't think they could have been, for one thing, they were dirty and they had ripped holes in them. And Maddie wouldn't have ever worn anything like that. Mary said at the time that she didn't think that they were hers, but she also said that she didn't want to think that they were hers.

They were eventually sent to the laboratory for analysis, look for trace evidence, look for anything that might be related to our missing person. There were some tiny fibers, and there were also some semen stains that were analyzed and not connected to Mandy or anybody else in the case. I don't know. I feel so bad for her mother. I just feel so bad for her family. Strand Road, where Mandy Stavik was believed to have been kidnapped so close to her family home, is empty today. People were absolutely shocked that this could happen in a community like Acme that changed everything. I would think of Seattle, New York, a bigger city, not even Bellingham. I didn't even think this would really happen in Bellingham. They didn't know who this person was because he lived in our community. People were scared to go jogging. It could have been anyone, and everywhere we went could have been the person that did this to Mandy. Everywhere I looked, there was danger. We had searching the river by boat. One of the searchers called out that he had seen something. That image is etched in my brain like granite. Close your eyes, take a deep breath, and imagine feeling at peace during the holidays.

Sounds nice, right? Well, it's not impossible. Let's face it, this time of year is a lot. Maybe you're looking forward to the holidays, or maybe you struggle with seasonal depression. It's natural to feel some anxiety. That's what makes it the perfect moment to bring something positive into your life. Maybe it's a boundary you've been meaning to set, a new self-care routine, or support from a therapist. Therapy can give you the tools to find your peace in the chaos so you can take that deep breath. Better help makes it easy to get started. It's flexible and convenient. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to match with a licensed therapist. Talk by chat, phone, or video, and switch therapists at any time. Give yourself something to look forward to with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp. Com/2020 today to get 10 % off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P. Com/2-0-2-0. The search went on for three days. She was found on the third day. We had a vessel from one of the neighboring fire districts, searching the river by boat. They went upstream and they were just slow drifting in the river and checking little areas that couldn't be seen from shore.

And one of the searchers called out that he had seen something here. So then they powered back up and there she was. Mandy was found on the south fork of the Nooksack River, probably close to five and a half, six miles from her house. There was a bend in the river and some debris and the body was just hung up in the debris there. I'm in a location on the east side of the river. She has not been disturbed since the discovery. I saw her body. She was face down. She was just suspended just a little bit off the bottom. There was a branch there that was some debris that prevented her from floating any further downstream. She was naked, except for shoes and socks on. The tennis shoes matched the description. We could never find her clothing. She had a walkman that was gone. There were no obvious signs of any trauma. There were scratch marks on her thighs, her legs, and the arms. It seemed to be indicative of that running through blackberry bushes, which are quite prevalent in that part of the county. Where she was about knee-deep, maybe a little bit deeper, and the only way to get in there and turn her over and preserve that evidence was just simply that, get in the water with her.

And that's what I did. The temperature of the water preserved her body well. It looked like you could just shake her and she would have woke up. It looked like she was sleeping. I've seen a lot of Vietnam vet. I saw a lot of stuff there. I saw a lot of stuff in my career in law enforcement. It's never easy. None of it is. But this was extraordinary because it was a young college girl, the all-American girl in our community. And for me, when I looked down, I didn't see Mandy. I saw my daughter. Same physical characteristics, same age. That's why it's stuck. That image is etched in my brain like granite. The detective that was with me dispatched himself in a quick fashion to get to the family home to let her know we had found her. I knew. I knew she was gone. I don't know why. I think mothers know. I've talked to other mothers who said they felt the same thing. I knew she was dead. I didn't want to say it even to myself, but I knew. Mary told me. I remember I was upstairs. There's a window you could see outside with the sheriff coming up talking to Mary.

And then I knew what was happening. She came to stairs and told me they found her body in the river. This afternoon, searchers found a body in Wadcom County. A body has been recovered from the South Fork of the Nuksak River. The body of Amanda Stawik, whom everyone knew as Mandy, was found today. I wouldn't wish this on even my worst enemy. There is nothing worse. There is nothing worse than losing a child. And I already knew that. Nobody should have to lose two children. At the time that they were bringing her body out of the river, but our photographer went down and took pictures of several people carrying the body bag up the bank from the river. And it's a beautiful photograph in the respect that it looks like Paul Bears. They didn't want to find her. They didn't want to find a body. I remember running out of the house. I ran off into the field and just remember screaming. I was screaming at life, at God, how could something like that happen? How could he let something like that happen? How did she drown? How did she end up in the river?

How did she end up in the state that she was found when her body was found? What happened? What happened between the last time her brother saw her running on the road to finding her in the river? That night, there was a girls basketball game, and I was the announcing. I was asked to make note of Mandy's death. I remember it was just one of the hardest things I ever had to do was to not get choked up while announcing that this girl who was such a presence in our community and at our school had died. The autopsy was the next day, and the medical exam indicated the cause of death was drowning. That's fixated by drowning. My biggest question was, how did she drown? Mandy was a strong swimmer. She was a lifeguard. And it wasn't that deep, so if she'd gone in and was conscious or in control of her body, she could have stood up where she was and gotten out. She must not have been conscious. She must not have been aware because there was no signs of struggle. There was no her digging in the gravel or something like that.

It was nothing. She was very peaceful. She had an injury on the very top part of her head that was a hematoma that was a bleeding under the scalp. It was an area about three inches by two inches. Because her hair was so thick, you couldn't see it. The medical examiner believed that it would have been not enough to kill her, but could have knocked her out. In my line of work, the evidence field, you're always hoping for that pristine scene when nothing has been disturbed. But in this case, the water was a washing agent. So the only thing that's left is her fingernails if she fought, and the other thing would be evidence of a sexual assault. The medical examiner determined that she was sexually assaulted. My immediate concern was DNA. Dna technology as a science for solving crimes was in its infancy. In the '80s, it wasn't a typical type of crime scene evidence that was collected or even thought about necessarily. Fortunately, the investigators back then were acutely aware of DNA. Ron Peterson had just returned from Quantico, where the FBI Academy is. He knew that, hey, there's this thing called DNA.

It's relatively new. In 1989, the only people that were doing DNA testing in the criminal world were officers submitting their samples to the FBI. They were the only scientists that were trained and equipped to work with this technology. They took DNA evidence from Mandy's body. They created a DNA profile of both Mandy and an unknown male. The FBI did what they could at the time, which was obtain a DNA profile, but they didn't have anybody to compare it to. The one question that the sheriff's office wanted answered is who left the DNA? They believed that whoever left it was responsible for Mandy's death. And finding a match for DNA is like finding the right star in the sky. It's either there or it's not there. Tips were coming in faster than the department could handle. We ran every single one of them down. They found another victim of this country's worst-known serial killer. The Green River killer was a big story. He was in Seattle. Nine more women are missing and presumed dead. It's a series of unsolved crimes. Could this be the work of the Green River killer? Could this be another serial killer in the area?

I can't believe something like this could happen to such an innocent person. I hope they catch the people that did this to her. I pray for the mother every night, I just assume so. It's a terrible one. I can't see how that could happen. In these tough times when there's nothing to do, you can't do anything. You want to do something, but Mandy's dead. You can't do anything about that. So what do you do? They had the memorial service in our school auditorium. No church within miles is large enough for all the people, more than 1,000 of them who want to say goodbye to Mandy Stavik. Well, you couldn't believe how many people were there. Today we've come together to share the deep sorrow that has ripped our hearts. I think it was like standing room only. A classmate of mine, Pete Stewart, and I wrote a Mandy song for her memorial. The words that we wrote were true then, and they're still true now. Can't believe people take on ina sense away. Can't believe evil's taken innocence away. Evil did take Mandy's innocence away, but I also feel like it took away the innocence of our community.

In all the newspapers and TV stations were there, and then they had a little graveside service at the burial. That was very private. She's buried in the cemetery right up the street from my house. There was a photo of Rick Zender. He's standing at the graveside holding a teddy bear. It's the teddy bear I got her, which sounds silly, but I think she, you know, she loved that bear. And then we had to go back to college and pack her stuff up. And then one of the things was this teddy bear still smelled like her. But it faded. Once there was a criminal investigation launch, then the police were very careful about what information they gave us. They only want to release the information that could generate more leads. The sense was, Who could have done this? This isn't something that a community member would have been involved in. There was a huge assumption at the time that it must have been an outsider, that somebody must have been driving through the community and just randomly picked Mandy. They found another victim of this country's worst-known serial killer. The Green River killer was a national story.

He made headlines across the country. Nobody knew who was behind all these disappearances. Nine more women are missing and presumed dead. It's a series of unsolved crimes, a serial killer, and he was in the Green River area. He was in Seattle. It was just a huge number of victims there. He would go out and look for women, and he would kill them and then bury them in the area of the Green River. All the victims appear to be white females, ranging at age from their late teens to mid-30s. Could Mandy have been one of the Green River killers victims? Her age was right, her looks were right. It was like, Oh, Green River killer come up here. It would be easy to make that leap of, Could this be another serial killer in the area? Certainly the officers talked about that and they thought about that. There was a giant task force in our investigators, when Mandy happened and we were coming up short with nothing solid, we could go on. They took all the documentation and went and met with the Green River task force. And they pretty much said to them, Do we fit?

And didn't match the profiles or what they were working with. Mary continued to put herself out in the public eye. Please welcome Mary Stavik. To keep interest in the case so that there would be a better chance of finding the person who did it. It was important for Mary and for us to make sure that her story was still out there because we didn't have any answers. We didn't have any leads. Why come here? Why talk about it again? Well, I guess because I'm hoping that somebody who's out there listening will remember something that will help the law enforcement people find the person who killed my daughter. The tip line was set up after Mandy was found. Crime stoppers will pay up to $1,000 for information that leads to an arrest in charge. The tips were coming in faster than the department could handle. They were numerous, I mean, daily, hundreds of tips, and we ran every single one of them down. It was massive. They had an FBI profile that projected it would be someone in the community. My kids couldn't go anywhere without me being concerned that the killer was there and could potentially do the same thing to them.

There was no peace. There was absolutely no peace. Paul Malec was an early person of interest for several reasons. First of all, he was a neighbor of the Stavics. He lived very close by. Also, he was one of the last people to see Mandy alive. He indicated law enforcement that he had seen Mandy and he had seen a car drive by. As he was backing out of his driveway, he saw Mandy jogging by. He also said that he saw a dark pickup truck, but he couldn't give any details like what makes sense was it? What model was it? Who exactly was driving it? He tended to maybe act like he was inserting himself into an investigation, which is sometimes a red flag for investigators. Are they looking for information in phishing or are they trying to help you solve this? What's their motivation? He was interviewed several times by our agency. They asked him to do a DNA sample, which he initially refused. They went and got a court order and forced him to do it. I worked with the detectives. We got a search warrant for his blood, and we excluded him. Time and time again, they would have a person of interest.

They would question that person, but something would rule them out. They had a good alibi or ultimately their DNA did not match. This case dragged on. It becomes a cold case. But after 10, 15, 20 years, it's like, Well, it's never going to be solved. When a new detective would come in, they would bring different eyes to it. New people are going to look at different things. You have one person that can answer some questions because they're the ones that own that DNA. We thought this would be the key that this would solve this case. Maybe it was a neighbor, maybe it was a friend. And from that, the sweep was born. We decided to go out and try to interview and collect DNA from as many of the males that we knew that lived in that area. We weren't going to give up until it was solved. That it would happen like this, I never would have guessed. I saw breaking news and I saw a picture of Mandy. Oh, my gosh. Is this really what I think it is? It was stunning. How could this have happened after so long? It was so out of the realm of anything we could ever have expected.

You could possibly imagine to be somebody we knew. From a hunch or gut feeling to solve in a case that is 30 years old. I don't know what I had in my hand, but I dropped it. I never expected it to be him. I never suspected him. It was just like, You got to be kidding me. Welcome back. I'm John Quineones. Twenty years after the murder of Mandy Stavik, the memory still haunts the community of Acme Washington. Detectives at the time collected DNA samples, but there has not yet been a match. And while FBI profilers said they believe her killer was a local resident, no one has yet emerged as a viable suspect. The case seems to be at a standstill, yet authorities haven't given up. Years later, can a new detective and a new set of eyes finally solve this case? Mandy went on a jog the same road that her house was on Downstrand Road. She took her German Shepherd. A few hours later, her dog came home without her. Three days later, she was found in the river. It was definitely one of the biggest cases in the history of the sheriff's office.

There's a lot of cases that we investigate and a lot of tasks that are done, but this one stuck with all of us, and it never went away. Everybody looked at it as Mandy was our daughter. That definitely kept things going. Initially, there was hope that there would be some resolution that the case would be solved, that we would know what happened. But that seemed to continue to just drag on. After a couple of decades, I just thought they'd never find the killer. I just somehow make peace with it, just never be resolved and never have that silly closure word. When a new detective was assigned to the detective division, one of the first tasks they were assigned was to take the stabbing volumes, many of them, three inches thick, and read the case cover to cover. New set of eyes. Did you see anything? What did we miss? What could we have done differently? The case in 2009 was 20 years old. I said, Let's try something new. I assigned Detective Bowie to the case. There was about 20 years of investigation. At that point, there's probably three, maybe 4,000 pages of reports. At the time of Mandy's disappearance, he was a new deputy, and he was actually involved in searching the scene.

One of my motivators is I went to Mount Baker High School. We all knew the case. We all knew how serious it was, how devastating, how it impacted not only our lives personally, but as well as the community. Wacom and Acme area are so tight. If something happens to one family, it happens to all of us. Every few years, there'd be a story in the newspaper that interview the police. And every time they would say, This isn't a cold case, we're still at this. And then as you hear about DNA, you start wondering about that. You think maybe DNA will make a difference. Detective Kevin Bowie was the third detective with the sheriff's office to be the lead in trying to find Mandy's killer. And he came up with this idea to do a systematic DNA sweep of people who lived in the Acme area. One of my coworkers had read a book called The Blooding. The Blooding case was a very similar case to Mandy Stavik in England. The body of 15-year-old Dawn Ashworth was discovered in Undergrowth last Saturday. It was a case in which a young woman was abducted and raped and killed, and they had a sample from her, and it had just developed DNA as an investigative analysis to a forensic tool.

British authorities had this really novel idea to go ahead and test every man that was in a certain age range in a certain geographical area. There is still plenty of inquiries to be done, and they will be carried on until they're all completed. We went door to door. They got all kinds of samples. More than 5,000 people. They tested their DNA, and eventually they found the killer. The DNA sweep was the strategy that they used, and we thought that would work great with our situation. We tried everything else. Let's try this. And that's the way law enforcement is. If one thing doesn't work, try something else. You never just stop. I'm Katherine Woodard. I work at the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory in the DNA section. I was informed that they had reached a point in the investigation where they thought it most helpful to do what's called a DNA sweep. The process was to find out back in '89 who lived where and how old they were, and then that would establish a list of who we needed to locate and request a sample of their DNA. Basically, you just go to their house, ask for a cheek swab, and test it against the profile that was taken from Mandy's body.

We had a list of a couple hundred suspects. We wanted their DNA to either eliminate them or to look at them further. One of the things that I felt like was that if they ever caught the guy, I was going to have to live through the whole damn thing again. And with that in the back of my head, I just didn't care. What good does it do? It doesn't bring you back. It's just a matter of time. We're going to ask the right person, and we're going to get the right sample of DNA. We just got to keep plugging away. Tim Bass came up as a suspect. He was a loaner. He was quiet. He was just a little bit of an oddball. We realized, of course, he had been living right on that road and had not really been contacted. He was very controlling and always told me what to do, who I could talk to, who I couldn't talk to. She had said that she didn't feel safe and that Tim would brag that if he committed a murder, he wouldn't be caught. Here was the same guy who lived on the same road as Mandy Stavik, who was bragging that if he committed murder, he could get away with it.

I never gave up. I knew it was going to come, and I was hoping it would come before I retired. And then after a while, I was like, I hope it comes before they close the lid on my box. I want to see this case solved. We went out and contacted as many folks as we could, asked for samples, tried to find out what they might have known or what they might have heard over the last 30 years. It's the longest case I had worked on without having an investigative lead DNA wise. At one point, we sent 31 samples at one time, and she sorted through all of them. Wouldn't say you lose hope after comparing that many samples, but you can't be as excited each time when you get let down that many times. To me, it was, if you haven't got anything to hide, then there's no problem giving your DNA, and I had no problems asking. The case had never left the thoughts of Mandy's friends. And so two women were talking about the case and talking about what a strange person Tim Pass was. And they decided we should talk to the sheriff's office.

They should look at him. She just told me she's always had a gut feeling that Tim Bass was the person responsible for Mandy Stavik's death. He lived in the area, so his name was on the list, but he got moved, I guess, to the head of the list. In 1989, Tim Bass lived on one side of Highway Nine on strand Road, and Mandy Stavik lived on the other. There's only a few houses between his and Mandy's, and Mandy used to jog or run past his house nearly every day. We realized, of course, he had been living right on that road and had not really been contacted. His family knew their family. I mean, everyone is connected. Tim Bass went to Mount Baker High School, was a 1986 graduate. Although Mandy may not have known Tim Bass very well, she was familiar with his younger brother, Tom Bass. They were friends. They ran in the same circles. Tim Bass, we didn't hang out with him. To me, he's Tom Bass's older brother, just a guy in the background. He was a loaner. He was a loaner. He was quiet. My impression is he was just a little bit of an odd, oddball.

He lived with his mom, dad, and brother at that time. He was awkward. Tim moved out of the area shortly after the murder was in January of 1990. He had quickly gotten married and moved to Everson. I'm Gina Malone and Tim Bass used to be my husband. I went to Mount Baker High School. I graduated in 1990. I didn't know Mandy, but I knew who she was. We weren't friends or anything, but I would see her every day. I met Tim by working at my grandpa's little grocery store, and he came in for a hunting license. I was working that day and he just said, Do you want to go out sometime? It was nice that someone asked me out and was interested. They were supposed to get married when she graduated from high school. After Mandy was killed, he married her. It was a very sudden thing. All of a sudden, he comes to me and he's like, Do you want to get married now? And so we got married. They had three children together, and he became a local delivery driver for the France bakery outlet. He was very controlling and always told me what to do, what I could wear, what I couldn't wear, who I could talk to, who I couldn't talk to.

He didn't even call me by my name. He called me by whore, bitch. I would tell him, I don't like you calling me that. And he's like, Oh, whatever. Why can't you laugh and take a joke? Whenever he'd get mad, he would come towards me like this with his fist. He did shove me against the bathroom wall once and bruised my back. 2010, Gina had filed for a domestic violence protection order for herself and her three children. In the order, she had said that she didn't feel safe and that Tim would watch cold case TV files. When he would watch the cold case files or movies that pertain to murder, he would always say the murderer was stupid, and didn't cover his tracks very well, and he wouldn't be stupid enough to get caught. That case was later closed because she rescinded the domestic violence order, and they stayed married. I wanted to stay away, and I just... I didn't want to go back, but I just always ended up back. I thought Tim would give us his DNA or he wouldn't. But if you don't ask, you don't know. I went out there. His wife, Jean, answered the door.

She invited us in. She knew the Mandy Stavik case right away. When they said that they were there to collect the DNA that they had already collected from a lot of people in the area. She said that she was expecting Tim home within a few minutes. They asked him about the Mandy Stavik, and he said, Oh, and he looked up at the ceiling like he couldn't remember that name. That was definitely a red flag for me, which indicated to me he's obviously lying. You don't grow up in that area. Everybody knew what the Mandy Stavik case was, and she ran past his house every day. How would you not know it? And he said, Oh, was that the girl that was missing? And he said, Yes, it was. And he said, Oh, I remember she was found in the river. It was a revelation that he had brought that back to his mind. He knows exactly who Mandy Stavik was, but he was playing it off like he didn't. Tim said he wasn't going to give us a DNA that he didn't trust the police, which was another red flag. And by then, we were out of flags.

I just flat out came out and said, If you don't have anything to hide, why don't you give it straight, simple, done? I was always saying, Well, they could frame me. They frame people all the time. I was just like, What am I living with? He shot to the top of the suspect list. It was like, Okay, what's plan B? We went to France, and that's where I met Kim Wagner. I hadn't told anybody. I think I potentially have figured out who killed Mandy Stavik. I knew this was the only way we're going to get the answers. And my heart was like, beating out of my chest. I grabbed it and I put it in my desk drawer. I'm thinking this is too good to be true. Tim Bass's name had not come up before. An approach was made in 2013. We did not get a sample. Our local prosecutor, Dave McHechren, said Tim's biggest fear is that someone would show up on his doorstep with a badge and ask what happened to Mandy. In 2017, we decided to get a sample. We knew we'd have to do that surreptitiously. Detective Bowie approached where he worked.

He was a delivery, root delivery person for France Breads. We went to France, and that's where I met Kim Wagner for the first time. I met Tim Bass when he came to work with me for a commercial bakery. Kim was from the area. She had grown up nearby, and she was delivering baked goods out in the Acme area when Mandy went missing. It impacted me. I was a 19-year-old kid. It was the first time something scary happened. I mean, it changed everyone's perspective on our little corner of the world. She said that it was the first time that she didn't feel safe at her home anymore. It could have been the person next door. We didn't know. I thought Tim was a little bit full of himself, but also maybe a little bit insecure. I think that Tim's probably got more than one Tim inside him. After Tim Bass refused to give a voluntary sample for the second time, Detective Bowie reached out to Frans Bakery. They came in. They said that there's an employee here under investigation for a case, and they would like to get route information and maybe collect a cigarette butt.

At that point, I shut them down. I was like, Yeah, no, this is not... This is way above my pay grade. I gave them our human resources information, and then they said they were going to follow up. The France Bakery was not willing to initially cooperate with us, wanted a subpoena or a search warrant, and we didn't have sufficient probable cause to get a warrant. After that, I was in a bar with my husband. There's a group of people there, there's an acquaintance of Tim and I there. We started talking about different random people at work, and then we started talking about Tim because he's a weirdo. That person had been reading something and they were like, Did you know that Tim Bass lived on the strand road? I was like, Well, yeah. He goes, I didn't realize that Mandy Savik went missing from the strand Road. As he was talking, I was like, Oh, my God. This light went off in my head and I thought, Is that why the police were at my work? So once I had that conversation in the bar, I started paying more attention to Tim at work. Everybody wears a uniform.

He would wear the uniform, but everyone else turns it in to get washed. He never did that. I noticed he didn't throw anything away. His garbage can, his truck was always empty. I was like, Huh, this is odd. I was very determined to get Tim Bass's DNA. The plan, it was to follow Tim around and see if he ate anything, threw anything away, if he was a smoker. We're looking for any sample of DNA from him. We went back to Frans Bakry. We're hoping that Kim would provide us with Tim's delivery route. Took him in my office, closed the door, and I was like, I got to ask you a question. When you were here, were you investigating Mandy Savik's murder? And he just looked at me like a cartoon character, like the eyes popping out of their head. He just looked at me like, Oh, my God. And then I said, Was it Tim Bass? There was definitely look on my face because I was shocked. I get information. I don't give information. She, at that time, gave up Tim's route. She said, He drives the Fairhaven route. This is the general time that he starts checking the area for a yellow truck.

When we followed Tim that night, we found out he wore gloves. So even if we bought a loaf of bread that he had touched, it wasn't going to have any DNA on it. We found that he wasn't a smoker. We found out that he didn't throw things away. Tim basically took his trash home. Detective Bowie called Kim to let her know that their surveillance of Tim was not successful. At that point, she says, Well, I watched your CSI shows. You're looking for DNA, aren't you? So I said, You need a water bottle? I'll get you a water bottle. I'm an instant gratification like dog with a bone. I need to know. They said, We can't ask you to do it. You can't do this for us. We're not asking. We can't tell a person to get evidence for us, but if they were to bring something to us, we could take it from them and use that. That's not against the law. Nobody asked me to do it. I 100 % volunteered to do it. The reason I wanted to know was I'm a mom now. If something happened to my daughter, I'd want someone to help me.

The thought of her mom never having an answer of who did that to her daughter, if I could help her find that peace, I wanted to do it. She watched Tim. They got a water-cooler at their office, and he drank out of a plastic cup and threw it away. He threw it in the garbage in front of me, walked past into the bathroom. I just I looked in the garbage and my heart was like, beating out of my chest. I grabbed it and I put it in my desk drawer. I was like, Oh, my God, that just happened. I think I waited a little bit and then I texted Detective Bowie. I couldn't get it back to the office quick enough and to the lab quick enough to have it tested. When the cup arrived, I performed a swabbing of the drinking area. I pulled up the old information to compare to, and let's just say I was more than surprised. I compared it over and over more than once, and my heart was pounding. She had left a message and we're like, Well, what would she be calling about? Even though we knew what she'd be calling about.

And then it was like, Well, let's call her right now and put it on speakerphone. I stumbled through my words, and as soon as I got the word match out, I heard an amount of cheering that was deafening. It was a one in 11 quadrillion, if you can imagine that number, match on Timothy Bass. 11 quadrillion has 15 zeroes, quite a few. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. Tim's demeanor was flat. He didn't show a lot of emotion. There's some cat and mouse between the detectives and Tim Bass. I remember he gave a DNA. And then he changed his story. He completely does 180 degree turn. I can't do this. No way. It's crazy. I mean, it's absurd. When Tim Bass was taken into custody at his workplace, he agreed to talk to us down at the station. So we transported him down to the Waucom County Sheriff's office into an interview room. It's like you've seen on TV, on those shows you've watched, I just have to advise you this before we talk to you any further. You have the right to remain silent.

Tim's demeanor was flat. He didn't show a lot of emotion. I tried to act like a lot of disbelief like, No, I didn't have anything to do with this. You've got the wrong person. I've never had any intimate relationship with her. I've never even kissed her. He's testing the waters to see whether or not they actually have his DNA versus them telling him a ruse. How did that come about, my DNA, that you guys got? I ran a sample. I don't remember giving DNA. I'm sure in his mind, he was thinking, I've gone through all these measures to make sure you guys didn't get my DNA. How did this happen? Where did I screw up? Just tell me. If you just did a sneak... You did something weird. Well, of course I did. Okay, well, that's all you need to tell me. But the point being is if I didn't have something of that nature, you wouldn't be sitting here. I think once he realized we actually did have his DNA, then he switched. Well, I wanted to tell you a long time ago, but I just didn't trust you. I've been told not to say stuff.

And I can't do this. I can't. I trust you guys. I can't. This bites me in the ass. If this is not what I'm supposed to do, then whatever. I don't give a fuck. I slept with her. He completely does a 180 degree turn and at that point says, Yes, I slept with her. Tim Bass told us a story that he was having a secret relationship with Mandy. How long did it go on? I met her, I think I was with my dad. We were mountain bike riding up and down the road. He talked to her. He had a way with people. He just talked to her. I talked to her. After that, I'd mountain bike up and down the road, and she'd jog. And we talk and stuff. But I think that was in the spring. So it wasn't have a long relationship because she went away. She went away and to college. I want to say, Eastern or Central? Central. Central? Did you have any correspondence with her? Do you have letters or did you make phone calls to her. She used to say when she come back, she'd see me. His story had no depth.

He didn't know what she was going to take in school. He didn't know what she wanted to do as a profession or what her future held. He knew nothing. It was more of a friendship type thing. We just talked and then it just grew into more of a physical thing. And we didn't really do it that much. So it was more kissing and stuff. He had never spoken to her on the phone. He hadn't written to her. And she shows up and without any prior warning, comes over for what was referred to in that interview as a booty call. And that's how he accounted for his DNA, and being found. We all knew that that was BS. If Tim ever had a relationship with Mandy Stavik, he'd have told everybody he knew. He'd have shouted it from the rooftops. There's no way my sister would have had a relationship, a physical relationship with Tim Bass. She was way, way, way out of his league, to put it bluntly. The only one that knew about it besides him was his dad, and that couldn't be verified because his dad was dead at that point. You are under arrest for the murder of Mandy Stavik.

The arrest occurred on December 12th, 2017. I filed charges, charged him with murder in the first degree. Shortly after Mr. Bass was arrested, I drove out to Mary Stavik's home. He said, We've got him. And I said, Who? I mean, I did. I was thinking for 15 years, waiting for the day when we could deliver that message, hoping that Mary would still be with us to be able to give the message to her. It was her 81st birthday that day. It was. It was on my birthday that he knocked on my door. Kind of nice birthday present. She was overcome with emotion, and I think we all were. I was shocked. Mandy and I had ridden our bikes past their house, and it just never occurred to us to be worried about who was in their house. Never. I don't want to jeopardize an ongoing investigation or prosecution. We ultimately arranged a press conference. We had all the detectives that were currently involved in the case that stand at the podium, and we delivered the news to the local media. We hope that this arrest will help bring closure to Mandy's family and the greater Watcom County community.

I was naïve and thinking that my part in this is going to not be known. I just kept waiting for my face to come out. I thought, Oh, my God, someone's going to find me. And guess what? They found me. Here you are. I wanted so badly to know who it was that did that and could meet you. Bless her heart. She said, You know what she said? I did it for you. I did it for you. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. You're welcome. The person I've wanted to meet for a long time is Mary. All of it. I mean, I would do it again for her. A woman I never even knew. While we were interviewing Tim, Gina came in and was being interviewed. Gina did give Tim an alibi. I was on my way to Tim's, and I passed her. Any statement you may maybe used a trial against. To me, a trial is where I'd really love to be. I feel like I'd hardly wait until we began. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Tim Bass is not guilty. Is it difficult for you to be here testifying today?

Very much so. He said, I was hoping that you could maybe say that you slept with her, too. I am convinced what happened. I have no doubt at all. I don't know what else to say. The truth. Everything I've said is the truth. Tim maintained his innocence, denying any involvement at all. I know you think differently. You think I did this. I didn't. While we were interviewing Tim, Gina came in and was being interviewed. Gina, do I have your permission to record the statement today? Yes. Gina did give Tim an alibi. Do you remember the day she went missing you at work? No, I was on my way to Tim's house because I went to his house after school. I passed her. She was running. I saw her. When you went to his house that day, was Tim there? Yeah. He was there the entire time? Yeah. Tim and Gina spent the rest of the day together, and he couldn't have done anything to hurt Mandy. This case took almost 30 years to get to trial. To me, a trial is where I really love to be. All right. Finally getting underway was such a relief to me.

The evidence will show that Mandy was abducted. We can tell you where it happened. My theory is, as Mandy set out to do her five-mile run with the dog. About a quarter of a mile from her house where there's a wooded area. It's very secluded. And that's where Tim is waiting for her to run by. He grabs her, gets her in the car. She was taken approximately six miles south to an isolated location where she was raped. I think she tried to get away by running away naked, wearing only her shoes and socks. He caught up with her and hit her in the head, knocked her out. Either struck in the head or pushed into a tree, and then she was placed in the river where she was drowned. The defendant's DNA was inside her, and we know that she was kidnapped, she was raped, and then she was killed. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Tim Bass is not guilty. He didn't kidnap anyone. He didn't rape anyone, and he certainly didn't kill anyone. Evidence of sexual contact? Certainly not evidence of murder. Timothy Bass's defense attorneys were trying to say that just because his DNA matched that found in Mandy's body, it doesn't necessarily mean that he killed her.

Day two in the Timothy Bass murder trial, Mandy Stavik's mother took the stand 30 years after her teenage daughter was found dead. She was here every day of the trial, and she wanted to know what happened to her daughter. It was painful as it was. She wanted the answers. Good morning, Ms. Stavik. Good morning. Good morning. Mary is 82, and the judge said the jury is going to come in and everybody's going to stand, but you don't have to. You can remain seated while that happens, all right? I can stand up. You're going to be okay? I'm fine. Okay, whatever you feel comfortable doing. Well, if everybody else is standing up, I think I'll stand up too. Madam Baylor? Mary said I'm going to stand. And she did. And the sheriff came to my door and said that they'd found her body. Everybody tells me I did really well. Ms. Stavik, I have just a few questions. I decided that before I went up there that I would answer every question they asked as briefly and as well as I could. Did you ever see her with Tim Bass? No. One of the things I did with the witnesses I called, I asked each of them if they had ever seen Mandy with Tim Bass.

No, never. We wouldn't hang out with them at all, ever. The main point was they didn't know each other. They didn't hang out together, they didn't run in the same circles. Mr. Mcechren, would you like to call your next witness? The most devastating testimony against Tim Bass came from Tom Bass, his younger brother. Good afternoon, Mr. Bass. Tim's brother, Tom, who was a few years younger than Tim, testified against him. Do you swear affirm to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and all matters here before the court? Tom is a solid person. Is it difficult for you to be here testifying today? Very much so. When I met with Tom, Tom said, Well, he did come up and want me to lie about it. And I told him, No. Exhibit 65. When investigators came to Timothy Bass to question him and to ask him to submit a DNA sample, he immediately went to his younger brother, Tom, and said, Tom, they're after me. He was very nervous, very anxious. And he said, The reason I'm so worried, I'm so anxious, is that I slept with Mandy. I said, What? Yeah, I slept with Mandy.

And he said, I was hoping that you could maybe say that you slept with her too. He said, Look, if you could say you had sex with her, that would help to try to make her look like a loose girl. I said, How long did this go on? He said, Oh, we slept together a couple of times before she went to college. And then once when she came back on Thanksgiving-19, and then they were on a team-long break. He asked his brother, Do you believe me? And the brother was shocked, just shocked at this. Tom must have realized right then and there that something terrible was going on. He testified at the trial and, Oh, this ain't good. He's asking people to lie for him. Thank you, Tom. I have no further questions, John. I can't imagine going against my brothers. I mean, it's the heart of loyalty, right? It's a band of brothers. People understand and appreciate that a brother is not going to flip on another brother unless they truly believe that their brother is guilty of doing something horrible. State what next called Gina Malone. Were you previously married to the defendant, and they came to pass.

Yes. I filed for divorce. I only saw him one time in jail. By the time Gina Bass walked into that courtroom, there's a lot of change in her life. Gina came forward and said that her alibi that she originally told us was false. I believe Gina was providing his alibi to protect herself. And once she felt secure and safe herself, then she could actually tell the truth. After the police came, he told me that I need to lie and say that I was with him that day. And he said, Otherwise, I'm going to go to prison. I felt like I just have to agree with everything he's saying because if I don't, I could be next. Do you have any memory of being at the Bass House the day after Thanksgiving at all? No, I wasn't a strong person back then. I just was very weak, but I should have gone with my gut instinct. All of today was taken up by these closing arguments. Just a few hours ago, the defense wrapped up this afternoon. This is an investigation that was set up for 30 years based on the faulty assumption that this is a sexual assault, and that is the fundamental error in this case.

They could not refute the fact that the DNA found on Mandy's body belonged to their client, Tim Bass. There was no denying that. They had to say, Look, it was consensual relationship. They were trying to tell the jury that they very well could have ignored or excluded the real killer. Everyone in Waucom County was calling in to say, I saw somebody acting strange. You need to go talk to this guy. All of those suspects were excluded based purely and simply on the fact that their biological evidence did not match the semen that was taken from Ms. Stabic. I found their theory and their statement a little insulting. Not a little, a lot of insulting for the fact that we had it all wrong. We take a lot of pride in our work. I was so eager to get back up and respond to it. I could hardly wait. They would have you believe that somehow there was some snuck out of the house and had some sexual liason with this guy. Do you believe that? Do you believe that that could happen? When we bring cases in, we don't expect people to leave their common sense in their cars.

How did the DNA get into Mandy Stavik from this defendant? And the only explanation was when he raped her after he abducted her, and then he killed her. The defendant's DNA was there, and I'm asking you to hold him accountable. Couple of arguments just finished in the trial of a 30-year-old murder case in Wadcom County. The jury will decide whether or not Timothy Bass raped and killed 18-year-old Mandy Stavik. When the jury leaves, I always feel apprehension. You never know. It's almost waiting for a lab test to see if you have cancer or not. I understand that the jury has reached its verdicts. Would you please-We, the jury, find the defendant, Timothy Forrest Bass, guilty of the crime of murder in the first degree as charged in count one. When they read the verdict, I felt like somebody knocked the wind out of me. I felt like I was holding my breath for 30 years. I can't even describe the relief when he was found guilty. Thank you, Madam clerk. I thought, Hooray, the guy's going to get what's coming to him. I give Dave McEchren a lot of credit. He is something, and bless his heart.

He told me day one that he was not going to give up until this was finalized, and we owe him the credit. Mr. Bass, before the court imposes a sentence, you have a right to address the court about any aspect of this case. I would first like to say that I'm 100 % innocent of this crime. I wish no ill will towards anyone here, not even today. But I am having a hard time for this. Timothy Forrest-Bass, I impose the maximum sentence of 320 months in the custody of the Washington State Department of Corrections. I feel like I've been in prison these last 28 years. Now it's his turn. I just feel blessed that I got to work on the case, and I got some closure for the community, for the family. Mandy was special. She really was. I don't know why she was or how she got to be the way she was. That's just the way she was. I go back to the lyrics of the song, and in our hearts you'll always be a very special memory, Mandy. And that is true. It was true then, and it's true now. And that's the way it was community-wide with all of us, it will keep going.

That's the legacy. Mandy will always live on. I learned that the living have to go on to honor the goodness in what you've lost. This is Deborah Roberts. As of 2023, Tim Bass is serving his sentence of just under 27 years in prison. He's been unsuccessful in appealing his conviction. Thanks for listening to the 2020 True Crime Vault. We hope you'll tune in on Friday nights at nine o'clock for all new broadcast episodes of 2020 on ABC.