Real Names: Jennifer Marie Bastian
Nicknames: Jenny, Jenni
Location: Tacoma, Washington
Date: August 4, 1986
Case[]
Details: Thirteen-year-old Jenny Bastian vanished on August 4, 1986. At 2:30pm, she left her home in Tacoma, Washington, to ride her bike thirty blocks to Point Defiance Park and then go back home. She was training for a YMCA bicycle tour in the San Juan Islands. Before leaving, she left a note saying that she would be home by 6:30pm. Several witnesses saw her at the park later that day.
When Jenny did not return home that evening, her family called the police. An extensive search of the park was conducted, but no trace of her was found. Three weeks later, on August 26, a jogger reported smelling a "strong odor" while running through the park. Two days later, on August 28, a group of joggers found her body hidden in brush in a wooded area near Five Mile Drive and Commencement Bay. She had been raped and strangled. Her bike was found in the brush nearby.
This case is often linked to that of twelve-year-old Michella Welch. She had vanished from Puget Park in Tacoma in March 1986, four months before Jenny. She also had been riding her bike at the time. Her body was found in a gulch in the park the same night she vanished.
Suspects: Witnesses told police they had seen a man between the ages of twenty-five and thirty following Jenny while she rode her bike along Five Mile Drive.
Police suspected that convicted child killer David Fisher was involved in Jenny's murder. He killed thirteen-year-old Laura Burbank after befriending her in Tacoma in 1970. He escaped from prison in 1974.
Extra Notes:
- This case first aired on the December 6, 1989 episode, which focused on Fisher. Those of Carla Wright and Michella Welch were also featured.
- It was excluded from the FilmRise release of the Robert Stack episodes.
- It, alongside Michella's, was documented on an episode of Dateline, On the Case with Paula Zahn, and Cold Case Files after it was resolved.
Results: Solved. Fisher was arrested as a result of the broadcast but was later ruled out in this case. For years, police suspected that Jenny and Michella were killed by the same man. Although there was DNA evidence found in Michella's case, initially, there was none in Jenny's. However, in 2013, detectives decided to test the swimsuit Jenny was wearing that day. A male DNA profile was discovered; surprisingly, it did not match the DNA from Michella's case. As a result, police were certain that they had been killed by different people. Composites were made of the killers based on their DNA profiles.
On May 10, 2018, sixty-year-old Robert Dwane Washburn was arrested and charged with first-degree murder in his case. He was arrested in Eureka, Illinois, and then transferred to Pierce County Jail to face charges. He had been a suspect in this case from the beginning. At the time of the murder, he lived two miles from Point Defiance Park and a few blocks from the Bastian home. He frequented Point Defiance Park, often jogging there.
Washburn first came to police attention in May 1986 when he called to report seeing a jogger fitting the description of Michella's killer. When investigators interviewed him in December 1986, he told them he jogged in Point Defiance Park almost twice a day and thought he saw Michella's killer while jogging along Five Mile Drive. He also said he was in the park after Jenny disappeared and noticed a "foul smell" off Five Mile Drive, where her body was later found. It is not known if he was the jogger that originally reported a "strong odor" that led to her body being discovered.
When police reinvestigated this case in March 2017, they contacted Washburn and asked him for a DNA sample. Surprisingly, he voluntarily submitted one. In May 2018, his DNA was matched to the DNA found on Jenny's body and clothing. He was arrested a few days later.
In January 2019, Washburn pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in this case. He confessed that while she was riding her bike in the park, he grabbed her by the arm and led her into the woods. He then sexually assaulted and strangled her. As a result of his plea, he was sentenced to twenty-seven years in prison.
In June 2018, DNA testing identified Michella's killer as Gary Hartman; he was arrested and later convicted of her murder.
Links:
- Search for girl focuses on park - August 7, 1986
- Officials still searching for missing girl - August 7, 1986
- Posters held last hope for many - August 30, 1986
- Police identify body as Bastian - August 31, 1986
- Young girls' murders hint at serial killer - November 2, 1988
- 10 years later, girls' murders still baffling - August 7, 1996
- Anniversaries of a girl's slaying go by -- the grief ages more slowly - September 30, 2003
- Tacoma girls murdered in 1986 killed by different people, police say - April 1, 2016
- Tacoma police release composite images of suspects in 1986 slayings - April 7, 2016
- Suspect arrested in 1986 death of Tacoma girl, police say - May 10, 2018
- Suspected killer of Tacoma girl who disappeared in 1986 has been arrested - May 10, 2018
- Man charged in Jennifer Bastian's death voluntarily gave police his DNA - May 11, 2018
- Suspect in Tacoma cold case called investigators in 1986 with tip on unrelated murder - May 11, 2018
- Robert Washburn charged with murder in 1986 death of Tacoma's Jennifer Bastian - May 11, 2018
- Update in Bastian case: Tacoma police press conference - May 14, 2018
- Man gets 27 years for cold case murder of Tacoma girl Jennifer Bastian - January 25, 2019
- Man sentenced for killing Jennifer Bastian in Tacoma in 1986 - January 25, 2019
- Michella Welch and Jenni Bastian killings: Tacoma detectives never gave up cold case - April 5, 2019
- Jenny Bastian on Find a Grave
- Websleuths Discussion forum