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Right now, I am listening to The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires by Grady Hendrix, and I just cannot get enough of it.
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Hey weirdos, I'm Alayna.
I'm Ash. And this is Morbid.
It's Morbid. This is Morbid at Night.
Yeah, it is. witches morbid in the evening oh my god it's so funny because i went to i was gonna start singing with you and then i was like will she say at night or evening and then as you're about to say it i was like she's gonna say evening but see you knew i didn't join in you knew i didn't trust my goot you just knew that's because we're intuitive witches we are obviously we had a crazy tarot card reading.
Yeah we did. It was insane.
It solidified every single thing that I have been feeling and that I know you've been feeling and I cried at the end.
Clarity. I cried because I was so happy and I want to just like just wanted to cry.
You did. You cried.
I was she burst right into tears and she had good reason because that reading was wild.
It was crazy and the fact that I think that it ended with like a tarot card that's like really super special to me.
Yeah. It was a really cool one.
I've never really had a tarot card reading resonate as much as, I've had them resonate.
Yeah. But like never to the degree that this one did.
No. This one was knocking my socks off because we went in there saying, I'm not going to ask a specific question out loud.
I know what question I had in my head.
Like I'm going to think it in my head the whole time.
Yeah, I was thinking in my head, but I just said, you know what?
Just give me a general one.
and i feel like she was at first she was like i'm just gonna fly off the seat of my pants here you're giving me literally nothing she was like fuck you and then she started and she was like just hit right on it nail on the head and mikey came with us and his reading was perfect and like all of ours intertwined in a weird way yeah dave me and drew ours intertwined it was really well but so that was happy so that's a thing yeah you know that was a happy thing um this is a sad thing I it's so tough to like transition I know whenever like guys we're like hey let me tell you about my day and then it's
like let me get into this really sad thing yeah but you know what you just gotta make it make the transition happen I suppose yeah a sagoo if you will isn't that an and that's why we drink ism oh is it yeah I think that's a M and Christine ism oh I mean i love that i love it i love that and i love them i love that and i love all of them and it's gemini season so like shout out to and that's why we drink if you don't listen to them you must live under a rock and you should move that rock and go listen to them yeah go listen to them they're great honestly but um yeah i do have a really sad case
for us today um but at the same time it the way that this case turns around is crazy and it like feels very fateful okay in my opinion all right so we're going to start off in late november of 1989 okay college freshman mandy stavik was returning to her hometown of acme washington she was going to celebrate the holidays with her family and on the afternoon of the 24th obviously which was back then or back then back back then, in that year.
It was the day after Thanksgiving.
Mandy told her family that she was going for a run.
But she never returned that evening.
Her mom became very, very concerned and called around to her friends, but literally none of those friends had heard from her.
And when she still hadn't returned the next morning, panic set in entirely, and the search began so who is mandy stavik amanda mandy theresa stavik was born on april 16th 1971 in anchorage alaska oh which is that's just like the most fun fact ever also if you look her up gorgeous that she has a smile yes like i immediately just went because it just like it's like one of those smiles that like just hit you and she just seems and like i'm obviously gonna get into it she just seems like a cool chick and somebody who not only would have but desperately wanted to leave her mark on this world and she
did yeah but i wish she had more of an opportunity to be in this world longer because she would have done absolutely incredible things like truly but yeah she was born in anchorage alaska one of four children born to parents glenn and mary stavik um the The Stavik family wasn't a dysfunctional family at all, but by the time Mandy was born, Glenn and Mary's marriage was kind of showing signs of strain, and they decided to divorce three years later in 1974.
It really sadly seemed to be one unfortunate event in their family that kind of set off a series of unfortunate events.
I feel like everybody kind of knows that family that has gone through so much more than their fair share of like what they should have to there's always that one family that you're like why and it's always the best people i was just gonna say and it's always the people that you're like come on like no like this family's great why are they like shouldering all this shit and every time they go through something you're like have they not gone through enough yeah when does it end oh my god and that's the thing the stavik seemed to be one of those families because just Just one year after Glenn and Mary
divorced, Mandy's 16 -year -old brother Brent, he was shot multiple times in the head and the chest in Anchorage by an unknown killer while he was out bow hunting.
Glenn, the father, told reporters in 1989, as far as the circumstances, they've never found any clues or any reason for the murder.
Wow. Never, never found out what had happened.
Did this family go through all of this?
I have no idea because a few years later, like a number of years later in 1988, Mandy's stepbrother Spencer also died in an accidental drowning case.
What? Yup. Oh, this family.
It's a lot. So I think, I don't know, I don't know really like what sparked the decision, but part of me wonders if Mandy's mom was like, you know what?
i think we need a new area a fresh start and that's when they decided in 1983 to move the family from alaska to acme washington and that's how they ended up there now other than the tragedy and some of the disruptions like the move and the divorce mandy's childhood was pretty typical like aside from all the fucking craziness tragedy she was described as being smart confident and driven driven in ways that were just like not common among children.
Her mom said of her, Mandy has always liked to be involved in people's lives, even as a tiny baby, whatever was going on, there she was.
Which I was like, oh, and she also said that Mandy was not ever shy about one, knowing what she wanted, and two, setting out to get it.
She told reporters Mandy would never need need to take an assertiveness training class and she said that level of self -confidence sometimes rubbed people the wrong way but more often than not it got Mandy the respect and affection of those around her not only in school but in her community it's upsetting that it even rubbed some people the wrong way a confident woman like it upsets me rub some yeah the wrong way and it bums me out because it's like that's why people dull yeah shit oh it's usually for other people yup don't tell your shit for other people if people don't like it that's honestly
their own shit that they're gonna have to deal with don't don't dim your shit yeah don't dim your shit because if honestly like if you're a confident person and it pisses people around you off or people who like says like way more know you off that's fine that's their problem that's fine keep on keeping on what other people think of me is none of my fucking business exactly so never let it dull you i've seen that happen to people and it bums me out 100 and you know what i don't think mandy was one of those people yeah i think she was like i am who i am it sounds like she was that yeah it sounds
like she was like that that's just like yeah this is who i am and i'm confident how who i am and deal with it i don't think she had time for people that didn't like her i think she was just like okay they don't like and neither do you and i don't think like there was a lot of people that didn't like her you know yeah neither do you friends you don't have time for that you don't have time for that don't let it happen what do you what's your tattoo what's my it's only forever not long at all so we only got so much time here it's so funny because i remember when you got that i was like i don't know
if i get it the older i get the more it resonates yeah it really is because i i got it for that reason that it's like yeah it feels like you have forever but that's not long at all forever no matter what we don't know how long forever is for any of us immeasurable so make sure you're doing it your way exactly don't hurt anyone else but like ever do it your way yeah be confident be happy take a take a page out of mandy's book that's right because listen by the time she reached high school her tenacity and her determination and her just like sense of self was paying off she became a star on not one
sport team team multiple sports teams hell yeah she played varsity basketball softball she did track she did cross country i checked those are different different seasons and she did cheerleading because at first i was like she did track and cross country cross country aren't those the same and then i was yeah those are those are different different but honestly i didn't know that until very recently fun fact and so so she played all of those sports but for her she actually She actually had trouble with basketball when she first started.
And the first time she tried out for the high school team, she actually didn't make it.
Oh, wow. And her mother said that she was absolutely devastated by that.
But she spent a ton of time working on it.
She went to a basketball camp that summer to hone in on her skills, you know.
And sure enough, made the fucking team the next year.
That's my girl, Mandy.
cundy that is my girl outside of school too she was an avid swimmer and she eventually trained as a lifeguard at the watcom family ymca and also worked there part -time as a daycare instructor damn she was really doing it she was really doing it this is what i mean when i say like i can't imagine what she would have offered the world that's the thing i'm like she was taking even as much time as she was here she was already taking full advantage making the most world like she was already being like i'm gonna do all the things hell yeah this i have to say like getting to know her and finding this story i
really it was inspiring like i was like yeah i need to do shit like i need to try shit i don't know how long we're all here for like it really was forever Forever, not long at all.
It's such a good quote.
Yeah. Now, the thing is, she also wasn't just good when it came to sports.
She also worked really hard in school and she made honor roll almost every single semester.
By the time she had made it to her senior year, she had decided actually that she really wanted to become a commercial pilot.
Oh, okay. She was like, yeah, I just want to fly planes.
I just want to fly through the sky.
That's just what I want to do.
I've said it before.
I'll say it again. pilots fucking amaze me truly you're flying you're flying a giant thing through the sky i'm going on a flight tomorrow so i don't like i don't want to like think about it too much no it's amazing it's incredible it's a it's awesome i love pilots yeah i love pilots planes are amazing it's an amazing thing planes pilots all of that aviation aviation as a whole is a really wild miraculous thing i was like planes pilots pizzazz pizzazz precipitation even even.
Yeah, there's a chance of that, a chance of precipitation.
So yeah, she wanted to be a pilot and that was her full intention when she enrolled at Central Washington University in the fall of 89.
However, she changed her mind after doing a couple of flights when she was like, you know what?
I actually don't think flying is my favorite thing in the world.
Okay. She tried it.
Exactly. Exactly. And she did a hard switch and changed her major to nutrition.
Damn. That is a hard switch. Just a hard switch. But I feel like she's so multifaceted.
I was going to say, she seems very like just she likes a lot of things.
Yeah. And she's good at a lot of things.
Like she can play any sport.
Hit it all. She can do great in school every semester.
She can volunteer at the YMCA.
She can also be a daycare worker, try her hand at flying a plane.
Eh, I don't know about that.
How about nutrition?
Sure, I'll do that too.
I mean, how many among us will try shit?
Not a lot of people.
A lot of people don't.
It takes me. It's hard for me to try shit.
So that's really impressive.
Exactly. And her mom said it wasn't really the field of study that mattered the most. But that, quote, what Mandy wanted more than anything else was to leave the world a little bit better of a place.
That hurts my heart.
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My Mochi. so on november 22nd 1989 mandy and her roommate from school yoko they caught a ride with mandy's ex -boyfriend rick sender i think it sounded like they were still on pretty good terms okay um so they he was driving them home basically back to mandy's mom's house in acme washington for thanksgiving break or i don't know winter break i didn't i dropped out of college Like, I don't want to break that ice.
But once Mandy and Yoko had settled in at Mandy's house, they headed to the gym at Mount Baker High School so that Mandy could meet up with some of her friends, some of her old teammates, and just kind of like, you know, your home for Thanksgiving.
Yeah. That's the first thing you do is you want to see your old friends.
Of course. So, like I said, next day was Thanksgiving, and Mandy, Yoko, excuse me, Mandy and Yoko spent the whole day with Mandy's family, never left the house.
Okay. Had a nice Thanksgiving.
Now the next day, Friday, November 24th, Mandy and Yoko had a lazy morning, hung around the house.
Of course they ate some leftovers.
We love Thanksgiving leftovers.
They went for a short walk and later that night they had plans to go to a movie with a couple of Mandy's friends from high school, Brad Gorham and his friend, Tom Bass.
Now Mandy knew that she wasn't going to have a lot of time later in the day since she had those plans.
So she decided to to go for a run a little earlier than she usually would have like she was she was a runner she loved to run now so she headed out a little after 2 p .m that afternoon from what i saw the most it was anywhere between two and three that afternoon okay and she took the family dog with her now and uh the family dog was kira which is a great safety precaution totally 100 so mandy and kira headed west on strand road which was the same way that mandy always started her run she had literally been doing this exact route since high school now about an hour later mandy's brother lee and his friend
saw her running back up strand road just about five or ten minutes away from their house so it kind of seemed like she was finishing up the run but when lee got home just a little bit after that there was no sign of mandy and no sign of kira okay and he was like that was weird i just saw her like kind of thought she'd be home by now but a few hours passed and at that point mary mandy's mom started to panic she was like something's not right here like she would she would not do this and lee had seen his sister like i said pretty much approaching the house at the end of her run so it was weird that it
had now been hours and this was not something she did like i was just saying like she would not just disappear for a long period of time and not check check in with anybody.
And even weirder, because like I said, she'd specifically gone out on this run early so that she had time for her movie plans that night.
Yeah. So this doesn't make sense.
Nothing is adding up here.
So Mary, she doesn't want to jump to conclusions.
She's not going to like go straight to the police and be like, she's missing.
So she starts to call around to Mandy's friends, but none of them had seen her or even heard from her that day.
So since she wasn't having any luck with that she and lee went out in her car to retrace mandy's usual route but they came back a short time later because they still there was no sign of mandy and then something i can't even imagine like being in this situation and then this happens haunting absolutely haunting oh god kira returned oh no back to the house oh i hate that but she was Not with Mandy, obviously.
And she was looking.
She didn't look herself like she looked afraid of something.
Something had affected her.
She was described as cowering and she had her.
This is a quote, tail tucked and with river silt covering part of her hind quarters, which they were like, what?
Like, why is she dirty?
And what is she like?
Something bad happened.
She's scared. No, this is horrifying.
It's terrifying. So at this point now, Mary is freaking out.
And at that point, Brad Gorham, Tom Bass, and Rick Zender had all shown up at the house to pick up Mandy and Yoko for their movie night.
They had no idea. Yeah.
So they all headed out one more time to retrace her route, check a couple other places.
Still no sign of her.
so mary did end up calling the police a little after 5 30 p .m that night to report her daughter missing i just like i can't imagine being in those shoes and i hope i never ever ever have to be i can't even fathom but like to report your kid missing like i can't no i can't even put myself there it's horrible you just want to hug these parents so much and it's just like it's i feel like this this story in particular is such a good example of how fast things can change oh yeah had plans that night she was supposed to go back to school she was just home for a little bit yep she went out for a run
that she had always gone on yep and then never came back it's like a blink and everything is different it's so scary yeah it's horrifying but the thing is luckily especially especially for it being the time that it was, luckily the sheriff's department actually took Mary's concerns seriously, and they weren't like, oh, she's just a runaway.
Yeah, because that's infuriating.
And they immediately engaged Whatcom County Search and Rescue and Alan Pratt, who worked with them, and Alan Pratt was actually known as a human tracker.
He had, like, a rep for finding people.
Imagine being known for that.
That would be an honor.
Yeah. So he got information from the family about the usual running route, and he went out to track mandy's movements and he did this until he came up to a spot about a quarter mile away from the stavik house and he noticed quote a disturbed spot on the shoulder of the road and as far as he could tell quote there were several footfalls which looked like somebody had been walking or wrestling around or something i hate this this was unsettling yeah i was just gonna say i feel very unsettled by this yeah and he also noticed in this area the grass along the side of the road seemed to have also been
disturbed and there was a good amount of river silt discovered in the ditch by the grass just like the kind that was on Kira's bum oh no so based on the scene and the fact that obviously there's still no word from Mandy by the next day the police changed the status of the case from missing person to presumed abducted which that That must have been like a devastating blow to her family.
So by Saturday afternoon, there was a massive search for Mandy.
It seemed like the entire town of Acme had joined the search. There were people on foot, people looking out on horseback.
There were search and rescue teams flying above the area.
People were in planes, helicopters.
Like you name the mode of transportation or anything, people were there looking.
She was very well known in this community.
she was very liked and she had only graduated from high school six months earlier so people were very concerned for her safety she's a child she's so young yeah her high school principal robert moore told reporters this is not the type of gal who just takes off on her own no and i don't mean she's a child like she's a young woman but it's like she's so young but she is so young you know now and then also uh district superintendent william bolton added this is a very level -headed kid something here is not right oh and that's the thing like she was involved in her community everybody knew her like
this wasn't one of those that you can even think like maybe maybe she did like absolutely not there's there was no doubt in anybody's mind something yeah and it's the fact that she went earlier too to make her plans that evening it's like that's come on and like her roommate from school is at the house with her like yeah if she She wasn't, you know what I mean?
She wasn't taken off.
No. So her disappearance, it was extra disheartening for the small community of Whatcom County because just four months earlier, 23 -year -old Diane Reeves had also disappeared without a trace.
Police found her car on a forest service road about 14 miles away, but no sign of Diane.
Oh, geez. And before Mandy went missing, Diane was the latest woman in a string of four or five disappearances or murders that occurred in the area.
So now residents were seriously concerned for their safety and their children's safety.
One resident named Donna Bolton, she commented, you just don't think of something happening like that around here.
And Mary Stavik agreed, saying, this is just the kind of quiet rural neighborhood where any of us would never think that our children wouldn't be safe.
That's always the worst. Like, it's a quiet town.
Yeah, nothing ever happens that way.
It's so messed up. It's like you just can't predict it.
No. And I feel like these predators know that it's a quiet town where nothing ever happens.
Yeah. So they're not going to be suspected in this town.
People aren't being extra vigilant because they don't have to be.
Exactly. So as we know, Mandy had gone missing Friday afternoon, full blown search by Saturday, like all day Saturday.
And by Saturday night, the search upgraded to what Whatcom County Sheriff Larry Mount described as an all out criminal investigation of a presumed abduction.
Oh, geez. Now, in addition to the local police, the friends and the family that were searching and search and rescue teams, the search efforts would eventually include a mounted Whatcom County Sheriff's posse, a U .S. Customs airplane, a U .S. Border Patrol agent and several scent dogs.
Wow. like they were looking for her yeah but by sunday they still had not found mandy still had not found even a clue as to where she could be oh my god that's awful and the thing was poor parents oh my god i can't imagine and searchers had combed through like the heavily wooded area near her running route but by sunday the sheriff's department announced unless new developments occur, no further ground search is planned because they had basically searched all the areas nearby and instead investigators at that point wanted to turn their attention to the Nooksack River.
One team would be dragging the river and the other would search around the perimeter.
Okay. So while search teams worked the river, the Stavik family turned to the media to make a plea to Mandy's kidnappers.
Mary told everyone tuning in, Mandy is a real special person.
She's one of these people who wants to leave the world a better place.
The world needs her.
Whoever's got her, don't hurt her.
We need her back. She's got things to do.
Oh, like I've read that a million times and I have chills.
I was just going to say goosebumps.
Just like, please don't hurt her.
We need her. She's got things to do.
Oh, oh, that just keeps that gives me full chills.
It's just it's gut wrenching.
So with the days passing and literally not a single update in the case, the community was feeling not only fear but helpless like they want to help this family and they can't they're unable to yeah so they decided to direct their energy because they they could help you know toward collecting donations for a reward fund and in less than 24 hours less than a full day they had raised over eight thousand dollars oh my god and it was comprised mostly of donations ranging from 10 to 50 dollars.
Wow. So that's how many people were willing to put in yeah some cash.
That tells you something.
And the funds organizer Jim Kyle wanted Mandy's family to know that they were supported and wanted the world to know that this community was not going to let something like this happen without putting up a big fight.
Damn. So even with the community backing her though Mary was starting to lose hope at this point as the investigations going on.
And on the the second full day of searching, she told reporters earlier today, I felt really strongly that she was okay.
Now I don't know. Oh, that just ruined me.
Now, any kind of hope that anybody had was unfortunately shattered on the morning of November 27th.
Mandy's body was discovered on a sandbar in the Nooksack River.
It was about three and a half miles from where she was last seen jogging.
Wow. Which was very very close to her home.
Yeah. She was found completely nude which is awful and Sheriff Mount told reporters that the cause of death was not immediately apparent and added that quote there were few marks on her body.
So the case immediately was labeled a homicide obviously because of the circumstances leading up to this discovery and now because of the state that she's been found in.
Yeah. So the sheriff let the press us in the community know as much and said we know the beginning and we know the end we do not know the middle at all oh so from the killing it really is this whole case is just so chilling so from the moment her body was found the investigators were at a pretty big disadvantage it was very clear that mandy hadn't been killed where she was found so they still had no crime scene and worse there had been a lot of heavy rainfall in the days since she'd gone missing So there was a pretty good chance that critical evidence was gone at that point.
That's so frustrating.
Washed away. It's awful.
So knowing that they were at this disadvantage and given the nature of this case and the other recent disappearances, the sheriff's office called in the local office of the FBI, which I think was the smartest move they could have made.
Yeah, absolutely. They wanted the FBI's assistance in evaluating whether Mandy's death was related to these other crimes, and if so, to help develop a profile for the person responsible.
So while the sheriff's office coordinated with other agencies, deputies got to work tracking the only lead that they had so far, which was a suspicious vehicle spotted by several residents around the time that Mandy had disappeared.
appeared according to the sheriff the deputies were looking for a black or brown full -size chevrolet or ford style pickup with a matching canopy and a gold stripe so pretty like that's that's a good description i was gonna say that's really detailed so at least there's that you just think whenever it's oh yeah whenever they have to give the description of a vehicle you're just like yeah like what happened you know what i mean like when it gets that far you're just like i hate that that somebody had to remember that vehicle.
Exactly, because what did they see that made them remember that?
Yeah, exactly. It's just like, oh.
It gives me chills.
How many cars do you pass throughout the day and you think absolutely nothing?
I always think that.
But then you pass one and you're like, I should remember that.
Exactly. Because something happens that you're like, I need to remember that.
Yeah, and like I couldn't tell you one car I passed by today.
Oh my god, no, we were driving.
Couldn't name it. Except the purple truck.
Except the purple truck because it was purple.
Exactly. And I couldn't tell you anything else about it.
No. And that's the thing.
I think about that all the time, especially after I've just like gotten done with a case.
I'm like, I need to be more vigilant.
I know. It's so hard. It is.
Now, so the day after Mandy's body was found, the autopsy was conducted by Whatcom County Medical Examiner, Dr. Gary Goldfogel, I think is how you say it.
One of the first things he noted was that Mandy's body appeared to be covered in what is quoted as long scratches on her legs, buttocks, and arms. arms and there were more scratches on the front of the body than there were on the back so because a lot of the scratches were parallel it indicated that mandy was alive when she'd got at them gotten them to the medical examiner and it also indicated that she'd been in motion when she got these scratches because they were parallel yeah um and the medical examiner noted that they were quote consistent with someone running through brush such as the blackberry
bushes found along the riverbank where mandy's body was found god so she was running yes oh now her body showed no signs of defensive wounds no evidence of strangulation and there was no other dna or evidence found underneath her fingernails there was however a significant blunt force trauma injury to her forehead and the doctor believed that it would have been that excuse me that it would have caused a very significant concussion but he wasn't able to say whether or not mandy ever lost consciousness so ultimately he identified the cause of death as a freshwater drowning oh my god because she
had been knocked unconscious and then thrown in the river oh yeah and noted that the time of death was between 3 30 and 4 30 p .m it's awful so during the autopsy this is a bit graphic and i just want to let you guys know that uh he did find semen in mandy's body and quote based on the sperm count concluded sexual intercourse had occurred no more than 12 hours before her death oh my god she had been raped and given the circumstances he was comfortable saying that's what had happened It was a rape.
And so the semen sample was collected and sent to the state's FBI office and the Washington State Patrol crime lab for analysis, where a DNA profile would later be created.
But remember, this is barely the 90s at this point.
DNA had not come that far yet.
Yeah. They have it and that's great.
But it's not where it is now.
Not at all. It's not like they ran it through some system and it was like, ding, ding, ding, here's your guy.
That's the thing. Stop suicide.
Yes. It's great that they have the DNA.
It's great that they know what it is at this point.
But like what to do with it is kind of a different story at this point.
exactly so now they knew the cause and the approximate time of death but other than that again investigators are stumped and not finding much of anything else they spent hours combing the banks of the nooksack and the surrounding area but they did not find anything that indicated where mandy was kidnapped from where she was attacked or who had taken her and the deputy Speedy coroner, no, sorry, the deputy, like an officer, Tim Ortner, said of the person who did this, quote, he either has to know the area or he's the luckiest son of a bitch in the world.
Yeah, I'm going to go with knows the area.
I'm not going to tell you.
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So while investigators struggled to find who did this, the community in Whatcom County continued just reeling from the news of this latest murder.
One resident told reporters, It's so damn frustrating.
I've wondered how many times I've talked to him, meaning the killer, this weekend.
end i look around and wonder and high school student pete stewart told reporters it makes you think twice now before you go out walking alone it makes you think what a crazy world it is out there and a lot of residents in this town started locking doors that they'd never bothered with in the past like this was a town where you were safe enough to not have to lock your back door your front door not even think about it something like this changes everything yeah and people were going out and buying guns for protection like arming themselves because they They were scared.
Yeah. Because remember, she's not the first girl to go missing.
Yeah. This seems to have been a pattern around there.
Exactly, which is interesting because I will tell you that they're actually not related.
Oh, wow. Or they don't.
They don't believe it's related?
They don't believe it's related.
So days later, after a report of a young woman being nearly abducted elsewhere in the county, another one, public fear prompted the sheriff's office to make a public statement regarding the risk of human predators.
senators speaking to reporters the criminal deputy uh dean sandel i think is how you say his name he said the citizens of watcom county should be aware of the hazards and risks involved in their daily lives the sheriff sheriff's office recommends that they try to avoid situations that put them in a state of high risk these situations include walking or jogging alone especially late at night and in unlit areas which is true but mandy went for a jog in the middle of the afternoon I was just gonna say like all that is absolutely true she wasn't alone she was in a well -lit area she was in her own
fucking neighborhood there was literally no there was nothing that would have made her think that she would be even slightly unsafe no nothing the time the the having a darkness or lightness of day bringing a dog with her having people know where she was going she did everything right everything that's the thing and sometimes you that's what happens we've done these stories a million times where you do you do everything right and it's still yeah and the so the sheriff's office also reminded residents to be vigilant in their awareness of strangers in the area and they specifically noted including
men who are reportedly watching young women or children especially near schools and bus stops so this community was like in crisis huge edge like i can't imagine living in this community at this this time i wouldn't i don't think i would leave my fucking house no and now by december tips were coming in non -stop about mandy's murder the detectives were actually said to be receiving almost 30 calls an hour while they were on the job and outside of work they were getting tips called into their personal lines like their home lines which it's like maybe don't do that yeah don't do that but unfortunately
these tips were not very helpful in helping investigators narrow down the pool of potential suspects and at that point the pool included just about anybody in town that they hadn't ruled out yet that's not great rough now the best lead investigators had was a description of a man seen in the area around the time that mandy did go missing and the press described this man as the pudgy faced man he was described as being white in his early to mid 30s quote with a pudgy face and cheeks dark hair and a mustache and three to four days growth of beard so that's a pretty good description yeah it's not nice
to call people pudgy faced but if this is a murderer or whatever then call them whatever you want exactly so based on the information from the public who had seen this guy driving um a 1970s light brown station wagon in the area so kind of similar yep so they were able to put together a composite sketch and they circulated that in the news and around the community and also on ap wire but it failed to produce any viable leads a composite sketch wow now on december 3rd 1989 mandy was laid to rest at saint joseph mission cemetery in clipper which is a smaller town close by to acme acme and the funeral
and burial costs were actually paid from a fund that was set up by the administration of the acme elementary school so this community really banded around each other yeah and later that day they had a memorial service at the high school Mandy went to Mount Baker High and nearly a thousand people attended to pay their respects that I mean this all tells you something about her it does and it gives me chills as I say it and this family yeah and this community exactly in the whole community like even though they're they are in crisis right now like I would want to be a part of this community if if I
was in crisis you know absolutely It seemed like you could lean on your neighbor.
Yeah, seriously. And you would need to at this point.
Yeah. So any hope that the new year would bring a break in the case quickly faded.
The new year came and went.
Investigators were still trying, but they were coming up with nothing.
Now, in late January 1990, there was testing done on a pair of sweatpants that had been discovered during the initial search. The pants were believed to be Mandy's, but they weren't even completely sure that they were.
but in a statement to the press a spokesperson for the fbi crime lab told the reporters nothing that we received from this is certain so this is like wall after wall after wall and that's and it's like people are getting hope because they're like okay they're like that's unfortunately it was semen found we can test that we don't have much to do with it okay those sweatpants might be hers maybe that will help us like come up with a lead okay we have a composite sketch and it's just like nope no that's the thing it's not for lack of them doing a great job here yeah for them finding things and actually
like really moving this forward it's just it seems like every time they get something they just hit this massive wall it's so frustrating that's the thing and sadly none of Mandy's other clothing was ever discovered so they couldn't do testing on it and neither was the Walkman that she had taken with her on her jog so investigators they were also staying silent on whether mandy had been sexually assaulted like to the press they didn't want this getting out yeah they told the press at this time not information is only known to us and the perpetrator of the crime i think what they were trying to
do was keep things close to the chest and kind of suggest that there were certain aspects about this crime that were going to be able to be used to identify somebody during questioning yeah and And they weren't going to let that out.
Absolutely. But despite their best efforts up to that point, they had really only succeeded in ruling people out.
They had, they didn't really have suspects.
They were just ruling people out left and right.
And that's going to take a while.
And the composite sketch of the pudgy -faced man had still not produced any concrete leads.
Investigators weren't finding anybody who matched that description.
And, I mean, I would assume that they probably shaved their beard at that point.
Yeah, I would think so.
You know, or grew it even longer.
and in the weeks that followed the new year, a bunch of investigators ended up being taken off the case which was indicating that the case was getting cold but by March, the tide actually seemed to be turning in favor of the investigators when the sheriff's office announced that they had identified a person of interest in Mandy's case Sheriff Larry Mount told the press there's more than one suspect we're just waiting on lab results to help us decide whether we've been going in the right direction or the wrong direction.
And what he was referring to were hair and fiber samples collected from Mandy's body that they were hoping to tie to a suspect.
And they had also been collecting blood and saliva samples from suspects over the course of the investigation.
But those, again, were more useful in ruling people out than they were in helping.
Yeah, than actually identifying someone.
one so as the weeks passed and the lab results slowly came back from the crime labs the sheriff's investigators actually seemed further away still further away than they ever were in the first place and the announcement of a person of interest proved to be one of the last encouraging leads that investigators had in the hunt for mandy's killer so in march 1992 two years after the sheriff's office had made that announcement that person of interest was suing the county quote saying sheriff's deputies duped defamed and mistreated him whoa so according to paul malik who was that person of interest
who lived on strand road at the time of mandy's disappearance sheriff's deputies illegally arrested him and forcibly took hair and saliva samples from him And he said it was while six deputies held him down in the county jail.
He also claimed they never advised him of his rights.
They never allowed him to speak with his lawyer.
They never even showed him the search warrant that allowed them to take the samples.
Oof. And he said actually that he had gone to the police voluntarily thinking that he was one of the last people to see Mandy alive on the day she went missing.
Like he's thinking he's going to help.
Yeah. And then this is what happens.
i think they may have been getting desperate if what he says is true yeah and i wasn't there so i can't say yeah that's not great if that's what happened definitely not that's not how you want to go about an investigation because then the community's not going to trust you yeah but he told reporters at first i never uh i never considered i would be a suspect i firmly believe that it's only because i live in a dump and i was poor that i became a suspect who could not clear himself by merely proving where he was and by having a witness who could say they saw me leaving whoa he was like i think i
was kind of pinpointed here for all the wrong reasons now according to the former sheriff larry mount who was no longer sheriff when paul filed the suit quote he was told that malik initially resisted when deputies tried to get the samples and he also stated that deputies definitely did not use improper force and they were well within their rights to restrain him if need be okay um now actually walkum county sheriff's chief criminal deputy dean sandell agreed and he said the investigators took samples in the most unobtrusive way we could all right so i was not there so i don't know yeah i don't
know and actually it's kind of unclear if the suit was resolved oh how or if it ever really was or if it just got dropped but it was the last time that mandy's case received attention from the press for For many, many years.
That's upsetting. It is.
So as the years passed after Mandy's murder, luckily, DNA was coming a long way and had come a long way in its ability to identify suspects.
And especially, obviously, as we know, in cases involving sexual assault.
Yeah. And so a DNA profile had been developed from the semen collected during Mandy's autopsy right after.
but it wasn't until 2009 when the cold case was reopened that it did become useful to the investigators um and actually the scientific advances of dna profiling were what prompted detective kevin uh boa i think it's bohei to reopen the case he was actually now a veteran officer but he had just joined the uh the department why couldn't i say that right before Before Mandy went missing.
Oh, wow. Like he was a rookie, basically.
Oh, that's crazy. And he didn't know it yet, but he would become one of the few investigators to see the case all the way through from beginning to end.
That's cool. Because don't worry.
There's an end. There's an end.
Oh, thank goodness.
There's an end. And this fucker.
Thank you for telling us that, because it would really make me angry if this was like still open.
Sometimes I feel like when we get to this point, you do have to tell people just to be like, this is not still cold.
Like, I promise. Stay with us.
Stay with us. does have a good ending exactly so in the decades since the murder occurred bohe and other investigators had worked on a theory as to how the crime unfolded obviously they thought that mandy's abductor was most likely somebody she knew or at the very least was familiar with and they theorized that this person had pulled up alongside her while she was jogging and pointed a gun at her demanding that she get in the vehicle they figured once inside the vehicle this person drove about four miles away into a wooded area and that's where mandy was sexually assaulted and after that they
figured that she attempted to flee through the woods which is why her legs and her arms and everything got all scratched up um and they believed that the attacker was chasing her oh through the woods eventually caught up to her hit her in the head which caused that blunt force trauma to her forehead and then placed her in the river unconscious, causing her to drown.
Oh, my God. The most random and brutal attack.
That is horrifying.
That is something you see in a horror movie.
And we always say, like, okay, that's a lot.
Yeah, that's, well, and just for her family to have that kind of visual in their head is just like, oof.
That's a nightmare.
because i have the visual in my head right now and i can't even imagine how could you know that's a nightmare it it's so many people's nightmare actually so boe and his team went back to the original file and they reinterviewed every single person involved wow and they took dna samples from anyone living in the area at the time who would have had any contact with mandy that fall anybody that was willing to at that point yeah and eventually excuse me eventually the detectives collected more than 80 samples which of course were all going to have to be processed yeah and that's the thing with dna it's
like it's not like csi it's not like csi at all it's not like forensic files or it's like forensic files it's not like csi and those you know like sitcom kind of where the computer just goes like where it's like yeah and then it's like ding ding and it just finds someone within five seconds it takes time doesn't happen like there's waiting so So several more years went by and all throughout those years, Bowie and his team continued to chase down leads.
And one of those leads would eventually introduce them to an Acme resident named Timothy Bass.
Now, at the time of the murder, he actually would have been known to Mandy and her friends.
actually if his name sounded slightly familiar to you that's because his younger brother tom bass was one of the boys that mandy had plans to go to the movies with the night she disappeared oh my god yep what small town coincidence the fuck so but when the detectives went out to talk to tim who was the older brother not the boy she had plans with he acted like he wasn't quite sure who mandy even was at first shut up and given his proximity to the case the detective bowie found it pretty hard to believe that he wouldn't remember mandy yeah come on but still he was like oh let me fucking jog your
memory asshole and he said bass looked up kind of like he was searching his memory and then finally said oh that was the girl that was found in the river what like jesus christ dude be a little more fucking callous like how eloquent it's like yeah that was the girl from your community that was murdered yeah that's what you say like the girl who just graduated high school like barely out for a run yeah took all precautions like really like oh that's that girl that they found in the river like what the fuck is wrong with you but then on top of all that weirdness he also said he didn't really know
her he had no idea where she lived and he would absolutely not consent to giving any dna without a warrant oh so like look more guilty yeah come on so but the thing was they didn't have any physical evidence linking bass to the crime so it was going to be really fucking difficult to convince a judge to issue a search warrant or a warrant for the dna now coincidentally detective kevin boway was not the only one thinking about tim bass in 2013 because yes we are in 2013 at this point mandy was killed in 1989 damn her family went through so much suffered so much time and remember this is their second
child that has been killed and it's unsolved so in june of that year a group of mothers had gathered for a group outing to a local water park with their kids it was just a like community being community i don't now during a conversation between two of the mothers heather backstrom and merrily anderson the subject of mandy's death came up and they both talked about how surprised they were that the notorious case was still unsolved so they kind of talked about the case for a little bit you know like having a discussion and heather backstrom suddenly blurted out i know who killed her what and was surprised
when merrily reported or excuse me replied i do too i'm sorry what what ladies it turned out that they like they both they did not know for sure but they had an inkling but they were pretty sure because they both had really scary and rather unpleasant experiences with one timothy bass while they were younger and they had each had suspicions for years that he might be involved in mandy's i hope they get this fuck years later they were still freaked out by this guy who was still a part of their community so this motherfucker stayed in In his fucking community.
Just like whoever earlier was like, I wonder if I've talked to him this weekend.
Yeah, they definitely have. Now, according to Marilee, Tim Bass had been friends with her now husband while they were in high school.
And years later, he showed up at her house while she was home alone with her infant son.
Oh, God. And because he's friends with her husband, she's like, he's kind of creepy, but like, I don't know.
And he said he'd been hunting and he needed to use a phone.
And she's like, you're a friend.
Like, okay. Like, okay.
I don't love this situation, but, you know.
So having known him from high school, she led him into the house and pointed him in the direction of the phone.
But once he went in that direction, she could hear beeping from the phone, which proved that he hadn't made a call.
Like she knew he hadn't made a call.
so after that he stalked back through the kitchen and just walked up to her and told her he'd always been in love with her that he used to drive past her in her husband's house and that he wanted to make love to her she is home alone with her infant son i'm horrified and this man just shows up and he knew exactly what he was doing he didn't have a fucking call to make he's there he's there for this yeah and as we all know he's already raped somebody oh my god he is a dangerous motherfucker piece of shit piece of garbage she was like yeah that's not gonna be happening and in that moment realized
she'd made a huge mistake letting him into the house and kept trying to coerce her into her own bedroom oh my god and only left when she yelled at him that she was going to call the police if he didn't get the fuck out of there so luckily he got out of there thank goodness And probably because he was scared of her calling the police because he knew he had murdered someone.
He had murdered someone.
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So Heather Backstrom, the other friend who was talking at the water park that afternoon, she had a similar experience with tim bass only a few months before mandy was murdered oh god according to her she was only 15 years old at the time and she'd gone to a softball game just to like you know and she's getting a ride home from her friend dan who was also driving his friend 21 year old tim bass in the car remember she's 15 he's 21 21 21 years old holy shit so he was was 21 when he murdered this man jesus no spoiler alert now during the drive he started aggressively flirting with her she said he
would talk about my eyes and say they were beautiful then he took a pen out of a cup holder and would start rubbing it along my knees what the fuck being a fucking creeper now luckily dan being in the car her friend that was giving her the ride kept things things from escalating any further but she never forgot how predatory he seemed and she went out of her way to avoid him anytime she saw him what a disgusting pig and that's the thing it's like i feel like sometimes when a woman has an experience like that like aggressive flirting and like doing that weird thing to her knees some people will be
like what's like what why were you so freaked out oh yeah there's definitely there's definitely people that will say that like Like they minimize it.
Yeah. But as a woman, you know, when you're in a dangerous situation, like something happens to your body and you know.
There's alarm bells that immediately go off.
And I just wanted to say that because as I was writing it, I was thinking about people that would be like, I don't know.
Like that doesn't really sound that scary.
No. She was terrified.
She was 15. She was 15 years old and this 21 year old is touching her.
And she doesn't want to be touched and she doesn't want to be flirted with.
Yeah. Come on. So I just wanted to say that.
Just putting it out there.
Just putting it out there.
So at the time that each incident occurred, both of them felt powerless.
Like they were like, I don't know if this is even anything to report, really.
Yeah, like, I hate that.
It's so hard. It's so hard. And again, you're intimidated by people that are going to be like, what's the big deal?
Exactly. And you start questioning yourself, like, am I overreacting to this?
Yup. Please, if anything like this ever happens to you, you're not overreacting.
Any reaction you have is not an overreaction.
And that's the thing.
And if you feel like you are, it's okay.
Okay. If you feel unsafe, someone crossed your boundary and fuck them up.
Fuck them up. Fuck them up.
Fuck them up. So, still, in the wake of Mandy's death, those experiences made both of them wonder whether or not it was Tim Bass who had murdered Mandy.
But they knew that there was no evidence, that they probably wouldn't be taken seriously, and also if they were wrong, they would do irreparable damage to this guy's reputation, which probably isn't great, but like as is.
But they were like, I don't know.
What should we do? Yeah.
They didn't feel like they could report this.
But now they felt more empowered.
And it was kind of like in part of the validation of the two of them having a similar experience.
And so they decided to go and report it to the police together.
Which like, had they not gone to that water park together that day and gone to the police about Tim, I don't know if this case would have been solved.
Wow. Just two moms. This shit could be a movie.
It's crazy. I was going to say, this is like cinematic.
It is. The way that this is coming together.
It is. Truly. The way that they're just like sitting there.
I could picture their kids playing in the background and they're like having this deep discussion.
Yeah. And they decide to do something about it.
Hell yeah. And like I said, had they not, I don't know.
I don't know what would have happened.
So I might've lost my place.
Nope, I didn't. So the reports from Heather Backstrom and Mary Lee Anderson suggested to investigators that they were on the right track.
Because they had heard that name before.
They'd heard his name.
and now they're hearing it again from two women who had yucky experiences but the investigators their situation with tim still remained frustrating he was not providing any kind of dna sample and would not even speak to investigators further shady motherfucker shady motherfucker so now it's 2015 we fast forward and two more years have gone by six years after the case was reopened detective boway went back to tim bass because he's like i know i'm on the right track yeah i just gotta get there and he was like you know maybe in the past couple of years he changed his mind maybe i'll get some dna but he
still would not give dna he went years years something's wrong something is wrong here something's wrong so the exchange with boway actually did freak tim bass ass out to the extent that he told his brother, Tom, he was worried that he would become a suspect and that the reason he didn't want to submit a sample, and this is not true, don't even entertain this for a second.
He said he didn't want to submit a sample because he actually had had sex with Mandy while she was home for Thanksgiving break.
Shut the fuck up, you pig.
No, the fuck you didn't.
You actual pig. And even his brother didn't believe him because he was like, Mandy had had only been home for like two days at that point before she went missing one of which was thanksgiving and you're fucking disgusting and you're gross go away and he was like i don't even know how you would have had time to have such contact it's not possible and tim told his brother oh i just went up to her and i said oh you're keeping fit and that was it so he was like oh i just complimented her and it was that easy oh shut the fuck up go fuck yourself all this time goes by and he's this is the kind of shit
he's still pulling oh yeah after he's killed this woman yeah he is uh yeah i don't there's not even a word for what kind of filthy fucking monster he is like you're a piece of shit but then it actually gets worse then he asked his brother tim asks his brother tom if the police ask tom anything about this he wants tom to tell the police that tom also slept with mandy oh my god to make it seem like she slept around which she did not so he's just gonna sit there and shit all over her reputation knowing that he murdered he has brutally murdered her raped her you're disgusting chased her like to her
demise and threw her unconscious body into a fucking he's disgusting and that was not the the only bizarre conversation that went down within the bass family at that time according to tim's then wife gina malone who is no longer his wife oh good not long after the conversation that tim had with his brother he was actually talking to his mother sandra and asked her quote if they could agree to tell the police that bass's deceased father had killed mandy wow he wanted to pin this on his dead dad holy because and also it's like dude your dna will still look different yeah you don't have the exact
same dna my friend like oh my god that shows what's going on up there truly wow his mother was absolutely horrified at this and she's like what the fuck are you talking about oh my god she just apparently apparently according to gina she covered her face and just said no so i don't know about that what is that about that is some that's some shit that's some shit so meanwhile detective boway was endlessly frustrated with the lack of progress in the case because it's right there because that is exactly it is it's dangling in front of him and it's the old man that's like you You got to be quicker
than that. Yeah, it's truly like so close.
So he reaches out to Kim Wagner, who was the manager of the bakery store, the bakery store where Tim worked.
Oh my God. He was a delivery driver for a bakery store.
This man may have given you a fucking cake.
Hate it. But so he approaches the manager of the store and he's hoping he can get permission to swab the delivery trucks for touch DNA, which would be left by the driver, obviously.
so Kim Wagner told Detective Bowie that he would need to get permission from the corporate office, so she gave him the phone number for corporate headquarters, but they wouldn't allow it, which is bullshit, in my opinion.
I was like, that's, like, you're fucked up.
Yeah, no. So that stalled the case for another two years.
Oh, my God. So now we're in spring of 2017.
Holy shit. And Detective Bowie goes back to Kim, and he's like, can you provide the investigators with the general route that Tim drives.
Like, can you just do that?
Until then, he hadn't told her who he was investigating or why.
But this time, Wagner actually asked whether this was in relation to the Stavik murder.
And the detective confirmed, like, yeah, it was.
Which is interesting.
Yeah. So then, Kim asked if Tim was a suspect.
And the detective confirmed, yes, he is.
And he explained, we basically want to follow him so that if he throws anything out along his route, we can take it.
DNA. It's DNA and it's public shit now.
Yeah. So she was like, yeah, you can, but they were, uh, they were able to follow him along his route, but they never managed to collect anything containing his DNA.
So a short time later in August of 2017, Kim actually ran into Tim Bass in the break room at the bakery and she saw him drinking water from a plastic cup oh which he then discarded into the trash before leaving the room so being the motherfucking mvp of the motherfucking decade she waltzed i was gonna say went and then i went for waltz it was kind of crazy she waltzed on over collected the cup from the trash put it in a plastic bag and handed it over to detective boway and she actually before she handed it handed it over to the detective she also did the same thing a few days later when she saw
tim discard a soda can in the trash oh my god so she got them two Two samples.
Hell, yeah. Baddest bitch alive.
So she texts the detective, and she's like, hey, I did a thing.
I did this thing. I did this thing.
And she's like, I want to give this to you as evidence.
So they met up in a parking lot that same afternoon, and Bowie accepted the DNA evidence.
Yeah. Yeah. And the samples obviously were then submitted for rush processing and came back as a DNA match to the semen collected from Mandy's body in 1989.
Holy shit. He had murdered her.
Wow. And it was a slam dunk.
Yeah. You can't argue that.
You can't argue that.
So later when asked why she took it upon herself to collect the evidence and this like almost made me cry when I read it the first time, Kim said, if Tim was potentially involved in that crime, I wanted to do the right thing for Mandy.
oh which i'm like fucking community seriously like wow this story is banned around your fucking community yeah like i i love it it takes a village friend takes a village so on december 12 2017 watcom county sheriff's deputies led by our detective kevin bowie arrested tim bass at his home in everson for the first degree murder of my bitch in 1989 1989 and in a press conference Whatcom County Sheriff uh now obviously there was a new sheriff because it's like so many years later Bill Elfo he told reporters it was one of the best moments in my professional career when we got to inform her mother that we
were making oh my I love that she was there to see it thank thank goodness like because her heart would never oh my god ever be mended again no but the fact that she knows what happened yeah and to see someone be punished exactly and knows that the person that did this is never going to be allowed to do this to another person i can't even imagine and the sheriff told reporters that they made the arrest based on that dna evidence connecting bass to the murder so had kim not made that decision they would have been able to still be walking free but uh he did stop short of saying where the evidence
had been been collected from in the press conference yeah i can't really talk about that too much so while investigators and the prosecutor's office started building their case against him tim bass was desperately grasping for any alibi or contrary evidence that would protect him from this murder conviction man it's like dude give it up they have your semen yeah like you're give it up no arguing nope and he maintained to the detectives and everybody else working on the case that they were all out to get him, he said.
Oh, shut the fuck up.
It's like, you're not special.
Nobody's out to get you.
Trust me, no one wants you in their presence.
No, we sure don't. So in conversations with family members during visits to jail, he allegedly asked his mother to provide an alibi for him, which is like - Yeah, you can have all the alibis you want.
Your semen doesn't just like jump across miles and miles and go anywhere.
That's not how it works.
And also, stop asking your mom to do these things, you fucking...
Nasty motherfucker.
Creep. So he said, maybe you can say that we were Christmas shopping.
Wow. Are you joking me?
He gets worse and worse as the story goes.
You murdered someone the day after Thanksgiving.
What the fuck is wrong with you?
And he also kept begging his brother Tom to spread a rumor that Mandy was promiscuous.
Oh my god. He said, Tom, do what you can.
Maybe other friends could say they knew her back then as well.
Ew. Like, what the fuck?
You killed her in one of the most brutal ways possible and now you want to kill her memory too?
Jeez, that is zero, zero remorse.
I hope every single day on this earth is a living fucking hell for him.
Oh, I hope so. So the DNA evidence connecting him to the murder was incredibly strong, to say the least. And during his press conference, Sheriff Elfo told reporters the laboratory determined that the match probability was 1 in 11 quadrillion.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
So, they were pretty comfortable prosecuting.
Now, on December 14th, Tim Bass did appear before a judge.
He was officially charged with first -degree felony murder, and it alleged that he caused Mandy's death in the course or furtherance of rape, attempted rape, kidnapping, or attempted kidnapping.
Disgusting pig. Now, in a statement to the press, Whatcom County Prosecutor David McEachran, that's what it is, told reporters that he wasn't able to charge Bass separately for rape or kidnapping because the statute of limitations had run out for both crimes.
I hate that. So, the felony murder charge was most likely the one that he would face.
Okay. Now, in the months that followed, the public defender, Stephen Jackson, who is Tim Bass's public defender, obviously, filed one motion after another.
first he tried to get the kidnapping and the rape charges dropped then he wanted to have the dna evidence excluded from trial in what world are we going to exclude dna evidence from the trial you can get fucked but he claimed that kim wagner was illegally acting as an agent of the state when she collected the trash containing the dna and he said thus it should be excluded he said put simply law enforcement officers cannot use private citizens to obtain evidence without a search warrant where a search warrant would otherwise be required this search was done for a singular reason to assist law enforcement
it's like yeah whatever so david mckechran countered that detective bohe had never asked kim wagner to get involved in the case or act on behalf of the watcom county sheriff's department and in fact he actually made it very clear they weren't directing her to do anything yeah kim acted entirely of her own volition and said she had a daughter and hoped that somebody would do the same if it were her daughter so after hearing both sides judge agrees with the prosecution and jackson's motion to suppress dna evidence was denied bye hey oh so after 30 years of dead ends and false hope the opportunity
to to get mandy justice finally arrived on may 10th 2019 wow this just happened fucking years yeah wow so in his opening statement to the jury uh david mckechran presented the case as it had been assembled by the investigators they said she'd gone out jogging mandy she was intercepted by tim bass he forced her into his car at gunpoint he took her to a remote area and raped her and she She tried to escape.
He chased her down in the woods, struck her in the head, and again placed her unconscious body in the river where she drowned.
Now, the evidence collected during the autopsy obviously implicated Bass in the crime and his behavior following his arrest, especially his repeated attempts to get friends and family to lie on his behalf, only confirmed his guilt.
assault and mckechran told the jury we know that he wanted his brother to say that he himself had sex with her to make her look like she was a loose girl and wanted an alibi i love that also he was hanging his hat on that like somehow if she had slept with multiple people that this was fine that it's okay that she got murdered it's like yeah that still doesn't work it still doesn't work that way exactly so the public defender stephen jackson on the other hand he just He just presented a case that really had little to do with Tim Bass at all.
He said to the jury that Tim Bass and Mandy Stavik had consensual sex. And, you know, he would know because he was there.
Yeah, absolutely. And he said, obviously, that explains the presence of DNA in her body.
Yeah. But, you know, as for her disappearance and her death, that's a mystery.
Yeah. Still, 30 years later, he said, Tim Bass is not guilty.
He didn't kidnap anyone.
He didn't rape anyone.
And he certainly didn't kill anyone.
I'm like, that's great.
do you have anything to back that up imagine trying to get a case to remain unsolved no when you have the killer right here no imagine no i couldn't couldn't be me but he actually argued that the prosecution had no evidence of rape huh i'm like i what and they were like and he said that they didn't have any witnesses who saw mandy's abduction it's like yeah the semen in her body and the fact that she ended up in a river directly after kind of tells us everything we need to know it's like nope no abduction can happen unless people see it nope that's it nope if he actually i'm just picturing him
standing there in the courtroom being like if a tree falls in the middle of the woods and no one's around to see it it didn't really fall like sir like no have all the goddamn seats in the world and get the fuck out of here go get a granola bar get the fuck out of here so basically he was just saying like you know a lot of people had seen mandy jogging that day any one of them could have been the person yeah absolutely wow shut up what a defense nobody was really um into this at all no and after a week of testimony and unfortunately very graphic evidence the prosecution rested their case on may 17th
and the defense fence rested theirs on the 22nd the jury deliberated for a little over one day and then they came back with a verdict of guilty hell yeah on the charges of first degree murder and they also found him guilty in the special verdicts first degree rape attempted first degree rape first first degree kidnapping and attempting first degree kidnapping damn guilty on all motherfucking charges yes And when those verdicts were read, almost everybody in that courtroom erupted into tears.
I love that. Obviously overwhelmed with like every possible emotion you could feel after 30 years of wondering what had happened to this poor girl.
So he was sentenced to 320 months or 26 years in prison for the crimes against Mandy Stavic.
In 2021, obviously they filed an appeal because what else do they have to do?
and it argued among other things that the admissibility of the dna evidence linking him to the crime and the constitutionality of charging bass under felony murder statute amended after the crime occurred blah blah blah blah blah no one wants to hear from you again basically what they were trying to say is that like one of the statutes had run out for the crime for what he was convicted of and that the dna evidence was like not good or something i guess because because kim wagner had gotten yeah of course it's in and what they were trying to say too was that kim wagner had violated tim's constitutional
rights i love that when the dna matches it's like yeah but it was stupid the way you got it and it's like that's your argument fucking matches you did it it doesn't matter how i got it and like work as a public place right yeah you know yeah i don't know i don't know it works we're like i don't know if that's true but whatever i don't know if it's true but the appeals court they uh they disagreed that that kim had had violated the constitutional rights they agreed with all that matters they said to prove a private citizen was acting as a government agent the defendant must show that the state
in some way instigated encouraged counsel directed or controlled the conduct of a private person and that they that bass's lawyers had failed to prove that claim in court yeah so i don't think you can technically take somebody's dna at work but it's very hard to prove that somebody made made you do it.
Like law enforcement made you do it.
Yeah, absolutely. There was no proof that they did.
Exactly. And I don't think they did.
I think Kim was, Kim was living.
Yeah. She was doing her job, man.
She was being a mama.
Yeah. Now, as far as the argument that the prosecutor applied a statute that had been amended after the crime occurred, the justices wrote, although we conclude the trial court, uh, error in applying a 1990 version of the felony murder statute to this 18, 1989 crime, they were literally arguing the difference of a year.
yeah shut up the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and it had no effect on the outcome of the case so after hearing arguments from both sides the appeals court sided with the prosecution good and rejected all of bass's arguments thus upholding his conviction so raw inhale tim bass rotten hail rotten hail raw in every fucking level of hell that there possibly could be indeed and that's it bye that's the end of tim bass forever wow fucking hate him with every fiber what a disgusting piece of shit it's like i hate all of the people that we cover that murder people because they're horrible
people this one in particular i was like are you kidding me the fact that he was trying to still like besmirch her reputation mutation after he had brutally raped and murdered her 30 years earlier after thanksgiving and he's still trying to be like oh let's let's you know let's paint her as this loose woman and maybe we can blame it on my dead dad yeah and you know what my dad's dead he can't say anything about it so why don't we blame it on him it's like you have no fucking bottom do you like you have no fucking bottom no the lowest of the low like the shit that that like that man that thing
will hit the fucking magma in the center of the earth and he will still continue to go lower listen to you disgusting you are really good at insults thank you sometimes i get so angry that i can't insult that happens to me too a lot and i'm just like you're and i'm like you're a froggy motherfucker like it's just like the first thing that will come out yeah i feel that but fuck that guy fuck that guy I'm so glad he's in jail me too after raw he had 30 years to fucking sit with himself and know what he did and he was perfectly fine doing yeah rot row row inhale oh and you know what Mandy deserved
to fucking light the world on fire and she seemed like she was on her damn way to do she deserved and it's so much better shame that she wasn't allowed to this world world we didn't deserve this world is less this world is absolutely less so that sucks it does but i'm really glad that her family at least got a little bit of justice out of it i do too yeah and just like everything that they had gone through i hope that that was you know like i hope they didn't have to go yeah i hope they're not ever going through any more tragedy on top I hope it's nothing but positivity from here on out.
Me too. And on that note, guys, we hope your rest of the week is positive too.
And we love you. And we thank you for listening.
And we hope you keep listening.
And we hope you keep it weird. If I have to tell you not to keep it that weird, you're wild.
Yeah. Love you. Bye.
Bye. What if I said bye like that every time, you guys?
Would you still listen?
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