Hartman was working as a registered nurse at Western State Hospital up until his arrest on Wednesday. The views expressed in the contents above are those of our users and do not necessarily reflect the views of MailOnline. The man was never found. By 3 that afternoon, police were scouring the North End for any sign of Welch. Washburn contacted police about the Welch case in 1986 and said he saw someone jogging in Point Defiance Park who resembled her killer. Select this result to view Charles Dudley Hartman's phone number, address, and more. Hartman's neighbors say he is a car collector and lives with his wife . Charles is related to Mai Ann Gillilland and Ashley Eleonore Hartman as well as 3 additional people. The man was never found. identified two suspects: Gary Charles Hartman and his brother. Hartman has pleaded not guilty in the case. She left the park and went home to make sandwiches for lunch. Bastian went missing Aug. 4, 1986 while riding her Schwinn bicycle in Point Defiance Park. This is how she helped find the killer. The QB they wanted at 5 was gone, Wrong-way driver kills Auburn man in head-on crash early Sunday, State Patrol says, Puyallup man pleads guilty to federal conspiracy charge in WA power substation attacks, String of robberies reported at 24-hour coffee shops in Pierce, King counties, Man killed in Saturday shooting in Tacoma identified by medical examiner, Man charged in fatal Tacoma shooting. It is very easy to. When Michellas sisters returned to the park around 1pm, they found the 12-year-old's bike and the lunch bag she had packed for them on a park table, but she was nowhere to be found. He escaped from prison in 1974. Earlier this month, detectives with the Tacoma Police Department began surveillingHartman. Killer Motive: What Drives People To Kill? We invited him in our house to have a beer, neighbor Heather Broadmante told KIRO-7. Thus, during Garys bench trial, his team and the prosecutors agreed upon several incriminating facts concerning the case, driving the latter to state, I believe the defendant has done everything he can to almost plead guilty. It was also revealed that Gary likely felt the police surveillance and told a co-worker that 30 years ago he had done something terrible, and he thought he had been discovered., Hence, after less than two hours of testimonies in March 2022, a judge convicted Gary Hartman of first-degree murder and sentenced him to 26 years in prison. Just a month later, on June 20, sixty-six-year-old Gary Charles Hartman was arrested and charged with Michella's murder. It is so unfair that hes been out and living his life and doing whatever he wants to do and hers was cut short, Jennifer Hansen, a childhood friend of Michellas, told KIMA-TV. Suspects: A thirteen-year-old classmate later told detectives he saw a man in the park that day under the Proctor Bridge who kept looking at the girls. (~9%). Investigators then incorporated traditional genealogy to make a family tree from information on public websites, according to the statement. database of felons. I'm a doctor and here are the 5 signs you may have intestinal parasites, Why I've ditched a lifetime of possessions and downsized at 70 for my children, How to give yourself a natural facelift for just 25p! Police told the station they have been processing the home in connection to the killing. Saginaw, Michigan. Reviews. The genealogist identified two brothers who had the correct amount of shared DNA to match the DNA in evidence, according to the recent statement from thePierce County Prosecutors Office. He wrote that he wanted to plead guilty from the start of his legal proceedings to spare his family and the Bastian family the trauma of a trial. Half those in the courtroom gallery were kids themselves in 1986, she told the judge, and the crime influenced how theyre raising their own children. Date: March 26, 1986. Police launched a search for Michella shortly after 3pm, and her body was discovered in a gulch later that night, according to the Tacoma Police Department. Police believe that when Michella returned and didnt see her sisters, she went looking for them. Michella briefly left the park to get lunch for her sisters. Police charged Gary Charles Hartman, 66, with murder and rape after DNA taken from a napkin he used matched that found at the crime scene, reported The News Tribune. Police just used a napkin to find a suspect. Charles F. "Chuck" Hartman - obitmichigan.com They got the right guy, he allegedly told police, Man killed in shooting in Tacomas Hilltop neighborhood IDed by medical examiner, Federal jury convicts Gig Harbor businessman for role in Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, Man who killed 12-year-old Michella Welch in a Tacoma park in 1986 has been sentenced, Here is a timeline for the case of Michella Welch, a 12-year-old killed in Tacoma park, DNA in a genealogy database and a used napkin link suspect to Michella Welch murder, 3 decades after Michella Welchs death, a picture starts to emerge of suspected killer, Another decades-old Tacoma murder solved? Police have few details on suspect in Bastian case, A child dies, but lives for decades in the mind of a once young reporter, Man accused of killing Jennifer Bastian returns to Tacoma, A young girl dies and three generations live with fear, 'He can't hurt anybody': Jennifer Bastian's mother sees man accused of killing her daughter, Man fatally shot on Puyallup tribal trust land identified by the medical examiner, Gruesome freak accident in P.E. found comparable DNA in publically available samples and narrowed down the search to Hartman and his brother,Tacoma police said during a Friday news conference. uploaded to GEDmatch, a public, genetic genealogy database which permits searches of this type. It finally came Friday when the 13-year-olds killer was sentenced to nearly 27 years in prison. That is, until he woke up at some point in the county jail with the realization that he was the one who committed this atrocious act [on Michella], according to his defense attorney. The Dateline episode Evil Was Watching, investigates the kidnapping, rape and murder of two young girls in the summer of 1986 in Tacoma, Washington. Join Facebook to connect with Gary Hartman and others you may know. Around 12:30 p.m, her sisters left the park to use a restroom at a nearby business, and returned at 1 p.m. and continued to play, Ramsdell said. Police said, to their knowledge, Hartman did not know Michella or her family, but he did live in the area where her body was found. Published: 00:03 BST, 23 June 2018 | Updated: 03:01 BST, 23 June 2018. "Traditional genealogy is then used to build a family tree from On the day Welch was killed, she took her two younger sisters to Puget Park. More than thirty years after 12-year-old Michella Welch was found murdered in a Washington park, investigators announced that they younger sisters to Puget Park in Tacoma, Washington at about 10 a.m. and then rode her bicycle home about 11 a.m. to make lunch That allowed police to identify two brothers -- who lived in the area in 1986 -- as possible suspects, Ramsdell said. At his sentencing, he apologized to Michella's family. A detective took a discarded paper napkin that Hartman had used at the restaurant from an employee and submitted it to the state crime lab for testing. ), Tacoma police officers arrest Gary Charles Hartman, Michella Welch's family speaking to media after arraignment hearing, https://snapshot.parabon-nanolabs.com/request-info. Initial screening of the results Gary Hartman, a then Western State Hospital community nurse specialist, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder as well as first-degree rape within weeks of this new evidence coming to light. After all, as profiled on Dateline NBC: Evil Was Watching, the innocent young girls were snatched away in broad daylight just five months apart, only to be sexually assaulted before being murdered. According to the prosecutor's office, Hartman. class kills 16-year-old, Washington school says, How Sound Transit loses people even in liberal cities like Tacoma | Opinion, Why didnt the picks-loaded Seahawks draft a quarterback? Thousands of tips were investigated, but no one By 3:10 p.m., officers arrived at the park and started searching for the missing girl. The officer then took the crumpled napkin from the trash and used it to confirm Hartman's DNA. Officers eventually followed Gary Hartman into a restaurant, where they obtained a napkin he had used and discarded. Neighbors in Tacoma described Hartman, the suspect in Michella's slaying, as a pleasant man who collected vintage cars and lived with his wife. A six-person task force was formed after Michella Welch and another young Tacoma girl, Jennifer Bastian, were killed within months It seems I'm not alone, The Guardian's cartoon of the BBC's ex-chairman is as blatantly anti-Semitic as anything I have ever seen. He has pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder. Suspect arrested in Michella Welch's 1986 Tacoma murder | Tacoma News Her body was found in Tacomas Puget Park. It was also documented alongside Jenny's on an episode of. was ever linked to either slaying. Washburn called police in 1986 to say he thought hed seen a man fitting the description of Welchs killer, but detectives have no evidence he was connected to her death. Theres a certain amount of exhaling that went on in that courtroom, Pattie Bastian said. Gary Hartman, a then Western State Hospital community nurse specialist, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder as well as first-degree rape within weeks of this new evidence coming to light.