18-year-old Mandy Stavik had come home from college for Thanksgiving break. Acme, Washington was her hometown and she had always felt safe there. It was on Black Friday that Mandy decided to head out on her own to work off some of the previous day’s feasting with a jog.
She took the family’s German Shepherd, Kyra, with her for the run. Hours later, Kyra returned home by herself. Mandy had gone missing. What followed was one of the most intense, decades-long cold cases Acme had ever known…
Featured Photo Credit: Whatcom County Sheriff’s Office
Assistance
Sheriff Bill Elfo was on the case from the start. They found Mandy’s body a few days later and all signs pointed to homicide and sexual assault. Unfortunately, though they received information from the community in hundreds of potential suspects, many of them local, they never seemed to find any that seemed guilty beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Sticky Leads
Though Mandy was killed in 1989, the police at the time were unable to find who had killed her. The case went mostly cold for the next 28 years. The term “mostly cold” is being used here because they did have one lead that stuck around all the long years. The suspect in question was one Timothy Bass, a delivery driver from a local bakery.
Circling
It was the spring of 2017 when police began to once again circle the Franz Bakery Outlet. They weren’t looking for doughnuts, they were looking for clues that might tie Timothy Bass to Mandy Stavik’s long-unsolved murder. They had been there before, in 2013, but had come away from the visit without any sort of tangible evidence.
Suspect
Now though, four years after that initial visit, one of Bass’ female co-workers, who we will call Jane, was wondering why the police had such an interest in an old delivery man. Eventually, Jane reached out to the police to ask them why they were so interested. When she found out that he might have been wanted in a famous murder, she began to think about what she would do if it was her daughter whose death had remained unsolved for so long.
Bright Star
Jane wanted to make sure that anyone who could be responsible for something so horrible as Mandy’s murder be brought to justice. To those who knew her, Mandy Stavik was a bright, gregarious, young woman with a star on the rise. Throughout high school, she repeatedly got good grades and high achievements in basketball, softball, flute, clarinet, and saxophone.
An Achiever
Mandy was a perpetual honor student and a high achiever who spoke Japanese and was fluent in sign language. She was the type of girl who excelled at everything she did and did so by the mere virtue of her own prodigious skill and determination. With all that, her future at Central Washington University seemed assured. All that changed in the fall of 1989.
Two Days Later
Authorities began searching immediately after Mandy’s dog showed up without her. Two days later, police found a pair of abandoned green sweatpants in the woods. On November 27th, they found her body floating in the Nooksack River. She was naked except for her socks and blue sneakers. Someone had obviously sexually assaulted her.
Drowned
Mandy’s cause of death was attributed to drowning but an injury to the back of her head was a clear indication that she’d gone into the water unconscious and not of her own accord. The crime scene investigators also discovered a well-preserved semen sample on her body as well. With that, the investigation was kicked into high gear.
Too Many Leads
Sheriff Elfo and his officers were soon inundated with leads. They tracked down 7,859 of them to little effect. Over time, they went over each of them again, but many came from other parts of the U.S., Europe, even as far as China, One, however, seemed local enough to be reasonable. The problem was, there were a lot of roadblocks ahead of them.
Roadblocks
A series of dead ends and roadblocks soon followed and before any of them knew what hit them, the years had piled up over all of the scant evidence. It wasn’t until the late 2010s that many of the old names began to emerge from the piles of paperwork. This was why the police were circling the bakery and why Jane now knew about Bass’ potential crimes.
Moral Obligation
Jane’s bosses at the bakery had previously declined to assist the officers in 2013, but after learning about the history of the case, Jane felt morally obligated to help them. She handed over any information that she could on Bass, even stuff her employers had declined to divulge, but it just wasn’t enough.
Eat at Work
A few days later, one of the detectives called back and asked if Bass ever ate or drank anything at work. Having seen a number of true crime shows and documentaries, Jane knew exactly what this meant. “What do you need?” she asked. “I’ll get whatever you want.” In August of that year, she saw her chance to make a difference.
The Coke Can
Jane had seen Bass toss out a plastic cup and a Coke can in the bakery’s garbage. She donned a pair of latex gloves and tucked the refuse into a Franz Bakery bag. She handed them over to the police. The next few months saw a good deal of forensic testing, but no direct conclusions. Finally, the police received a breakthrough.
DNA Match
Bass had refused to provide a voluntary sample of his DNA in 2010, but now that they had it, they knew they’d get him. The results eventually came back as a 1 in 11 quadrillion match to the DNA the police had recovered on Mandy’s body all those years ago. In December of 2017, an arrest warrant was issued for Timothy Bass.
He’d Seen
Lead detectives on the case soon put all the details together. Bass lived on Strand Road, not far from where Mandy had gone for her jog that night. In fact, they believed that her Thanksgiving jog might have taken Mandy right past his home. He’s been a person of interest for a number of years, especially once he started attending the high school girls’ basketball games in 1989.
Not Enough
Nevertheless, investigators apparently did not have enough evidence in 2013 for a proper search warrant or to compel a DNA sample from Bass. Still, as pertinent as the new DNA evidence now seemed, police had a bit of a problem on their hand. This problem stemmed directly from Jane’s desire to do right and her freelance forensic work.
Well-Meaning
However well-meaning Jane’s actions were her delivery of Bass’ cup and can to the police actually threatened the prosecution’s case. Bass’ lawyers argue that the DNA match is the result of an illegal search. The fact is, law enforcement cannot use private citizens to obtain evidence without a warrant, especially if a warrant was required in the first place.
Get Away
Despite not having any sort of criminal record, Bass does have a domestic violence claim in his history which had been filed by his wife. She alleged that the man was both physically and verbally abusive to her and their three children. She also alleged that he himself enjoyed watching cold case and true crime shows and thought he could get away with it.
Fighting the Evidence
Stephen Jackson, Bass’ attorney, is arguing that the illegal search violated Bass’ Fourth Amendment rights and are currently trying to get Bass’ arrest and those charges thrown out of evidence. This would mean that they would then have no case against him. Recently, a judge was given the facts and ruled on the case.
Admissible
Thankfully for the prosecution, the judge ultimately ruled the evidence admissible on the basis that Jane came up with the idea all on her own and was not coaxed or asked for it directly by the police. The decision was, of course, appealed by the defense but it looks as though Bass’ lawyers are going to have to change tact either way.
