How a bakery worker’s secret plan to recover DNA from a discarded Coke can helped investigators solve the cold case of a college student murdered over Thanksgiving weekend. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.
See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hey prime members, you can listen to the forty eight hours, podcast ad free on amazon, music, down
the arab. Today you know
diamond jewelry you have that you're not wearing from a divorce or inheritance or just something in a jewelry box will there's a new easy way to get money for that jewelry. It's called worthy worthy is a platform that can get you up to two or three times as much money as a pawn shop or local jeweller will offer. With zero risk worthy puts your jewels,
in front of a worldwide network of professional buyers. People who will bid against each other for your diamond worthy makes the easy free shipping free insurance coverage free, prefer
no grading and evaluation and you're in control from start to finish, if your prices and met you don't have to sell and you get it back at no charge and now for a limited time, you'll get an extra one hundred dollars when your jewelry cells for over fifteen hundred, all you have to do is register at worthy dotcom, slash forty eight hours, that's worthy dot com,
last forty, eight hours get more for your diamond jewelry at worthy dot com, slash forty eight hours worthy a better way.
To cash in on that hidden asked that in your jewelry box,
the
and means in very small community
but knows each other. They go to the local diner breakfast lunch for dinner and they shop at the generals.
the other feeling of safety.
They doors unlocked
on November twenty four nineteen. Eighty nine mandates,
I point out running letter dog
the dog had returned, but she had,
when she didn't come back. I panicked
There was a massive hunt for her. Everybody was lookin,
It was three days later when they found her
self, organizing exact wherever she was just floating lately, the only
I could see were her ten issues and socks.
when I rolled her over. It was kind of a real shock to me because she looks like the
and people would say that we all you're so strong
oh yeah right. You can't be
strong or something like that. Just rip should a pieces
are. We were shocked. People were crying, they
There was a killer out there somewhere. The question is: will this person strike again?
much, I know
for twenty five years. We had no viable suspects. In this case. It got to keep working. Keep persistent he'd gone
and he's dead, but this case was not going to die.
I absolutely did not think it would ever get solved
The
Amazingly enough, it was to women talking in the water part.
They gave us the break in this case.
One of the mom's got her name. I just kind of turned to merrily and said. Well, I m sure I know who killed her.
and turned to her, and I said, oh, I do too
the.
The the
so take me back its
twenty seventh
eighteen. Eighty nine, where are, we
right now or ups
from where I recovered
It's a solid place for you, isn't it it is really back. Then detective ron peterson led the search team for mandy static, moving up river in his.
yeah, but we came around the corner and we got out of the main river and into the little side channel, and I could see pink something pink. It was mandy where
in only her running shoes when you lifted her out of the water
father to say anything to her you're. The first person I ask said I gotcha petersen, and so many others in the small community of attack me.
and are still emotional, even thirty years later, what was lost for you in this community with the death of mandy stabbing
so a venison. I think more than anything
free freeman was mandates high school basketball coach and gave the euro.
At her memorial service, attended by nearly a thousand people.
You see her smiling back at you.
Did your soul with eyes the sale of life he had met toward her off the court as well becoming a father figure after Monday's parents divorced.
and he expressed her admiration for him in this card.
For Mr Friedman, the one person
inspired her fluids
More than anyone thank you
most sincerely disturbing class of eighty nine,
number thirteen basketball player, cheerleader top student once an aspiring airline pilot, Mandy, static, truly stood out, says
mother Mary. She wanted to do everything
She wanted to be very good to the best at everything she did.
and she was man
older sister molly bring Mandy. She was larger than life
he accomplished in the short time that she was here. All that promise came to an abrupt end,
in nineteen. Eighty nine. When the college freshmen came home from school
washington university, for thanksgiving day after the big holiday meal at her house,
Mandy set out on the last job of her life with her german shepherd hiram.
I
How many times you driven this road days, probably probably close, two hundred over the over thirty years of work and on the case detective cabin bowery, who is just a rookie deputy back then
peace together man these root from the few people.
Recently saw her that day
shall we started from the house here, men and ran down westbound toward the west side of the strategy
the last person to see mandy alive was a man in a pickup truck who pulled up right here. Mandate ran right in front of him heading in that direction. To go around the bend to her home about an eighth of em.
I'll from here. I would say to that when an area ahead of us,
were, I believe she was abducted. Bowery
Sesar assailant had to be
The vehicle Mandy was to faster runner to catch on foot
How do you think she was abducted by
and that's what they use the game to controller and I believe it was and what points the gun at her and says: yeah points a gun at her get in that points, he's compliant investigators, believe the attacker had kicked the dog into a ditch before abducting Mandy. He then sexually assaulted her about three and a half miles away from where she was dropped,
afterward. She tried to flee a scenario suggested by the scratches on her arms and legs
I immediately went oh my god. She was running away, run it through the blackberry
promotion skies, very scottish on thorns and authority
She was running away from whoever had her eye
Whoever was chase and her carter
and hid her in their head. Knocking
and then placed her in the river to make sure she drowned. It occurred to run petersen that mandate body.
May hold other important evidence. He had just recently been trained by the fbi on recovery in dna
and based on a position that she was in the water? He knew
to get her out to preserve it. That was the biggest fear of mine, is how to get her out without stirring dramatic his training.
paid off. So when they did the autopsy they were able to recover male dna
from Mandy, the male dna was seamen suggesting a sexual
pack. What happened in terms of the investigation.
from there was no. You always look for. That person is stranger that doesn't quite fit into the community. Tips poured in and deputies check them out,
This is a standard road where sooty was observed, David
Luigi was a local drifter scene in the area. That day now we sense
They got a war and god
dna and he was ruled. Deputies interviewed. Various persons of interest, including Mandy's boyfriend,
zander. They also looked at him
to rule him out all dead ends in all
Thirty local men gave dna samples mashed
case when cold and the murder hung like a dark cloud over this community for the next two decades.
It was like an assault on then almost twenty five years later
suspect, emerge and had lived right in Mandy's neighborhood neighbour
His name was even on the radar. If you're like me, your
on fast paste crime, thrillers, that's why I'm so excited to listen to the gift by international,
best selling author Sebastian fit act available
simply on audible. Milan burg is a master manipulator with a photographic memory and a shameful secret. He never learn to read so when a car stops in front of him and traffic
milan can't decipher the sign. The terrified girl in the back seat holds up, but he knows instinctively she's in mortal danger determined.
Her milan is drawn down a nightmarish trail of clues that all point in one disturbing direction. Directly
and tom alarms own past. Don't miss out on this.
if your seat, psychological thriller visit, audible, dot com, slash the gift to listen now high
lindsey. Graham, the host wonders wander his podcast american scandal. We bring to life some
the biggest controversies in. U s. History, presidential lies environmental disasters, corporate fraud. In our new a serious, we look at the kids for cash scandal, a story about corruption inside america's system of juvenile justice.
in northeastern pennsylvania residents had begun, noticing and alarming trend. Children were being sent away to jail in high numbers
often for committing only minor offences. The f b I began looking to local judges and when the full picture emerged it made national headlines. The judges were earning
fourchan carrying out a brazen criminal scheme, one that would shatter the lives of countless children and force a heated debate about punishment and america's criminal justice.
Follow american scandal. Wherever you get your pont guests, you can listen ad free on the amazon, music or wondering app
I dont know what it was about her I'm just an ordinary person.
I don't know how I manage to have that child
mary static spent years, haunted by the murder of her daughter, Mandy and the lack of progress in the case
This really to have any hope lead,
I became more ingrained me as a year's went on, but detective Kevin
bout who attended the same high school is mandy, had never given up
by two thousand and nine. He was the lead in
instigator on this unsolved case.
some answers. We need to get to the bottom of it. He began
scouring the case, smile poring, over old, leads and old sauce
I started going through,
Ben interviewed who's been talk to.
Now we notice that a local drug dealer named John was newski had been questioned because he told people he might know who murdered. Mandy
Although its dna did not match the crime scene bow, we still wanted to talk to him again and twenty ten he travel
all the way to Cambodia. Where was
he now lives to question him. What did your gut tell you about this move?
I thought it was a good liar. Just
regenerating, I don't know who did this you weren't believing him. I didn't believe him, but a feeling wasn't evidence. So it's another dead end. This.
But then, three years later, the share
obvious got a tip that sent them in a new direction,
From of all places, a pair of moms chatting at a water park, it was June twenty thirteen,
Where were you guys when you had this conversation city
on the grass right over there, heather backstroke and mary
Lee Anderson had both gone to mount baker. High and you're. Just watching, you
it's coming down, the outer sly jumping out of the blue, one of the other mothers brought up the name, Mandy static, both heather and merrily, who barely
knew each other held long suspicions about the same man merrily had never told anyone in law enforcement of her suspicions
I rarely wasn't ready because we're in a small town and to accuse someone of something that we don't know for sure is a little sky
heather also never discussed her concerns with any one in the area.
a friend
family in the community- that I lived in because of the weight of that, but talking to each other here in this water park decades later they finally
compelled to say his name. I love
I just said that I knew that
ten.
to mass timothy bass had gone to mount baker? High too,
Why did you say TIM bass
I thought I was timbers because of the experiences that I had had with him in the past are extra very disturbing. Yes, as it turns out
women had experienced creepy run in with him and began exchange.
stories? I'm probably fifteen
he was in his twenties. It was
after a softball game in the summer of nineteen, eighty nine, a few months before Mandy's murder,
we decided, a bunch of us to go to dairy queen. She says they all piled into a fringe truck.
in ten bass who was sitting next to her
you talk about my eyes that my eyes were beautiful it then he took like a pan out of the cup holder.
And would like to start rubberneck along my knees, cassettes wearing cut off, sweat parents. You must have been scared, you, fifteen years so yeah I was very nervous hearing here.
story, merrily told her own, which was far more chile
back in July nineteen, ninety one she was
at home, one night with her young son when she heard a knock on the door.
though. I opened the door and there's tim bass at the door
and he asked if he can use the phone, because here
hunting all day and one
and to use the to found a callous wife when she handed him the phone he started dialing. But something wasn't right. I hear the baby
per sorry when you call em and thumbs disconnected. So I thought okay, sometimes
Then she says things got scary
So then he walks through the kitchen
to my bedroom. He said that he
to drive by our house and that he had always been in love with me,
and wanted to make love to me right then, and there yes,
merrily says she demanded that tim leave, but he refused and what are you feeling
small terrified eventually, after she threatened to call the police tim left
years later. The two women now realized they had to speak up merrily contacted another mount baker. High graduate detective can
sharing get fill in the timber was responsible for killing Mandy. Where did tim bachelor?
You were right in this house right here at home,
less than two miles from mandates house right along running right.
Back in nineteen. Eighty nine. Ninety. Ninety.
Did they go to the bass household in question people there
but then like? No, it would be this family because there were like
humanity and so
I think it was just overlooked. Tim bass, along with his brother and father, had never been asked to give a dna sample and for the past twenty five years time had been living a quiet life in a near by community married with three children and
Having a delivery truck for a bakery criminal record, anything that would have call attention,
tim bass now,
kept himself and for the most part, worked and came home. But now police decided to pay tim a visit.
At home very non threatening. Then your approach correct when asked about Mandy bass pretended he didn't even remember her, at least not at first
so he just looked up and was like Mandy Mandy mandate.
Yeah. She was a girl that they found on the river was colleague, ok
being played here. He who could who could forget
an aesthetic police asked bass for
saliva sample to get his dna and at that point,
as well
I want to give my dna. I watch those crimes shows. I see how many people go to prison because I've given dna, so they tried a new plan
At this point, we decided we need to get a surveillance team on him and follow him on his route. They followed tin.
ass, all night long on his bakery delivery. Rout police were hoping bass would throw away and ate it,
with dna on it. But no luck.
Investigation stalled yet again until
least received an unexpected helping hand
I wasn't really going to take no for an answer. I'm going to find something, I'm going to get you something, the the
twenty four long years had passed without an arrest and police. Finally had a prime suspect,
back in nineteen? Eighty nine ten bass lived down the road
mandy static, and she often jogged passed his house
her regular running round, which is how he fixated on her police believe
is ten bass sitting in his home was looking out the window. Could he have seen mandy running by easily
best alligators new Mandy didn't jogged by the bass house. The day she disappeared, but tim was in their crosshairs.
I wanted to know more about it. They got some background from his.
your brother Tom, ass kids. They piled around together, like most brothers, very
competitive. We had
a funding together playing different sports tim had always been a loner, but as a teenager he began to review.
deeper issues, social interactions never really been natural to him.
remembers. A harrowing night after a high school girl friend had broken up with tim
he was on the phone with her in his bedroom and
He apparently had a pistol with them.
Some point said
kill myself. He actually ended up firing, the gun ten had fire
into the air from that night on thomson,
people close to TIM noticed
ancient him just the disgust, the disrespect towards women robin? Did you ever see this area? Robin is Tom.
wife. I think that he really thinks
women are inferior to him. Tim got married young at twenty two, just six weeks after mandates.
He married another mount baker graduate genome alone,
She says it was hardly a fairy tale romance
I married him basically to get away from home.
Gino says throughout their nearly thirty. Your marriage ten was a controlling
and emotionally abusive husband, I felt like his servant. Girl get me a drink. Go get make me food
I personally witnessed him tell gina to shut up. You know eight million times it didn't feel like a marriage, I felt like I went into prison actually, but Gina stuck with TIM and had three
dron with him. Why did you stay with him? Scared
then I did leave. Actually I got a restraining order and left for two months. At that point I had started divorce proceedings.
and he is like I'm gonna lighted the judge and get the kids taken away from him. Anything with my kids, I'm
like okay, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to not lose my kids in TIM bash detectives believed they had their killer, but they wanted to cast a wider net of potential suspects.
To be sure they were on the right path. We develop
This list, we call it a dna sweep investigators
got dna from three
dozens more men in the area, but tim bass wooden cooperate, so cops called the bakery were tim worked and spoke with his boss.
wagner the timber ass. I knew he was different. He was weird. How is he? Where
you just never knew what ten was gonna be at work. That day, the smallest thing,
Anger, him and so tender can stay away from people like
and Kim says she experienced tim's low regard for women
He never call me came. He was called woman, woman and m which, whatever
as tim chatting with investigators, she realized they were looking at the mandy static murder and figured out what they were
really after Kim said. Well, you!
One dna, don't you and I said
yes and
he says I can get it for you. At this point
thinking, I'm working with somebody. The potentially did this demanding and I gotta know she
captain I on TIM day after day, watching if he discarded anything that might have his saliva on it.
you'd empty the garbage so empty yeah in case he dropped a cup or a bottle
yeah, a cup yeah. It took three long months and then finally, she saw him, throw away a plastic cup and later
coke can and I just stood there and went its game time. Unlike those jack but
and so this time my heart was like I was
and because there's a lot of people around, so I grabbed it.
I wasn't, I threw it on my desk shore and then she gave it to police. My gut said it was him. My heart said it wasn't, because I just didn't really want to think that we were
trade I saw about three months later we got the results from the state crime lab and katy from the crime lab says
kevin. We ve got a mad
you hear those words, what was that moment like
You hear him, but you're, not sure you're. Here it's almost like a dream mean I'm gonna, wake up at any moment. Time like this,
the biggest thing that ever happened to me a lot of tears
after the dna match. They paid another visit to TIM as he was,
leaving work.
Question the I like, did you have any relationship, whether that? No so you didn't even kiss her anything, no, never them. Why would
your dna be inside her
you went from donata. Well, how did you get my dna? What are you talking about right after that conversation on descent,
twelve, twenty seventeen twenty eight years after mandy had been found dead, police arrested, fifty euro.
TIM bass, bakery parking lot, they charged him with kidnapping, rape and murder.
As my partners covering a month, I say, you're under arrest for the murder of mandy static. Later that
the sheriff came, knocking on marries door. It also happen to be her birthday. He says we
got it always is we ve got a nice who, I really? I really
never dreamed? I really never dreamed of mandate
Mr Molly was overwhelmed to fight with the present. When a birthday present
detective boeing called Kim wagner with the news. Her first thought was about men,
and I asked the firm family in what you say that the sum that twice
I just never forgot about anti, but it's a big leap between thinking. You have your man and convicting him.
Court of law. Are you trying to get me to admit to something? I didn't do that when you're trying to do right now, TIM says
he's innocent and
He had a secret. That explains everything.
He said I just wondered what a nice up with manny. I was like
why too, what legs would you go to get someone's dna hear more from came wagner on facebook
Forty eight hours
The prosecutor dave but Catherine
then, a long road to justice
such a good kid
it shouldn't happened to shouldn't happened at all mackerel.
was forty four, when Mandy static was murdered and now at seven
three ladys and gentlemen of the jury. He's come out of retirement and insisted he not be paid as he leads the prosecution team in this deeply personal.
in your heart, as well as in your head. You wanted to finished, you bet
after thirty years of heartache, fear and frustration. The trial of men,
accused killer finally begin. This states case is simple:
defenders. Dna was inside her that we know that she was kidnapped. She was raped and then she was killed case club.
posed. No timbers is not yield, says defence attorney stephen Jackson,
I didn't kidnap. Anyone
anyone who certainly didn't kill any jackson float
theory to jurors that, if true, would be shocking, the suggestion that
Bass and Mandy static had cancer
actual sex.
hours before her murder? There were no signs of struggle.
The sexual contact is not evidence of rain from everything.
This interrogation, after his arrest bass, claimed he had been having a secretive, fair with mandate.
More of a friendship to say we just talked and and ah then it just kinda grew into a
we didn't really do that much more pleasant, stuff dna.
I tell you that there was contact start follows: is one of basses defence attorneys Mandy had come home for thanks
having break. Are you saying that when she came home they met somewhere and had intimacy
That's exactly what I'm saying and what do you say to those who say prove it
No one saw the two of them together. There are no telephone calls made between the two of them. First of all, I don't have to prove the burden of proof.
On the state of washington, not on the defence. Remember
when TIM bass was first questioned in two thousand and thirteen, he said he
early remembered who mandy was now? They were lovers,
I would. His story evolve like that in europe, because he's making it up he's trying to cover himself
in this way the months that right up here, if you would testifying for the
Situation is the woman who helped retrieve the dna evidence that linked bass to the crime scene tariff.
Kim wagner knew she had one more jobs to.
and was potentially involved and that crime
I wanted to do the right thing from any, but the defence
his hoping science can support. Basses account. They call doktor Elizabeth Johnson, a forensic experts to the stand,
She says the seamen could have been deposited up to two days before.
mandates death. I would say
most consistent is ours. Two days and probably within
up to forty eight hours, the prosecution experts, the original medical examiner. From thirty years ago, doktor Gary gold Fogel disagrees. He says various indicators say it was much sooner
she was raped and then was shield and deposited in the river and drowned in the river. Would you
finally to be consistent and all regard without hypothetical? Yes,
Now it was time for a woman to testify the right who bass knew very well. Please have a seat. You ve been sworn his now ex wife gina. She divorced him after his arrest and his claims about.
a fair with Mandy. I was so nervous and I was shaking
I don't even want to see his face. Gina testifies that shit
next him ask his mother to live for him to point the finger at his own. Dad he's asked her,
can we say that did it passes? Father had died more than a decade.
Here. She put her hands over her face and, like this,
pause for a minute and then said no tim
ass. His trial was turning into a family reunion from Hell. His brother Tom took the stand as you're about
go. Take the stand. What's what's going through your mind, did you sleep the night before very little?
it was agonizing is hard as it was.
I knew I had to do it like to direct your attention to february twenty four, two thousand and fifteen
tom recounted that wind him was under investigation. He told Tom he had slept with Mandy decades ago,
and then asked tom to tell police. He
and also slept with her. I guessed to make it look like sheep got around. That would be my only
That's probably way said that then he asked me again.
you said you believe me right. I don't know what to say.
And Tom describes another damning incident after TIM.
arrested. He said that
The cops are lying everyone's out to get em. You said I need a strong alibi or I'm going to prison. He said
Maybe you can say that we are christmas shopping tom, do it you can, despite that testament?
defensive. Attorney shown a page has an explanation for his behaviour even
people when their under that great weight of suspicion can do things that can be internal
as well, only a guilty person would do this.
the nine day trial wraps up both sides make their final appeal to the jury is easy,
to make the assumption that this
pretty young woman would never have anything to do with mister bells.
MR bass,
the ladys just because somebody haven't seen them together doesn't mean that they haven't been together at some point. This is an investigation,
based on a faulty assumption that this is
true assault
It may well not have been a sexual assault. This was not a situation where there was consensual sex. There was no contact between these, be she was abducted, she was raped and she was killed. Hold him a comfortable. The dna was at the heart of TIM basses. Try. It would now be it the heart.
of the jury's deliberation. One of them said teenage girls can sneak out at night. Maybe there was a secret relationship. Clerk verdicts
What do you think of tim, basses defence check now
The forty eight hours team on facebook and twitter.
Thirty years of wandering two weeks of trial five hours of deliberations, I was terrified as the jury in the stabbing case deliberated the hours felt like any.
Kennedy. I was her richer. Please do the right thing to write.
Do the right thing: they have to have a hundred percent agreement. If one person
doesn't agree about a hungarian
are all over again, and I was praying that that would not happen.
although no one testified to ever seen tomb and Mandy together jure,
demons says they had alarmist
When we go in
liberate. We had to turn out to be investigators and attorneys too, and we went through everything. We had
there's, a new law on maps, and we went through everything just like the attorneys did drew
J, then most bergen,
be a quarter of the people tied up on
there are not, there might be reasonable doubt
operations lasted a little over a day, clerk verdicts,
twenty nine years and six months to the day had passed since monday. Static was killed with her
Family and friends. Finally get justice. We, the jury, find the defendant Timothy forest fast.
Guilty guilty of murder, rape and kidnapping,
with such a relief such early free
That moment, when you see
the family embrace and the tears tat. You think this is what justice looks. Like
I point out that this is why we do what we do the harm at this.
ass is incalculable. He has finally receive justice and to me I can't be enough time. You should never get out
six weeks later, it was time for sentencing my family
never be healed, never be normal
Marion Molly were to emotional to speak so lonely.
Husband? Might Brighton spoke for them to me? Forest bass must never be allowed to walk the earth as a free person. Never the defendants mother would like to address a court
Then it was the best families turn to speak teams.
sandra bass. Insisted
that her son never tried to blame his father for mandy step that is
they falls. I do know. My son is not guilty of this crime. Then, if you would like the
Kennedy now is the time I was convicted. Murderers
tim bass, whose dna had sealed his fate spoken court. For the first time
would first like to say that I am one hundred percent innocent of this crime. For them.
I dont believe I received a fair trial in saying that, though,
better man in me says I should say very little today,
this day to stand firm on swayed the jew,
sentence fascinating to the maximum sentence. Nearly twenty
seven years. He couldn't get life because prosecutors did not charge him with premeditated murder. They were not sure they could convicted.
Of that charge. For thirty years, you have lived free from the responsibility for your acts, that life has been a law and, tragically it is caught your family, your mother, your brother, your ex wife,
and your children in its web
he says, he's an innocent man. What do you say guilty? As hell? I lived
in prison for twenty eight years with him, and now it's his turn for mary, who once thought she'd, never
Justice masses sentence gave her some salts.
the closure, I feel. After all, they
got the guy that he'll spend enough
years in jail. Sofie ever does get out. His life will be practically over
Bass now wonders if his brother considered other killings, possibly even heather or merrily.
I think potentially more could have been his next victims sometimes,
we're lucky to be alive.
heather and merrily are proud of their roles in putting tin bass away in the
and three women's word experiences are what took him down, and I love that Kim Wagner part of that trio of women.
credit mandates, hometown acme,
really took a village took a whole community. The sheriff's office never gave up by mandate. We got the right guy, I'm sorry,
I guess the committee could feel safe and behold again and
and hoped at that point. The family can heal in some way
you could be whole again to right. There.
The.
I
I
I
has inspired what we are witnessing a right. Where do things for you now we have to talk to people. Listen to what are you with some changes? Hey by members,
you can listen to the forty eight hours per gas ad free on amazon, music download
The amazon music ab today or you can listen ad
free with wondering, plus an apple pie. Gas before you go, tell us about yourself by completing a short survey at wondering dog com, sledge survey
Transcript generated on 2023-06-02.