saying that i need to come home. jenni was hours late. pattie heard the fear in her husband s voice. she drove home, terrified. police were looking in the park. told her, stay home, and wait. and then, about 11-or-so at night, there is a knock on the front door. it s somebody, with the police department, with the bloodhounds. oh, boy. they want a piece of jennifer s clothing. something they can get a scent off of. they didn t find jenni, that night. or the next day. tacoma police closed point defiance park for three days. hundreds of people joined the search. nbc affiliate, king 5, covered it. jenni s sister, theresa, pleaded for help. just take time. just think back. just sit down, and remember. any, little bit would help. meanwhile, police worked the
full of just tips. and it was everything from i saw a strange person in the park, that day. to my neighbor has got issues. police released another sketch of a possible suspect. a man, in his 20s, wearing mirrored sunglasses. that tip led to the man who drove this van. he was familiar with point defiance. he was familiar with the five-mile drive. they took a good, hard look at him. but dead end. dead end. there were many dead ends, that year. and in the years that followed. the police collected all the evidence they could. but really, there was only so much they could do. the science of dna was in its infancy. and eventually, the murders of jenni and michella went cold. it changed the way people
have happen. exactly. exactly. and she didn t want that to be her reality. but was it? it seemed like all of tacoma feared the worst. after about, i don t know, 20 days, i decided i needed to do something, beside hang out in the backyard drinking coffee. yeah. and i decided to paint the dining room. i don t know. and that s where she was when the detective arrived. took the brusher/roller out of my hand. sat helped me down the ladder, sat me on the chair in the dining room and said we found her. today s date is august 29th. this is police video from the next day. they had found jenni, in a thickly-wooded spot near a narrow footpath. she had been sexually assaulted, and strangled. and her killer had hidden her body and her new
he was scared. he was very nervous. he was sweating. he asked me, is this about that swab i gave the fbi a year ago? and then, he told me, i didn t kill that little girl. with washburn in handcuffs, it was time to let jenni s mom know. and that job went to retired detective wade. so, of course, i had rehearsed what i was going to say. and and it all went out the window by the time i got there. couldn t remember what i was going to say. and she walked in. i could tell she had been crying. and she said we got him. and that s really all i could say. the next thing we were doing is crying and hugging each other. yeah. after 32 years, jenni s
especially worrisome. a man out jogging reported seeing someone who looked like the sketch in a different park. a place called point defiance park. a few miles away. scouting his next victim? fear gripped the city. though, for barbara, it felt more like rage. she got a gun permit. kept a gun in her car. i d go pull up at a stoplight, and i remember looking over and there is a man in the car and i was thinking, could you have done this? did you do this? because they had no clues, for months, months, and months. and it was fog. you just living in a fog. then, it was summer. five months had passed. august, that year, was fabulous in the pacific northwest. and woke up a little late. jenni woke up a little late. just the two of them. pattie bastian and her 13-year-old, jenni. and we were sitting in the dining room, on the floor. in front of the patio doors, bathing ourselves in the sun.