the park. did you intend to kill a little girl? why? why did you do this? did you know what you did? do you know how many birthdays she missed? how many christmass? how many smiles? how many laughs? do you have any expectation that he s going to answer that why question or any hope that he will? yes. yes. and the reason for that is not for me, the reason is for future, to help psychologists, parents, detectives understand what can be in a human being. what what what make him this person? and also why did washburn call in a tip about michella s murder months before he killed jenni. that s another question we d
we had a new lead. the dna from jenni s swimsuit. a brand new piece of evidence. it might lead them to her killer. but when they entered that into the national database, no match. once again, they seemed to be right back where they started. you re just in the hurry-up-and-wait mode. you re waiting for your offender to get their dna in the database, because of a conviction or whatever. and that could be a long wait. in 2014, gene miller retired. leaving detective wade in charge of the cold-case unit. and she had a new helper. jenni s mom, pattie. 29 years after her daughter s murder. my career was winding down. i thought i should probably do something. and so, i volunteered to help. pattie wasn t allowed to touch the two girls murder files, but she could help in other ways.
day? i have my fairy tale, i think. and i will just live with it. she was riding her bike. the monster came out of the woods and grabbed her. and killed her. more than that, i can t wrap my brain around. no. twice, in five months. and the victims, very similar. blonde, blue eyed, riding a bike, in a city park. and after? kids in tacoma lost the freedom to roam alone, just like that. turns on a dime, after jenni. yes, it did. it was immediate. we couldn t go down the street and play with friends anymore. chaperoned everywhere. yeah. because there was evil out there. a man, a monster, who needed to be found. everybody, it seemed, wanted to help the police. at one point, i think we were up to nine or ten binders
i m craig melvin. i m natalie morales. and this is dateline. anytime a child goes missing, it s a scary thing. you know there is evil out there. first, michella. it was terrifying. then, jenni. bloodhounds came. police were there. this is a little girl that was doing nothing more than riding her bicycle in a park. two young girls taken. the similarities. blonde, blue-eyed, riding a bike. somebody who is targeting young girls. exactly. as a little kid, it definitely scared the heck out of me. she was a girl, then, too. solving these mysteries became her mission. so how many names did you have?
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 schwinn bicycle. and a second mother learned all about permanent heartbreak. have you let your mind go to what probably happened to her, that