Phantom Of The Neighborhood - Acme, Washington

Summary

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Small Town Murder

Episode: "Phantom Of The Neighborhood - Acme, Washington"

Released: July 23, 2026
Hosts: James Pietragallo & Jimmie Whisman

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Episode Overview

In this episode, comedians James Pietragallo and Jimmie Whisman tackle the harrowing case of Mandy Stavik, a young woman who disappeared while jogging outside Acme, Washington, in 1989. The case haunted the small town for decades until modern DNA techniques and a bizarre chain of events finally brought justice. As always, the hosts blend true crime research with irreverent, dark comedy, exploring the anatomy of a rural community, the impact of violent crime on its sense of safety, and the dogged pursuit of answers spanning generations.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Acme, Washington: Small Town, Big Crime

• Geography & Demographics ([06:07]–[12:53]):

  • Tiny town in Whatcom County, 100–225 residents. North of Seattle, close to Vancouver, dense woodlands, and mountains.
  • Population overwhelmingly white, older, and nearly zero divorce rate. “100% single or married. That’s it. No divorce.” ([11:56] A)
  • Unusually high property and violent crime rates for its size. “Almost triple the national average... What the fuck is happening in this place?” ([20:54] A)

• Town Vibe & Culture ([10:13]–[19:52]):

  • Quirky, deeply rural, hosts a diner/music scene featuring small bands (“The Groove Doctors,” “Enchantrix”).
  • Notable as home of the only big leaf maple syrup producer in the western U.S.

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2. The Stavik Family’s Tragedy

• Family Background & Alaska Years ([22:06]–[26:13]):

  • Mandy, born 1971, grew up in Alaska. Family migrated after her older brother Brent was found murdered, “riddled with rifle bullets… still unsolved to this day.” ([23:18] A)
  • Close-knit, outdoorsy, endured multiple tragedies (murders, accidents).

• Mandy’s Life & Achievements ([26:03]–[35:20]):

  • “Four-sport athlete”: basketball, softball, track, cross country, cheerleading. Honor roll, played sax in band.
  • “Lisa Simpson with athletic ability.” ([27:53] A)
  • Came home for Thanksgiving 1989 from her first semester at college.

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3. The Disappearance

• Mandy’s Last Day ([36:37]–[46:43]):

  • Returned home for Thanksgiving with college roommate Yoko, a Japanese exchange student.
  • Spent Thanksgiving with family, visited high school, planned to hang with friends.
  • Friday, Nov. 24, 1989: Walked with Yoko, then left home jogging with the family dog, Kira, around 2–3pm. "She always did this five-mile running route." ([40:47] A)
  • Spotted by brother and friend: “real close to the house, almost there.” ([46:09] A)

• Discovery of Something Wrong ([46:43]–[49:17]):

  • Mandy failed to return. Dog Kira came home alone, “cowering, tail tucked, with river silt on her hindquarters.” ([47:49] A)
  • Mother started frantic search, called police. The whole town mobilized.
  • Human tracker Allen Pratt found signs of a struggle, disturbed earth, river silt—close to her house.

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4. The Search & Discovery

• Community Response & Search ([53:28]–[56:41]):

  • Hundreds joined in; helicopters, mounted searchers, grid searches, “never seen people so enthusiastically searching.”

• Grim Discovery ([57:12]–[58:00]):

  • Nov. 27: Mandy’s body found “face down, naked except socks and running shoes, in the Nooksack River, 3.5 miles from her house.”
  • Found in “near flawless condition—looked like she could wake up” due to freezing water ([74:29] A).

• Crime Scene & Autopsy ([71:20]–[77:14]):

  • Scratches consistent with “sprinting through blackberry thickets… while alive.”
  • No signs of defensive wounds or sexual trauma, but “blunt trauma to forehead,” death by “freshwater drowning.”
  • Semen recovered—collected with care by Detective Ron Peterson, just back from FBI training in DNA recovery. “Way ahead of his time.” ([111:15] A)

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5. The Investigation Stalls

• Swab, Wait, Repeat ([79:43]–[81:03]):

  • Early 1990s: No DNA database; must match suspect directly. Tested drifters, neighbors, boyfriend—all cleared by DNA.
  • “Theories: Everyone hopes it’s a drifter. Otherwise, you’re living among a killer.” ([101:06] A)

• Community in Fear ([94:10]–[103:52]):

  • Town changes overnight: “Ran out of deadbolts at the general store,” parents hover, suspicions bite.
  • Paths through anger, paranoia, law & order backlash (“The whole community was raped and murdered and they will never forget it.” – Mandy's mom, [123:05] A)

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6. Break in the Case, 30 Years Later

• The DNA Dragnet ([132:14]–[133:53]):

  • Detective Kevin Bohay reopens case in 2009; “If you take enough samples, you’ll find the person.”
  • Over 80 men swabbed. Locals, drifters—even serial killer Gary Ridgeway (Green River Killer).

• The Waterpark Revelation ([137:38]–[141:33]):

  • 2013: Two moms from Acme, chatting at Birch Bay Waterslides, both independently suspect “Tim Bass.”
  • Recollections of Bass’s creepy behavior: one was aggressively propositioned at home, the other was inappropriately touched as a minor.

• Identifying Tim Bass ([141:35]–[150:26]):

  • Older brother of Mandy’s friend, lived along her running route. “Lonely, oddball, disrespectful to women, controlling in marriage… always a weirdo.”
  • After a teen breakup, “It turned him completely different,” said brother Tom ([148:57] B).

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7. The Ingenious DNA Swab

• The Garbage Problem ([163:38]–[167:57]):
  • Bass refused DNA collection, took all his trash with him, “never left so much as a coffee cup at work.”
  • Franz Bakery supervisor Kim Wagner, whose own sense of safety was shaped by the murder, covertly collected his discarded cup and can.
  • “[Wagner]...I felt a basic human moral obligation to help. By this time, I felt like if Tim was involved, it needed to be found out.” ([170:09] A)
  • DNA matched perfectly: “chance it wasn’t him is one in eleven quadrillion.” ([170:42] A)

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8. Confrontation & Trial

• Bass’s Response ([158:16]–[161:39]):

  • Denied knowing Mandy, then claimed a secret sexual relationship once confronted with DNA match.
  • Attempted to concoct false alibis, even suggested his family tell the police that his deceased father was the killer.

• Trial Details ([183:38]–[186:35]):

  • Defense tried to cast doubt: “teenage girls can sneak out at night… maybe there was a secret relationship.”
  • Expert challenged the timing of the sperm, defense wanted to introduce suicide as a possibility using Mandy’s diary—judge denied.
  • Jury ultimately unanimous: Guilty. Special verdict: first degree murder predicated on rape/kidnapping ([186:37] A).

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Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Town’s Crime Rate
  "Almost triple the national average. What the fuck is happening in this place?" ([20:54] A)

• On the Change in Acme
  “The whole community was raped and murdered and they will never forget it.” (Mandy's mother, [123:05] A)

• On DNA Evidence
  “If you take enough samples, you’ll find the person.” ([133:53] A)

• On Tim’s Character
  “It turned him completely different… Just the disgust, the disrespect toward women.” (Tom Bass, [148:57] B)

• On Wagner’s Role
  “I felt a basic human moral obligation to help. By this time, I felt like if Tim was involved, it needed to be found out.” (Kim Wagner, [170:09] A)

• On Small Town Dynamics
  “The one everybody really wants to believe is it was a drifter. That’s what they all want to believe… otherwise, you’re living amongst a murderer.” ([101:12] A)

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Key Timestamps

• Acme town breakdown: [06:07]–[19:52]
• Stavik family tragedy: [22:06]–[26:13]
• Mandy’s last 24 hours & disappearance: [36:37]–[46:43]
• Search, discovery, autopsy: [53:28]–[58:00]
• DNA recovery & failed investigation: [79:43]–[110:13]
• Community paranoia: [94:10]–[103:52]
• Cold case breakthrough & waterpark convo: [137:38]–[141:33]
• DNA swab by bakery manager: [163:38]–[170:42]
• Bass’s lies unravel: [158:16]–[161:39]
• Trial outcome & aftermath: [183:38]–[194:11]

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Episode Takeaways

• The Stavik murder devastated Acme, changing both its culture and trust for decades.
• Advances in DNA, persistent detective work, and the actions of a determined bakery supervisor finally brought justice.
• The killer—long hiding in plain sight—was unmasked by a uniquely “small town” combination of gossip, memory, and community vigilance.
• The hosts’ blend of gallows humor and deep research brings empathy and context without mocking victims, underlining the surreal reality of evil in “ordinary” small-town America.

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“It was Mandy that did that, took her innocence.”
— Kim Wagner, reflecting on how the murder changed her forever ([165:56] A)

“You, sir, may fuck off.”
— The judge at sentencing ([190:13] A)

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For More

• 48 Hours, "Who Killed Mandy Stavik?" ([183:38]–[194:11])
• "Unforgotten: Mandy Stavik" — Murdered at First Sight (2025)
• Scholarship fund info at Mount Baker High School

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This episode is dedicated to the memory of Mandy Stavik and her family—and to the Acme community, forever changed.

Transcript

[A]

Murder in the Heartland, a podcast from I D explores real crimes across small town America. Towns that may look a lot like your own. Each week, uncover shocking stories of murder and betrayal. From a suspicious hunting accident to a college student who disappears after her shift at the local bar. Hear from investigators, witnesses and family members as they share the chilling details behind each case. If you're interested in true crime with a small town twist, I think you'll enjoy this podcast. Listen to Murder in the Heartland wherever you get your podcasts.

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[A]

Shop [e-mail] this week in Acme, Washington, a young woman vanishes while on a jog on her very rural road. And when she's found brutalized and very dead, it's clear that there's a very sick person in the area, even prompting police to look into the Green River Killer. But it turns out to be the most ordinary guy possible. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody, and welcome back to Small Town Murder. Yay. Yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petregallo. I'm here with my co host.

[B]

I'm Jimmy Wissman.

[A]

Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another crazy, wild, insane edition of Small Town Murder. As it is every week, that should be no shock. Oh, it's a crazy one this week. Didn't expect that. Super weird, strange. It's great. Yeah. Save them up for now before we get to that, though. Absolutely. Head over to shutupandgivememurder.com tons of merchandise there. But get your tickets to live shows. That is what we're talking about. Definitely. September 18th at the Pabst in Milwaukee. Not a ton of tickets left for that one. So if you want them, I suggest getting them now. And then the next night, September 19th in Minneapolis at the State Theater. Get your tickets right now. That's going to be great. We can't wait for those two more months to go and we're excited for it. And then for the rest of the year, we're in Dallas, Sacramento, San Jose in October, and then Tarrytown in Boston in November. So get those tickets. Shut upandgivemerder.com is where you do that. Definitely. Also listen to our other two shows, Crime in sports. And you'd stupid opinions because you like comedy and they're very funny. So check that out. Then get Patreon. That's what you need.

[B]

There you go.

[A]

Patreon.com crime P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com crimeinsports Just like the name of that show. You should listen to this. And what you do for that is anybody $5 a month or above. You get everything? Every damn thing we put out. That's how it goes here. You get everything. As soon as you subscribe, you get hundreds of back bonus episodes you've never heard before. Then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder. And how much do they get of that? I can't remember.

[B]

I think I just heard everything.

[A]

It's everything. That's exactly right. Yeah, there it is. Okay, so this week what you're gonna get for crime and sports, Kirby Puckett time. When we talk about Kirby, you had some run ins and some tragedy and some interesting stuff there. Then for small town murder it is maternal instinct. The documentary and everything that. Not just the documentary, everything around it. This crazy woman who.

[B]

What the fuck?

[A]

Cut a baby out of a woman and then said, no, I just had this baby. This is my baby. Just came out of her.

[B]

Something wrong with her.

[A]

I don't know what's wrong with it, but something's. It's crazy stuff. I've watched all the interrogations and everything and she has so many wild excuses. It's crazy. Karen.

[B]

I love her incredulous face. She's real good at it.

[A]

Yeah, it's savvy.

[B]

Yeah, she pulls the good. I don't know what you mean.

[A]

Like she practiced that as a kid a lot. Cookie. Huh? Broke the lamp.

[B]

What? What? Cookie.

[A]

Ball in the house. Nuh. So check that out. Patreon.com crimeinsports in addition to that and all the stuff, you get all the actual episodes. Everything. The everything. You also get everything we put out ad free as well. All our shows, Crime and sports, you stupid opinions and small town murder. And you get a shout out at the end of the regular show, which is this one where Jimmy Williams. What else do you want? That's all you can have. That's all we got. So that said, disclaimer time. This is a comedy show, everybody. It is. It's a comedy show. We're comedians Obviously people are going to die. You saw the title of the show. So people are gonna die and we're gonna make jokes and you're gonna go well how does that work? That sounds weird. It's not that weird actually. There's plenty of stuff to make fun of. We make fun of a small town cause we're all from somewhere worth making fun of. We'll make fun of maybe a bumbling police force that lets somebody go free and doesn't do their jobs and more people get killed. We'll make fun of murderers. Cause why Jimmy? Fuck em. That's why. Exactly. But what we don't do is we never make fun of the victims or the victims families.

[B]

Why James?

[A]

Because we're assholes.

[B]

But.

[A]

But we're not scumbags. Yeah, that works. That's very simple. That's how it goes. So if you think that true crime and comedy should never ever go together, you might not like the show, but I think you might, you should stick around, check it out and here's the deal. We'll make either way, no complaining later. How's that sound everybody? That's a good deal. That's a good deal I think for everyone here. So that said, I think it's time to sit back, clear the lungs here. What do we say? Arms to the sky. Lets all shout.

[B]

Shut up.

[A]

Give me murder. Let's do this everybody. Okay, let's go on a trip, shall we? Yeah, let's do it. Round it up. We're going to Washington everybody.

[B]

Fucking A hit.

[A]

Let's do it. Pacific Northwest, here we come. We're going to Acme, Washington here, which is in northwestern Washington, way up in northwestern Washington, north of Seattle up there. It's about an hour and 35 minutes to Seattle and about an hour 40 to Vancouver, British Columbia. So kind of right in the middle of those two. And an hour 45 to Freeland, Washington, which is our last Washington episode, way back. Episode 657. So it's been a while. For some reason I completely spaced on Washington. I usually try to, you know, do them at a. Stagger them at a normal rate. And this one I was like we haven't done Washington in a long ass time. This is crazy. That was the beauty queen conspiracy murder.

[B]

I think we oftentimes lump Oregon and Washington into the same state.

[A]

I think a lot of people do. I think they're the same. It's rainy and foresty and it's all

[B]

pretty much exactly the same.

[A]

There's a border, but you know, I mean it's Fine. Vermont and New Hampshire, identical. Vermont and New Hampshire, identical. They are even the same state. Just upside down, so they fit with each other. It's fucking ridiculous. Yeah, it's the same thing. That's the northeastern. Oregon, Washington, Washington and Oregon would be

[B]

the same shape if it weren't for that little Jet Huey shit up the top.

[A]

Yeah. All that water, that pesky shoreline.

[B]

It tends to make things unique.

[A]

This is in Whatcom County. It's like Whatcom, like wat.com is what it looks like. There was a dot in there, area code 3, 6, 0. A little bit of history. There are two accounts on how the name Acme came to be and how it happened here. The first of these theories is that Acmi was named by a guy named Samuel Parks around 1887 after the name of a hymnal in his possession.

[B]

What's that?

[A]

Something religious. Hymn is in there? I assume something.

[B]

Yeah, he had a. Oh, a hymnal is a book, right?

[A]

You know, you're asking the book of hymns. I think him. I hear him. I think. Yeah, something religious. It's got. That's what it has to be. The second claims that the same year 1887, a resident named George Parles named the town after a local church's newly received Acme hymn book. Acme was the brand that made the hymn book?

[B]

Definitely. Yeah.

[A]

It's from a hymn book. We just don't know who figured out that that's where it should come from. But it's hilarious that they made all of that and then they made giant rockets for coyotes to explode in the desert.

[B]

Anvils.

[A]

Giant anvil. Way too big. Anvils that really are useless for any purpose. What purpose is that anvil for? Honestly? Other than trying to crush a stray roadrunner, I can't think of it.

[B]

Never. Was he supposed to be eating the roadrunner. Was that the idea?

[A]

He was wanting to kill it and eat it. Yeah. But he couldn't catch it.

[B]

The biggest fucking roadrunner I ever saw, too.

[A]

That thing was taller than. Yeah, it was crazy. It was huge. Good eating. Good eating in that roadrunner. So either way, that's what it is. Acme is the Greek word meaning culmination or highest point. So Acme is. This is in a river valley. So it grew into a place where people started coming. They built schools and post offices and a general store and everything like that. And they had dirt roads, actually, that they built that replaced just the walking and horse trails they had. By the time of the Great Depression, the local timber started to run out Running out of trees.

[B]

Oh, no.

[A]

That quick. We're all tapped.

[B]

They deforested fast.

[A]

Real fast. So then there was no more logging jobs, so the population shrank in this area. Now they have a maple syrup thing here, apparently. It's reportedly home to the only big leaf maple syrup producer in the western United States. Big leaf. I don't know what that is. I don't understand it. But they make it. And it's the only one in the west. I'm not sure.

[B]

Are there little leaf maples?

[A]

I have no clue. Or small leaf? I imagine two things I'm unsure about and I don't have a great vast field of knowledge on, are hymns and maple syrup. I'm not positive. I don't know a lot about that. I don't know a lot about that. You'd have to be a religious scholar, a botanist to know everything this show has. It's really too much.

[B]

Timberman.

[A]

Timberman. Now, reviews of this town, I only found one because it's a very small town. Here's five stars. The town is quite small, but also very welcoming, and it provides a comforting and friendly environment.

[B]

So the opposite of what normal small towns are.

[A]

Yeah, they're very welcoming. The views are gorgeous due to the nature around the area as well as views of the Twin Sisters Mountains.

[B]

Right.

[A]

This town is a town that will put you at ease.

[B]

You bet.

[A]

Puts you right at ease, Jimmy. Now, people in this town, population, it varies, okay, from where you look, but it seems like in Acme proper, there's like 100 people. Then in the zip code, which encompasses kind of all the surrounding stuff, there's like 223 people. So that's. The whole area is about 225. There's nobody here.

[B]

It's empty.

[A]

There's more men than women. I don't know. That's usually only small towns have that. 50.9% men. Median age is 41.4, which is, I think, three years older than the national average. It's 44.6% married. This is a stat you only get in a small town, very small, because there's not enough people. 0.0% divorced.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

No divorced people live here. That's amazing.

[B]

100% married or 100% never married.

[A]

100% single or married. That's it. No divorce. People race of this town.

[B]

Well, I guess widowed isn't. Isn't divorced either, right?

[A]

It's widowed. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would. Yeah. You know, that would be amazing. Well, I consider myself divorced. My husband was eaten by a bear.

[B]

That's a dissolved wedding for sure.

[A]

Yeah, it's not a marriage anymore. Race of this town, 95.3% white. And in Acme proper it's 100% white. Just in the zip code. Outside it's a few more so 2% Hispanic and 2.8% two or more races, I'm assuming. White and Hispanic would be my guess. Now 29.7% of the people here are religious. There's a giant volcano nearby. I would assume you go, oh, really? Yeah, that. You go, okay, Whatever's going on, that's the reality here, is there's a giant volcano. I don't know if it's active.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But beats the shit out of me.

[B]

I mean, if it's a volcano.

[A]

Volcanoes, maple leaves, hymns. I am capped. I don't know shit about it.

[B]

There's a volcano in Northern Arizona too, that's active.

[A]

It hasn't erupted in hundreds of years or whatever.

[B]

Who the fuck knows?

[A]

Yeah, active can be dormant for a long, long, long time.

[B]

Mount St. Helens is technically active, right? Yeah.

[A]

Last time that happened was like 81 or something, right?

[B]

Yeah. 81 or 82.

[A]

81. 82. Early 80s. It popped, I remember, but I mean, that was 45 years ago. That's a long time ago. Now, 29.7% religious, like I said, and the highest one here is other Christian. And it's really broken up. That's only 9%. So it's broken up. 2% Lutheran, 6.6% Episcopalian, 0.3% Jewish. It's a hodgepodge. Unemployment here, slightly above average. I don't know how it wouldn't be with only 225 people around. Median household income here for the zip code though, $102,014 a year, which is well ab the national average. That's not bad. Now, cost of living also a little bit high. 100 is regular. Average here it's 117.5.

[B]

God damn high.

[A]

Housing is the high high one too. Median home cost here, $470,600. And we're not talking for 100 acres or for big mansions. We're talking for family homes. It is $500,000 for a rundown family home. And if you want to find some of them. Yeah, because you want to be people 224 and 225 moving into this town. We have for you the Acme Washington real estate report. All right. Your average two bedroom rental here goes for 1070, which I don't know how many two bedroom rentals. Yeah, that's I don't know how many there would be here, though.

[B]

That's.

[A]

Can't be many. Here is. The first one is just a lot. 41.71 acres. This lot. Wow. Big lot, you know. Gorgeous. It says mountain views. Mountain views, road access, trees, elk trees, creek, wetlands. Even touches the mighty Samish river at its headwaters. And there's elk. Yeah, there's elk. That's fun. That is going to be $280,000.

[B]

Can you hunt elk on your own property?

[A]

I assume so. Up there, probably.

[B]

I imagine you can kill that, right?

[A]

I think that you could probably do pretty much whatever you want up here. I don't think there's a lot of.

[B]

Yeah, I think with 40 acres, many people are coming around.

[A]

No, here is another house. Two bedroom, one bath, small 1992 square feet. So not a huge house, but decent. Nice inside, well maintained. Very nice landscaping. It's built in 1900, this house.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

So very old time here. Only a 1.595 acre lot. So. So good size property. 2 acres. 445,000 bucks for that, though.

[B]

2 acres for.

[A]

That's rough.

[B]

This next one in the middle of nowhere.

[A]

Two bed, one bath, 966 square feet. It is an ugly green box, this house. Just an ugly green box. It's on 0.8 acres of land. Yeah, but it is right on the river. Like the river's in your yard. The river's about 100ft from the house.

[B]

Is that the Samish?

[A]

No, this is the nuke sack or nutsack or whatever the hell it's called. Yeah, that one. That plays a prominent role in our story too. But it is right on the river. So that is 575,000 bucks for that. A shack on the river. There you go.

[B]

I didn't know a river house was sought after.

[A]

Fuck. I guess so. I mean, a river, that's nice. The houses on the Hudson are nice. They're big old houses. I know, but this isn't the Hudson either.

[B]

This is right.

[A]

This river doesn't look a lot bigger than the creek that's behind my house.

[B]

That's what I mean. As you get west, they're real loosey goosey with the word river.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. People hear creek and then they come to my house and they go, holy shit, this is a fucking river. Like I thought, oh, the creek. They were expecting like, you know, some dribbling water through some rocks. Like, this is a lot of something things to do here. Not a lot in a town of 225. Live music at the Acme Diner beer garden.

[B]

All right.

[A]

Go watch the show at the diner.

[B]

Tom's playing.

[A]

Tom will be there. Well, let's find out. First of all, we have live music from Paradox.

[B]

Fucking A.

[A]

Bring your lawn chairs, grab your favorite food and drinks from the Acme Diner and settle in for a night of fun in the beer garden.

[B]

Hold on. This is outside.

[A]

It's outdoors in the beer garden at the diner.

[B]

Outside the diner.

[A]

Sit in the diner parking lot and watch this. Even Ludacris is like, no, I don't even. I can't even send one of my clones there. I can't even do it. Then there's also Mud Bottom Maddie.

[B]

Who's she?

[A]

I don't know. Folk music. For the fun of it. It says. All right. Also there, Charlie Parton. Not Parton, like Dolly. P, A, R, T I N. He wants you to think he's related to Dolly, though. If you hear soulful, raspy vocals and hearts. Charlie Parton, huge tits.

[B]

What an asshole. He's a tit, all right.

[A]

Unless that's his real name. He's a douchebag. Les. His parents named him Charlie Parton. Heartfelt storytelling blending raw country and Americana into a sound that's perfect for a laid back night in the valley.

[B]

Oh, he's trying to be. That's what she is.

[A]

That's exactly what it is.

[B]

She has a rags to riches story. That's beautiful.

[A]

Raspy vocals is her. Is his thing, though. Aspen Birchfield, acoustic indie folk set. Oh, God, that sounds terrible.

[B]

Aspen Birch. That's two different kinds of trees.

[A]

Aspen Birchfield. Exactly. The Groove Doctors. It's probably like the drummer from the Spin Doctors and he's like, well, they kicked me out of the fucking bat and no one knows who I am.

[B]

This is white people. The Groove Doctors.

[A]

There's no groove.

[B]

No.

[A]

An electrifying mix of blues, rock, R and B. Classic covers, originals. You know, horseshit at a beer at a diner.

[B]

No, you're too white for this. Stop it.

[A]

The Happy Accidents. That's one of my favorite names. That's good. Blending blues, rock, folk and country, they deliver a soulful feel good sound of original music that gets your toes tapping and your heart singing.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

How about the Enchantrix? What with an X? Enchantrix?

[B]

Sounds like. That sounds sexual.

[A]

It sounds like a sex toy. Sounds like a dildo. I got my wife, the Enchantrix now she won't fucking come out of the room anymore. She locks the door, I can't get her out. It twists and thrust this Enchantrix ruined my marriage.

[B]

It's enchanting. Tantric sex without me.

[A]

It's too much. It came in a box the size of a fucking Chevy. It was crazy.

[B]

It spins. It's got pearls inside.

[A]

How am I supposed to spin? It's other things. And there's a tentacle arm that comes off and diddles her. There's a lot going on.

[B]

Also, I got this thing barely gets hard anymore.

[A]

Fuck. They have killer guitar riffs, powerful female vocals, and a big dynamic sound that keeps the energy up. How about jp? Falcon. Grady?

[B]

Falcon.

[A]

Falcon, Grady, a native American singer, songwriter from Browning, Montana. Okay.

[B]

Oh, we got an out of towner.

[A]

An out of towner. You drove all the way here for this? And then the Saltwater Cowboys. Okay, they're local. Local country band, it sounds like that said crime rate in this town. What? We are interested in property crime. This is crazy. This is a town of 225 people. Almost double the average for property.

[B]

What?

[A]

We've never heard of this in a small town. And you'd think, well, maybe that's an anomaly. Maybe somebody last year went nuts and broke out a bunch of car windows and drove up the crime rate? Well, no violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course, assault. The Mount Rushmore of crime is almost triple the national average. What the fuck is happening in this place?

[B]

Always? Do you know if it's year after year that keeps doing this?

[A]

Not sure that's what it is this time. Unless they had a real bad year that last year. This is great.

[B]

What's the fuck down.

[A]

Is it meth? Is that what's going on? I don't know. Mountain air, babe. That said, let's.

[B]

That's not mountain air. It's on the coast, right?

[A]

No, it's inland a little bit, but it's by them in the mountains. But anyway, let's talk about some murder. What do you say here, everybody? Let's get. Let's get murdery. Okay. Wow. Interesting. Here, let us go back in time, shall we? Let's go back to 1989.

[B]

Right?

[A]

Okay, let us go back here and let's talk about a young lady first off. Okay, now we're gonna talk about Amanda Teresa. Mandy. She goes by Mandy because her name's Amanda Stavik. S T a V I K. Now, Mandy here, she's born April 16, 1971 in Anchorage, Alaska.

[B]

Is that right?

[A]

The family's from Alaska. Her father's Glenn, her mother's Mary. And they come. They come from Alaska. You know what? I can't really pin that down. Exactly the reason. Or if they were just from Alaska, I'm not sure. Running from the law, that's running from something. Or went up there for the oil rush and never left. I'm not sure what happened. She has two sisters, Mary Alice and Molly. Mary Alice is one person and has two brothers, Brent and Lee. She's got a couple of stepsisters too, we'll talk about Also now, in 1974, Mary and Glenn. Her parents are divorced, so she's about 3 years old when her parents split up here now, August of 1975, when she's about 4 years old. The family has some serious tragedy here. She has a brother who is 16 years old at this point, named Brent. Brent was found on federal property in Alaska absolutely riddled with rifle bullets. I mean, wow. They say some people said he was shot as many as 19 times.

[B]

16 years old.

[A]

17. 17 times.

[B]

17 years old.

[A]

16 years old. 17 shots. 16 years old.

[B]

Oh, yeah, it's a young man.

[A]

Yeah. He was a kid out hunting. He was on federal property near the State of Alaska way station on the Glenn highway. And he'd been bow hunting, according to his friends. And he was found riddled with rifle bullets and covered up with brush. So this is on purpose?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Nobody mistook him for a moose or anything. This is murder. They tried to cover it. This is wounds to the head and chest too.

[B]

They wanted him dead, whoever shot him.

[A]

Oh, he did something that someone didn't like the father here, Glenn said as far as the circumstances, they never found any clues or any reason for the murder. He was just found shot. It's still on him. Unsolved to this day. Wow. 51 years later, still unsolved. So if anybody knows who killed Brent in 1975 in the woods in Alaska,

[B]

he'd be 67 years old today.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. He was born in 59, this poor kid. So this is horrible. He should have grandkids now.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Instead he's been dead since before we were both born. Wow. It's fucking crazy. That's a lot, man. So then the fucked up thing is he was shot 17 times. And they tried to solve it and tried to solve it, including, they said that there was a prison escapee, Alan Wayne Hurley here. They said there's no solution in this. They said the gunshot killing and the Alan Wayne Hurley prison escape, according to the FBI. They said, we're still conducting a lot of inquiries in the crimes. First they were wondering if the person who escaped from prison killed him.

[B]

Right.

[A]

But then they said they think they're separate and they're trying to find some guy who escaped. And also this guy. So, never solved. Nobody arrested at all. Now she's got a stepsister, Mandy does, named Bridget here. Now, Bridget said that her and Mandy were very close. They enjoyed riding horses, sledding and ice skating and climbing hay bales.

[B]

You know, that old backwoodsy shit.

[A]

Yeah, this is very Alaska, right? Sledding, ice skating, riding horses. Yeah, totally. And they were very close growing up. So she did stuff like that. Mandy, we'll talk about. She's a very good athlete. Excellent athlete. Yeah. Really, really good. Like a four sport athlete. Excellent. In October 1983, that is when mom, her remaining brother Lee, who was very young at this point, I believe was six, seven, something like that. And one of her two sisters move to Washington.

[B]

Got it.

[A]

They come down to the mainland here because mom wanted a safe. Alaska wasn't safe. She thought, you know how Alaska is. It's, you know, crazy. So.

[B]

Well, my son was just murdered by seven shots. It's dangerous here.

[A]

That's why. But that was eight years earlier.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So something was happening in the. In the 80s. I don't know what it was, but she said, I need to go somewhere safe. I'm going to take my remaining alive children and go somewhere safe here. So they pick Whatcom county and they pick Acme, which is just a. Acme is barely a town. I mean, it's a speck of a town. It's on Highway 9, which is about an hour or half an hour east of Bellingham. It's the middle of nowhere. They have a general store, and that's it. So Mandy thrives in this environment. She graduates from Mount Baker High School in 1989. She was a starter for the girls basketball team for three years. Also played softball, ran track and cross country, and was on the cheerleading squad for the football team, too.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

In other words, she left the house at 6 in the morning and came home at like 8:30 at night every day. I mean, there's. That's so busy.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You have practice for something every day after school.

[B]

And those are sports that go different seasons. So she's not doing all four of them at once, but she's probably doing two at a time.

[A]

She's always busy.

[B]

Yeah. Always doing something.

[A]

There's no time when none of those sports are going on. Softball track, cross country, football, or basketball.

[B]

Yeah, that's year round sports.

[A]

It's year round.

[B]

That's. Yeah, that's busy. You're doing two at a Time, probably right.

[A]

It has to be. Well, in addition to that, she's also on the honor roll and played saxophone in the school band too.

[B]

And busy.

[A]

She's like Lisa Simpson with athletic ability. Like she's got. That's so much. There's no free time at all there.

[B]

Her lungs are very healthy.

[A]

Oh, between the running sex, forget about it. Yeah. She will fucking pop a balloon. And tooth blow. Done. Boom. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show to tell you how to get in better shape with Ladder.

[B]

LA D D E R Fit Fit.

[A]

Imagine having a workout plan from an expert coach that's new each week and can be done from anywhere. That's Ladder. That's what it's all about. Consider it your own personal trainer without the exorbitant cost, inconvenient scheduling, or awkward small talk that none of us like. But with the same expert guidance and structured workouts to get you real results. That's the problem. If you're just starting, starting to work out, you're not a big workout nut. You know what I mean? You're not real into it like that. You don't know where to go, you don't know what to do at the gym. It's a lot of people that seem to really know what they're doing. And you're wandering around at the gym.

[B]

All these classes and, and programs, they have a schedule. And this way you can do it all on your own.

[A]

A training plan like this really beats random workouts because you have a coach and progressive programming and training with intention and you're going somewhere. And that, that's Ladder makes that accessible, which is absolutely huge. And yeah, I mean, I've always known. Obviously we know we should be working out, but we just don't know what to do. That's the problem. We don't know where to go or what to do, what exercises, how many of them to do. How do I get stronger? How do I get better cardio? How do I do that? And that's exactly what the Ladder app does for you. Ladder app's an expert strength training plan, not a content library. It's not influencer workouts or challenges. It's. That's real progressive programming design by certified coaches. You get a new plan every week that builds on the last and it progresses with the one after it and before it. And it's a big structure. It works like a ladder. It feels like having a coach right there with you because you got in ear coaching that guides you through every set with cues and form Reminders and motivation and you can be pilates bodybuilding at home, Dumbbell only hybrid strength glute focus programs, kettlebells pre postnatal. Whether you train at home or the gym, there's a plan for you and it also remembers. It tracks your stuff to the app. It remembers your weights, your reps, your sets so you can see yourself getting stronger over time. And there's a group chat where your coaches answer questions and members can motivate each other. And all this costs less than a dollar a day. That's elite level personal training for, I mean fractions of what you'd get that for. Tiny fraction. And now includes nutrition tracking at no extra cost which is pretty cool. Ladder has AI powered food logging and macro insights integrated into your training plan. So do it now. Remove the guesswork with Ladder and get a real coach in your ear telling you exactly what you have to do for every workout. No thinking, everything planned for you. If you have an iPhone, head to Ladder Fit Smalltown Murder and take a quick quiz to find your perfect Ladder plan. Use our link and get a free 7 day trial with no credit card and $10 off your first month if you join.

[B]

Now back to the show.

[A]

Hey everybody, just going to take a quick break from the show to tell you a better way to feed your dog with Ollie.

[B]

O L l I e.com oh, we

[A]

it's the best man. Ollie's the best. And we have dogs ranging in ages. I have dogs that are like senior citizen dogs. I have a 4 year old who's at the peak of his. You have a senior citizen dog, you have a young dog and they all love the smalls and it's great, it's so good for all of them because when you're feeding them real food.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

And real stuff, it comes out, it shows, you know, that's what dogs need, that's what they want. And if anyone gets being dog obsessed like we are, it's Ollie. They deliver fresh human grade food and five drool worthy flavors so our pups and your pups can live their best life too. You could say Ollie feeds the obsession there and their fresh recipes are developed. These are real chefs stuff that's good for their stomach and supporting digestion, energy, skin health and less poop that's important. Not these massive, massive long poop either. That's a big deal, I'm telling you. They have flavors like fresh beef with sweet potatoes, fresh turkey with blueberries. Oh, it's great. And from as soon as you start your subscription, everything's Tailored right to your pup. The meals are perfectly portioned. You get a puptainer and a scoop for easy storing and serving. And they care about your dog so much they offer health tracking in their app Ollie does so you can keep up with your pup's health and see the difference that the food is making in their life. On demand vet expert support for everyday questions like your pup's new food, transition, digestion, skin weight. Also, vets calculate the exact amount of daily calories your pup needs. Customize based on their age, weight, breed, activity level. And Ollie will calculate a custom well being score to help track your pup's overall health over time. I give my dogs Ollie. The older ones have energy, the poop are smaller, the younger one loves it. He's got energy, looks great. Everybody's happy, tails are wagging over at our houses. Everybody get ready for both you and your pup to be obsessed. Head to ollie.com STM tell them about your dog and use the code STM to get 70% off your welcome kit when you subscribe today. Plus it's risk free with their obsession guarantee. That's O L L I E. And enter code STM to get 70% off your first box. Ollie, feed the obsession.

[B]

Now back to the show.

[A]

1988.

[B]

Do not hand her the ball.

[A]

No, no, she will. It's gone. Gone? What'd you do? You took it all?

[B]

Capacity.

[A]

Jesus Christ. She's like the cone heads smoking a joint. She just takes a hit and it's all gone.

[B]

Cone had eaten a subway sandwich.

[A]

Now she has a 20 year old brother here, a stepbrother, Spencer, who is the son of her dad's. It's her stepbrother. No, her dad's new wife after him and her mom got divorced. It's her son they just had. Yeah. Now this son, I guess he ends up dying in 1988 in a boating accident on the Kenai River.

[B]

Oh boy.

[A]

So there's a lot of tragedy going on here now By 1989, Mandy graduates in June and then she's off to Central Washington University after that, which is about four hours away from here. So good distance away, I guess at first, this is the interesting part, she wanted to be a commercial airline pilot. At first that was her first goal. And then somehow over the summer switched her path and decided to go to college instead, I guess. So she wanted to pursue a career in fitness and nutritional counseling, which she's probably very fit, so that makes sense. She does a lot of, a lot of exercise.

[B]

Feels like she's on the Cutting edge of that, too. It feels like there's a lot of those now, but back then there weren't many.

[A]

89, probably not now. The town they live in is actually Clipper. That is the official town. But it's like there's not really a town. It's just the name of an area. Clipper's just outside Acme and considered in that zip code area we talked about here. But Clipper's the actual, you know, town town, if you want to be specific, where their mailing address would be. She also has a long time. I don't know how long, but more than the last year. Say, longtime boyfriend as well, named Rick Zender, with a Z. Like sender, but with a Z. Return to Zender. Fucking Rick. Return to Zender, we call him around school now. She goes to college here in the fall, Thanksgiving comes around, and she comes home for Thanksgiving.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Now, there's a confusion of where she got a ride from for a minute. Because on the school bulletin board is. She put up a thing saying she's looking for a ride to the. You know, to just east of Bellingham, basically, if you could do that. But we know that she ends up being driven home by her boyfriend. So I think her boyfriend drove four hours to pick her up. Picked her up and drove her home.

[B]

God damn.

[A]

Which is a goddamn long round trip.

[B]

He's a sweet man.

[A]

That's a nice guy right there. She doesn't come home alone, though. She brings her roommate with her, who is a Japanese exchange student who speaks very little English. And the two of them are trying to learn each other's languages with neither. So, yeah, she's trying to learn Japanese, and this Japanese girl's trying to learn English, and they're hanging out.

[B]

That's not easy.

[A]

No, that is. Especially if neither of you speaks both. That's going to be tough. Now, her name, and I shit you not, is Yoko. Swear to God. Her name is Yoko. Which is just hilarious. Cause I'm sure everyone called her Yoko anyway. You know what I mean? Hey, Yoko. And she went.

[B]

That's the only name I know. I'm sorry.

[A]

That's what's sad. Just some, you know, some fucking meathead college kids were like, hey, Yoko.

[B]

And she was like, yes, it's either Yoko or Kim. That's all they're calling her, one of the two.

[A]

And that's Korean, for Christ's sake.

[B]

Is it? There you go.

[A]

There you go. Now that's what it is. That's Wednesday, November 22nd. They get a ride home With Rick Zender and back to Acme. Okay, now Rick Zender drops Mandy and Yoko at Mandy's parents house. It's Mary's house, her mom's house at about 2pm on Wednesday, Nov. 22. Which means he left the house at 6am to pick her up or earlier. Think about that. Because it probably took him a minute to get in the car. Maybe they stopped for a bite to eat. He probably left the house at five o' clock in the morning. Shit.

[B]

What's four hours from you, Philly?

[A]

From me?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Nah, Philly's closer than that.

[B]

You could drive to Philadelphia.

[A]

Yeah, Philly's closer than that and back

[B]

and still beat that man.

[A]

Still beat him. Fucking, that's crazy. Yeah, four hours. I mean Boston's three and change for my ass. Like 3:20 or something from here. Unbelievable. It's far. It's a trip. It's a goddamn trip to have someone take me to Boston to do shows. I have to pay them a good amount to bring me back and take me so they show up. Now later that afternoon on the 22nd, Mandy visits her former high school to see some friends and visit the basketball team which she was big on. So she wanted to talk to her coach and the teammates who are there still from when she was playing and all that kind of thing. So she hangs out for the basketball's team practice and don't know how long exactly she stays. But that evening and also too, the day before Thanksgiving in a small town is when people gather. If you go, not even a small town, if you go around me the night before Thanksgiving, every bar is full to capacity with people who haven't seen each other in a long time. I came back here after I was in Arizona for a few years. I came back when I was like 23 and my friends wanted to go to a bar. So we went to a bar. We were hanging out and in came my father with a group of his friends into the same bar. That's how many people. I was like, this is weird.

[B]

I haven't seen him in a while either.

[A]

Yeah, well, I saw him at the house when I said I'm going to go to the bar for a while. And then he had ended up with this other same thing. So I mean it's so many people. I saw 100 people I hadn't seen in years just because that's where people were hanging out. So she hangs out there the next day, Thursday, 11-23-89 is Thanksgiving Day. So she does nothing. She spends the entire day at Home with the family, eating food, kicking back, watching football, doing the normal Thanksgiving shit. Then comes Friday, November 24, 1989. Okay. Day after Thanksgiving, she hangs out in the morning, toward lunchtime, they eat some leftovers, some turkey sandwich and shit like that. She goes for a long walk with Yoko. She has a five mile jogging route that she does when she's home. Always. She was in high school. She did it all the time. Does it every day.

[B]

Five mile path, that is her thing.

[A]

Yeah, but it's two and a half miles out, two and a half miles back, I guess. So she walked this path with Yoko, I guess. Yoko's not a runner, apparently.

[B]

Yeah, Yoko likes the cardio.

[A]

Yoko likes to get some cardio in, just not too intense. Yoko likes to keep it chill, if we know what it is.

[B]

She's more of a slow burner. She tears things apart real slow from the inside.

[A]

She doesn't want to be too tired. She has a lot to do later. She's got to go inside, get nude, take weird pictures, and then screech into a fucking. Into a microphone for a while.

[B]

Slap trash can lids together while she yells.

[A]

There was this chick I hung out with, and you have to be hot to pull this off. Okay? There's this chick I hung out with in high school. I went over to her house one time and she put a vinyl album on, which in the 90s, right away, strange. And it was a Yoko Ono album of her making weird sounds.

[B]

You've heard it?

[A]

Is this a famous thing?

[B]

It was so bad.

[A]

I just heard there was screeching and shit that sounded like an animal that was being killed in my woods that I heard a while back. And I was like. And I said, what the fuck is.

[B]

What is that?

[A]

At first I didn't realize it was an album, like something she put on. I thought it was like a tv. I said, what is this? She goes, it's Yoko Ono. And I was like, wow. And now looking back, I was like, she must have been hot because I didn't leave right then. I was like, I don't want to

[B]

hear this avant garde horseshit that she was putting on.

[A]

Weird.

[B]

It was so wild.

[A]

It was weird. But she made me listen to this whole Goddamn. It wasn't like the focal point. She wasn't like, now listen to this sound right now. Focus. But it was like, we just. I was like, this is crazy. It was distracting.

[B]

I'd love to know what the conversations were between her, because John was a genius for all intents and purposes. And she is not

[A]

no, there is music out. I don't know any Yoko Ono music, really. But there is music out that people enjoy from Yoko Ono.

[B]

Is there?

[A]

I don't know what it is.

[B]

I didn't know that.

[A]

I've seen her songs on lists of things that people enjoy.

[B]

Okay. I've never seen that. I've heard the music and was like, what?

[A]

All I've ever heard is, I would

[B]

never give it another chance.

[A]

Yeah. I've just heard the screeching and the dying squirrel sounds that she was making a while ago. That's all I've heard. That's it.

[B]

If she's got a yellow submarine somewhere, I'd love to hear it.

[A]

Let's break it out, sister. What do you got? Tell me about yesterday. I'd love to hear it.

[B]

I'll give it a chance. I don't like the Beatles, but I'll give whatever you got a chance.

[A]

How's your day's night been hard. Let me know about it. Okay. Long, long. So she makes plans that evening that her and Yoko are gonna go out with a couple of high school friends of hers. So they're gonna go out and hang out. Now, this is a guy named Brad Gorham and his friend named Tom Bass. B, A, S, S. Which is strange. She's not. See, I don't know where her relationship with her boyfriend is at this moment because he drove her all the way here, dropped her off the day before. And she's not hanging out with him. That. And it seems like this is when they'd be hanging out. But she's going to. That. Or maybe they're broken up, but they're still friends. That's possible. Or they're, you know, taking a break or whatever it is. But she's gonna hang out with these two guys. And I don't know if it's a double date or just hanging out with friends or whatever, but she's like, I got this Japanese chick you gotta meet. Tell you what.

[B]

So I'm bringing her two guys. So she's got her pick.

[A]

She's got her pick. Who knows Tom Bass and Brad Gorham. Now, sometime between 2 and 3pm Though this is well before they're gonna have their evening activities. Mandy decides to go for a run. She leaves. She's already walked five miles. Now she's gonna go run five miles. She takes the family dog, a German shepherd named Kira, with her. So she leaves the house. She's got sweatpants, she's got some running shoes on. She has a Walkman and A dog. Okay, so that's what she's doing. The mother said Mary, her mother said she usually ran west from their house on Strand Road. They live on Strand road, crossed Highway 9 and continued until she reached the south fork of the Nooksack river, which is just asking to be for two immature guys and comedians we could imagine growing up around there. Nooksack. Not a one person calls it that. Nobody calls it that. No. Every boy calls it the Nutsack River. Every single one. Everyone, without a doubt. And every adult with a. Nope, nobody calls it that.

[B]

Nobody does, no.

[A]

So and then she would ran back the same route. So it's five miles round trip. So apparently her brother Lee, Who's I believe 13 at this time, was playing with a friend at a neighboring house. And the friend's name is David Cracker. David Cracker. David Craker. C. We'll go with Kraker. There's no C in the middle there. C R A K E R. We'll go with Kraker. But Cracker would be much funnier.

[B]

It's probably Cracker.

[A]

We'll go with Cracker. So Lee Ander, his friend David Cracker both saw Mandy running east on Strand Road toward her home at about 3 o'.

[B]

Clock.

[A]

So that would be coming back. Lee, the brother, was visiting his neighbor at the time and he said it looked like his sister was on her way back from the river. Right. That was around three. So that makes sense. They said too, this is within minutes of the house, especially in her honor, at a running pace, she's real close to the house. She's almost there. Yeah. Now a little later, an hour or so later, Lee comes home, the little brother and Mandy and Kira are neither one. Are there the dog or his sister or her?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So he's like, that's weird. Where's Mandy and Kira? I just saw him drive. I saw her running by. She should have been home a long time ago. And Mary said that's weird. Yeah, she's taking along much longer than she usually takes to run. And you saw her back then, she should have been definitely home by now. So Mary starts calling neighbors and starts calling any of Mandy's friends that she has a phone number for, saying, hey, have you seen Mandy? Did she. Because who knows? She's running. Maybe one of her old friends pulled by and she said hey, we're gonna go to Dairy Queen, you wanna hop in? And she said sure, let's go get

[B]

a blizzard fuckin out.

[A]

Yeah, let's go down to the general store and get whatever Confection. They whip up down there and figure it out, whatever. So you start calling around. Now, Lee and Mary then go out to look for her on the road. Take the car and take it all around and they can't find her. And this is not a big area, so there's not a real whole lot of places to look in terms of driving around. So they return home and they sit there and they're like, what the fuck? What happened? This is so weird. And then pretty soon after they get back, they hear scratching at the door. And it's Kira.

[B]

Kira came home.

[A]

The dog's alone, though. Dog's by itself. And they said when they let it in, the dog was cowering. Had its tail tucked between its legs.

[B]

Scared. Yeah.

[A]

And had river silt covering part of her hind quarters.

[B]

So she got in the water at some point.

[A]

She got somewhere around the water, yeah. And was scared, obviously. Now Mary at this point was freaked out.

[B]

Sure.

[A]

Why is the dog here without the daughter? She said, I was panicked. She was so consistent in what she always did. There was no reason for her not to come back. This made no sense. It's not like her. Now, some of the two guys she's supposed to hang out with tonight and her boyfriend, Zender, they hear it's such a small area. They've already heard about her disappearance by before 5:30. So they've already heard about this and they come over to help look for. So this is Tom Bass, Bob Gorham and Zender. They all come over to help look for her as well. So they already have a search party going, which is good. About 5:30pm Mary calls the police and the Whatcom County Search and Rescue is sent. Okay. She calls the cops and says, my daughter's been missing for maybe two hours. They send Allen Pratt, a human tracker.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Which is. That's pretty good service for your tax dollars, I gotta say. Hey, my daughter went for a run. She hasn't come back yet. No problem. We'll send out a human bloodhound. You got this.

[B]

We got a human tracker.

[A]

We got a human tracker. We'll just send him. Not a deputy, not somebody to take your state. We'll send some.

[B]

He samples dirt and knows his way.

[A]

There's some guy who picks dirt up, throws it up into the air, sees how it falls and goes. She went that way. Checks the consistency of, like, a branch.

[B]

Yeah. Gets it in his molars. Gets it in a little bit. Yeah.

[A]

Yep. That's great service.

[B]

How do they have one of those in their budget? Most American Cities don't have a human tracker.

[A]

I know people can't get their garbage picked up on time. These people you call up my daughter, she might have stopped with her friends or she could be missing. We'll send the tracker, don't worry about it.

[B]

They show up on Wednesday, but it's very inconsistent. Of what time?

[A]

Oh, you never know. You never know. It will be before I want to wake up in the morning, I'll tell you that fucking much. Probably it will be about five minutes

[B]

before my alarm goes off.

[A]

I'll tell you. It's always before six.

[B]

Just rob me of that.

[A]

Hey, why don't we send the mail around with the garbage guy? Yeah, he can drive. Rather than him coming at 5:30 at night, he can come at 5:45 in the morning and we'll get it all worked out.

[B]

I'm on the end route of my FedEx and UPS and mail. And you're in the middle of the beginning route. Yeah. So if it says we'll arrive sometime today before 9pm or whatever the fuck last, I'm guaranteed to get it right. Around 7pm, right around when I sit down to eat, the doorbell rings.

[A]

That's perfect.

[B]

And they always want to signature.

[A]

Always, always FedEx. FedEx are the ones always want fucking signatures. Can you just leave it here?

[B]

I got a doorbell.

[A]

Yeah, I know.

[B]

Whether or not you made it, if we've got a ring doorbell, if you've got a camera of some sort, yeah, that should be enough to not require the signature anymore. They've got cameras on their fucking chest, for Christ's sake.

[A]

Yeah, one nice thing, my FedEx guy in the beginning I was like, just, he's just, just sign for everything. Sign for everything. I don't give a fuck. Just, just. I don't. Don't call me. Basically every time you ring, all the dogs bark. And now I got. It's a 20 minute fucking procedure now because you rang the doorbell, okay, I miss you twice.

[B]

And now I have to leave my house to go get this shit. That's nowhere near my house.

[A]

No, because you knocked, the dogs barked and I wasn't answering shit. Because I was trying to keep them quiet. So now this guy, the human tracker's name is Alan Pratt. And he finds a disturbed spot on the shoulder of the road, the corner. This is on the corner close to Mandy's house. We're talking feet from her house. She could disturbed right there. A disturbed spot. A disturbed spot. There were several footfalls, possibly from two people where it looked like someone had been Walking or wrestling around or something, quote, unquote.

[B]

There was a scuffle.

[A]

There's a scuffle here. Feet. That isn't just, you know, step, step, step. There's some.

[B]

This is the side of the shoe.

[A]

Yeah. Some shuffling, some, you know, weird off steps and stuff. This guy's a good human tracker. If that's what he found, it's not bad. I don't know if I. I don't think I'd find that. Hey, the dirt looks weird here. What?

[B]

There's no footprints that I can decipher here.

[A]

We're gonna keep moving, Keep going. Yeah, totally. The nearby grass also showed signs of disturbance. And there was river silt in a nearby ditch close to this area that's similar to that found on the dog.

[B]

On the dog.

[A]

So the dog was probably in this area too. What they don't find here is Mandy or any sign of her other than some silt and some disturbed dirt. So this now becomes. No one knows where she is. Literally all of her friends are accounted for. They all say they haven't heard from her. This is now freaking everybody out. So what happens is one of those small town things. Everybody looks for her. The whole town looks for her at the same time.

[B]

Hold hands and walk.

[A]

Everybody. Yeah, it's crazy. Neighbors, they're walking, they're in trucks. They have volunteers. They said that one guy said he searched for days and was all around everywhere. And deputies and reinforcements from other counties came in. This is a big deal here. And so there's helicopters, there's horsemen working the brush and river banks. I mean, this is. They are looking for this chip, man. Saturday, November 25th. The next day, still haven't found her.

[B]

Uh oh.

[A]

This is when deputies come from other counties to help as well. They run helicopters up and down the river corridor here. They do all of that. They mount searches to push into the brushy areas too, where, you know, vehicles can't go and stuff like that. It's huge, though. Everybody comes, they talk about all of these searches. And they said that one guy said he's been on all these searches and he's never seen people so enthusiastically searching. Basically, farmers would do their own walk, their entire properties, all their acreage. And loggers would check on spur roads that were. I mean, everybody was involved in it. Teenagers that knew her did grid patterns, searching for her, looking for her on the roads and fields everywhere. They are looking for her, and not finding her is the problem. Sunday, November 26, 1989. The search now expands from. Because they thought she Must have been pretty close to the house based on that disturbed dirt. Every day they expand out a little more, and on Sunday, it expands downriver and up into the timber. So up into more rugged areas, into the woods. And they find nothing up there either. Nothing, Nothing. Monday comes around November 27th. Now, this is crazy now, about noon here. This is a. Now they've. By the way, from this time they have organized $8,300 of a reward fund that they've patched together that they have here. And they're driving, walking, flying, doing everything. There are searchers working the south fork of the Nooksack river by boat. Okay. They come across what they believe is a body, and turns out it is. This is about 3 1/2 miles from Mandy's house. I don't know if that's as the crow flies or whatever, but it's three and a half miles face down in shallow water. In the water, in the water, face down. And remember, this is November in a Washington river. So it's cold. That's cold water, you know. So there's a. Yeah, yeah. Preserves everything. There's a detective named Ron Peterson who. This guy had just gone to get FBI training in DNA evidence recovery. DNA is brand fucking new at this point.

[B]

What year is this?

[A]

89. Yeah, brand new. Now we'll talk about how it came about, but 89 is when they're like, even small town police forces know it exists now. You know, it was being used for a couple years, but like, you know, not unless you were really into some shit you wouldn't have known about. If you're just some small town police guy, you might not have heard about it, but he just came back from DNA evidence recovery courses from training in this. So he's thinking about if there might be DNA on this body, and let's preserve it. Is this right?

[B]

Nobody touch it?

[A]

Yes. So he personally manages the recovery because he doesn't want to lose anything. He's really agonizing on how to move her without disturbing any evidence and really is extra cautious in a way that in 1989, most people were not with bodies. They were not even thinking about DNA. Just happened to be. He just got back from a course on it. Otherwise they'd have just pulled her out of the water, thrown her in a bag, figured it out from there. So she is face down and naked, except for no clothing except for socks and her running shoes. That's all she's wearing. Okay. And it's a slow moving, shallow area of the Nooksack river here.

[B]

Socks and shoes only. Huh?

[A]

Socks and shoes only. Naked otherwise, which is interesting. Now, there's no evidence of a struggle at the site, but they don't know if this is where she was placed or she ended up going with the river and ended up here. So they don't know. They suspect that the body may have floated downstream. They find, about 10 miles south of the home of where she lives, they found a pair of sweatpants that may have belonged to her. They were tested at the crime laboratory, and they said that they weren't really able to find anything out about it here. There's another pair of sweatpants recovered near an unpaved road where garbage is sometimes dumped. And that was all inconclusive as well. The pair that was found in the garbage dump were the same color sweatpants that she wore. It was like a teal blue, which is pretty specific, you know what I mean? But they said the bloodhounds failed to identify the garment as hers, which it's been outside. That makes sense. But her mother also couldn't be certain if those were Mandy's, so we're not sure if those were hers or not. But it seems like a pretty big coincidence that it's probably hers.

[B]

Yeah. And bloodhounds are. They're not known for being that particular, are they?

[A]

No, no, that's the. And also, too, after a couple days, outside scents go, you don't know if there's any scent there. Who knows? And if. If they were in the river first too, that would have helped knock some of the scent off. So who knows? But that's a big deal, though. They also found two pillowcases in that area where they found the sweatpants. These pillowcases contain two types of hair. On one of the cases, a long blonde strand was found similar to Mandy's. She's very blonde and all of that. Now an expert human trafficker brought in again, tracker. Tracker, not tracker. Expert human trafficker. He'll bring anything in from Central America that you could possibly want. He's got it. What do you want? He's got it. Don't bring it up. Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a much easier way to find a doctor.

[B]

With ZocDoc Z o c d o c dot com.

[A]

Absolutely. When you move somewhere. I moved across the country. You don't know where to go. You don't have a doctor.

[B]

No.

[A]

All these things that you've had for a long time, you don't have them and you don't know where to go. To them. And that is where ZOC comes in. The best way to help you find a doctor, either in a new area or just if you don't, maybe you haven't been to the doctor in a while, you've been putting stuff off. You can't be putting stuff off. This is your body. You gotta, that's all you got. You gotta, you gotta go, go to zocdoc. Yeah. I'm telling you right now, zocdoc is our sponsor today. And zocdoc, there's a lot of pain in finding a doctor. It's really, really hard. It's so difficult. Sometimes you just look up and what do you look at? How do you know if this person, you don't know anything about this person. You don't know where to go. Zocdoc solves the frustrating parts of this. It really does. It makes everything so much easier. It's really excellent. Zocdoc lets you search and compare local in network doctors. They have more than 150,000 providers within 200 plus specialties across all 50 states. Zocdoc's website has tons of reviews from real patients and detailed doctor profiles to help you choose the right one. See actual appointment openings to click and instantly book a visit. Appointments happen fast, usually within 42, 72 hours and you could even score same day appointments. And here's the thing. ZocDoc is ready, free to use.

[B]

What?

[A]

It's incredible. Your health matters and taking care of yourself shouldn't be complicated. Find and book the right doctor with Zocdoc. Head to Zocdoc.com SmallTownMurder to get started and check that appointment off your to do list. That's Zocdoc.com SmallTownMurder now back to the show. Hey everybody, just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you a better way to feed your lovely, lovely little kitty with smalls. Smalls.com oh, I love my kitty. Brandy's my girl. I love how she's so happy and I like how too. She's, she likes to get into things.

[B]

She's a little.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Serious.

[A]

Yeah. She has a little water thing. She likes to just pop the top off it just to show me. Hey, look what I did there. Pay attention to me. It's just cute. Lets me know, like, hey, I'm here. Pay attention to me. Give me the good food is really what it is. Give me maybe the smalls. I'm telling you, Brandi loves smalls. She loves it. It's amazing. She goes nuts when you start giving it to her. Yeah, smaller poop. She's shiny, she's doing fantastic. She's great. You know, you don't have to deal with all that chunky. They don't throw it up. It's just better. Smalls fresh cat food is protein packed recipes made with preservative free, 100% human grade ingredients that you'd find in your own fridge. It really looks like you'd like to eat it. It's pretty good and it's delivered right to your door. Since switching to Smalls, I've really seen my cat a go right to the food more. It doesn't just like, oh, there's food. I'll get that later. She's like, oh, I want that now, now, now. And she looks good. Weight's good. Poops are nice. I'm telling you, if you have a cat, Smalls is the only thing you should be feeding this cat here. Smalls has fresh, gently cooked food is made without preservatives. And a balanced diet leads to less shedding, fewer hairballs, which means less throwing up and all that, and more silky shine. More of the nutrients in Smalls are food, so they're digestible, so less junk comes out of the other end, meaning the poop doesn't stink as bad. Smalls cat food leads to high protein and improved hydration. That equals strong bones, toned muscles and a healthy cat. Cats use protein as their main energy source. More protein means more fuel and sustained energy and your cat deserves it. Do you like your cat?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Come on, get your cat in there. Yeah. You brought your cat in for a specific reason and it's to love it. Forbes ranked Smalls the best overall cat food and Buzzfeed said, my cats went completely ballistic for this stuff. After switching to smalls, 88% of cat owners reported overall health improvements, including me. And yeah, you don't want any commitment, that's fine. You can try Smalls Risk free. They'll refund you if your cat won't eat their food.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Nothing to lose here. Get in there. So stop serving your little carnivore a bowl of processed shortcuts for a limited time. Because you're a Small Town Murder listener, you get 60% off your order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com stm that's 60% off your first order, plus free shipping and free treats for life when you head to smalls.com stm now back to the show. This podcast, Small Town Murder, is Sponsored by BetterHelp betterhelp.com Absolutely. This is. How's everybody doing out there? Everybody doing okay? Here's the thing. We're trying. That's what it is. Why is there still a stigma attached to getting help and support? That makes no sense. And it's the dumbest thing ever.

[B]

It is.

[A]

I don't get it at all. I mean, if someone had a, you know, a medical problem, they went to the doctor, you wouldn't be like, are you weak? Why would this.

[B]

If you had a cavity, you'd want the dentist to fix it.

[A]

Yeah. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans think getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discouraged people from doing so. So, I mean, that's, that's. Think about that. Everyone thinks it's fine, but yet everyone's discouraging others from doing it. It's silly. It's really silly. And there is a big. There's a chasm in between, you know, people needing mental health support and belief believing in mental health support and actually seeking it. It's very silly. And there's plenty we can do as a society and that would be support people who get help, number one, and realize that it's great and everybody needs therapy. It's good for everybody. And BetterHelp is a great way to start. First of all, they have over 30,000 therapists. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform, having served over 6 million people globally. And it really works with an average of 4.9 out of 5 for live sessions based on over 1.7 million client reviews. BetterHelp's therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully licensed in the US and BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. You fill out a short questionnaire. It helps you identify your needs and preferences. And they'll use their 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate. And that means they typically get it right the first time. But if you're not happy, they're gonna make sure to get it right, get you another therapist at no cost. It's phenomenal stuff. Get yourself some therapy. There is no stigma. It is silly. It's just silly. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% [e-mail] Smalltown Murder. That's better. H E L P.

[B]

Now back to the show. Yeah, he's got a menu, for Christ's sake.

[A]

That has a menu. What do you want? Little boys? Eight? Seven? What are you looking at? Third grade. Fourth grade. So he is brought in and tire tracks are found near the pillowcases. But no treads are visible so they can't get a read on what kind of tire or car this may have been from.

[B]

What would the significance of a pillowcase? Oh, I guess you could put it over someone's head and. Kidnapping. Yeah.

[A]

Yes, you could do that. Or whatever it is. They found a long blonde strand of hair that is consistent. So they wanted to at least see if it maybe is part of the whole thing because we don't know what people's weird how they murder people. You know.

[B]

I suppose you could strangle somebody with one of those too, right?

[A]

You could twist it up. Strangle them. Yeah. It's probably all purpose there. So you put it over their head and beat them. You could do all sorts of weird shit.

[B]

Put some soap in it and beat him to death with it.

[A]

That too, yeah. You could act like they pissed you off in basic training camp. So the FBI was helping the investigation and the officials planned to enlist the Green river task Force in this. That is the Seattle based team of detectives that are that were working on the Green River Killer.

[B]

Gary Richard.

[A]

Exactly.

[B]

I don't even know that it's Gary Richard Ridgeway.

[A]

No. The task was formed to pursue Ridgeway. But there was no indication that this killing had any connection to any of the unsolved killings in the Seattle area. Because that's what they originally thought. We'll bring that in, see if it's connected to your guy.

[B]

Yeah. It's a girl in a river in a rural area. And all bets are off at this point.

[A]

Gary Ridgeway hid several women in rivers.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So I mean that happened a lot.

[B]

He doesn't even know how many.

[A]

That's insane. That's wild. He didn't even fucking keep a tally even in his head. That's crazy.

[B]

They disintegrated. They disintegrated from his memory because there was so many.

[A]

Like, you know how many people you've had sex with.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is a way less.

[B]

Smaller number than hundreds.

[A]

And less significant activity than murdering someone.

[B]

Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

You know what I mean? That's way less significant than murder. Fucking you is way less than killing you. It just is. And voluntarily. Whatever the fuck you want to call it. But this is. You know, that's unbelievable. To not remember the murders. That is insane. You did a lot.

[B]

And he had sex with all of them too.

[A]

Oh, yeah. He raped everybody.

[B]

It's such a significant amount. Moment of my penis is out that. Yeah, you know what I mean? I'm never forgetting that.

[A]

No, no, he did. Ugh, he's gross.

[B]

He can't remember. And his dick was out.

[A]

We don't know if he can't remember

[B]

or doesn't chooses not to say because there's shame.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, that's all. Now, we said she was naked except for running shoes. Her body was covered in scratches. Real superficial scratches. Bushes or weapon and legs, buttocks, arm. That's where it was. Real superficial, like running, running, tree branches, that sort of thing. There were more scratches on the front sides of her legs than on the back sides of them also, which would be stick. Comes off you, gets a little bit of the back just as it carries around the curve of your leg, but not there. Many of the scratches were parallel, indicating she was in motion when she was scratched as well. And overall condition of the scratches suggested they occurred while she was still alive because they bled a little bit. Now, the medical examiner figured out that these scratches were consistent with someone running through the brush, such as especially BlackBerry bushes, which are found along the riverbank of the Nooksack River. And also someone who doesn't have their sweatpants on. Right. So what does this tell you?

[B]

Something happened. They got away, broke free and hauled ass to get away from it. Yeah.

[A]

And didn't get away from it.

[B]

And then got caught.

[A]

Got caught. And this is someone who runs track, cross country, basketball. She's fucking. She's an athlete. I mean, so it's gotta be someone. It's not somebody who's 65 years old. You can rule that out. It's not someone who weighs 400 pounds. You can rule that out. There's a lot of people you can rule out just in the fact that they were able to run this girl down. She's an athlete.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Yep. So any evidence nearby at all? Well, they found. Like we said they found. Oh, of the homestead. That's right. There's this place called the Homestead.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Which is nearby here. And it's just a. A field where the teenagers hang out and drink wine coolers and finger each other. That's all it is. So. Yeah, just Bartles and James bottles everywhere. You know, in 89 Fox 89. That's all that was there. Yeah. This is pre Zaniels.

[B]

Things available yet?

[A]

No, I don't think so. Maybe. Maybe. I'm not sure, but I just. Wine coolers were a big Deal back then.

[B]

Fucking A.

[A]

Especially as the kids, they. I don't think Zema was even out yet.

[B]

I'll bet you're right.

[A]

In 89 was more like 93. Like, hey, this is the 90s. Yeah, yeah, I think. I think that's when I remember seeing it. And I worked at a beer store then, so I remember when it was a big deal.

[B]

But time escapes.

[A]

Who knows what is a 93? But it could be 84 for all I know.

[B]

I just remember those Jack Daniels things. Because wine coolers were such a hit, everybody started making something mixed. Mixed in a bottle with that Tennessee honey or some shit like that.

[A]

Something sweet that the young girls will drink.

[B]

Yeah, some very shit that

[A]

is gonna get some fucking teenager laid. Investigators in this homestead area found footfalls and tire tracks in the field, but they're unable to determine if they're related to the crime because there's always teenagers there hanging out. So it might just be people, kids hanging out. They found no other tracks or signs of disturbance near the riverbank where they found the body. So they're relatively sure that's not exactly where she went into the water. Basically probably somewhere else. So they find never where an actual definitive crime scene is. They do not have that.

[B]

They don't know what happened.

[A]

We think she was abducted here because she was seen running home. And this is near her house. This is where her body was. And that's pretty much all they have.

[B]

That's all we know.

[A]

They don't know what in between happened, which is a lot. So they do the autopsy. This is a weird comment that this guy makes.

[B]

Who?

[A]

Dr. Goldfogle.

[B]

That's the coroner.

[A]

That's the guy doing the autopsy. Medical examiner, he said, quote, she has the least amount of, absolute least amount of deterioration that I see in essentially anybody. She has so little that. It was very traumatic in particular for one of the doctors at the autopsy because we'd look at Mandy and say, you know, if we could shake her and warm her up, it looks like she'd just wake up because she was face down in ice cold fucking water.

[B]

So she's perfect.

[A]

She's preserved perfect. So it looks like just taking a nap, just a frozen in time.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Perfectly preserved teenage girl. He said, she doesn't even look dead. She's been so preserved and in the ice. So it's like this. It looks like you could just wake her up. Mandy pop up.

[B]

It's almost bad, right?

[A]

He said it was disturbing, actually. It was just. You'd rather see. At least they're Dead. They're dead. But this looked like a live girl who just was like, why aren't you waking up? Like, it was creepy. Real creepy. No. Now, the autopsy indicates no defensive injuries to her hands, which is a big deal. No foreign DNA under her fingernail. So she did not fight at all. Or if she did, maybe she scratched and that got taken away in the river water. But I doubt it because we find other stuff here. No evidence of strangulation or evidence suggesting she'd been bound in any way. So she wasn't tied up. So she probably. In my estimation, that would be somebody. Well, either that or somebody talked her into. Everything is fine. Everything is fine. You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, no, no, no. If you are cool, I'm not gonna hurt you. And she was trying to play along. And like, that means there's either that or one of the two.

[B]

Or there's imminent danger of there's a weapon trained on her.

[A]

Exactly. That too.

[B]

Have to be. You have to be convinced to not

[A]

fight in some way, shape or form. No evidence of strangulation or, like I said, or evidence of binding. There was blunt force trauma injury, though, to her right forehead. And this is what we're thinking. Maybe it was a surprise attack hitting the forehead and that's why she didn't fight back. They said the blow to her head would have caused a significant concussion. But he can't say definitively whether she would have lost consciousness or not because that's, you know, kind of roll the dice there.

[B]

Front of the forehead, you don't necessarily go out. It's usually bottom of the face and the back of the head. Those are the two that really knock you out.

[A]

Well, we don't know. We have no idea. A significant concussion? Who knows? He opined that the injury happened immediately before or after her death because he said by the time her heart stops and the blood pools, these things don't occur. Meaning bruising or any of that.

[B]

How did she die?

[A]

Well, he concludes that the cause of death is consistent with. Can't be positive, but consistent with or not inconsistent with is the way he puts it. Freshwater drowning.

[B]

So maybe she's hit and she's unconscious and falls in the water and then breathes water in. I forget the word for that.

[A]

Aspirate.

[B]

Aspirates water.

[A]

Is that out?

[B]

As inspirate.

[A]

Is that out? That might be out. I'm not sure. Is that inspirate? I'm inspirating right now.

[B]

No, there's aspirate and there's another one. But I don't know which ones in or out. But the point is she breathed water in, possibly while unconscious.

[A]

Yeah. Fresh water. Not as much because she didn't fight back. Drowning. No, but it gets more. It gets worse as we go.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

Based on her stomach contents, they determined that she died within three to four hours of her last meal, which would put it at about 4 o', clock, four and change because they ate at around noonish, 11:30. So 3 ish. 4. 4 ish. That's around when that would have been. They said that she ate between 11:30 and 12:30am so all that. So we don't think that she was kept somewhere for a day first and then did this. So this suggested that she died between 3:30 and 4:30pm on Friday afternoon. During the autopsy, they find semen inside of her.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

And then if that's the motivation here, that's. That's. Yeah, you go, why would somebody do this? This is why. Because they wanted to rape this poor girl. Based on the sperm count, they concluded that the intercourse had occurred no more than 12 hours before the death. So 12 hours or sooner could have

[B]

happened based on how. Because they die off. Right.

[A]

Could have happened. Could have been 10 minutes. But no longer than 12 hours before her death. So this evidence leads the police to believe that someone kidnapped and raped her. That's what happened here. And bashed her over the head. Raped her, whatever. And the bash over the head might have been because she ran away. We don't know. We're not positive. And she was obviously fleeing her captor at some point. So the doctor preserves the samples he collects, which was important to do because not everybody did that in 1989 and sent them to the FBI and the Washington State Patrol crime lab for analysis. So the crime lab develops a little bit later a DNA profile from the sperm.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

There's no. At this point in time, there's no CODIS or there's no, like, there's no database to put the sperm to put the DNA into you compared against. Yeah, but if you have somebody, you can compare their DNA. If I say I think Jimmy did it and I swab you, and then I can compare them side to side, but that's it. I can't put it into a system and hope it gets a hit. So that's what they do. Now, the area here, Strand Road, runs off Highway 9 near Acme and dead ends. Strand Road is where they live. Where she lives and her. And her mom and her sisters and brother. Dead ending toward the south fork of The Nooksack River. So there's a big dead end. There's one way out of this of Strand Road you drive down, there's no, it's a dead end. So you got to go this way. Which matters because traffic on Strand Road is nobody driving. The only people that drive down this fucking road are people who live there. It's a dead end in the middle of nowhere.

[B]

And the good news about someone who's very lost, if you go down it, people have a chance to see you twice. I mean, that's bad news for somebody. That's. But good news for those trying to solve it.

[A]

Exactly. So it's, nobody passes through here, basically. This is not an accident. So if you're on there, you live there, you're visiting someone, strangers, cars get noticed. Whose car is that? People will say when they look out the window, who's this joker?

[B]

People say that all day long.

[A]

Yeah, who's this joker out there driving down my street? So this is what they think happened. Okay? This is built from the evidence from the disturbed roadside autopsy, the geography. And this detective who walked the route a whole shitload, he kept walking this route to figure out what could have happened. Okay, so basically he talks about going down the road and Mandy leaves the house early to mid afternoon. Dog alongside her runs her standard loop toward the river. The final sightings of her because there's her brother and a couple other Neighbors cluster around 3pm close to home. One of the witnesses saw a man in a pickup truck. As we'll talk about people who were seen around here near the bend, who watched her run past heading in the direction of her house, roughly an eighth of a mile away from her house. Do you know how fucking close that is? That's so close you can see your fucking house.

[B]

She was probably half a mile is

[A]

500ft, 600ft, yelling for your mother. That's how close. Like if you were being kidnapped, mom, come out of the house. I'm being kidnapped. It's that close.

[B]

You can hear from there for sure.

[A]

You're absolutely, Your guard is 100% down by the time you get to that point.

[B]

So down.

[A]

Yeah, so down. And I don't know how much her guard would have been up anyway running in this rural area, she's done a million times. So that's what she said. Now the detectives point out that there's a wooded stretch ahead and he believes that's where she was taken in the wooden stretch close by. So they said that they don't think that whoever got her chased her down on foot. They had to have talked her over or had a vehicle. They don't think anybody got out and started chasing her because she probably would have outran them.

[B]

Also, she has a dog, a German

[A]

shepherd, for Christ's sake.

[B]

Yeah. There's only a few dogs that on site scare the living shit out of you.

[A]

That's what I mean. I don't understand. That's what makes me think it's got to be somebody that is familiar with

[B]

this dog and that dog.

[A]

Because otherwise. Yeah, a dog like that, you go, I don't know, the thing's gonna bite me. You know, it's just obviously. And also, what's the dog not biting this person for?

[B]

Right.

[A]

That's the other thing. I mean, Jesus Christ.

[B]

My dogs are very sweet, but they will bite the shit out of you if you're aggressive.

[A]

When Sarah, she'll tickle me sometimes, joking around, and I'll be like, oh, come on, come on, come on, come on. Frankie will run over you, push her off and get away from him. And I'm like, you know, and if you were a stranger, she'd probably bite you. But it's Sarah, so she's just like, come on, let's be nice to him. And I'm like laughing, trying to tell her to go away. And she's tickling me. It's a mess.

[B]

Vaughn bites my legs. Whenever I raise my voice to my children, if they talk back to me. And I threw my teeth, say, don't you fucking dare. My dog loses his shit and tells me, don't you fucking dare.

[A]

Don't like that. I don't like that at all. So they said a vehicle and. Or control gained by a weapon. So they think maybe a gun pointed

[B]

at her, that'll do it.

[A]

Yeah. Would talk her into something and get in my car, type of thing. Hop in. Also, they say that that would be fast and quiet. Point a gun in her, she gets in the thing, it's compliant, whatever. They said that could have taken 15 seconds, basically. And they believe that. They think that he probably kicked the dog or did something to the dog to send it into the ditch to get the silt on him.

[B]

And he was scared.

[A]

Explain the leg. Yeah, tell between the legs. And so they think this could have been less than a minute, the whole process of taking her. Then they'd have to drive her somewhere near the river, they think that's where. Also, they think there's got to be local knowledge here, possibly to know where to go around here, knowing where to take her. Because this is a stressful situation. You got a teenage girl in your car that you've kidnapped and you're going to rape and kill. It's a lot going on there. So you got to kind of know what you're doing and where you're going here. So they said then at some point she got away. That's the thing.

[B]

She had to.

[A]

Scratches on her arms and legs are consistent with sprinting through the brush. BlackBerry thickets, big thorns that all line the riverbank. So it must have been her getting away from the riverbank. When they saw that, one of the investigators said, he just said, oh, my God, she was running away. She got away at one point, somewhere in those minutes where she obviously has no clothes on when she's running away, she's running. And she was one of the fastest kids on the track team, too. She ran. And they said, where was she running toward? Because it's kind of the middle of nowhere. So they were trying to figure out which direction she might have ran from the river. But they believed that either way, she got chased down and caught her and struck her on the head. Probably then. Because if she got struck on the head, she wouldn't have probably been able to run away.

[B]

Right.

[A]

So they're thinking that has to be what happened, is he chased her down. Now in the woods, that could also be she might have tripped over a stick. You don't have to be faster than someone in the woods to catch them. If you've ever seen any chase in any movie through the woods, they always trip on a stick or a rock and they fall down and then the murderer catches them.

[B]

That's the thing about the woods. It's very uneven ground.

[A]

Yeah. Watch. Evil Dead. Two brooks go through the woods.

[B]

Just constantly falling.

[A]

You hit your head, you almost drown in a puddle. That's what goes on. Everyone knows that.

[B]

Yeah. So they think possibly she fell down, hit her head on her own.

[A]

No, no, they don't think that. They think she probably either was chased down or fell down, and then the person was probably pissed off at her for running away, whacked her in the fucking head, dragged her back to wherever they were going. Wherever they were. So then at the river, they think that she's nearly unconscious. She's placed in the river to make sure she drowns. And head trauma, by the way, she's a strong swimmer, too, so if she was conscious, she would have swam. It says it. There's an abduction, an assault, an escape, a capture, and a drowning. They said it's gotta be what it is. So it seems pretty.

[B]

And then you think back to the type. How would you get the event? Obviously you don't wanna think about it unfolding, but how it would unfold would be likely the horrible event occurring, obviously. And then in the midst of whatever he was doing, putting a pants back on or a belt or whatever.

[A]

Yes, it could be a pickup truck,

[B]

it could have been on the ground, but it's definitely not somewhere that's closed, you know what I mean? Closed off. This was in a vehicle or out in the woods.

[A]

Has to be. And also she could have thought too, because you never know what people are thinking. She could have thought as the situation was going, I can't can get out of this and I can talk my way out of this. And once he started taking her clothes off, she might have said, oh, this is beyond my control. Now I gotta run. Yeah, you know what I mean? Now I gotta run. And if he shoots me in the back as I'm running, let him fucking shoot me in the back as I'm running. Good luck. It's hard to shoot a moving target that's running away from you.

[B]

Do they think the assault occurred before or after she ran? Do they know?

[A]

They're not. They can't tell. There's no way to tell that. Unfortunately. Those are all just theories, basically. So they're hoping for. They have no ideas at this point. Detectives said their best leads may come from passersby who may have noticed something suspicious along the highway. You know, so it's. They said the road has about four times the traffic is normal because of a washed out bridge and the opening of ski season at Mount Baker.

[B]

Right.

[A]

They said, we're hoping somebody saw something and will give us a call. They also pulled the parole records of several sexual predators or other sexually related criminals who are known to be in the area. Talk to them first. I mean, you got a rape going on, talk to a rapist, you know what I mean? So they're looking for a couple different trucks. Problem here is everybody here has a pickup truck. You're in the middle of nowhere in a place that snows a lot, so it's difficult. They were seeking a dark colored pickup truck. Who knows how many of those there are. They never found the one they were looking for. And they also said they were looking for a second vehicle and an individual. They said they were looking for a late 1970s full size station wagon, light brown in color, possibly a Chrysler or a Chevy that was seen being driven by a man 30 to 35 years old, with a pudgy face, heavy build, dark hair, large mustache and three day growth of beard. Around the same time the woman vanished.

[B]

Oh, the poor bastard.

[A]

So he's like a carnival strongman driving a family truckster, basically is what you're looking for.

[B]

Poor bastard.

[A]

What a weird fucking thing there. Okay?

[B]

He had a roadie in his lap for sure. That man drinks heavy a lot.

[A]

Yeah. So as the word spreads here of this murder, people fucking freak out. I mean, freak out.

[B]

That's a nightmare.

[A]

This is a big deal. Residents gathered at the supermarket to talk about it. Literally just everywhere. They said, one lady here, lady, she's a young lady, young girl, 17 years old. Said, I didn't think that kind of thing happened around here, baby. Well, I mean, you better think again. Another, the woman who works at Acme Foods at the grocery store said, you think of those things happening in Seattle, but not here. Oh, that's right.

[B]

Crime ridden Seattle.

[A]

That crime ridden Seattle. Well, I mean, after Ted Bundy and Green River.

[B]

Green river was going on right then too.

[A]

Yeah, this is the type of thing that happened in Seattle.

[B]

A lot of bad shit happened in Seattle.

[A]

One of her friends named Michelle, who lived a few doors down in the dorm from her, said, I was just watching the news and couldn't believe it was anyone so close. It just gives you a feeling like, gosh, we're seeing each other in the bathroom one day. You see them one day, you don't. Okay, that's where I find all my friends in the bathroom.

[B]

That's a gal.

[A]

That's a gal. Yeah, you know, that's a chick.

[B]

We don't have conversations in that.

[A]

I mean, I see the. I see the guy in the can all the time. It's weird, right? No, we don't talk in the. But women hang out and talk about shit in the bathroom. It's completely against male etiquette to even make eye contact in a bathroom, never mind fucking speak to a person.

[B]

I'm the most vulnerable. This thing is out.

[A]

No, the only eye contact you make is if they have one of those towel cologne guys. You give him eye contact and that's about it. How you doing?

[B]

You rub your pockets and go, eh, I don't have anything, I'm sorry.

[A]

And then you leave. Yeah, because I'm not taking your two squirts of cologne anyway. Leave me alone.

[B]

I'm not giving you $5 for handing me a napkin. I'm leaving.

[A]

No, I'm going now. At her college here, this is at Central Washington University, they found the Note on the bulletin board with her seeking a ride to the Bellingham area for Thanksgiving. It's from Mandy. So that's what they find. The basketball team at her high school ends up playing in honor of her. Basically, this is the day she's found they have a game. And so they were going to cancel the game because she was just there the night before. And, you know, a couple days before, it's a little freaky, but instead they go out and beat some other school.

[B]

Hell, yeah.

[A]

Take that. It was the season opener, too. Oh, one. Yeah. The coach said, I'm pretty proud of the way we handled it, the way they take care of each other and the way they care for Mandy. It was a pretty emotional day for everybody. And one of the parents said, for the kids, we felt maybe it was better if they went ahead and did something. I think the kids handled it well. Better for them to just do that than to just sit around, basically, which I agree with that.

[B]

Mandy's living now. Thanks, guys.

[A]

Yeah. And that worked. Hey, you did it. The coach said, if the kids had left it up to me, I don't think I would have played. But I left it up to them, and they all wanted to play. I think it turned out to be the best thing we could do. Now, reactions. Also, Mandy's mom says all these terrible things. All you can think is, it doesn't happen to you. It doesn't happen on Strand Road. And it did. That's why she moved here, because she said this looks like the safest place in the world. Great. Perfect. She said people here aren't even careful about locking their doors. They don't care. There's a memorial funeral set for her as well. Big deal. They're gonna have a eulogy by her basketball coach, Jim Freeman. A performance of Mandy's song written especially for the service by two students.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

They wrote a song called Mandy's Song. Interesting. And, yeah, that's touching and it's very sweet.

[B]

It was a fucking horrible song.

[A]

And we all know Barry Manila song that we already have. You already have a Mandy song? That's what I mean.

[B]

There's so many songs called Mandy.

[A]

Yeah. Or. Yeah. You could just replace it for Brandy and do Mandy. Such a fun girl. You could do that. You could do. There's so much to do with Mandy. Really.

[B]

It's touching and it's sweet, but I'm sure it's a very bad song.

[A]

Yeah, I'm sure the song was terrible. Written by two teenagers on the fly, under pressure to be performed publicly.

[B]

Couldn't have been good with grief in their heart. It's awful, I promise.

[A]

Yeah, you could have told the Rolling Stones. Write a song now that needs to be ready in two days.

[B]

It'd be shit.

[A]

What the fuck are you talking about? It would be shit. What do you think two teenagers are gonna do? But nice of them to try. The church is accepting donations to a Mandy Stavic personal expenses fund to help fray the costs of the funeral. Another is the Mandy Stavic reward fund, which is up to $13,643 now.

[B]

That's great.

[A]

You can make donations all over.

[B]

Last week it took them fucking six years to get to $13,000.

[A]

Remember that? They couldn't do it. They couldn't fucking do it. 12-3-89. Is the funeral more than nine or the memorial service? More than 900 people attend the memorial at Mount Baker High. Wow, there's 220 people in this town.

[B]

Yeah, this town grew by four times.

[A]

900 people show up. So, I mean, that's a lot. Think about college. Friends came, you know, That's a lot. December 6th, they bury her ashes at the St. Joseph Mission Cemetery. That's very sad. Yeah. They said at the funeral. At the burial it was a lot more low key. Two dozen friends and family members had a small green plot, and the grave was dug and covered with evergreen boughs by Leo Cinque, a nearby neighbor who had become an adopted grandma since Mandy had moved. A grandpa since Mandy had moved here from Alaska. So he grew evergreen boughs and boughs and put them there.

[B]

I guess that's trees. Yes. Or what's a. The boughs like branches, I guess.

[A]

I don't know. I guess. Who knows? It's decorative. It's decorative and it looks very nice. And it's also very Northwestern too, to have tree stuff on there. Now they also talk about this county has had a troubled disappearance record lately. Uh oh. They said this is not the only instance of citizens vanishing in the area. Here are some mysterious disappearances from the last couple years. One was 7-26-89 of Diane Leslie Reeves, 23, who left her home in Ferndale headed toward Seattle. Her car, an 83 Subaru, was found in September in what authorities describe as a wilderness area on a forest service road 14 miles east of Granite Falls in Snohomish County.

[B]

Two months later.

[A]

Two months later, some of this woman's personal belongings were found at the base of a tree nearby. But they never found any other trace of her. Despite repeated air and ground Searches? I didn't look it up, but I don't know if they ever did find her. Not sure. They didn't find her as of six months after she disappeared. Yeah. Disappearance and murders in November 87 of a Canadian couple. Jay Cook and his girlfriend, Tanya Van Wowenborg. The pair were on a business trip from Victoria, British Columbia, to Seattle when they disappeared, along with Cook's 77 Ford van, which also disappeared. Van Kuylenberg's partially clothed body was found in a ditch near Alger. She'd been shot in the head. And Cook was found strangled the following month near Monroe. His van and some of her belongings and identification were later found in Bellingham. They never caught who did that at the time. Also, the partially clad body of Bellingham resident rita P. Desange, 40. She was 40, of Bellingham. Was found in August of 87 floating in some water on the Lumi reservation, or Lummi reservation. She had attended a large beach party across from Portage Island. No one's ever charged in that. Then also 1987. A Bellingham resident who was last seen on a date with convicted killer Darren D. O'. Neill. O' Neill was a drifter with a lengthy criminal record who was convicted in April of 89 of stealing this missing woman's car, which was later found a week later in Eugene with his fingerprints inside. He was sentenced to five months in jail for the theft. He was also convicted in January of the slaying of Robert Robin smith, who was 21 years old of Des Moines, Iowa, and was serving 27 years, nine months in prison for the murder.

[B]

I feel like you probably killed the girl for the car, right?

[A]

Seems like it. Police say o' Neill is a suspect in the disappearance and presumed death. Well, if he took her car, he probably killed her. If he's a murderer also.

[B]

And she went on a date with the guy.

[A]

Yeah. Now, this is all. These are all not in Acme though, right? These are a lot of, like in the county surrounding area, but not in your small town. So it's different now. The investigation first ends up under Sheriff Don Mount. That's the first guy. Hundreds of tips came in. Sure. Hundreds of tips. The problem is, in 1989, like I said, they don't have a database to enter DNA into. So you'd have to get everybody in there, get their code, get their thing, compare it next to it.

[B]

You gotta get a suspect to match

[A]

what you got, which is tough. That makes it a lot harder.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

It's nice because it tells you whether you're right or Not. But you can't just throw it into Ancestry.com and say, well, there we go. And then go pick the guy up in this house.

[B]

Let this show me who did this.

[A]

Yeah, that's all. I'll go pick him up tomorrow. I'm sure he's at his house. It's like, that's crazy. So the theories here, the one everybody really wants to believe is it was a drifter. That's what they all want to believe. Some drifter coming through. Yes, because that means drifters drift and that means he's gone. Now the drifter means he stopped by, killed somebody, then probably got as far the fuck away from here as possible because he just killed somebody. That's what drifters do. So your drifter is the best case scenario because it's a thing that you can control. It's not there if it's a local. Now you're living amongst a murderer. That's the thing. Now it's a horror movie. Yeah, now it's a horror movie. So that's what's crazy.

[B]

But the drifter means fucking anywhere, any place is in so much trouble.

[A]

That's stranger danger. You expect that, though. That's normal danger. You know, the drifter, they said that they think someone moved on. Basically, the way the one guy put it, the detective, a stranger passes through, does the unthinkable and moves on. And the valley remains innocent because nobody here did it. It's just some outside person came in and killed someone. It's a horrible tragedy. But the other one is the neighbor. That's a guy who you gotta worry about every day. Now the other one, maybe the police chief. Exactly. In our stories, who the fuck knows? So they said now people, they ran out of deadbolts at the general store.

[B]

And deadbolts are the least your worries. I mean, granted, that's a good way to deter somebody from coming through the front door, but.

[A]

Makes you feel a little better, that's all.

[B]

A little better. But that guy that just did that, he'll come through your fucking window.

[A]

You gotta come out sometime. He didn't get you in your house. He waited till someone came outside and got him. So your deadbolt wouldn't help people stop leaving their keys in their cars. People used to leave, leave their keys in the ignition in the driveway here because nobody's going to steal their car. Imagine that parents are now watching their kids outdoors. It's a pretty rural area. The kids go run around and play. Not anymore. Now they're all watching them. And everybody started looking at Everybody else wondering if they're a murderer. It insidiously ate this town alive. It's one of those murder mystery stories where everyone's in the house and they're like, well, maybe, maybe he did it. Well, you have the motivation. And they all go back and forth with each other. Thank you. Exactly. All knives out. Exactly. So the thing that they figured out fast is this is. It seems local. It's a dead end road victim on a predictable schedule. A semi hidden stretch of the river. Strangers don't even know Strand Road is there. So, right.

[B]

You want it to be the drifter, but none of the facts point that way at all.

[A]

No, they don't. And so there's so much fear going on. They are actually. Here's a headline in the newspaper. Group walks against fear in memory of Mandy Stavic. They have big walks against fear because people don't want to go outside, they're so terrified. They said the friends, family and neighbors who gathered Saturday at the home of Mandy Stavic had one purpose in mind. Standing together against the fear that has settled in this quiet stretch of. Of rural whatcom county. Almost 40 people came together on the calm winter afternoon to hold hands, talk, and walk the stretch of Strand Road where Mandy was last seen. Oh man, that is brutal. One of them said, my belief is love is stronger than fear and that we have a choice not to live our lives in fear. Okay, well, yeah, sure, why not? Don't live your lives in fear.

[B]

Then there's shirts at the mall that you can buy that say it right on it.

[A]

No, it's right. Well, in 1996 you could have bought those shirts maybe in 89.

[B]

89, right.

[A]

Maybe they could be in 89. I was just thinking now I don't know if they exist now. I'm sure they do. There seems like a group of douchebags. So I could definitely see wearing no Fear shirts.

[B]

I forget what company bought no Fear. It's selling again.

[A]

I bet it is.

[B]

The, the. It's. Whoever bought it is the least creative people on the planet.

[A]

They didn't even come up with a dumb slogan. They. I will buy a defense defunct slogan from someone.

[B]

The new shirts are fucking bad.

[A]

I bet the old shirts are bad. I don't know how the new ones could be better.

[B]

Remember, they had eyes and shit though. I think they've got the eyes on them now. But like the, the little sayings on them are. It's stupid.

[A]

It looks like. I am proud to say I've never owned a no Fear shirt. Not once. Never. Never fucking own one. Saw that right away, I was like, that's for douchebags. Okay.

[B]

I loved Stussy and Mossimo. Massimo was my favorite one.

[A]

Yeah. When I lived in Arizona, that was cool. In New York you couldn't wear Stussy. They'd be like, what the fuck are you wearing? What are you, a surfer? Yeah. No one would've been like, what the fuck is wrong with you? That's what kids would've said, what's wrong with you? Tommy Hilfiger not good enough for you? What's the matter, boss ain't good enough for you? Hey, everybody. Just gonna take a quick break from the show and tell you about the safest sponsor that we ever have had here, SimpliSafe.

[B]

SimpliSafe.coms, i M, P L I. Safe.com.

[A]

absolutely. Let me tell you something. We love Simplisafe and we have had. This is the product that we've used the most of anything we've ever advertised. This is the product we've used it the most. We love it. We stand by these people a hundred percent. It is the best way for pieces of mind for your home, your office, your family, everything. Because in the US there's a break in about every 26 seconds, which is a lot. That means somewhere right now there's an intruder getting closer to somewhere. And most security systems, the problem is they alert you after the break. INS already started. Great. Now someone's in my house. You've listened to this show. You know what can happen. Is that what you want? You want to know that they're in your house? I want to know about it beforehand. And that's where Simplisafe comes in. And that's why we choose Simplisafe to secure our homes and studios using the outdoor camera series 2 and advanced AI alerts. SimpliSafe's US based live agents identify threats on your property and deter them, stopping crime before it starts. They see it, they talk to them. They say, get out of here. Cops are being called stupid. Go. It's amazing you want that so bad. We have both used Simplisafe the whole time. Houses, offices. I can't put together IKEA furniture, but I can install the Simplisafe because it was that easy. And it's Simplisafe. It's a game changer for us. And here's what we love most about it. I'm telling you, no long term contracts.

[B]

Nope.

[A]

You don't want to be locked into some contract. They don't need that because Simplisafe, they want to earn your business every day. That's how they do it. Also peace of mind. I mean, honestly, you see all these break ins, you see things happening. And we read our show, we're talking on small town murder all the time. We go, oh, my God, this is. I'm happy I have this. It makes me feel good. And with the monitoring and deterrence plan starting at under a dollar a day, you can't beat that. That's crazy. Imagine having like. It's basically like having your own home security person, like a big gargoyle standing there. Dollar a day. That's crazy. It would cost a lot more. And like we said, so easy to set it up. And I'm telling you, we want you to experience the same peace of mind that we do, which is why We've partnered with SimpliSafe for an exclusive offer of discount to our listeners. Right now you can get 50% off your new system by visiting simplisafe.com small that's half [e-mail] small there's no safe. Like simply safe.

[B]

Now back to the show. You can't go to get some Carl Kanai?

[A]

What's going on? You don't want some bright orange Carl Kanai pants? You fucking loser. Look at you with your no Fear shirt on and your scousies and your Massimos. But I like the Stussy and Mossimo shit. I had a Mossimo popular there.

[B]

Fucking rat. It had like a. Like a baby, like a. Like a cherub baby with like angel wings and shit. It's a cool little shirt.

[A]

But I loved a flying baby.

[B]

And I wore it until the motherfucker ripped that one in. Rusty was a big brand too, anyway. But no fear was fucking bad.

[A]

And it's worse now. That's terrible. It's worse now because we should know better. We should absolutely know better. One of the people walking said when I heard about Mandy, I wanted to do something other than be afraid. This is not helping anything, but it's making them feel like they're not afraid. So that's. People have to do that for their mental health here. And she said if got her friends and family to, you know, help walk the route and says the walk was the end result of this goal. Proof that I don't have to live my life in fear. Well, if there's 40 people around. No, but if you go out by yourself, maybe. All right, now suspects. Here we go. Now. DNA was invented by a British geneticist in 1984. The first ever criminal case solved was in England in 87.

[B]

Is that right?

[A]

Absolutely. You would think that we would lead the way in murder finding because it's kind of what we do here, but no. The first conviction using DNA in the US was also in 87, later in the year. CODIS wasn't in full operation until the late 90s. If you don't know CODIS is the system where you can enter DNA in and see if any hits are in a database. Yes. When Mandy was killed, though, forensic DNA was barely a concept and definitely not used in courtrooms very often because you have to explain it to jurors.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

Imagine that in the O.J. case, they had to explain it to everybody. And the DA was telling Marcia Clark, nobody knows what DNA is. She thought she had a home run with the DNA. And they're like, that jury doesn't know what the fuck that is. They can tell when a glove doesn't fit, but they don't know what the fuck DNA is, so you better tighten your shit up.

[B]

Basically, you tell them that everybody's unique inside. None of them are going to understand why. Then why do I look like that guy?

[A]

Exactly. Genetic fingerprint's a good way to put it, but still, they're not getting the exact thing here. You can see a fingerprint. That's the difference. You can't see DNA. So most crime labs couldn't run DNA samples at all or do any. Anything. And the technology at the time meant you needed a lot of product to test. You needed a lot of tissue or fluid, or if you had a hair, it had to have the root attached to it or else it wouldn't work. It was one of those things. So for them, this Ron Peterson, the guy who was trained by the FBI, pulling a body from a river when most people would have just pulled it out and not cared about any forensic evidence. This guy was way ahead of his time, and that was money well spent by the county to send him to get FBI training. So the guys they have are. David Suchi is one guy. S U C H Y He's a drifter. Yeah, just what they're looking for. Great. Let's find out what he has to see. Yep. He's a transient seen in the area on that day Friday when she disappeared and observed along Standard Road, which is nearby. He was the obvious. He's the one everyone wanted to be guilty. Basically, because that's what you expect, that's

[B]

what you hope, that's what you hope. You got him and everybody we can go back to living.

[A]

It's a guy that people walk to the other side of the street from. So that's the guy you want to be the murderer. Not some guy who's your pastor or your kid's coach or your. Whatever the fuck. Aspen, Birchfield or Saltwater Cowboys. Coming in like they got something going on. The deputies took it serious. They got a warrant for his DNA. Does a DNA test. No match.

[B]

Not him.

[A]

It ain't him. Ain't him at all. They said, fine. They let him go. Paul, back there. Paul. Malik? Yeah. Here's your bindle. We're sorry we wasted your time. Here you go.

[B]

We're going to give you a couple cans of.

[A]

Put an extra. Well, we put an extra can of SpaghettiOs in there for you. We thought, you know, what the hell? This poor guy, we'll give him one with the. Put a. Give him a can with the meatballs in it. This poor fucking guy. He's been walking. Come on. Walking up the tracks.

[B]

Have a great day.

[A]

Have a good one.

[B]

It just says white on the back.

[A]

That's the type. Paul Malek. M A L E K. He was a neighbor backing out of his driveway as Mandy jogged past. Oh, probably one of the last two people, or three people, if you count the murderer. To see. To see her alive. Yeah. And he drives a dark colored pickup. Son of a bitch knows the area, has the vehicle, all of that. He came in, he talked where she was. This is where I was. I was going this way, she was going that way. Now he's very talkative. Like, he's real talkative, and they're like, that's weird. Normally people who don't do anything aren't real talkative. They'll give you answers to the questions that are. Talking too much. Talking too little is one of the signs homicide detectives look at. Literally, too much eye contact. Too little eye contact, too much of this, too little of that. There's a normal range they can make, but there's a normal range of shit they're looking for that. It's very small. It really is. So they said that they wanted to talk to him, and because he was the one who was like, I saw her. I was backing out of my driveway and I did all this stuff. And he's real talkative. So they're like, anybody who inserts themselves into an investigation that doesn't have to. Something odd here. And he doesn't know he has any information other than I saw her. So he really seems like he wants to know what they Want to know or what the cops know? He told investigators reportedly that during all this whole thing and his rambling, he said that, well, Mandy reminded me of my own daughter.

[B]

Oh.

[A]

Which can be super creepy or endearing, depending on what kind of person he is. It really is, because it's one of those things. Sometimes you have a daughter.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

If you see like a four year old girl sometimes you go, oh. Because you remember when you're, you know what I mean? You don't talk to her or anything, but you go, you go, that's cute. I remember, I remember when my daughter was that big. What's your number in your head? You don't go, you look like my daughter did when she was 4. You don't talk to them or bother them. They're 4. But you think, oh, that's cute, or whatever. But then there's also people who say that, that creep me out, where they're like, they feel like they're like, you know, just want to hug her.

[B]

No.

[A]

Yeah. No, stop touching. That's a weird crossover where really good people and really bad people meet.

[B]

There are cops that say things like, I. I saw this crime scene and the kid was the same age as mine. And it made me.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Want to solve it more like, that's, that's fine.

[A]

That makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I was at the store the other day, there was a little girl and I just remembered my daughter at that age and I just thought to myself, I remember my daughter was that age. I was cute. That's all.

[B]

Any little kid with a little sprig on the top of their head. Because Presley had that on her. On the top of her head. A little, like a little bit of hair on the top. And we'd put a little bow on it. And yeah, I remember anybody that has like a little sprig up there with the bow on it, I get a little.

[A]

I remember.

[B]

Get a little sentimental and I miss.

[A]

Known your kids since they were babies

[B]

now, for Christ's sake. A fucking nightmare. I love that kid, but she is not easy.

[A]

That's fucking funny. And now all of her friends know about it because on Netflix

[B]

now they're gonna make fun of her for having a bow in her sprig, in her hair, that little bit of hair.

[A]

That's great. So they talk to him. He tells them that. Which they were thinking about, but they do a DNA test. It ain't him. Not him, not him.

[B]

Not a scumbag.

[A]

The other guy they bring in is gonna be the obvious choice. Who do you think it is Jimmy, the boyfriend. The boyfriend. You always bring in the boyfriend. Come on. He's the first guy you talk to.

[B]

Wait, why are you trying to run away?

[A]

We got drifter guy who talked too much, and then the boyfriend. Those are the three big ones. That's the big three. Rick Zehnder, the boyfriend. Rick drove Mandy home from college. Obviously he cooperated immediately and completely and was cleared of everything. No DNA match and it's cleared. And he also doesn't run away. He stays around, keeps up contact with her family for a while and seems like a decent four hours. Yeah, so they said at that point, the drifter, this guy. They said at that point we were kind of focused more on the neighborhood where she grew up, where it might be somebody she knew, somebody in the area.

[B]

It's gotta be.

[A]

And that's the other thing. If it's somebody she knew, it's a lot easier to get her. She won't do that initial back off when you talk to her. She'll actually come closer to you because she knows you. She wants to hear what you're saying. January 6, 1990. The task force leader here, the King county prosecutor, said the kidnapping and death of Mandy has renewed his resolve to push for sweeping legislation to impose harsher penalties on violent sex offenders. This guy says he's the chairman of a task force on community protection. The task force drafted a package of recommendations including longer prison sentences, a requirement that convict sex offenders register with authorities because they didn't even do registering yet then, and possible civil commitment of offenders, meaning in like an institution until they're ready to not rape anybody. This guy said that Stavik Mandy disappeared about a half mile from his boyhood home. So it's very personal for him. He said he grew up on a dairy farm near Acme and also went to Mount Baker High School, where Mandy went also. He said, of course, the tragedy in Acme has renewed my commitment to not only develop this package, but to make sure it passes the legislature. This is a problem in every town and city in Washington. The task force was formed after the sexual mutilation of a seven year old Tacoma boy last May and the rape killing of a Seattle woman nine months earlier.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

The 24 member panel's recommendations are expected to cost 15 million this year and 55 million in the next two year budget cycle.

[B]

And that's money well spent.

[A]

If we spend money, that's money that we should be spending. That's the type of money you should be spending. Yeah.

[B]

Damn.

[A]

State lawmakers returned to work Monday and have scheduled legislative packages and they said it's on a very fast track. They're looking for maximum sentence of life in prison for repeat rapists, child rapists and child molesters of special origin. A requirement that convicted sex offenders register, obviously. Weird thing is, that's the thing. Everybody's been. They said that constitutional questions are raised about the provision for registration, which is something nobody has a problem with that I've ever heard of.

[B]

What's the constitutional part? Cruel and uncle. What are they trying to say?

[A]

No, I don't know. Putting people on lists, tracking people. There's certain things to that. Yeah. Invasion of privacy type of thing. I'm not sure. But. No, that's the one that nobody. We're all in agreement on.

[B]

The only people that have a problem with it.

[A]

Yeah, there's no real sides to that one. I mean, the ACLU is probably fine with that. Even like. Well, yeah, that's fine. That's. You know, these are diddlers. So they said the registration would be a valuable tool for law enforcement and the ability to identify, commit indefinitely commit convicted sex offenders to psychiatric institutions once they finish prisoners. So that would be another place to put them. People are pissed here. That's one of the things here. People are pissed and they don't know what to do about it. And when they don't know what to do about it, this is when bad laws get made and bad things happen. Like after 9, 11, we did a ton of dumb shit because we were all scared. Made it wrong countries and pissed away hundreds of billions of dollars. And it's a react. We do it all the time. That's what groups are good at.

[B]

Humans are great at. Mass panic.

[A]

Mass panic. Individually, not couple, not. You get more than five, it's all bets are off. So this is an editorial from a Sharon Chandler of 3214 Vallette Street. She says the death of Mandy Stavic, a wonderful young woman, was the last straw. Are we safe in Whatcom county anymore? Oh God, yes, you are. What about all those folks out there working and improving their lives through walking and jogging? Do they feel safe? We need to do what it takes. One, support the law enforcement and judicial systems to make sure the perpetrators are caught and punished to the full extent of the law. I think that's being done. There's no. There's nobody trying to take. Yeah, there's nobody trying to take money from the Rape and Murder Task Force. That's not how that works. Two, establish the strong statement message of those moving into our Community. That violence of this nature will not be tolerated here. Stay out. What community is it tolerate? What community do they go? Yeah, child rapist. Come on in. There's a two bedroom here you're going to love. It's real nice, spacious, overlooking the river. That's the craziest thing.

[B]

The daycare.

[A]

Yeah. And then three. Keep crime and gangs out of Whatcom County. You live in the woods. I don't think you have to worry about that too much. But there's a ton of crime there now, just not gangs. I applaud the efforts of law enforcement on the crackdown. Please don't let it get a hold of our youth and community. That's just a person whose hair is on fire. And they're just angry and they think I want more things.

[B]

They're just slobbering a bunch of cliches.

[A]

Yes. Shit. That doesn't work, but costs a lot of money.

[B]

Parroting that's already been said to them that they believe is the right answer.

[A]

And I'm sure they heard it on some fucking weird talk radio. I'm sure

[B]

some shit.

[A]

Some idiots. November 24, 1991. Still nothing. Yeah, it's a year later nothing. Or two years later we got Ugats here. Two years here, they're still waiting for something, which is crazy. The basketball coach Jim Freeman said, I still think about her a lot. I still feel a loss. Okay. And then her mother Mary said, the community is not forgotten. It was not just Mandy who was raped and murdered. The whole community was raped and murdered and they will never forget it. That's a weird statement. Wow. Raped and murdered, huh? That's maybe raped, like mentally, but murdered is pretty specific of what that is.

[B]

Yeah, that's a mom at her wit's end.

[A]

She doesn't know what to say.

[B]

She doesn't know what to say anymore.

[A]

No. They also have in the newspaper just this. Anyone with information on the Mandy Stavic case should call these phone numbers. Detectives are still seeking information on three vehicles seen in the area. This is two years later. A full size light brown station wagon, late 70s model with a chrome roof, roof rack, another chrome trim, possibly a Chevy or Chrysler. Male driver, 30 to 35, pudgy face, heavy build, dark hair, sideburns, large mustache, three day beard growth. A dark brown pickup with a white canopy. I mean that's the cap there. The canopy has dark brown stripe on the side. And the truck had a metal step and diamond plate running boards. Oh, okay. Which sounds like my grandfather's pickup truck,

[B]

which is Every grandfather in the seventies had that truck.

[A]

Does the license plate holder say happiness is being Italian? Because if it is, I think I can solve this case right now. I think we can lock this up. He's been dead since nine.

[B]

A bad day. Fishing is still better than a good day at work because that's my grandfather

[A]

that might be there. Yeah. A dark brown or black Chevy or Ford pickup truck with matching canopy and a gold striped trim and slightly oversized tires. So that's what they're looking for. People are so pissed. The sheriff gets voted out.

[B]

Oh, fuck.

[A]

Loses his job.

[B]

Lost his job because he couldn't solve it.

[A]

One of the locals here, Sue Kimball, who's a neighbor of Mandy's family, said the anger is reflected in the November 5 election results in which the challenger defeated the incumbent by a sizable margin. The sheriff, current Sheriff, garnered only 22% of the vote in the precinct that Acme is in. That's on you.

[B]

Yeah, that's a no confidence vote.

[A]

That is probably. He's probably related to the other to 22% who voted for him because it's such a small area.

[B]

Yeah, he lost by 80%.

[A]

Yeah. Compared with nearly 46% in the county at large here. But he got in Acme two years before the murder. He got almost 75% of the vote n Acme. So in those four years, he lost overwhelmingly. Went from 75 to 22% in this area based solely on this. And the one lady said the unsolved crime had a lot to do with it. Yeah. There's still a reward. The sheriff's department continues its investigation, has no suspects, but they do have a $25,000 reward fund for information leading to the arrest and conviction here. But they say it's untouched and nothing's happened. Now, there's another weird thing here that her mom is talking about. The police and county prosecutors have suggested to her that Mandy's death may have been an accidental outcome of an abduction and a rape. Maybe it wasn't intentional, the murder. Some speculate that Mandy escaped from her captor, fell, fled, Fled. Fell in the river and drowned. She said, okay, so she got away. I don't know who would run. That would mean that this was happening away from the river. And she said, I'm going to run toward the river to get away. Who the runs into a river to get away?

[B]

I mean, I.

[A]

Are there people there? No, you run toward where people are. Houses, things you can run on. You can't run on water.

[B]

No, but I mean, if you get across the water that's certainly going to slow down somebody that's chasing you, I suppose.

[A]

But I wouldn't think someone's going to go, I'm going to run through the thorny BlackBerry bushes into the river, because that's where I'll be safe. It just doesn't make sense. I mean, you do weird shit, I guess, too, if someone's on you. But it makes more sense that she'd run away from the river because that's where you drown.

[B]

But what she's doing, if that's the theory, is that's the equivalent of throwing shit behind you as you run. You know what I mean?

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just not buying this. They said that that's the accidental theory, which I don't think is true. Her mom said they really believe that it's possible that her death was accidental. The chances that someone would be convicted of murder are pretty slim is what she was told. So now that she's been told, I guess this is all fucked out now.

[B]

We might get somebody on rape, but we can't get them on murder.

[A]

Who knows? She said, right now I can kind of put it out of my mind. I don't really relish going through a trial anyway. So she's like, I can kind of just say, I guess, fuck it. She said she's just focusing on commemorating her daughter's achievements. She showed off a plaque bearing Mandy's portrait and the name of the first Mount Baker High School student to receive the Mandy Stavic Memorial Scholarship Fund payout, or whatever. She said the mom said she planned to place the plaque temporarily at Mandy's grave site in the Clipper Cemetery. She hopes it will remind people that Mandy's ambition to excel lives on. And she said the plaque will later hang at school. It's a $6,000 scholarship fund raised mostly by sales of Mandy's song tape. It's their fucking We Are the World.

[B]

They. They sold some.

[A]

They sold it probably at the general store. Still growing, they said, albeit slowly. The first $750 scholarship went to Lydia Stewart, now a freshman at Western Washington University. Lydia's brother, Pete Stewart, co authored Mandy's song. Oh, the tape. Yeah.

[B]

I mean, it's a small town, so, yeah.

[A]

The tape can be ordered and donations. Donations made to the scholarship fund by writing to Mandy's song fund. And I don't think you can still do this. I don't think there's still a Bellingham national bank, so I'm sorry, that's where it is. They said this Is Mary. Mom. Anytime a child dies, it's really important to the parent that their memory be kept alive somehow. I'm just really lucky that Mandy was the kind of person that made people want to do things like this for her in her memory. So there's a Mandy Stavic reward fund. That's over $17,000. There's the Mandy Stavic Personal Fund, which is over $2,500. That is defray the cost of funeral. Anything given beyond those expenses will be basically, they said, a Christmas gift to the Stavik family. They're just going to keep it. Anything beyond. Okay. And the Amanda Mandy Stavik memorial scholarship, which that's what they have for her. So now, as the 90s progress, DNA becomes way more common and it's being used for everything.

[B]

Team roles in progress nowadays.

[A]

It's so funny, because nowadays when they have murder suspects, watch interrogations that have happened in like the last eight years, they barely want to talk to you. They just want to swab you and take your phone. That's all they really need from you. Yeah, your phone will show me where you are and what happened.

[B]

If they've already got your DNA when they come to sit them down, they just want to ask them, were you ever in this house? And if they say no, they go, well, then put these cuffs on because your DNA's in there. You said no, then you did it.

[A]

But that's. That's it. And whether they said yes or no, they still would have cuffed and they just wanted to fuck with it for a minute. Yeah, it looks worse that they lied about it. That's all it is. So the police investigation leads to a bunch of suspects who they exclude due to DNA. Case goes cold.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Possible suspects. Roughly 30 local men throughout the 90s voluntarily gave DNA or were otherwise ruled out for rock solid alibis. Or, you know, one guy who had like one leg or something. He's not going to chase a fucking athlete or anybody over a certain age or in bad health. There was the drifter named David Sochi that we talked about. The neighbor, the boyfriend. They even ran the profile against Gary Ridgeway because they said it's a little far for him, but fuck it. I mean, maybe he took a trip that day. Yeah, maybe they took a trip up by then. Yeah, once he got caught in the 90s there, 2003 comes around.

[B]

Stop it.

[A]

14 years Whatcom county law enforcement officials discount a report that linked a deceased robbery and murder suspect to the murder. Apparently there's a rumor going around that this guy who died, former Jefferson County Sheriff Pete Pacini, said that in 1990 he found evidence in a locker that linked Charles T. Sinclair to Stavik. But they conclusively rule him out. 2007, the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office devotes more hours to reviewing the case reports of cold cases and sending detectives to re interview people involved. Nothing happens.

[B]

20 years later, man.

[A]

2009, 20 years later, Detective Kevin Bohay, B o w hay H a y he reopens the investigation. He was a rookie in 1989, a rookie cop, when this murder happened. So this was like this big deal, this big black cloud that's been hanging over the department his entire career, his entire career since he came up. So he decides he is gonna redo all this and get DNA samples from anyone who lived anywhere in the fucking area. Don't care if you got a dick and you lived around here. We're swabbing you, period. That's it. He starts from page one and redoes the entire investigation, which is a big deal because it's 20 years of investigation. He looks at who was interviewed, who wasn't interviewed. All this shit he also saw, apparently. Is this a movie here? The Blooding. Do you know this Blooding? The Blooding? Yeah. Apparently it's Joseph Wambaugh's account of the 1980s Lancashire investigation where British DNA tested thousands of local men to catch the killer of two teenage girls.

[B]

Wombaugh. That's gotta be a book, right?

[A]

I don't know if it's a book or a movie, I'm not sure, but either way they just said, gather everybody up and if you take enough samples, you'll find the person. And he said, why can't I do that? Fuck it. If they do it voluntarily, then why not?

[B]

Whatever, take it.

[A]

This was the first, because the one he read about was the first DNA dragnet in history. The first time they ever did that because two teenage girls were murdered. It worked. The thing is, the interesting thing is the killer ended up getting a co worker to take the test for him. And then the co worker talked about it in a pub and that's how he got caught the guy. Which is interesting. So all of that didn't matter because it was caught by some guy who told on him. So basic police work ended up solving it, not DNA. Interesting. So over the course of the investigation, Detective Bohe and his team collect more than 80 people's DNA. Oh, 20 years later. Wow. They asked him, by the way, 48 hours did a story on this and they Asked him, how many times did you drive the route that she was on, Mandy's route? And he says, at least 100 over the last 20 years working this case. At least 100. When he's bored, he goes and drives it and sees maybe something else. Maybe it would have been here or maybe that. Hoping to see an angle that he didn't see before, which is really frustrating. Has to be just done so much of it. He said he goes through it and he knows everything. Here's where she started. Here's the bend. Here's the wooded stretch where I thought she was taken. Here's that. He knows it by like a blind guy. Knows her house, basically. So over the last several years, he's doing all of this, all these different people. 2010, there's a local drug dealer. Well, he's not local anymore, but he used to be a local drug dealer named John Wisniewski. He told some people back in the early 90s that he knows stuff about this murder that he maybe shouldn't know. And the inference is either he knows who did it, or he may have done it himself. Let's talk a drug dealer. Problem is he lives in Cambodia now.

[B]

What?

[A]

It's been 21 years, he's in Cambodia.

[B]

Why did he move? I mean, he's obviously in trouble here, right?

[A]

Who doesn't move there knows. Maybe he's like, you know the righteous gemstones guy where he's like, yeah, he's one of those guys. It's like, man, fucking chicks and fucking, you know, they know how to treat you over there type of shit.

[B]

Yeah, man could live like a king on 300.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, Cambodia. To go to the Khmer Rouge and fire off machine guns. And you could probably, you know, you could probably pay $30 to kill a child there. And they would like. There's lawless areas of Cambodia that are crazy.

[B]

And that's just at their Cambodian Walmart.

[A]

I was gonna say that's actually the Delta terminal at the airport. But then once you get into the actual country, wow, it gets crazy.

[B]

Then it gets wild.

[A]

So his DNA wasn't a match. They already had the guy's DNA and it wasn't a match. But for some reason, this cop said, I really have a feeling about this guy.

[B]

I wanna speak Cambodian to him.

[A]

I really wanna go on a free trip to Cambodia. I've always been interested. Cause there's no. The DNA does not match. Everybody else immediately is out. Once their DNA doesn't match. This guy's like, I still would love to talk to him.

[B]

$30 child.

[A]

So he does. He goes all the way over there and he said that he kept repeating the denials. And the cop said, he's a good liar. And I have a bad feeling about him. But what I don't have is any evidence whatsoever, and his DNA doesn't match. So. Waste of time flying back home. Another dead end.

[B]

Got a tan.

[A]

Perfect. It was great, though. I tried some great food. It was amazing.

[B]

It's a jungle over there. It's beautiful.

[A]

It's a jungle out there. June of 2013 comes around.

[B]

Oh, my God.

[A]

This is the most unlikely way that a case has ever been solved in the history of small town murder, by the way. Okay. June 2013. Birch Bay Water slides, which is a water park near Bellingham.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Not what you expected me to say. Correct.

[B]

It's an interesting start.

[A]

That's the scene, okay? Two moms from the Acme area who didn't come there together and don't know each other very well, by the way. They just recognize each other from Acme and realize we're probably the only two people from ACME here. We should talk. So while they're kids, they're watching their kids do water park shit. And the parents sit there and talk. They're both from Acme. Within a couple of minutes, their small talk drifts into. Isn't it crazy how we still don't know who killed Mandy back in 1989? That's all they have to talk about. That's how boring this town is. Isn't that weird?

[B]

I agree. There's some weird shit happening right now, and us talking about this is part of it.

[A]

At a fucking water park. Yeah, Honey. Yeah. It's weird that she's dead. Okay, sweetie, watch out. Be careful.

[B]

It's time to reapply sunscreen to my children. Why do you want to talk about rape and murder, you psycho?

[A]

But they both want to do it.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

They both went to Mount Baker High School, but barely knew each other up till this point. They started chatting, and suddenly the one Backstrom. Heather Backstrom and Merrilee Anderson are these two. Backstrom suddenly blurts out, I know who killed her, why?

[B]

And what?

[A]

Huh? Great. Tell some. What the fuck are you telling me for? Yeah, why'd you wait this long? Then Anderson said, I do, too.

[B]

They know the same guy.

[A]

Where the fuck were you two then?

[B]

What the fuck?

[A]

Now they're intrigued because they both have an idea of who they think did it. Basically, I know who killed her. Doesn't mean I have to say it.

[B]

I'll tell you if that's who I think.

[A]

So they end up saying, the Anderson says it's a guy named Tim Bass, not Tom Bass, who we talked about earlier, who Mandy was supposed to hang out with. Tim Bass, Tom's brother.

[B]

And did the other girl say the same thing?

[A]

Let's get into this here. She said, tim Bass, who also graduated from Mount Baker, who is a friend of this Anderson woman's husband, by the way.

[B]

Oh, boy.

[A]

She said one time he stopped by her house one night a couple of years after the murder and knocked on the door. He said he'd been out hunting and needed to use the phone. Now, Anderson was home alone with her infant son. She said she heard Tim Bass dial the phone, but she could hear the beep, beep, beep of it not going through, you know? Yeah, he's just holding it up to his ear. After a while, that dial tone would go bing, bing, bing. That's what happened. So she suspected that he was not dialing a working number and lying to her, trying to get into the house. Good instinct. So this lady says, so then he walks through the kitchen and back to my bedroom, and he said that he used to drive by our house and that he's always been in love with me, and he wanted to make love to me. Can I make a phone call? I wanted to make love to you is a very big. In the background. She said she was overcome with fear at that moment. Her husband was away, and she was alone with a man who now she's scared of. She said, I kept telling him no, no, but he kept trying to convince me to go into the bedroom with him. Finally, I told him I would call the police. And somehow I don't even remember how exactly I got him out of my house. Backstrom says, that's exactly the fucking guy I'm talking about. Tim. What fucking bass?

[B]

Why do they know that?

[A]

Well, Backstrom said I had a weird experience with Tim also. That's why they know that they don't know anything about the case other than this is a guy who lived there. That creeped them out, so he might be capable of whatever. And she said she had a terrible experience months before the murder of Mandy. The other one was a couple years after. This is before this. Backstrom was only 15 at the time, and Bass was 21. This Bass is three years older than Mandy, and it was after a softball game. They were riding in a truck driven by another young man named Dan, who, by the way, Heather, the other woman she's talking to, eventually Married. So this woman's husband was still in the truck at this point, too? It's small town. Oh, yeah. You were in the truck with him? Yeah, I married that guy. Amazing. At the time, though, everybody was just friends. Heather, or. I'm sorry, she married. Not the other lady, the lady who's telling the story. She married Dan.

[B]

Oh, God.

[A]

I got confused. At the time, though, they were just friends. Heather sat between Dan the driver and Timothy Bass in the front seat while everyone else was in the back of the truck. Bass started aggressively flirting with her. She said, She's 21 and 15.

[B]

That's crazy.

[A]

Gross. She said he would talk about my eyes and say that they were beautiful. Then he took a pen out of the cup holder and would start rubbing it along my knees.

[B]

What?

[A]

What a creep.

[B]

Why is that flirty?

[A]

That's not your finger. A pen. That's weird.

[B]

Tracing her knee.

[A]

What do you mean with a fucking pen? She said she was very uneasy but didn't freak out because she knew there was another person in the cab and thought that Dan would prevent Tim from getting any more physical. But it always stuck out in her memory, and she made a point of always trying to avoid contact with Tim Bass after that. They for years, thought that he behaved toward them in a predatory way, and that made them. Rubbing your. Okay, rubbing a girl's knee with a pen. And abduction, rape and murder are worlds apart. Worlds apart. That's like saying, I went out with this guy once and he tried to kiss me and I didn't want to, and then, you know, he didn't kiss me and it was fine, but I think he might have killed this girl. Like, what are you talking about? That's a big leap.

[B]

Far as I know, Louis CK hasn't murdered and raped anybody. However, he's done much creepier things than dragging a pen along somebody's knee.

[A]

Yeah, you will have jizz on your shoes when you're done talking to him. That's a whole other issue, though,

[B]

so

[A]

better be wearing clothes. Yeah. Oh, definitely. But the other woman I could see, he came to her house, and that's really uncomfortable. But he didn't rape her or anything. She left, so he left. But anyway, they thought that for years this was weird, but they had nothing more to concrete to go on, so they never called the cops and said, I think it's this guy. And also, Anderson said, I really wasn't ready because we were in a small town and to accuse someone of something we don't know for sure is a little scary because Then you look like a crazy person.

[B]

Yeah, but we just call the cops and say, maybe look at this guy.

[A]

Yeah, but I mean, based on that, you sound crazy. I was in a truck with him. I was in a truck with him 30 years ago, and he rubbed a pen on my leg so the cop would go, okay. And, well, he rubbed a pen on my leg. It was kind of uncomfortable. Did he put his dick in your face? No, no, no, no.

[B]

The other story's scarier.

[A]

The other story is in her house. That's fucking. That's terrifying. With a toddler with her child. Yeah. But at this point, they said it was time to speak up. So they contacted a high school classmate who of course is also a detective with the sheriff's department, because everybody. And said, there's this guy, Tim Bass. Did you look at Tim Bass? And they go, yeah, we talked to the Bass guy. When it first happened, he was one of the guys looking for the body. And they go, no, no, no, no, that's Tom Bass. Tim Bass is the guy we're talking about.

[B]

Literally one letter off.

[A]

Oh, shit. So the Bass were a known family on Strand Road. Dad and mom, Sandra and the two boys, Tim and Tom, there. Tom was in the same social circles as Mandy. She was supposed to hang out that night. They were friends. They knew each other well, they were friends. His older brother Tim, though born in 1968, about three years older than that group, doesn't hang out with them. This is Timothy. Forest Bass is his name. Forest Bass, which sounds like the strangest animal that's ever lived. This is your Forest Bass. He don't need much water, I can tell you that. He's all right.

[B]

It's a bass that swims up the stream and for reasons unknown, just walks on out the forest and dies.

[A]

He gets on out and, I mean, he's good for a while, but, you know, he ends up running out of water.

[B]

They just flop out there and die under a tree.

[A]

So he is obviously used to be a neighbor that we know of, because Tom was a neighbor, lived on Strand Road also, same road. He's been married to the same woman since. Since 1991.

[B]

That's impressive.

[A]

As of now, has three kids, like I said, grew up on Strand Road. Same dead end stretch. Grew up just a few houses away from 25 years marriage, 25 years at that point. So that means that Mandy jogged past his house nearly every single fucking day. Always jogged past the house. Her regular five mile route took her directly by his front yard. Yeah, there you go. So Tim also went to Mount Baker High School, class of 1986. So they overlapped. Actually, they were in school at the same time. Everybody knows everybody. Tom, his brother, says Tim got real fucking weird at one point. Yeah, he said as kids they were really close. Tom says his brother, and they were, you know. He says Tim's always been a loner, but as a teenager he was fine. And then he started to get deeper issues. Tom said they were always very competitive. We had a lot of fun together playing different sports. Saying Tim has always been a loner. But it got weirder. Okay. Tom says this is from a 48 Hours interview, by the way. I've got to give credit where it's due. I didn't go fucking talk to these people, I'll tell you that much. I don't have time to. Tom said social interaction or interactions never really been natural to him. That's what he said. Not a real social guy, Tim. Tom remembers one particular night after a high school girlfriend broke up with Tim. Tim lost his fucking mind.

[B]

Not happy.

[A]

Tom said, quote, he was on the phone with her in his bedroom, and he apparently had a pistol with him. At some point, he said, I'm gonna kill myself. And he actually ended up firing the gun in the house at some point

[B]

for her to hear over the phone.

[A]

Something fired it into the air. And Tom said, from that night on, people close to Tim noticed that he was a different guy from that night on. Being dumped once ruined him, which is pretty fucking weak. So Tom says, just the disgust, the disrespect toward women that turned him completely different.

[B]

Fuck all women.

[A]

How often does that happen, though? I know so many guys that were normal guys that got a divorce that turned into fucking misogynist lunatics because their wife took half their shit. And now they hate women. And they used to be normal people with normal opinions. And then one woman, they feel wrong them, and now they hate them. And it's like. It's such a weird. A weird thing to be.

[B]

I knew a guy that got divorced three times, and each time progressively worse by the third one. This man's now in his 60s. He's been divorced for 20 years and just hates women.

[A]

Yeah, absolutely. It's fucking true. There's a lot of assholes, even, like, famous people. You go, why did he make that turn? Look at when his divorce was.

[B]

When was his divorce?

[A]

Yeah, you know, exactly the one I'm fucking talking about, too. We've met the guy, as a matter of fact. Yeah. Oh, that's why he's like that. Okay, so, yeah. Just the disrespect toward women then. This is Tom's wife. Robin said she saw it too. She said, oh, yes. I think that he really thinks that women are inferior to him.

[B]

That's a really wild thing.

[A]

It's so funny.

[B]

It doesn't necessarily even have to be a divorce. It could just be like that, a breakup.

[A]

So he got dumped into it.

[B]

It's a fucking relationship.

[A]

Yeah. Who cares? Everybody gets dumped in high school. Get over it. Fucks wrong with you?

[B]

Fuck. Wait till you're mid-20s. That's when it really hurts.

[A]

That's when it's. Yeah. When you start planning things, you're like, oh, in high school you're not planning anything. You know, you're not gonna be with this person very long. It doesn't matter. And then you're mid 20s and there's so many other girls.

[B]

Right. In your mid 20s. You both got a salary and that compensatory value kind of. You start to see yourself as like, I don't know, you value yourself at a certain level. And then she's like. For her to treat you like garbage. And I'm doing well. How dare you.

[A]

I'm trying. Goddammit. So they said that this. People described him very oddly. They said that this is very weird. Doing some more, you know, follow up on this. They found that everyone calls him a loner, quiet. Or a bit of a weirdo. A bit of an oddball. That's what everybody says about Tim. When he was already out of high school, he would show up to watch the girls high school basketball games, which creepy. But also, it's a small town. He went to the high school. Everybody kind of does that. Because I think it's creepy to watch high school sports if your kid's not playing in it.

[B]

I think it's funny. I think it's creepy to show up to any girls sporting event if your

[A]

child is not boys or relative or boys.

[B]

What?

[A]

Are you kidding me?

[B]

I just mean. I just mean because there's a. There's a blanket acceptance of showing up to boys sports. Yeah. In like, it shouldn't be.

[A]

That's creepy. That's what I'm saying.

[B]

I don't disagree, but I'm just.

[A]

Grown men want to watch boys sweat and fucking wrestle and tackle each other. You're a fucking pedophile. That's creepy as fuck. I have no interest in watching boys football.

[B]

Yeah. It's their neighborhood high school and they're living a dream and drinking beer. They're tailgating. It for that's maybe even worse.

[A]

That's the creepiest shit ever. In, like, Texas. 15,000 people watch show up to watch children in the house.

[B]

To watch somebody else's children.

[A]

Creepy. Yeah. That's disgusting and weird and creepy. And shows a lack of a life.

[B]

Infinitely worse to show up to a girl's basketball.

[A]

A girl's basketball. Yeah.

[B]

If your child or family member is not on the fucking court.

[A]

No, no. And I guess it's like I said, because it's such a small town, it's not considered weird behavior because there's really nothing else to do.

[B]

I think that.

[A]

Except go to the Acme Dog Diner concerts.

[B]

Yeah, I think that about any girls. Sports, to be honest with you. I don't care if it's the US Women's soccer team. I'm not showing up unless my daughter's playing.

[A]

Otherwise you feel like a creep.

[B]

Otherwise, it's fucking weird.

[A]

It's fucking weird. Which is not great for the.

[B]

No, it's not good advertising for the

[A]

metrics of their fucking sport. It really doesn't help them very much here. So. But that's just a weird thing they noticed. Now, In November of 1980, when this all happened, he had a girlfriend. Tim did, right? His high school sweetheart, who he ended up marrying in January of two years

[B]

later is when that other lady said that event happened. He was fucking married.

[A]

He was fucking married already. Absolutely. This is Gina Malone as his high school sweetheart. Gina said, quote, I married him basically to get away from my home. She just needed to get out of the house. Old school, small town. Get me the fuck out of this house. Apparently, weeks after they got married, which was January 1990, he wanted to move away from the area and they moved to Everson, which is outside of Bellingham. She says throughout her 30 year marriage to him, he was controlling and emotionally abusive as well. She said, I felt like his servant. Go get me a drink, go make my first food. Things like that. Creepy. Tom, the brother, said, I personally witnessed him tell Gina to shut up 8 million times.

[B]

Really?

[A]

Just a complete asshole. Gina said, it didn't feel like a marriage. It felt like I went to prison, actually. But they had three kids. And she was asked, why'd you stay with them? And Gina said, I was scared. And I did leave, actually. I got a restraining order and left for two months. At that point, I started divorce proceedings. And then he's like, I'm just gonna lie to the judge and get the kids taken away from you. She said, anything with my kids, I'm just like, okay. I'm gonna do whatever I have to do to not lose my kids. You got him back eventually. When this is all going on, I'll tell you that.

[B]

Well, there's that, but there's also the restraining order part. Looks bad and he's bad. He can lie his ass off in court. Judges see hundreds of people. They'll see through you in a blink.

[A]

They do, but you don't know. You don't realize that when you're in that situation that you actually have the high card in court.

[B]

And I'm also springing generalization, because there's generalizations I gotta fucking enunciate, but there are certainly situations that judges don't see through. And then there's. There's been violence based on a divorce, too, because a judge didn't see it,

[A]

but for the most rural county or something.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. That's why there's certain Brady laws exist to keep fucking divorce. You're not allowed to have guns if you're going through a contentious divorce because.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[B]

Like that happens. But for the most part, judges.

[A]

I doubt that'll stay law for very long.

[B]

Yeah, it's going to come off the

[A]

books pretty quick here. They'll probably give you an extra gun if you're going for a divorce.

[B]

Divorce is going to be. Both of you need a gun now.

[A]

You need a gun from each other. Yeah. Courts will issue on your way out. There you go, guys.

[B]

Did you guys get your divorce?357s, they're up.

[A]

Here's your pen and your pistol. Everybody, you can sign and walk now. He has no criminal history in Washington State.

[B]

Really?

[A]

None? Zero. But in August 2010, that's when his wife filed for domestic violence protection lasting longer than a year. And apparently, though the wife alleged physical and verbal abuse and claimed that Tim watched Cold Case File TV shows, she put this in her fucking court document in 2010. So this isn't after he was accused. Cold Case File TV shows, he was obsessed with them. And during one incident, he told her, quote, I wouldn't get caught because I'm not that stupid. It'd be easy to get away with this. These people are morons.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

Everybody that got caught, he would laugh at them and say how dumb they are that they got caught, not how terrible they are. They did this murder. The only thing that he got out of the whole show is this fucking idiot got caught. What an idiot. Yep. Now, here's the other thing. No one saw Tim Bass the day that Mandy went missing. No one saw him. Tom's accounted for. He's not. Brad Gorham was at the Bass house to hang out with Tom Bass. Gorham said Tom Bass. That he and Tom Bass both said that Tim was not at the house when they were there or when they saw Mandy run by. Tim wasn't there. None of the other witnesses ever put him there either. So he was out doing something. He told his brother that he was out hunting all weekend, which we don't think is true.

[B]

Also, gross. What a word to say when there's a missing girl.

[A]

Yes, exactly. Very awful. Now they ask both brothers to give DNA because, I mean, they both knew her. They both refuse.

[B]

Why?

[A]

They refuse to give DNA.

[B]

Really?

[A]

And they have zero evidence to get a court order to compel him to have DNA taken. They can't get DNA out of this guy unless he wants to give it to him at this point. So they talked to Tim Boss or Tim Bass. Sorry, Bass. I was looking at Detective Bohe under it, and I'm like, I put the O in there. Detective Bohe asked Bass for a DNA sample. He indicated he was investigating the Mandy Stavic death. Tim acted like he didn't know who she was.

[B]

Who's she?

[A]

Who's that? Yeah, the detective said he looked up and kind of like he was searching his memory, like, huh? Who's that? And then he said, oh, that was that girl that was found in the river years ago. Right? And Bass told the detective that he didn't really know Mandy and Said initially said, I don't even know where she lived. I don't even know. Meanwhile, they lived fucking few houses down from each other. You know everybody that lives on your street. But he said, either way, unless you have a warrant, I'm not giving you a DNA sample. Go Fuck yourself. So February 2015.

[B]

Now we can't follow him and fuck his trash.

[A]

That's what we're gonna talk about. February 2015, they contact him again, and he again says, didn't do nothing. Ain't giving you no DNA, so go fuck yourselves, okay? Then we find out his brother starts to crack on him a little bit here after the cops came the second time. Now he starts getting worried because they've talked to me twice now. This is getting weird, asking questions. So he admits to his brother. He says, look, I gotta tell you something.

[B]

What?

[A]

Not that I killed her, not that I raped her, but he said, me and Mandy slept together a couple of times.

[B]

We used to bang.

[A]

Me and her, we used to bang a couple times before she left for college. And Then once more, while she was home for Thanksgiving break, he tells his brother. Tom was like, what? What are you talking about? You didn't fucking know I was hanging out with her. You didn't know her. What are you talking about? He was shocked that he said, how'd that happen? And Tim said, oh, I just went up to her and said, oh, you're keeping fit. And that was it.

[B]

Oh, I'm a Coxman.

[A]

I mean, she just saw me, and I'm irresistible, obviously. So Tim then told Tom that he and Mandy slept together before that as well. Then he asked Tom, hey, will you do me a favor, just so I don't look like I'm fucked up on this one? Tell the cops that you also slept with Mandy. That way it'll look like she slept around a lot, and that way, maybe it'll go away. You know? Call her a whore if you would. That would be helpful for me if you just.

[B]

Could you spread some rumors about the deceased? Because I slept with her once. Why would that matter?

[A]

There's a nice, young dead lady. Please make sure everyone thinks she's a filthy, filthy whore. Just make sure everyone thinks that she. She fucked everyone in the neighborhood and all that, even though she absolutely didn't.

[B]

Especially two brothers she loved. Brothers.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Tell them that Michael towered her. It was great. Yeah, it's ridiculous. A few days later, Tim and his wife Gina sat down with a conversation. In a conversation with Sandra, Tim and Tom's mom. This is maybe the craziest conversation of all time. This is wild. He says this in. Just. Out in the open, out loud. His wife sitting there and his mom and his mom. He says, mom, okay, you gotta do me a favor. Look, Dad's dead, okay? No one's helping him. He's not gonna do that. Why don't we tell the cops that dad killed Mandy? That way they'll leave me the fuck alone. Let's tell the cops my dead father killed a teenage girl.

[B]

Why would we do that unless you did that? Why?

[A]

He said, well, that way, they'll still leave me alone. If they have a suspect, they'll go, oh, it must have been that guy. And they'll close it, and it'll be over.

[B]

Besmirch his legacy.

[A]

Yeah. Both of their legacies, really. Either she was a whore or my father's a piece of shit and a murderer. One of the two. The mom covered her face with her hands and said, no, no, no. I'm not doing it. I'm not saying my dead husband murdered a fucking Teenage girl. Then he admits to Tom that he was in the homestead field where the kids party, near where she was found the same weekend she died. He wasn't out hunting, wasn't doing any of that. He was right there. So then he puts himself at the crime scene. Yeah. Then. Oh, my God. More from his wife. His wife tells a little more to the cops about their relationship, that he's intensely controlling, which is a rapist, murderer. That's kind of what they do. Dictating what she wore, where she went, who she was allowed to talk to. She described being afraid of him and said she didn't feel safe. And of course, he liked to brag that if he ever committed murder, he'd never get caught because he's smarter than these idiots. Okay? Which is hilarious. Also, Gina said that she and Bass had seen Mandy run past the Bass residence. From Bass's upstairs bedroom window, you can see her running. That's what she said. I've seen it before, so he must have seen it, too. So, 2017. They have no probable cause. They have nothing.

[B]

This is crazy.

[A]

Nothing? Yeah. This is almost 30 years.

[B]

30 years.

[A]

They have nothing. The detective contacts Tim Bass. Boss. He works at a bakery, the Franz Bakery. At this point, that's what he does. He delivers baked goods. This guy, they contact his boss, a woman named Kim Wagner. And the weird thing is they said, we're trying to get some trash or some DNA from this guy. Wagner said he never lets. He doesn't throw anything out. He takes everything home with him. Everything. He takes his trash home with him.

[B]

This man watches so much.

[A]

Yep. He takes trash.

[B]

He takes shit home and burns it.

[A]

He said he was the only driver that takes his work clothes home every day to wash them, because they leave them there and they're laundered there. He's a citizen. He's the only driver that takes his

[B]

work clothes home to wash. Launders his own clothes.

[A]

His own clothes. And they said that was weird because she thought it was strange, but whatever. No cigarette butts, no coffee cups in the bath, in the garbage. No nothing. You cannot fucking. He throws everything, takes it with him. She always thought it was weird, but she just thought he was a weird guy. She didn't think he's covering up a murder. So that's what made this Kim Wagner even notice him. The clothes thing, which was so weird, registered as odd. And the perfect discipline about garbage and shit. So, by the way, a little bit about Kim. She was 19 years old in 1989 and grew up near Acme and Mandy's murder, she said, was the first basically genuinely terrifying thing that happened. That made her realize that the bad things of the outside world could get to her. It was Mandy that did that, took her innocence. Kim manages the retail outlet store at the Franz Family Bakery in Bellingham. At the Bellingham in Bellingham. It's a bread company. You remember the Entenmann store they had? It's one of those like the day old shit that goes out of the stores. One of the delivery drivers here is him. And it's strange. So what she says about Tim, quote, the Tim Bass I knew, he was different. He was weird. They said, how is he weird? And she said, you just never knew what Tim was going to be at work that day. The smallest thing would anger him. And so you tend to kind of stay away from people like that.

[B]

You don't know what Tim is going to show up.

[A]

No. And she also said that he has a very low regard for women. And that was pretty obvious to him time he worked there. She said that, quote, he always called me woman, not Kim, woman. And she's like, that was weird. She said, whatever. But. So Bass worked for these. He's delivering bread to local stores. The detective asked Kim Wagner if they could swab a delivery truck for DNA. Basically, when they call, before they even bring it up, they don't. Before they even bring up Tim Bass. And she says all that. That's the first question they ask. They don't say who they want to get. They just say, could we swab one of your delivery trucks? So she manages the retail outlet and doesn't supervise the drivers. So she said, I don't fucking know. You gotta call the corporate office. They called the corporate office. The corporate office said, no. They called about a murder investigation, and they said, no, don't fuck with our bread trucks, huh? So that's. If you buy from that company. Think about that for a minute. Different angle here. So then they're like, fuck, we're thwarted there. So they contact Kim Wagner again. And they specifically ask, what is. Can you find out Tim Bass's delivery route? Maybe we can get something. If we follow him around, he'll throw away a coffee cup or something. Now, Wagner at that point figured out that this is probably about the Mandy Stavic case. And the guy said, it is, actually. So she said, okay, here's his delivery route and here's his schedule. Tim's nice. So they trail him for a whole night. And he said, they got nothing. Nothing. He said, cigarette butts, bottles, anything. He may have drank from anything he may have eaten or half eaten or thrown away. Got nothing. Couldn't collect any discarded items that might have had his DNA on it. So then he's like, fuck. So Kim Wagner contacts the detective again to find out how the surveillance went. And the detectives, she said, how'd it go? It's her employee. He works there.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Is he gonna be taken away for murder or not? What are we doing here?

[B]

How'd it go? Yeah, it's fascinating.

[A]

Seems normal. It's a small town, too. They probably know each other before this also.

[B]

And this took her innocence. So she's like, every day. She's probably acting weird around it too.

[A]

Oh, yeah, I'm sure. The detective said, we texted back and forth during this whole process. The detective said, we didn't get any DNA. So Wagner tells the detective, I'll get you some DNA. I'll get you a water bottle. She said, would that work? And he said, sure, I'll get you some DNA. Come over here. Put your head down here. The detective said, that would be fine. It'd be great. The detective said he told Wagner, quote, I couldn't tell her what to do or not to do. But he agreed that he didn't try to dissuade her. He was just like, I mean, if you really want to. Because legally, he can't tell her, collect DNA for me, because now she's an agent of the state. But if she does it on her own and comes and brings it in, he can go. I mean, hey, that's just a private citizen and helping out. Nothing we can do about that. So what she does is she starts watching him at work. There is a small employee checkout room, which is a shared office that's not open to the general public. They go in and check in and check out with their shit. So not long after this conversation, he drank from a plastic cup and left it in the room for a minute. So she went in and fucking snagged it before he had a chance to do anything with it. Then she hid it in her desk drawer. Now, this is obviously not proper forensic collection techniques. Yeah, this chain of evidence custody, it's all bad. So then he drank from a Coke can and actually put it in the garbage at work. Oh. And so she went and grabbed that too. She grabbed the Coke can, hid it in her desk drawer, and then texted the detective. And she said, quote. And I just stood there and went, oh, shit, it's game time. I'm like, this is the jackpot. And so this time, my Heart was like, oh, I was dying because there was a lot of people around. So I grabbed it and I threw it in my desk drawer. She just did it like real quick, like, ooh. Like everyone's going to go, hey. She just took that guy's water cup. Like anyone would know or care. So she met with Wagner that same day and turned over the cup and the can to him. She later, when asked, why the fuck did you do this on your own accord, she said, I felt a basic human moral obligation to help. By this time, I felt like if Tim was involved, it needed to be found out. Yeah, fair enough.

[B]

And how about that? She's eventually is the boss of the man who showed her how fucking dangerous the world is.

[A]

She's a supervisor. She's not technically his direct supervisor. She's a supervisor in the company. But still, that's a huge coincidence. It's crazy.

[B]

And the guy calls her woman.

[A]

Woman. Hey, woman. DNA here from the cup and the can, they match.

[B]

Yahtzee.

[A]

The profile. They match. The chance they would basically that it's not him is one in eleven quadrillion. That's a lot. That's a lot. There's never will be a quadrillion people living on this earth that have ever lived on this earth. It'll never happen. It's a lot. It's a lot. It's interesting. Now there's also shit here that there's another collection DNA collection story from this time here. Because later on, obviously Tim's lawyers are going to attack this whole thing. There was Seattle detectives working in 82 cold case murder of a 13 year old girl. Wanted some DNA. So they invented a fake law firm, sent the guy a letter inviting him to join a fictitious class action lawsuit. He signed the enclosed form, licked the envelope, mailed it back. They got his DNA, matched it and convicted him. And the court said that was fine.

[B]

That's funny.

[A]

I mean, if you're allowed to do Operation Fist.

[B]

Yeah, that was great.

[A]

Which is a bonus episode we did where you tell all these people you won tickets to the football game and they all show up and you go, hey, you're a winner. And then you get everyone in a room with balloons and they're all excited. And then you. And you send in shitloads of cops and they all go in with their shotguns and arrest everybody sitting there.

[B]

What was the balloon? The double winner meant he's.

[A]

You're. He's a double winner meant he had. He was armed.

[B]

Armed, yeah.

[A]

Everybody got a balloon. But if you had, they Give everyone a balloon. But if you had one, a gun, they would. Because they would hug the guy and feel for a gun.

[B]

Funniest goddamn thing I've ever heard.

[A]

He go, he's a double winner. And they give him an extra balloon. And he'd go, I'm a double winner. And that meant, you know, really keep an eye on him. Keep one trained at his fucking skull is what that meant. Hilarious.

[B]

Now imagine having a gun on your waist and carrying a balloon.

[A]

That's amazing. Around the center, all smiling. Unbelievable. Now, the thing is, April of 2018, which is just months later because this is in December of 2017, is when the Golden State Killer gets arrested and blows up the whole genetic DNA thing. So he would have gotten caught anyway.

[B]

It was coming out.

[A]

Even if they didn't collect a cup a year from then, they would have got him on genetic databases and he would have been fucked. So it doesn't matter. December 12, 2017, he's arrested at the bakery. No standoff, no chase. Just a chubby 50 year old bakery delivery man put in handcuffs. That's it. It's wild shit. So he's arrested, charged with first degree felony murder predicated on rape and kidnapping.

[B]

That's not good.

[A]

Bad charges. Yeah, bad charges. This gets done. The sheriff gets to call Mary on her 81st birthday to tell her they finally got the guy.

[B]

Oh, that's wonderful.

[A]

Yeah, she made in. She said that she was a. Said it was a great birthday present. They also called the old sheriff who got voted out, who's retired to Arizona.

[B]

Hey, dipshit, we did it.

[A]

That's it. Hey, we did it, stupid. So, yeah, they say this is a big deal. And they said it was one of the best moments of my professional career when we got to inform her mother that we were making an arrest. I think this is about the biggest case ever in Whatcom County. Our detectives have done just a phenomenal job. It only took them 30 years. They did a bang up job, guys.

[B]

And Kim really did the work.

[A]

Yeah, Kim did the work. The mother did the work. Or the brother. I mean, not the mother. So then they searched the house as well, in Everson, the house he lives in with his wife. But they were unable to locate any. They didn't. Unable to locate the sweatpants that Mandy was wearing. Like he'd have kept them for 30 fucking years. In the interrogation, he's completely flat affect, they said. Totally flat. Not pissed, not yelling, not anything. Just sitting there. No. Let's get this over with and clear this up. Just flat. The One guy, the detective, Bow Wei said that you could tell he was auditing his own shit. I went through all these measures to keep my DNA from you. What happened to you?

[B]

How'd you get it?

[A]

How'd you get it? So he really switched the whole thing because at one point they said, Detective said, I'm questioning him on, like, well, did you have any relationship with her? And he's saying, no. I'm going, so you didn't even kiss her or anything? And he's saying, no. And then I say, then why would your DNA be inside her?

[B]

Right?

[A]

How'd that happen? And then he went from denial to, how did you get my DNA? And what are you talking about? So he went to there, trying to

[B]

see what they know.

[A]

Then he said, we had a secret relationship. Then he brought up, we actually had a secret sexual relationship. And I didn't ever bring it up because I was dating my wife at the time and all this type of shit. By the way, the wife said that he made them move the wedding up three months to January. Why'd he do that? He insisted on it. And then they moved right after that. So he says in the interrogation, tim, everything I've said is the truth. He said, it was more of a friendship type thing. We just talked. Then it just kind of grew into more of a physical thing. And we didn't even really do it that much. It was just more kissing and stuff.

[B]

Okay.

[A]

So they were saying, okay, well, what was she studying at Central? What were her interests and hobbies? Tell me about her life. Tell me what she would. I want to know about her. And P had no answer to any of that because he didn't know her.

[B]

A guy that fucks a woman or kisses a woman knows at least something about that woman.

[A]

Like she's not gonna tell him everything ad nauseam and detail while he's just trying to get in her pants. Yeah, he would have heard it all. So no, no witness had ever seen them together, even in a small town. Then there's jail visits from Tom and Mom here, which is even better. Tom later on would testify, Quote, he said, the cops are lying. He held up a handwritten note for them to see so it wouldn't get recorded. He said, the cops are lying. Everyone is out to get him. Everyone is lying. He said, they're going to kill me in here. And the main point of it is I need a strong alibi or I'm going to prison. He said, hey, mom, maybe you can say that we were Christmas shopping. Tom, do whatever you can do saying, hey, there's our couple other guys that we knew in high school. Can you get them to say that they fucked Mandy too? And you say you fuck Mandy. So they than everybody fucked Mandy. So fucking her is not a big deal.

[B]

Idiot.

[A]

And he said, no, I'm not doing that. And Tom tells his mother that why would he ask us to lie for him if he didn't do this? What are we doing here? I don't get it. And the prosecutor later said that that caused a break in Tom's relationship with Tim. And Tom replied that this incident was the start of it and indicated that he stopped visiting his brother in jail shortly after that. 2018, Mandy's dad Glenn dies and he got to see the guy get arrested. 2018 also, there's drone footage from the old Bass house on Strand Road in Clipper. They positioned the drone outside of Bass upstairs front bedroom window to show what his view of Strand Road would have been. And another detective with a dog jogged by to see if it's visible. And it's clearly visible on the footage that you can see from his window. Exactly. When she comes and goes. He wants to suppress the DNA results, arguing that Kim Wagner acted as a state agent when she collected the cup. But the court denies that and says Wagner came up with the idea to search. And Detective Bowie did not direct, entice or act as an instigator of Ms. Wagner's search. She's just really into it. So, yeah, that's a big deal. They really want to do that. They keep going, what were your exact text messages back and forth. There's also dueling experts. This is interesting. This is all based on the number of sperm the Dr. Goldfogle said that he viewed the slides and saw sperm, meaning that were alive enough that it had to have happened in the sex within 12 hours of her dying. He said. But then I guess he did it under 100 times magnification, which another lady did it under 400 times magnification. And we'll talk about what happened there. Tim's refusal to take the DNA test will be excluded from trial. There's a defense expert is forensic biologist Dr. Elizabeth Johnson. She independently analyzes the sperm samples as well or DNA. She concluded that under proper 400 times magnification, the relatively few sperm on the vaginal swab slides indicated it was more likely that intercourse occurred 24 to 48 hours before she was dead. So she's saying, no, that was actually less sperm. Dr. Johnson believed the sperm count on the slides was, quote, not Consistent with intercourse and then immediate death. The defense wants to use Mandy's diary against her. What's her diary want to say? Well, they basically. In the diary she wrote at some point. She wrote all time in it, but months earlier, had wrote about struggles with depression, self esteem, you know, freshmen in college. Shit. Yeah.

[B]

So I'm gonna rape and murder myself.

[A]

Yeah. And that she thought about suicide at one point. So what, is she gonna get herself naked, rape herself and throw herself in the river? That's the suicide shit.

[B]

I'm 45. I think about it every goddamn day.

[A]

No, I mean, it's kind of like longingly almost.

[B]

I saw Obsession, and she describes what it would be like to die. Like, to, like, lay in bed and slit your wrists. And I was just like, what a fucking lovely night. That sounds fucking great.

[A]

Everybody, don't kill yourselves, please. Just based on this. Let's not do that.

[B]

The stress and overwhelming dread of daily life is just. It's a nightmare sometimes.

[A]

But tell me about it.

[B]

We gotta deal with it.

[A]

It's life. Yeah, it's life. We'll talk about other people's deaths.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

So they said between the last June 89 entry in which she recounted feelings of depression and her November 89 death, she wrote in between that with a lot of enthusiasm about college life, upcoming travel get togethers with friends, family events.

[B]

She's got.

[A]

Not suicidal. In addition, none of the entries ever discuss a plan or intent to act on feelings of suicidality. She's being a dramatic teenager. And that's what they said. The judge described it as simply representing teen angst. Same shit. Also, he says there's a lack of evidence of kidnapping and rape. Yeah, yeah. He's saying you don't have evidence. You don't have evidence. Because he's saying. His expert saying that the rape was days before. Yeah, days before and all that kind of shit. But she said also that the afternoon she died, she returned to plan to return from her run. Basically, he's saying, okay, I had sex with. But it was like the day before. Whatever. Yeah, but they're like, well, she was with her family the entire Thanksgiving Day. So how'd you do? Yeah. Was your dick hidden in the turkey? What happened? Like, that didn't happen there. It just didn't happen. And they said that it was unlikely that she met Bass and had consensual sex with him while out on a run before she was going to go out on what was ostensibly a date with another guy. So it's weird.

[B]

And that story is implausible. Anyway, because then what? She's found in a river and the dog comes home terrified.

[A]

Thank you.

[B]

What's the. What is he trying to say happened?

[A]

He's missing a part of that one. He also argues there was no vaginal wounds to support the assertion that she was a victim of sexual assault. However, the doctor says that based on literature and his own experience, man examining more than a hundred sexual assault victims, it is more common to not find external or internal injuries than to find the injuries. Yeah, yeah, he probably had a. He probably had a little dick. This guy, too. Looks like a little dicked asshole.

[B]

Probably a tiny dick.

[A]

The lack of such wounds doesn't negate the fact that she was raped. It just doesn't. So there's all sorts of shit. Also March 2019, right before the trial, Gina divorces Tim as well. So he's on his own now. So the jury is seated. It consists of 12 jurors. They say eight men and four women. Jury selection was really difficult because. Have you heard of the most famous thing that's ever happened in this town? No. Weird.

[B]

Every time anybody comes home, they see their deadbolt and they remember.

[A]

Yeah, that's what happened. The prosecutor, David McEachren McEcron, was retired and after 44 years and came back as lead prosecutor just to handle this case because it was like his whole career. Basically, he said, the evidence will show that Mandy was abducted. We know that she did not cross Highway 9. We know that she was on her way home. We know she had some scratches on her arms and legs as though she'd been running through the brush. She had an injury to her head. The defendant's DNA was inside her. We know she was kidnapped. We know she was raped and then killed. We know that he wanted his brother to say that he himself had sex with her to make her look like a loose girl and he wanted an alibi. These things are all critical when you're trying to put together a puzzle of what happened. The evidence is very, very clear. This was not a situation where there was consensual sex. There was no contact between these people. She was abducted, she was raped, and she was killed. I ask you to hold him accountable for what he did, which is an atrocious thing. Wow. His defense is someone else abducted and raped her. Really Just someone else. That's it. The defense attorney says, for 30 years, that's how law enforcement investigated this case, is that the semen donor must be the killer. That's the fundamental error in this case. That's how you Figure out rape murders is how that is. He said, what happened here is a big question mark. This case is a big mystery. We don't know anything. Okay. By the way, Mary testifies. She's in her 80s. So they told her when the jury comes in, you don't have to stand up like everyone. You can sit. And she stood up anyway. She said, if everyone else is standing, I think I'll stand too. She felt weird. She testified about everything. Kim Wagner testified. Gina Malone, his now ex wife, testifies about all. All the shit that's bad about asking the mother to say the dead father did it. Tom testifies. He says, I guess to make it look like she got around. That would be my only. That's probably why he said it, meaning asking to say he fucked her too. And then he asked me again. He said, you believe me, right? I didn't know what to say. And then he said, after Tim was arrested, he just said, I need a strong alibi or a going to prison. They bring in the defense expert who says, if you magnify better, it makes it completely. The whole thing completely different. The defense closing is, quote, it's easy to make the assumption that this pretty young woman would never have anything to do with Mr. Bass. Look at him. He's gross. But just because someone hadn't seen them together doesn't mean they hadn't been together at some point. This is an investigation based on the faulty assumption that this is a sexual assault. And it may not well have have been a sexual assault. So the verdict, somehow now it's six men and six women. I don't know if people left. Alternates came in. They deliberate for over a day.

[B]

Jesus.

[A]

One juror said, when we go in to deliberate, we had to turn in to be investigators and attorneys, too. And we went through everything. We had posters on the wall and maps, and we went through everything just like the attorney did. One juror estimated maybe a quarter of the panel thought there was reasonable doubt when they first got into the room. One juror said, teenage girls can sneak out at night. Maybe there was a secret relationship. She snuck out Thanksgiving night, night before. But the jury comes back and they find him guilty. And returning special verdict forms finding he committed first degree rape and attempted rape and first degree kidnapping and attempted kidnapping over the course of a murder. Prosecutor says maximum, please, for this fucking guy. The maximum. He's going by 1989 sentencing standards, by the way, because that's how it has to be. Which are much less. The maximum is just under 27 years for this, right? That's it. And the minimum sentence is 20 years, which is what they ask for at the defense. Victim impact statements. Jesus Christ. I mean, can you imagine? I mean, it's ridiculous. They're coming in saying how much they loved her. And the stepsister even said, except for our biology, she's my sister.

[B]

30 years of anguish.

[A]

Poor Rick Zender there, the boyfriend, comes in and he brought some letters that they had written to each other from college, back and forth. And he said that he's ashamed that he hasn't kept in better touch with the family. But he said it was too painful after her death to keep in really close touch with them.

[B]

And you feel like you're a suspect.

[A]

That too. He said the nightmares came immediately. The worst part isn't dreaming that she's alive, but dreaming that she's dead. Because for those few moments in transition, as I open my eyes, there's hope. Her death was just a nightmare, but she's really gone. The defense though, mom comes up there. Tim's mom comes up there and says that he's a good kid. He never fucking did anything bad. He had good grades in school, never gave anybody any problems. She said he was found guilty in people's minds way before the trial even started and is being sent to prison on people's emotions. Not any real evidence. The prosecution wants to solve this case even if they convict an innocent person. Meanwhile fucking Tom was testifying against him and completely thinks he's guilty.

[B]

And Tim tried to besmirch your dead husband. Lady.

[A]

Yeah, she doesn't give a fuck. Tim speaks, he says, first of all, he comes up with 10 pages of shit. And the judge says one page, we're not doing 10. Pick one out and do it. Not listening to you for 45 minutes.

[B]

Get the fuck out of here.

[A]

He said, I would first like to say that I am 100% innocent of this crime. Furthermore, I don't believe I received a fair trial. I'm saying that though a better man in me says I should be very little. I should say very little today and give this day to the Stavik family. Sorry. But then he goes on and says he loved his father, they were best friends, but things haven't been the same since his father died in a four wheeling accident in 2002. Hunting rivers. Four wheeling accidents. This place is crazy. He said he gave the eulogy at his father's funeral and wrote the obituary and made a memorial to to him in his garage.

[B]

So what?

[A]

Who cares? Yeah, he said his ex wife to Testify against him. He said it's hard to take. He said he's never been arrested. He's been gainfully employed. He doesn't drink, he doesn't use drugs. He's been married for nearly 30 years and raised three children, two of which with disabilities. He's a delivery driver. He's a good guy. He said he's been in jail since his arrest. He said, I tried to be respectful and kind in my year and a half that I've been there. And that's very hard to do when you're being accused of something like this. I'll continue to be this way as it's just the way I am. I wish no ill will toward anyone here, not even today. But I am having a hard time with this. Okay, so they took a 20 minute break and then the judge said, quote, for 30 years you have lived free from the responsibility of your acts, but that life has been a lie. And tragically it has caught your family, your mother, your brother, your ex wife and your children in its web. You, sir, may fuck off. Just under 27 years, the absolute maximum he could get. The prosecutor said, I'd never seen a case that had an impact like this one did. People felt like they didn't have a sense of safety. It was the realization that we're not all that safe and that there's a monster who is really living among us. So the 27 years, like I said, it's a sentencing thing. So he could actually. He was only 52 at sentencing. He actually could get out. Even if he does 27, he'd be 79, right? That's possible. So they, by the way, they 48 hours, talked to his wife Gina, and they said, tim says he's an innocent man. What do you say? Gina said, quote, guilty as hell. I lived in prison for 28 years with him and now it's his turn. That's what she said. Yep. Then there's the other thing. Tom says he wonders if his brother did any other murders, which is the big question here. And they said possibly was he even going to kill those two women that met at the water park? And Tom said, I think potentially Moore could be his next victim. So he thinks that he definitely did it. He appeals based on the co worker being a state agent and all that stuff there who had a hiccup in the middle of that one. And there's all these different legal strategies than the Miller test and all this stuff that we have no time to get into. But they do tell him to go fuck Himself on appeal. So that's nice. There. He's told to go fuck himself. He says, you shouldn't have excluded the diary. And they're like, you're out of your fucking mind. Lack of evidence of kidnapping and rape. They're like, no, there was plenty of evidence, lots of rape. In 2025, there was an episode of Murdered at First Sight called Unforgotten. Mandy Stavic. And there's also 48 hours did one and a couple other things. There's a scholarship fund that's been set up in her name at Mount Baker High. She's buried at the St. Joseph Mission Cemetery in Clipper. In Clipper, Washington. Tim is at the Airway Heights Corrections center outside Spokane. So he's got 320 months is what it is. That's what he's got. Appeals are exhausted. And as of the state supreme court's denial, the conviction stands. And there you go. Earliest Release date is 79. I think he has to do all of it. That's part of it. They said he's under, quote, close custody, meaning he has more supervision and less freedom of movement and limits on personal property and programs he can attend. According to the doc spokesman. Sit here and fucking rot.

[B]

They're taking. They're taking it dead serious with him.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Fuck this guy. Everyone's bad at Fuck this guy. So there you go, everybody. That is Acme Washington, and fucking crazy goddamn cold case of a story last. It just seemed like we needed that kind of case this week. A weird cold case and everything, but terrible fucking story. Goddamn awful.

[B]

It's horrible that it lived.

[A]

If you liked it, though. Yeah, I know. If you liked it, though, tell the world about it. Get on whatever app you are listening to and give us five stars because it really helps drive us up the charts. Netflix, thumbs up, please. They help a lot, so hit us up with those. Thank you for doing that. Listen to our other two shows, Crime in Sports, and you'd stupid opinions, which are just fucking funny. So check them out. You don't have to like sports to listen to crime in sports. We promise. So check that out. Definitely head over to shut upandgivemerder.com. get everything there. Merchandise, tickets to live shows. September 18th, Pabst Theater in Milwaukee. Awesome place. Can't wait to do that show. And then the next night, another great one. Minneapolis. So big on September 19th. State Theater, come and do it. Milwaukee is beating you right now, Minneapolis, in ticket sales. You can't have that. That's crazy. You're better than that. Come on. So get in there. Do that. There's also Dallas in October, San Jose, Sacramento, and then November, Tarrytown in Boston. So get your tickets right now for everything. Shut up and give me murder.com. follow the shows on social media. We are SmallTownMurder on Instagram, SmallTownPod on Facebook. Hang out there. Patreon. My Christ. Patreon. Patreon.com CrimeInSports. All you need to be is $5 a month or above. You get everything we put out. Everything we put out, including as soon as you subscribe over almost 400 back bonus episodes. Then you get new ones every other week. One crime in sports, one small town murder, and you get them all. Okay, this week, what you're going to get for crime and sports, Kirby Puckett, famous Twins hall of Fame center fielder there. We're going to talk about him. Then for small, small town murder, maternal instinct documentary and the whole case around it, all the body cam footage and interrogation stuff. I saw it all. So we'll see it all. We'll talk all about it. So do that. That is patreon.com crimeinsports and you get everything we put out ad free as well. And on top of that, you get a shout out, which is right fucking now. Jimmy, hit me with the names of the best goddamn people on earth who would never ever, ever leave semen in us and then say that maybe our brothers did it too. So hit me with him right fucking now.

[B]

This was executive producer Susan Deguaya on her pup Rogue. She lost her pop. That's horrible.

[A]

That sucks.

[B]

Sierra Martin lost her child. This is a terrible week. Happy Hours, checking in. Brinkley, Arkansas. Sagan.

[A]

I said that's horrifying. Jesus Christ. That's worse than.

[B]

The two people lost. The two of the most important things you can have as a person.

[A]

One was a person, which is way worse, objectively, you know.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's horrifying. Holy shit. And not, you know, sorry. Dog person too. Apologies.

[B]

Terrible thing to lose to Elena Zemel. Elena Zemo, Robin Cooper. Did I say that? I think I did. Other producers this week.

[A]

Say it twice.

[B]

Yeah. Peyton Meadows, Janice Hill, Zoe Lover. Lover Grove. Lover Grove. Or is it Love Grove? I think it's Lover Grove. Neva Granger. That's a fun name to say. Anna Hoover, Denise Walker Tatum, Loje, Cassidy Black, Samantha Fletcher, Jennifer Moore, Rachel with no last name. Christine lebron, CS Marina, Nizzi, Semicolon Joe, Dylan Posen, Latoya Thomas, Angie Lyons, Bubba, Donnie Carre or Kayer orcare. Amanda. Holy Holly Hole. Lurch Borgia. Lurch Borgia, Megan Q. 107 dildos Keith 77773. I hope that's. What is that password?

[A]

I don't know.

[B]

Meg Weborne, Mandy Frison, Beth with no last name. Olive with no last name. Kyle Hendren, Rachel Darmetko, Indira Sarah Griffin, Gary Nelson, Robert Throop, Natalie Waters, Mandy Deguil. Angel with no last name. Simba Ladd, Andrea Das Nanaka. What is this? Naika? H. Nika perhaps. I don't know. Rachel Francis, Preston Croston. D. Nicks, Megan Knoff, Eric 1776. Everybody with their pin code this week. Dan Wade, Stacy Wegner, Milton Campbell, Kat Attorney. Beth Armstrong. Morbid Corvid, Brian Williams, One of my favorite

[A]

anchors.

[B]

Correspondents Jordan Talbot, Denise Bailey, Jessica Brunson. Perhaps related. Tyler with no last name. Trina with no last name. Martin Margaret the vet. Carrie would know last name. Scotty Andrade. That's fun. Carmen Webb, Natalie Berman. Stomel Hart, Ashley with no last name. Elizabeth Biden. Is there anybody I don't know? Aaron Rockwell Zahn with no last name. Cade Schulte. Schulte. Brandon Rose, Lil Peggers. Yuck. Brianne Lawrence, Tuggy Smith. Also yuck. Benjamin Horner, Maggie Madden, Ryan Hayashi, Nicole Williamson, Danielle Reed, Cory Beckland, Mandy Dale, Ashley Dake or Daequi. Ryan Hansen, Kira Peterson. Cls. Amanda Rogers, Patty with no last name. Tanya G. Harry with no last name. Gayle Wilson Morgan with no last name. Lauren with no last name. Cinema Sin. Tara Greenwell, Isabel Tamayo. Jay with no last name. Nicole Johnson, Laura Mayberry, Kerry Orgeron, Hannah Seaman. Okay, Simon probably can't be Seaman. Mandy Dempsey. Candice Bishop. Jamie Tomes. Tomes. Tomes. Amanda. Repeteo. Rippetto. Rippido. Janet Cross Drennan. Rachel Rochelle. Koontz. Koontz. Csi. Sieg. Sig. Okay, I get what you're doing. Sig Hill. You know what they want?

[A]

Fox.

[B]

You. There's no way that's somebody's name. It's Sigh Heil. No, it's not.

[A]

No. Fuck off.

[B]

It just got worse. Marcel Polinsky, Katie Diaz, Kenny Oliver, Patrick Brooks. Skivers. Skivers. Skivers. Alaska. Cat James.

[A]

What German do you think Jimmy is, for Christ's sake? Incredibly, not that German, though.

[B]

Not that one. No. No. Seth Hawkins. Is it Seth or Soth? Jackie Coutts. Coots. Sandra Would. No last name. D. Aben Arceli. Zelaya Arsali Zay Trenda with no last name. Jeremy Brumfield, Jennifer Kerner, Kelsey Harper, Courtney C. Haley with no last Name? Candace Bentley. Lauren O. And also the letter o. James Elliott. G.S. annette. Annette. Tarpley. Cheeto. Steve. Jillian. Jillian or Gillian. Hallard. Jay Johnson. Alyssa. Allison Burnett. Killian. Khalid. Khalid. Omar. How about that? Morgue. Vivos. Docent. Grim with no last name. Kirby Bulger. D.K. rindy. J.J. lynn. I live in New Mexico and I hate it. Corey Mickelson. Phil Poop. Dolla. Jessica. What? Jessica Villarreal. Kirsten with a J. You guess it. Melissa Strahan. Elizabeth Hammond. Tommy Morris. David Maysack. Renessa Iri Eary. Charlotte Lemaste or Michael Ivy. Cuddle cups. That sounds fun. Megan with no last name. Angela Barclay Or Barkley. Depending. Brad Cooper. Probably not. Ferris Green. Joni with no last name. Crystal Thompson. And all of our patrons. You guys are the greatest.

[A]

Thank you so much, everybody. You glorious bastards. Fuck. We appreciate everything you do for us. Thank you for always hanging with us, always being here for us. We appreciate the shit out of it. You want to follow us on social media or know anything else, shut up and give me murder.com is the way to do that. Come back. Keep seeing us. Keep coming back. And until next week, everybody, it's been our pleasure.

[B]

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[A]

Hey, everybody. Listening to Small Town Murder out there. Hi.

[B]

Hello.

[A]

Good to see you out there. I'm here with Jimmy, too. And this is an ad. But not an ad for a product. This is an ad for dates. Yes, come see a live show. The 2026 Tour. All the tickets are for sale right now. Starting out with February 21st in Nashville. March 6th in Durham. March 7th in Atlanta. Phoenix is sold out. We do have tickets, though, to your stupid opinions. On the 21st of March, Salt Lake City, sold out. Denver has tickets. Be there on May 2. May 29, Buffalo, sold out. Royal Oak, Michigan. May 30, we have September 18, Milwaukee. September 19, Minneapolis. October 3 in Dallas. October 16 in San Jose. October 17 in Sacramento. November 13 in Tarrytown. November 14 in Boston. Come see us. The live shows are spectacular. Come join all of the other STM people. You're going to meet so many people. You're going to have fun.

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