Amanda Stavik

On Friday, November 24th, 1989, eighteen-year-old Amanda Stavik, who went by Mandy, went for a run around 2:30 in the afternoon. Kyra, the family's German Shepherd, ran with her. This run was often a family affair, with Mandy's mother, Mary, joining on her bike. Because of the holiday, though, Mary was busy at the time, so Mandy decided to head out alone. When Kyra returned to the family home without Amanda, the family became worried. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the murder of Amanda Stavik. The family's worry quickly increased after searching for her but finding nothing. Three days after she went missing, the search for Mandy came to a sad end when she was found dead, submerged in the Nooksack River. The search for her killer took decades, and in the end, the perpetrator was someone who should have been on the radar of the police early on. You can help support the show through Patreon. We'd love to connect with listeners on social media. We are available on the following platforms: Facebook - Facebook Discussion group - Instagram - Threads - X Formerly Twitter - Blue Sky - Twitch - Tik Tok Criminology is an Emash Digital production hosted by Mike Ferguson and Mike Morford. ©2026 Emash Digital- All rights reserved. This content is the sole property of Emash Digital. Any unauthorized re-selling, re-purposing, or re-distribution, is strictly prohibited, and will be subject to legal action. ©2026 Emash Digital-All rights reserved. This content is the sole property of Emash Digital. Any unauthorized re-selling, re-purposing, or re-distribution, is strictly prohibited, and will be subject to legal action.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  A missing person, a strange death, a vanished vehicle, a series of unanswerable questions. In so many true crime mysteries, the answers remain elusive. But in many instances, the clues lead right to the water's edge, and sometimes the truth lies below the surface. Hi, listeners. My name is Olivia and I'm the host of the true crime podcast Below the Surface from Abjack Entertainment, the podcast that features bizarre cases with a common theme: water. You can listen to Below the Surface on every major podcast platform or app. Be sure to subscribe today so that you don't miss an episode.

• 0:39Speaker 01

  Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised.

• 1:17Speaker 02

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 391 of the Criminology Podcast. This is Mike Ferguson.

• 1:23Speaker 03

  And this is Mike Morford.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Mr. Morford, how are you doing in 2026?

• 1:30Speaker 03

  I don't know. It's hard to tell because we're only a couple of days in, but so far, so good. I've been working hard on a new podcast that I'm producing called Below the Surface. Listeners may have just heard a preview of that right before we started talking, so I'm very excited about that. I just want to hit the ground running and working in 2026. How are you doing?

• 1:50Speaker 02

  That's great. That's great news. I'm doing good. Been spending a lot of time with family. The week off was very nice. And now I'm ready to get back into it. But, you know, we say this a lot, we probably say it every year, but it's always tough getting into a new year. I remember being a kid in school. When you go back to school, I'm going to write 2025, I don't know how many times before it sticks.

• 2:19Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm, I'm actually pretty good about changing the year like immediately in my head. So I don't have that problem, but I am, I do have that lag of not wanting to get moving sometimes. And the kids, you know, their school vacation is going to be ending soon. So they're kind of feeling that lag too. So it's got to get, get going and get motivated.

• 2:40Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Jer and Mike Torrent. So great new support. We really appreciate it.

• 2:49Speaker 03

  Thank you so much for that support. It really helps out the show. For anyone else that would like to help support the show, head over to patreon.com/criminology to get signed up.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Well, let's go ahead and jump into this week's case, our first of 2026. And more if I just talked about it, spending time with my family over holiday break. I'm sure you did, and I'm sure our listeners did. That's really a time that most people appreciate and they cherish the memories from the time spent together. But holidays can also be tough for some families, especially if they've suffered the loss of a loved one to violence. And that's what happened to the family of a young woman named Amanda Stavich, who was murdered during the holiday season in 1989 during the Thanksgiving timeframe.

• 3:39Speaker 02

  And for years they waited for justice with an empty seat at the table during the holidays, where Amanda should have been sitting. Thankfully for them, justice would finally come, but it would take decades. And I mentioned more of the week off that we had. I spent a fair amount of time watching true crime shows. I found some good ones that I had never seen before. Now they were cases that I was familiar with oftentimes, but a lot of them involved justice delayed. And, you know, quite frankly, you and I talk about that a lot. These cases from the seventies and eighties.

• 4:21Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think a lot of times investigators are just waiting for technology to catch up. Maybe for someone to come forward to clear their conscience, that kind of stuff. So we do see a lot of cases receiving justice and outcomes, even if it takes a long time.

• 4:40Speaker 02

  Which is always great to see that happen. But I'm always struck by the fact of because it does take so long. You know, obviously, in many cases, there are people who die without ever knowing what happened to their loved ones, and that's, that's tough. It's really tough.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Friday, November 24th, 1989, was the day after Thanksgiving. Eighteen year old Amanda Stavik, who went by Mandy, had recently graduated from Mount Baker High School and was now a freshman at Central Washington University. And she was back home at her parents' house in Clipper, just north of Acme, Washington, visiting for the holiday. Well, a lot of people skip their workouts over the holidays. Mandy wasn't the type of person to do that. She was very athletic and regularly went running. When she was at her parents' home, she ran a five mile loop to the Nooksack River and back. That day, she took off for a run at around 2:30 in the afternoon. Kyra, the family's German shepherd, ran with her.

• 5:45Speaker 03

  This run was often a family affair, with Mandy's mom, Mary, joining on her bike. Because of the holiday, though, Mary was busy at the time, so Mandy decided to head out alone.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  Mandy was in very good shape. The run shouldn't have taken her much time at all. She ran that same route often, and everyone kind of had a good sense of her routine. But hours passed, and she didn't return home. At 5:15, Kyra showed up at the house, but she was alone, and she was acting very sheepish and upset. Mary was immediately worried when Mandy was late because it was so unlike her. And then when Kyra came back alone, acting strange, Mary knew something was terribly wrong. Mandy's sister Molly would later tell ABC News, "We just prayed that they would find her alive." You think to yourself,

• 6:40Speaker 02

  God, maybe she's hurt. She can't get home. But if Mandy was just hurt, she should have been pretty easy to find. And Mandy's older brother, Lee, was at a friend's house about a quarter of a mile down the street. He saw Mandy pass by on her way home. So the search area should have been very small. If Mandy had just, say, twisted her ankle or pulled a hamstring or something like that. Kyra didn't return home for another two hours after Lee saw them run by. Her family searched the area starting at about 4:30 in the afternoon, along the route for a couple of hours. When they didn't find her, they knew it was time to call police.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  They placed a call to 911 at around 7:00 PM. And police came right out. An official search by police began that night after 9:00 PM. But they too had no luck finding Mandy. And I feel like more if in any case that we talk about where someone doesn't return home, where someone is missing, right? There's always a decision that has to be made by the family or loved ones. At what point do we call 911? Because most people don't call 911 immediately in this type of situation. Right? There's calls maybe to be made.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  You're gonna jump in your car. You're gonna run out to see if she's hurt. But the thing that really jumps out to me in this case is Kyra. You know, Mandy going out running with her dog routinely. And we all love our animals. We love our pets. And you can just imagine. What was going on in the minds of the family when the dog Kyra comes home without Mandy? I think that is what jumped out at me because that's different than what we talk about in many cases. Right? Somebody just doesn't return, but in this scenario, Mandy was with Kyra.

• 8:52Speaker 02

  So if Kyra comes back, Mandy should have come back.

• 8:56Speaker 03

  And it's pretty amazing, you know, the way animals, pets are resilient. They can find their way home and you know, oftentimes you hear of pets trying to summon help. Obviously they can't talk and tell you what happened, but they'll find their way home. And you know, sometimes they'll try and instigate people to, to come with them to find some, someone if they're missing that kind of thing. So that didn't happen here, but it was still that the fact Kyra came home. I, I find that really interesting that she found her way home and that had raised the alarm that she was alone and Mandy wasn't with her.

• 9:39Speaker 03

  The search for Mandy expanded to nearby areas over the next two days and some areas were researched. On Sunday, November 26th, two days after Mandy vanished, searchers found a pair of light green sweatpants in the woods. They were dirty and torn. Mandy's mom didn't feel like they could have been her daughters, even though Mandy did have a pair of light green sweats. No one could remember exactly what Mandy had been wearing when she left that day, but they tried to push the memory of her wearing those sweatpants out of their minds. If those pants belonged to her, there likely wouldn't be any good outcomes.

• 10:13Speaker 02

  With no clear sign of Mandy in the area, both police and nearby residents began to theorize about what had happened to her. The leading theory was that Mandy had been kidnapped and taken from the area somehow, but authorities continued to search the woods near the river. Investigators believe that someone armed with some kind of weapon had kicked Kyra into a ditch where she was helpless. And then forced Mandy into a car. Since Mandy was a fast runner. It wouldn't make sense for someone to just be able to run up to her and grab her, especially with Kyra on the run alongside her.

• 10:55Speaker 02

  On Monday, November 27, three days after she went missing, the search for Mandy came to a sad end, and it was an ending that no one wanted. Mandy was found dead, submerged in the Nooksack River. Her body had gotten caught in some debris in the South Fork, about three and a half miles away from her home. All of her clothing was missing. She was wearing only her socks and running shoes.

• 11:22Speaker 03

  The water in the river was pretty cold, which helped preserve Mandy's body. There were also no injuries to her face, so it almost looked like she was just sleeping. The situation was distressing for first responders and those working on the case. It was a small town, and no one was used to this kind of thing. Whatcom County Medical Examiner Dr. Gary Goldfodle told the Bellingham Herald, "We'd look at Mandy and say, you know, if we could shake her and warm her up, then she would wake up." And he described the recovery of her body as very traumatic. Detective Ron Peterson had a hard time with the discovery. He told 48 Hours, "Mandy looked like my daughter."

• 12:02Speaker 02

  And this is a very sad outcome, more obviously, you know, when a family is searching for a loved one, this is the, the last thing that they want to have happen. I can only imagine what that three-day stretch was like for the family. I assume that in the beginning, there's a lot of worry, but there's also a lot of hope. But what happens as each day ticks by? It has to become tougher and tougher. Now, families don't give up hope, but I just wonder, you know, in the back of their minds.

• 12:43Speaker 02

  Do they start to think that, you know, this outcome is not going to be good every day that passes? Because I think that would be very logical, although extremely hard.

• 12:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I think while they're holding out hope, it's also likely that they knew something had to be wrong, because if she was out there in the cold alone for that long, there couldn't be any kind of good scenario. And I think when they got this news, it must have been devastating. And as hard as it was for her family, there's a good possibility that in such a small town, some of the recovery team may have known Mandy. So that may have been hard for them, too.

• 13:29Speaker 02

  While it was never 100% confirmed, those dirty and torn sweatpants that were found had likely belonged to Mandy after all. Their condition just reflected the terrible struggle she went through as she tried to escape her attacker. There were cuts and scratches on Mandy's arms and thighs, showing that at one point, she was running through thick, thorny, blackberry bushes, desperately trying to get away. Mandy's official cause of death was drowning, even though the river was only knee deep at the time. She had been alive when she ended up in the river, but had been unable to swim or stand up. An injury

• 14:10Speaker 02

  to the back of her head suggested that her attacker had hit her over the head, leaving her unconscious before throwing her into the water. Those who knew Mandy say that this is the only possibility that makes sense, because she was a very strong swimmer, and actually was a Red Cross certified lifeguard. Besides, the water wasn't deep enough, and it wasn't flowing fast enough, that she wouldn't have been able to just stand up and save herself if she had been conscious. It was determined that Mandy had been sexually assaulted before being left in the river. semen was collected from her body during her autopsy.

• 14:53Speaker 03

  Since most people that are victims of a murder know their killer, police started looking at Mandy's inner circle. Mandy's boyfriend, Rick Zender, was quickly ruled out as a suspect. He was questioned and fingerprinted, but he was extremely cooperative with the investigation, and he was shocked and heartbroken about the news. Down the road, DNA testing would confirm that Rick Zender's DNA did not match the DNA recovered from her body. This made it clear to investigators that the DNA definitely belonged to her killer.

• 15:23Speaker 02

  And that's a big deal, right? You know, obviously, we know that Rick is going to be looked at. He's the boyfriend. He is definitely inside Mandy's inner circle. He has to be vetted. In this case, he's ruled out, but ultimately, down the road, ruling him out as being the contributor of this DNA, this semen, that's a big deal. I mean, after all, he's her boyfriend. Not sure what their sexual history was, but if the semen was determined to be him, there could be a logical explanation for that.

• 16:03Speaker 02

  But it not being his, it had to have come from Mandy's attacker, her killer.

• 16:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, and I feel bad for her boyfriend to be questioned. I know it's part of the process, but he cooperated and, you know, the police believed him. And, you know, later, that DNA ruled him out. He had nothing to do with it, and he's just a one more person that was devastated by her loss.

• 16:32Speaker 02

  A memorial was held for Mandy on Sunday, December 3, and she was laid to rest at the St. Joseph Mission Cemetery. While Mandy's loved ones were grieving and saying their goodbyes, police pressed on with the hunt for her killer, and the investigation was in full swing. Wacom County Sheriff's Detective George Mastin told The Washington Post, "We're still tracking down 7,859 leads, nearly 8,000 tips or leads in about a week."

• 17:04Speaker 02

  In that small town proved that the community was incredibly invested in finding answers. A reward fund was quickly put together, but eventually after so long with no answers, the money was put toward a scholarship in Mandy's name. Many started to lose any hope that Mandy's murderer would ever be identified. Her mother, Mary, admitted to not having much hope, telling Inside Edition, "I absolutely did not think it would ever get solved." With no witnesses, little evidence, and no hard suspects, and DNA testing being in its early stages, the case went cold. Losing weight on your own can feel like a fight you keep losing.

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• 19:04Speaker 03

  For years, Mandy's case didn't move and stayed cold, but a big break in the case finally came in 2013. It actually happened pretty randomly. Two women, Heather Backstrom and Mary Lee Anderson, who both went to Mount Baker High School, were socializing at a water park while waiting for their children, and the conversation ended up turning to Mandy Stavik. One of them said that she kind of felt like she knew who did it, and the other said that she felt the same way. Amazingly, they both blurted out the same name to each other, Timothy Bass. It was easier to dismiss their own feelings as overreactions or misunderstandings, but when it was both of them, it felt like there was something to it. So they went to

• 19:44Speaker 03

  the police with his name. Bass, who is now 50 years old, was 22 at the time Mandy was murdered.

• 19:51Speaker 02

  Heather Backstrom and Mary Lee Anderson both suspected that it was Timothy Bass. Due to run-ins they had with him, neither of their encounters with Bass had been violent, but they had both made a lasting impression on the two women. Mary Lee recalled a time about a year after Mandy's murder, that she felt Bass lied about needing to use the phone in order to get into her house when she was home alone. He was friends with her husband, so he would have known he wasn't there. Once inside her home, Bass confessed to being in love with her and wanting to have sex with her. He laughed when she threatened to call the police on him.

• 20:33Speaker 03

  Heather was just 15 years old when she was riding in the car with her future husband before they were dating. They weren't alone on this ride, though. Along with them was Timothy Bass, who was 21. This was just months before Mandy was killed. Bass started running a pen up and down Heather's thighs while he was telling her how beautiful her eyes were, and it really creeped her out. She felt like nothing would happen because they weren't alone, but she was still terrified. These two women had kept these interactions with Bass in their minds for years, so they truly must have been disturbed by him.

• 21:07Speaker 02

  And based on the stories, you know, from these two women, Timothy Bass sounds like a real creep. I mean, he's coming on to his friend's wife. He's, he's coming on to a 15-year-old when he's 21? I mean, this is...

• 21:23Speaker 02

  You know, you can just tell this is not a good guy.

• 21:27Speaker 03

  And these incidents clearly stuck with these women for, for years. And so they had to be disturbing and, you know, kudos to them for coming forward to the police with their suspicion. And the worst that could happen was the police would check him out and say, hey, there's nothing to it. But, you know, I think we talk about too many cases where someone has a name and just never shares it. And come to find out it's them and maybe they would have been arrested long before had they come forward.

• 21:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. And I could see in this situation where probably seemed like isolated incidents, because they were isolated to each woman. But when they get together and they start talking about Bass, I think that's when it clicks for them.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  And I think when both of them went to the police, you know, it was probably would be hard for them not to look into this guy because you have two concerned women that had run ins with him. So, you know, again, good job by them that come forward.

• 22:35Speaker 02

  Timothy Bass was local to the area, had no criminal history and had attended Mount Baker High School, just like Mandy. His younger brother, Tom, was actually friends with Mandy. Gina Malone, who was once married to Timothy Bass, recalled that after Mandy was killed, Bass hurried their wedding along, moving it up to January of 1990, just two months after the murder. It's possible that he wanted to seem like an upstanding family man if he was questioned. They stayed together for a long time, but their marriage seems like it was far from perfect. In August of 2010, Gina filed for a domestic violence restraining order for herself and their three young children.

• 23:19Speaker 02

  And she noted that Bass regularly watched true crime shows, apparently specifically shows about cold case murders and kind of bragged that he could easily get away with such serious crimes. Gina told the Washington Post that her husband said, I wouldn't get caught because I'm not that stupid. He added that it would be easy to get away with it. According to the Bellingham Herald, Timothy Bass also once roughly shoved Gina into a wall hard enough to actually leave bruises on her back from the impact and said to her, people have made me so angry before and I can see why people murder other people. Now, watching true crime

• 24:03Speaker 02

  shows, listening to true crime podcasts, that doesn't necessarily make you a criminal, obviously, or we'd all be in trouble. But some of these comments, I wouldn't get caught. It would be easy to get away with it. You know, when I watch a true crime show or listen to something, that's not my thought. I'm not trying to figure out how I would get away with it. So to me, that's, you know, a red flag. And obviously, the domestic violence is a huge red flag.

• 24:40Speaker 03

  Yeah. When you take into consideration, now you have someone that was close to this guy saying these terrible things, you know, the domestic violence incidents, the things that he said about getting away with murder, and you combine that with what the other two women who went to police said, it's definitely not painting a good picture for this guy.

• 25:05Speaker 02

  And now we have an actual link, right? His brother was friends with Mandy.

• 25:11Speaker 03

  Modern day, police looked through the original reports from the time of Mandy's murder and saw that somehow, despite the fact that Bass lived on Mandy's street and she would have to pass his house between the last time her brother saw her and making it home, he was never suspect in the beginning of the investigation. In fact, he was somehow never even questioned or approached for a DNA sample. No one in his family had been. Years later, he was asked, like many other men in the area, for a voluntary sample, but Bass, unlike many of the others, refused to cooperate. When investigators tried to get a warrant to collect his DNA, they were denied because there wasn't strong enough evidence tying him to the crime. They didn't have the probable cause they needed to proceed with that route.

• 25:54Speaker 02

  And it is shocking to me more of that, you know, here's a guy who lived on Mandy Street and was never even talked to or questioned, let alone approached for a DNA sample. You would think, just in the course of the investigation, everyone on the street, especially the, the males on that street, would have been talked to. That just seems like police work 101.

• 26:22Speaker 03

  That's exactly what I was thinking. You know, you, you think a cursory search of the area, the residents there would be warranted to see if any of them have criminal records, you know, to see if anybody saw anything, even if they don't have criminal records, just talking to everybody on that street should have been, you know, something that was done automatically. And somehow that just didn't happen.

• 26:45Speaker 02

  In 2015, Wadcom County Sheriff's Office Detective Kevin Bauhey asked Kim Wagner, one of Bass's coworkers, to take swabs of areas of the truck Bass used to make deliveries. However, they were told by Human Resources for his employer, Franz Bakery in Bellingham, that they would need a warrant to collect anything from their business or trash, and that they wouldn't be giving out any information about Bass without a court ordered subpoena. The lack of cooperation didn't deter police. They were pretty sure that they had their man. They just had to prove it. According to the Linden Tribune, it turns out that Mandy had actually mentioned Bass

• 27:30Speaker 02

  to people as some guy named Tim, who was bugging or annoying her. When she was a senior, he would go to her basketball games and watch her, even though he had already graduated. She'd even mentioned him in her journal.

• 27:46Speaker 03

  Detectives were sure that they had the right guy, but had a set of challenges in front of them, those being no warrants, no subpoenas, no cooperation, and no eyewitnesses. Bass's ex-wife, Gina Malone, was questioned in 2017, but told detectives that she had seen Mandy run past Bass's home on her run that day because she had been walking the opposite direction on her way to see Timothy Bass. As much as Bass had apparently watched true crime shows and taken in the information, it seems that his coworker, Kim Wagner, had too. She was determined to help investigators get the DNA sample that they needed, even if she had to get it for them herself. But Bass not only wore gloves when he was at

• 28:29Speaker 03

  work, he never threw anything away. If he drank from a cup or ate something, he took the trash home with him. This made Wagner more suspicious of him and even more determined to help investigators get what they needed from Bass.

• 28:43Speaker 02

  And I could see why she would be more suspicious of him. I mean, who takes their lunch trash home with them from work? So it does sound as though, you know, he, in watching all of these true crime shows, obviously more probably knew about DNA and all that, and he was worried about it because he knew what he had done and he knew what technology had evolved into.

• 29:13Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think a lot of times people, maybe they're paranoid or they've been watching too much crime shows and they start getting these crazy ideas about people and think they're up to no good. But in this case, it seems like it was warranted.

• 29:30Speaker 02

  And let's face it, police had already approached her. So she had to be wary and Bass's activity at work is just going to cause, you know, that concern to go off the charts. Finally, in August of 2017, Wagner was able to snatch something with Bass's DNA on it. A can of Coca-Cola and a plastic cup from the water cooler. For some reason, he threw them away at work. Instead of taking them with him, she put on gloves, grabbed them out of the trash and shoved them into her desk drawer. Later, she put them in a paper bag and turned the bag over to the detectives. It took a few more months for the lab results to come back.

• 30:14Speaker 02

  When they did, police were stunned, but not shocked that the DNA on the can and on the cup was a match to the DNA found on Mandy's body. Their suspicions of Timothy Bass were well founded.

• 30:30Speaker 03

  In December 2017, Timothy Bass was taken into custody. A DNA swab was taken. There's finally probable cause for that. And there's finally confirmation. It was Bass's DNA on the items that Wagner collected. And that DNA was a match to DNA recovered from Mandy's body. Bass denied killing Mandy and entered a plea of not guilty. His bail was set at $1 million. Mary Stavik was still alive to learn who killed her daughter. That's pretty rare in cases that have gone unsolved for so long. Some of the original investigators were still around too. County prosecutor David McKeatron actually came out of retirement to be able to prosecute this case because it had affected him so deeply.

• 31:13Speaker 03

  His 44-year career as prosecutor just hadn't been enough time to close Mandy's case, but he wasn't going to let that stop him. He told the News Tribune, "I've never seen a case that had an impact like this one did. It affected the entire community." McKeatron recalled that after Mandy's murder, people thought that they didn't have a sense of safety and had suddenly realized that they were not all that safe and that there was a monster who was really living among them. And for nearly 30 years, the community was frozen with fear, wondering if Mandy's killer was still out there, walking amongst them, blending in, maybe even waiting for another opportunity to strike. There was no way to know, so there was no way to truly feel safe.

• 31:55Speaker 02

  Timothy Bass went to trial in 2019 because Wagner was a very key witness. Investigators actually kept her out of the loop on purpose. She also was not allowed to be in the courtroom during the trial until after she had completed her testimony, which is common in criminal cases like this. No one ever confirmed to her that the DNA sample she helped collect had been a match. She just learned the news that Bass had been arrested. It wasn't until after the trial that she knew how important her actions had been.

• 32:32Speaker 03

  At trial, Bass's younger brother, Tom, who knew Mandy, admitted that his brother had asked family members on multiple occasions to help him cover up his involvement in her murder by lying or creating a false alibi for him. He was also trying to think of a way that he could blame his deceased father and say that it was his DNA on Mandy's body. Bass had even asked his younger brother to tell investigators that he had also slept with Mandy to make it seem like she slept with a lot of people and there was no big deal that his semen had been found on her. And maybe he was even trying to frame his brother in the end, like he had thought about trying to frame his father. Either way, Bass understood that he couldn't ignore the fact that his DNA had been found on Mandy's body and he couldn't deny it.

• 33:15Speaker 03

  Instead, he would need to explain it away. His main defense at trial was that he and Mandy had consensual sex before she either took her own life or crossed paths with the real killer. One of his defense attorneys explained in court that thinking that that semen donor must be the killer is the fundamental error in this case.

• 33:37Speaker 02

  And I just get such a sense here, Morph, that this must have been on his mind all the time for so many years. You know, he's watching the true crime shows. He's seeing as the years pass what DNA is accomplishing. And the whole time he's thinking, they have my DNA. And he's scheming about how to frame his father, maybe how to frame his brother. He's trying to line up alibis with his family or throw members of his family under the bus. I mean, You could see how this potentially could be all consuming to this guy.

• 34:23Speaker 03

  I think, you know, for someone that is involved in a crime like this, it's only natural they're going to be looking over their shoulder for a long time. Did maybe just waiting for the police to knock on the door. So, you know, that that time had finally come for him.

• 34:39Speaker 02

  But he has to try to explain it, right? He's not going to get out from under the fact that it's his DNA. So like most criminals do, they have to come up with something. And what does he come up with? Well, we had consensual sex. And then whatever happened must have happened. The issue for Bass was that no one ever recalled seeing Mandy interact with him. Not his younger brother, not one of her siblings or friends, no one in the neighborhood. He tried to claim they were having an affair and that they kept it private. But that possibility seems unlikely, especially when we talked about it earlier that Timothy Bass,

• 35:24Speaker 02

  according to Mandy herself, creeped her out by watching her at basketball games. When police first approached Bass, he tried to claim that he didn't even know who detectives were talking about. As if Mandy's murder didn't shake the entire community. His story was all over the place and nobody believed him. And that also goes for a jury of six men and six women. They found Timothy Bass guilty of first degree murder, first degree rape, first degree attempted rape, first degree kidnapping and first degree attempted kidnapping. The statute of limitations on all charges besides murder had already expired,

• 36:08Speaker 02

  but it was necessary to prove those crimes to be able to find Bass guilty of first degree murder.

• 36:16Speaker 03

  Timothy Bass was sentenced to the maximum amount of prison time allowed by law, 320 months, just under 27 years. It may not seem long enough. It may not seem long enough, but it's all that could be done with the actual charges. Prosecutors didn't want to risk that a juror would buy Bass's story about consensual intercourse. So they didn't charge him with premeditated murder, which would have carried a sentence of life in prison, or even a potential death sentence. But 27 years is about how much time Bass spent free after he killed Mandy, living his life, gloating about how smart he was and how good he was at getting away with crimes. And it was more than the minimum sentence of 20 years, which is what his defense team had requested.

• 37:00Speaker 03

  Mandy's family seemed as happy with the sentence as they could be, given the circumstances. Mandy's sister Molly told the Bellingham Herald, "Almost 30 years we suffered. I want him to suffer like we did."

• 37:12Speaker 02

  And, you know, I would agree with you more. 27 years doesn't seem like enough for the horrible act that Timothy Bass committed. Now, it's great that they got him, but what's always frustrating to me is that in these cases where, you know, it does take a long time to catch the killer, they essentially get to live out their life for many, many years. And that bugs me. I understand it. It just sometimes takes, you know, quite a while to solve these cases, but the fact that, you know, he's living his life, I don't know.

• 37:57Speaker 02

  I can't get over it sometimes. It makes me mad.

• 38:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, what makes me mad is the way that some of these statute of limitations had run out because these are very serious. Crimes, you know, attempted kidnapping, rape, that kind of stuff. But, you know, we talk about it often. Years ago, decades ago, the sentences on uncertain things were not very substantial in some cases, and therefore the statute of limitations on them didn't last that long. I wonder if the law has changed, if he committed this crime today, if he might be sentenced to a much more harsher penalty.

• 38:39Speaker 02

  Well, that's the thing, right? If you catch somebody 20, 30, 40 years later, and you get the conviction, the sentencing guidelines that were in place at the time the crime was committed, kick in. So I think there's, there's a good chance to answer your question that, you know, his sentence would be much more severe had he committed this crime, you know, in the current time that we're living in. When you think about how long it took for justice in this case, it's pretty frustrating

• 39:20Speaker 02

  because it's really baffling how Bass was able to slip through the cracks of this investigation. We talked about it, right? This case meant a lot to the authorities in the area. They worked it hard, but somehow never thought to look at Timothy Bass early on, despite him living on the same street as Mandy and along the route she had run. She also mentioned him by name in a negative light to multiple people. So I think, you know, given all that to a lot of people, it shouldn't have taken the authorities so long to look at Timothy Bass.

• 40:01Speaker 02

  Thankfully, even though it was 1989 when Mandy died, that DNA was not only properly collected, it was perfectly stored until 2017. As Sheriff Bill Elfo told Inside Edition, "As is true in so many of these older cases, the collection and safe storage over the years made the solving of this horrific crime possible."

• 40:28Speaker 03

  Despite being convicted, Timothy Bass continued to maintain his innocence. As a sentencing hearing, he said, "I would first like to say that I am 100% innocent of this crime. I wish no ill will towards anyone here, not even today, but I am having a hard time with this." Bass's mother, Sandra, also still believes her son is innocent and noted that he got good grades in high school and never got into any trouble. She told the News Tribune, "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." Bass is currently serving his time in Airway Heights Corrections Center.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  Well, you know, mom is always going to stick with you, or a lot of moms, right? They're, they're going to have a hard time believing that their son, the boy that they brought into this world, they raised, could be capable of this. But to say that there wasn't any real evidence, I, you know, I have to take umbrage with that a little bit. There was DNA evidence. Now, obviously, I'm sure he told her, "We had consensual sex," and she believed it.

• 41:45Speaker 03

  And I think for a lot of moms, it's just the accepting reality is to accept that your, your son is not perfect and is capable of something terrible. So, you know, it seems like a clear-cut case of denial.

• 42:01Speaker 02

  Mandy's family is certain the Bass is the right guy and is glad to be able to move past the questions and the uncertainty. Mandy's stepsister, Bridget Whitson, told the Bellingham Herald, "Normal means not having to worry about the monster being out there. The monster is not lurking anymore." When Mandy's mother talks about Kim Wagner, the coworker of Timothy Bass, who watched and waited for the opportunity to help authorities obtain Bass's DNA, it's clear that she's very thankful for her efforts.

• 42:37Speaker 02

  Told the Bellingham Herald, she is the one that made it possible to get justice. Bass was careful with his DNA and authorities had to follow the law or they wouldn't be able to use the DNA match in court. Anything they wanted to test had to be collected in a legal manner. If she hadn't cooperated, he may still be free, depending on how stingy he was willing to be with his trash for the rest of his life. As for Kim Wagner herself, she told the Herald, I'm proud of what I did. I like to think that that's just me. I like to do the right thing. But she said it wasn't easy and that the end goal was for Mandy's mom to finally know

• 43:22Speaker 02

  and for Mandy's soul to finally be free with a guilty verdict. And my thought more of is if Timothy Bass was willing to take home his lunch trash with him, he probably was also very careful with his trash at home, which would have made it, you know, tough for detectives. You often see that scene in true crime shows or movies where they're dumping someone's trash to try to find DNA. I have a feeling this guy was very careful with what he put in there.

• 44:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, we talked about looking over his shoulder and it's clear from, from his actions and from trying to cover his tracks and keep his DNA hidden that he, he was looking over his shoulder and trying to protect himself. Manny's murder had an incredible and lasting impact on the community. It didn't matter if you were a hard and law enforcement professional, someone who knew Mandy, or just a young person growing up in the area. If you lived in that community, you knew who Mandy was, you knew what happened to her, and it made people reevaluate their own personal safety. Parents in the area were on high alert after Manny's murder. It was a stark contrast from the carefree attitude Manny previously had when it came to locking their doors.

• 44:42Speaker 03

  Amber Dawn, who grew up in Acme and was in seventh grade at the time Manny was killed, told the Herald, I remember my mom and dad becoming extra vigilant, walking us to the bus stop and locking up the house when it had never seemed important in our small town to do that before.

• 44:59Speaker 02

  And I feel like this is something that comes up in many cases, especially when, you know, a case occurs in a smaller town, we're talking seventies, eighties, even nineties. There are crimes in many towns across the country that changed things for the residents of that area forever. It's almost like before this happened and after.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  And murders have been around since the beginning of time. And sometimes in small towns, until it affects them and they have a firsthand experience with it, that's when they change, things are different for them. There's like a loss of innocence there in that, in that community. And people know that anything can happen.

• 45:54Speaker 02

  Officials who worked on the case never forgot Mandy. Former sheriff's deputy George Sherry told the Herald, "The day that she disappeared was one of the saddest days in my time as a deputy." Mandy's murder made people want to be able to create impactful change. Dan Baxter, who was dating a woman who lived in the same dorm as Mandy at Central Washington University, and later became a juvenile probation counselor supervisor for King County Superior Court, told the Herald, "We were all just shocked about the disappearance. And for myself, it impacted my choice to go into the criminal justice system as my profession."

• 46:38Speaker 03

  To this day, Mandy's sister Molly still won't go near the area of the river where authorities found her body. It's just too hard for her. Mandy would be in her mid 50s if she was still alive. There's now a Mandy Stavik Scholarship awarded to candidates who take an active part in the Mount Baker High School music program. Sadly, Mandy wasn't the first Stavik child to be murdered. Her older brother Brent was killed in 1975 when she was just four years old. At the time, Brent and their father Glenn were still living in Anchorage, Alaska, where Mandy was born. The 16-year-old was hunting near Fort Richardson Army Base when he was shot multiple times. It's still unknown who's responsible for his death.

• 47:20Speaker 02

  You know, Morf, we mentioned it early on that this is the kind of case that will make most people appreciative of the holidays that they spend with loved ones, even more than they normally would be. For Mandy Stavik's family, they didn't know that the Thanksgiving meal they had with her would be their last and that holidays would never be the same for them again without Mandy. Though nothing can bring Mandy back, hopefully they have some peace, knowing that her killer is behind bars and won't be able to hurt anyone else. So as we wrap this case up, you know, obviously it was a horrific crime, a sexual assault,

• 48:03Speaker 02

  murder, and I hate to be too critical of police. They have a very hard job, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't point out that it seems like there were some errors made in this case. You know, we talked about what a big deal it was to this community and police were taking it very seriously. But how did they miss talking to people on Mandy's street? How did they miss talking to people along the route which she had run? I just, that's mind boggling to me.

• 48:47Speaker 03

  Yeah, there's no guarantee that had police knocked on Bass's door that early on that they would have arrested him or found anything to, to charge him with. But you just going through the steps and questioning the people in the area, as we talked about, just seems like such a natural thing to do and just somehow it didn't happen here.

• 49:10Speaker 02

  The other thought that, that I had was you just wonder if this guy committed other crimes. It's hard for me to think that he didn't. We talked about how many different people were creeped out by him. Mandy was creeped out by him. This guy, you know, he seemed like he was a predator, like he was stalking people. I don't know that any other crimes came to light, but I always find it hard to believe that, you know, a guy who was capable of this and acted the way he did. Didn't commit other crimes and they just weren't linked and he obviously wasn't going to bring them up.

• 49:54Speaker 03

  Yeah, it might be worth looking at any other similar crimes in that vicinity, just to see if there's any that might be linked to him. And eventually, you know, maybe down the road at some point, DNA and genealogy would have been done that would have the same result. It would point to him and he'd finally be arrested. But that might be years from now. So in this case, it was a good thing that those two women came forward after talking with each other to tell police, hey, this guy Bass really creeped this out. You should really look into him. And I think they're the heroes of this story.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I do too. And, you know, it might seem like an easy thing to do, but in many cases, I don't know that it is. First of all, you know, are you putting yourself in any type of danger by coming for? Well, possibly. If this guy's a killer, then yeah, potentially you are. So you have to factor all that in. So I'm with you. You know, I do feel like what they did was, was very brave and it helped solve this crime.

• 51:03Speaker 03

  And then you had another resident there that took it upon herself to help police by collecting that DNA. I think she's another hero as well.

• 51:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, also a very brave thing to do. But even though, you know, he was out or not behind bars for many, many years, he is now. And hopefully he's not having a great time with it.

• 51:28Speaker 03

  And hopefully him being where he belongs is, is giving her family some peace.

• 51:33Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on Amanda Stavik. As always, if you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, leave us a rating, you can leave a review. Also, keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the podcast really goes a long way.

• 51:52Speaker 03

  If you want to find us on social media or on every major platform, just search for Criminology Podcast on your favorites. And if you want to check out old episodes, find news about the show and more, head over to our website, criminologypodcast.com. And finally, if you want to join a discussion with other listeners, head over to Facebook and check out the Criminology Podcast discussion and fan group.

• 52:15Speaker 02

  So that's it for another episode of Criminology, but Morph and I will be back with all of you next Saturday night with a brand new episode. So until then, for Mike.

• 52:25Speaker 03

  And Morph.

• 52:26Speaker 02

  We'll talk to you next week.

• 52:27Speaker 03

  Take care, everyone.