The elusive killer and housewives playing detective (10 photos)

There has been a somewhat derogatory attitude towards young mothers lately. They say that all they have in their heads is colic, teething and diapers. And it’s impossible to talk to mothers about anything serious. But it was detectives like these who helped solve the 25-year-old murder case, which the professionals couldn’t handle.





Summer 2013. Heather Backstrom and Merrilee Anderson took their kids to the water park. Watching the little ones frolic, the women talk about business and ordinary family concerns. And in the conversation they remember the 25-year-old case of the murder of Amanda Staivik in their hometown of Acme. The girl's body was found in the river, but the police were never able to find the killer.



Amanda Stawick

Suddenly Heather exclaims, “I know who the killer is!” “Me too!”, her friend answers.

On an ordinary November day in 1989, 18-year-old Amanda and her dog Kira went for a run. Usually the girl was accompanied by her mother. But that day, Mary was distracted by something, and the inseparable couple went off together.

But only Kira returned home. The woman became worried, started calling Mandy’s friends, and contacted her boyfriend. But everyone just shrugged their shoulders - Amanda did not appear.

Mary examined her usual route to see if she could find any traces or clues. But to no avail. She called the police. After a short search, witnesses were found who saw Mandy literally a few tens of meters from the house. And three days later, the body of the poor woman was found in the shallow waters of the Nooksack River.

Amanda's Cold Case



Amanda

The lack of clothing confirmed the obvious motive. The girl was hit on the back of the head, raped and thrown into the water, where she drowned. DNA testing as a field at that time was still in its infancy. But the experts still received biological fluids. However, the analysis did not produce a match with the database. And the case ended up on the far shelf of the archive.

In 2009, as part of a program to investigate “cold” cases—cases that had not been fully solved—the folder came to Detective Kevin Bowhay. The police officer had to compare DNA with a significantly expanded database. The work is long and routine. But it could not be completed after the appeal of two young mothers.

Friendly neighbor



Tim in his youth

Heather Backstrom and Merrilee Anderson stormed into the station and told the startled detective that Amanda's neighbor Timothy Bass had definitely killed the girl. Neither he nor his father and brother were included in the list of suspects during the investigation. But the women, who had just entered adolescence at that time, remembered the advances of the 22-year-old guy. Which means poor Mandy could also have been harassed by Bass.

Proof?



Interrogation

It turned out that Timothy left the city a couple of months after the murder of his neighbor. Now the man led a respectable lifestyle, worked in a local bakery, and raised three children with his wife.

When interviewing the detective, he was alarmed that Timothy did not remember who Amanda Staivick was. Although I lived nearby. In addition, the high-profile case was written about in the newspapers. The man also refused to submit material for research.

Clean employee or meticulous killer?



The same evidence

Detectives asked bakery manager Kim Wagner to provide them with an item that Timothy would use. And we were surprised to learn from the woman that the employee almost always wears gloves. And he takes all personal garbage with him.

At first, Kim refused to respond to the police's request to follow the employee and give them the thing he touched. But after learning about a possible connection with the girl’s murder, she changed her mind.

Only three months later, the manager managed to get what he needed - the plastic glass from which Timothy drank soda, he threw it into the general trash can, rather than taking it with him.

Result and punishment after years



Timothy Bass

The DNA results matched. At the end of 2017 - 28 years after the murder of Amanda, Timothy was charged. Manclaimed that they had a secret affair, which explained the presence of biological traces in the girl’s body. After Bass's arrest, his wife Gina filed a statement about the threat from her husband. He demanded confirmation that he was with her at the time of Amanda's death. Although in reality this was not the case.



The defendant's brother said that Timothy was very contemptuous of the fairer sex. And boss Kim said that in conversations he never called his wife by name, using only the impersonal word “woman.”



Mary Stawick learned of the arrest of a suspect in her daughter's death on her 81st birthday. She had never received a better gift in her life.

Despite the fact that the defendant and his lawyers insisted that the sexual intercourse was voluntary and that he was not involved in murder, in 2019 a jury found Bass guilty of kidnapping, rape and murder. Despite refusing to admit guilt, Timothy was sentenced to 27 years in prison.



The key role in the investigation, thanks to which justice was finally done, was played by the concern of ordinary women.