As a child, Michelle Welch and Jennifer Bastian were savagely killed in 1986. It shocked everyone in their Tacoma, Washington State neighbourhood to the bone! On “Dateline NBC: Evil Was Watching,” the innocent young girls were snatched away in broad daylight just five months apart. They were then allegedly used for sexual pleasure before they were killed. If you want to know more about Michella’s attacker, Gary Hartman, here is what we know.
Who is Gary Hartman, and what is his background?
Gary Charles Hartman was born around 1952, but he didn’t have an easy or comfortable childhood because of a lot of problems at home, his lawyer said in court. His father is said to have started giving him pure alcohol as a toddler to “make him a man.” By the time he was 10, his mother had him hooked on prescription pills. Also, it’s said he was sexually and mentally abused for years and had to deal with both of these things for so long that at one point, he couldn’t even tell the days from each other, let alone figure out what was going on with his life.
As soon as he attacked the child, Gary “convinced himself that he didn’t do this.” This is what people say about him at this point in his life. When he got sober and became a registered nurse in 1989, though, it didn’t change anything about his past. Then, when DNA evidence linked his genes to Michella’s rape and murder 30 years after the fact, officials put him and his brother under surveillance until they could get a sample of his DNA. Gary’s DNA was taken from a brown paper napkin in June 2018. It was a match.
Gary Hartman: Where Is He At Present?
First-degree murder and first-degree rape charges were filed against Gary Hartman, who worked as a community nurse specialist at Western State Hospital when this new evidence came to light. Hartman was arrested and charged within weeks. A $5 million bond was quickly set for him in the Pierce County Jail. He had never moved out of the general area, so he was booked in almost right away. It was even more important that, after he said he was not guilty, the four-time husband and father of two daughters said he was not guilty for a long time. When he was in the county jail, “he woke up at some point with the realisation that he was the one who did this atrocious act [on Michella],” says his defence lawyer.
There were a lot of incriminating facts in Gary’s case that both his defence team and the prosecutor agreed on during his bench trial. The prosecutor said, “I believe the defendant has done everything he can to almost plead guilty.” That didn’t stop them from claiming that he had forgotten about what he did 30 years ago. They said that Gary felt the police were watching him and told a co-worker, “30 years ago he did something terrible, and he thought he had been found.”
Afterward, a judge found Gary Hartman guilty of first-degree murder in March 2022 and sentenced him to 2612 years in prison. The charge of first-degree rape was dropped. I don’t understand why you did what you did. You are guilty of one of the most heinous and depraved crimes, the judge said, before handing him the maximum sentence. This means that the 70-year-old will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. So far, it looks like he’s in the process of getting sent to a state prison.
Court: “I’m so sorry. I can’t believe I did this.” “I’m very sorry. God knows how sorry I am. Not at all. “I’m sorry.”