tv Dateline MSNBC May 5, 2024 1:00am-2:00am PDT
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not just the search for heather's killer but a office run amok. a battle bogle was determined to win. >> this girl was tough, taking care of kids. her number 1 priority was heather. we need to find out who did this. >> i would think your sister would be proud of you. >> thank you. >> do you feel better? >> i feel relieved we finally know what happened. >> you know who. >> yeah. >> and you know who it wasn't. >> exactly. that's all for this edition of dateline. i am andrea canning. thank you for watching. watchin hello, this is dateline. any time a child goes
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missing, it is a scary thing. you know there is evil out there. >> first, michelle, then jenny. >> bloodhounds came, police were there. >> two young girls, taken. >> similarities, blonde, blue eyes, riding a bike. >> as a little kid it definitely scared me. >> she was a girl then as well, solving these mysteries was her mission. could cutting edge technology crack a ice cold case? >> no way. >> i believe in the devil and i think people that do not believe in the devil are in for a big surprise. >> hello and welcome to
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dateline. michelle and jenny were like most kids their age, they liked riding bikes and playing outdoors. they did not know each other but they will be forever connected through tragedy. decades later a detective leaves no stone unturned in the quest for justice and uncovered a twist that left investigators speechless. here is keith morrison with, evil was watching. >> again and again she came here, stood under the ancient canopy, walked that damp neural paths to the places the killer used to hide what he had done as if looking once more after all of these years would tell her something, as if the dense undergrowth would part and
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finally reveal a name. for >> it is peaceful here, it is not the kind of place you would associate with violent crime. >> know and nothing like this ever happened at this park before. >> lindsay was 11 years old that terrible summer in washington. >> i remember it was scary to me as a young girl. it was scary not just for me but for everybody. >> the questions about that place and that summer followed her. up through the ranks of the police department until as detective lindsey, she came here, to wrestle with something like a of session. a mystery that laid dormant for more than three decades.
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a story that can finally be told. it was march 1986, things were finally looking up for barbara. it had not been easy after her husband left her to raise three girls alone but here barbara finally found a good job, a home and prospects. >> i was working in a real estate office and just purchased a house. >> even signed up her daughters for piano lessons. her youngest was nicole, there was angela in the middle and the oldest was michelle. >> she was almost 13, kids at that age want to be more independent. >> it was spring break so michelle take her mom. >> she wanted to go to the park with her sisters and be there
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before the piano lesson. >> just across the street from their lessons a couple of miles from home. michelle's sisters will never forget that day. freedom, they rode their bikes to the park where they realized they forgot their lunch at home. >> michelle said we will grabbed him and go back and in the meantime we had to go to the bathroom and there is no bathroom at the playground so we went down the street. >> it took a while and when they got back michelle should have been there as well but she was not. >> her bike was there and locked and we started looking. >> we have a family called that echoes far and wide. so we called for her and did
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not hear anything. >> that is when it happened, when the fear flooded their bodies. >> at that moment i knew something had happened. >> it was wrong. >> i left work, i remembered that day, i was probably doing 70 miles per hour. it was terrifying. >> you are hoping you will see the kid come walking around the corner. >> jean was a patrol officer then. >> there is a special kind of horror that comes with a little girl going missing like that. >> any time a child goes missing it is a scary thing. >> where was michelle? the police looked of course. >> as the hours tick by there is nothing.
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>> there is a emptiness there, time kind of stands still and then it is gone. it was dark, they said they were calling in search and rescue because we have not found her. >> it was late when they took search dogs into a nearby overgrown gulch. >> i was in one of the police cars and eight told me they found her body. when you say find a body it is not the person, it is just terrible. >> they found her near a makeshift fire pit, she had been beaten and sexually assaulted and her throat was cut. >> it is a sickening feeling that overtakes you.
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life is never going to be the same. >> it will either eat you up or motivate you to find the bad guy. >> day after day they searched for the killer, all of that dismal spring. one of michelle's classmates told police she saw a man in the park looking at the girls and they made a sketch and tips flooded in. one of them seemed worrisome. a man reported seeing somebody that looked like the sketch in a different park a few miles away. fear gripped the city. for barbara it felt more like rage. she got a gun permit and kept a gun in the car. >> i pull up at a stoplight and i looked over and there was a man in the car and i was thinking could you have done this? they had no clues for months. you are just living in a fog.
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>> then it was summer. five months past. >> august that year was fabulous in the pacific northwest. i woke up a little late and jenny woke up late. >> just the two of them. patty and her 13-year-old jenny. >> we were sitting in the dining room on the floor in front of the patio doors bathing in the sunlight. we were talking about the upcoming camp, what she was doing the rest of the day. we just visited. it is not something we regularly did, we just did it that day. i think we needed to. >> a moment in time treasured and so terribly fleeting. >> coming up. >> there was a knock on the front door. >> another missing girl, another
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anguished family, another awful search. >> there were hundreds of people looking through the park for her. >> everybody wanted to find jenny. >> when dateline continues. lin oooh! i can't wait for this family getaway! shingles doesn't care. shingles is a painful, blistering rash that can last for weeks. ahhh, there's nothing like a day out with friends. that's nice, but shingles doesn't care! 99% of adults 50 years or older already have the virus that causes shingles inside them, and it can reactivate at any time. a perfect day for a family outing! guess what? shingles doesn't care. but shingrix protects. only shingrix is proven over 90% effective. shingrix is a vaccine used to prevent
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a few miles from the park where they found michelle's body, patty was enjoying a quiet moment at home with the younger of her two daughters, jenny. a blonde and blue-eyed dynamo. >> if there was a ball she had it in her hand. >> jenny was 13, she had a brand-new bicycle. >> she wanted to master the bike. she wanted the stamina to keep up. >> she planned a training ride with the friend, the friend backed out so that day on august 4 -- >> jenny called her dad and asked for permission to do the ride around the park by herself so she wrote a note and left it. >> pd stands for point defiance, there huge and loved
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urban forest park. jenny's older sister theresa worked at a day camp there. >> it is majestic. all of these overdone words of the poets do not begin to describe the primeval forest. >> the five mile ride around the park was paved and well marked. patty left for her shift at the store 40 minutes away. >> the day becomes like any other day until a phone call comes in the evening. it is my husband saying i need to come home. >> jenny was hours late, patty heard the fear in her husband's voice, she drove home terrified. police were looking in the park and told her to stay home and wait. >> at 11:00 at night there is a knock on the front door, there is somebody from the police with bloodhounds, they want a piece
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of jennifer's clothing. something they can get a sent off of. >> they did not find jenny that night with the next day. police closed the park for three days and hundreds joined the search. king five covered it. jenny's sister theresa pleaded for help. >> any little bit would help. >> meanwhile police worked the angles. was it a kidnapping? >> we just did not know. >> maybe jenny got lost were was badly hurt. >> there were hundreds of people looking through the park for her. >> everybody wanted to find jenny. >> jean helped work down hundreds of suspected sightings. patty waited, still hoping
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jenny would walk in the door. she was at home when she got a visit from another mother, barbara. michelle's mom, there to offer support. >> it seems like the thing to do. >> she was very sweet and nice. i said thank you and she left and i said to a friend, i am not sure why she came, jennifer is not dead. >> you represented the outcome she desperately did not want to happen. >> exactly. she did not want that to be her reality. >> was it? the city feared the worst. >> i felt like i needed to do something instead of sitting in
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the backyard drinking coffee so i decided to paint the dining room. >> that is where she was when the detective arrived. >> took the brush, helped me down the ladder sat me down and said we found her. >> this is police video from the next day. they found jenny in a thickly wooded spot near a footpath. she had been sexually assaulted and strangled in her killer hit her body and new bicycle and a second mother learned all about permanent heartbreak. >> have you let your mind go to what probably happened to her that day? >> i have my fairytale i think, i would just live with it. she was riding her bike and a master came out of the woods and grabbed her and killed her. more than that i cannot wrap my brain around. >> twice in five months and the
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victims are very similar. >> blonde, blue eyes, riding a bike in a park. >> after which the kids lost the freedom to roam alone just like that. >> it was immediate. >> we could not go down the street and play with her friends anymore. >> because there was evil out there. a man, a monster that needed to be found. everybody wanted to help the police. >> at one point we were up to 10 binders full of tips. everything from i saw a strange person in the park that day to my neighbor has issues. >> police released another sketch of a possible suspect. a man in his 20s wearing mirrored sunglasses. a tip led to the man that drove this van. >> he was familiar with the
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five mile drive. >> they took a good look at him. >> dead and. >> there were many dead ends that year and in the years that followed. the police collected all of the evidence they could but there was only so much they could do. the science of dna was in its infancy and eventually the murders of jenny and michelle went cold. >> it changed the way people thought about the people. when the bad guy is still out there and you do not know who it is. >> the entire town carries it around. >> absolutely. >> miller carried it for two decades as well. then he met a young detective that was just a kid that summer of 86. did she remember? yes she did. >> coming up. >> it definitely scared me.
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a little girl riding her bike. >> she was 11 back then in the summer of 86 and because she lived in the city of course she heard about those girls and how they were snatched in broad daylight and murdered. >> it definitely scared me. there was certain times when i was out riding my bike or if i was walking it was something i would think about. >> a layer of that childhood varnish forever stripped away. >> for the first time it made us recognize there is really bad people out there. >> it takes away a little innocence. >> definitely. >> she got to thinking about bad people. in high school she read a book about ted bundy. >> he was from here. >> yes, i was fascinated by the
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book. terrified at the same time. i just decided that is what i wanted to do for a living. catch people like him. >> even after she joined the police department and earned her way to patrol, narcotics and sex crimes, she never forgot about jenny and michelle and the summer of 86. >> i would have a suspect i was working and i would wonder, could this guy be responsible? >> the mystery kept its grip on jean miller as well, inspired him to start a cold case unit. >> dings have changed dramatically on in howell cases are investigated. there is more that can be done. >> eventually in 2013 she joined him eager to dig into the case of michelle and jenny.
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binders and binders of leaves and interviews, 27 years of dead ends. >> so her bicycle was back here in this area. it was laying on its side. the suspect had taken some of these ferns and ripped them out and laid them on top of the bicycle to camouflage it. >> further down the path deeper into the woods but they found jenny, they discovered her body in a shelter of sorts. >> one of the original detectives described it as something like a igloo or a cave made out of the vegetation. >> what you get out of being at place where she was found? >> for me as a investigator it was important for me to come
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and see it to understand better what happened and get myself into the mindset of the killer. there are days i would get frustrated sitting in the office working on the case and i would drive down here hoping something would come to mind. >> one thing that did come to mind, assembling a list of all of the names in the binders, persons of interest, witnesses, and email the intersected with the original investigation. >> how many names that you have? >> 2300. >> my working theory at the time was this guy has got to be somebody who has been convicted of a sex crime or another murder. somehow he slipped through the cracks. >> in 86 investigators recovered semen from michelle's body but when it was tested years later it did not match anyone in the fbi's national dna database.
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they did not have dna from jenny's body but they did still have the swimsuit she was wearing that day so she sent that out for testing. >> when the crime lab looked at the swimsuit they found semen in the . >> for decades everybody believed the same man murdered both girls. now they finally had a way to prove it. when they compared the two samples -- >> it was a shocker. >> coming up, a revelation is about to change the case. >> all of this time you're looking for one thing but now it is something else. >> now we have a new lead. >> when dateline continues. tha? because you're...the... aren't you the..? huh...we never actually discussed hierarchy.
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more rescues on the way. a flood watch has been extended into tomorrow with the weather service saying a additional three inches is possible. mystic dan scored it upset victory in the 150th kentucky derby saturday. officials took several minutes to hash out which horse had it at the finish. they found out the mystic dan beat out to other horses. now back to dateline. dateline. were murdered within a matter of months. as the years passed, wade's obsession with the cases welcome back to dateline. when two young girls in her hometown were murdered in months. as years passed her obsession with the case grew. now she was a detective and hoped advances in dna technology would help her unmask the killer but what she was about to learn what
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transformed investigation. here again is keith morrison with evil was watching. >> michelle was fierce, there was nothing that intimidated her. she took life head on. >> it never left them, the spirit that was their sister, followed them what they grow up and when they had families of their own. they always knew that their mom lost a piece of herself. >> we would be together and this closing would come down over her. >> the mystery of who killed michelle and jenny wanted to families for 30 years. all they knew or thought they knew was that some unknown man assaulted and killed those little girls. >> there could not be two monsters in the city.
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>> they were wrong. dna does not lie, the mail dna found on jenny's swimsuit -- >> it did not match the other case. >> there were two killers. >> i was dumbfounded. >> we had to take a moment. >> all of this time you are looking for one thing and it is actually something else. >> it was exciting at the same time, now we had a new lead. >> the dna from jenny's swimsuit, new evidence, it might lead them to the killer. when they entered the into the national database, no match. once again they are back where they started. >> you are waiting your offender to get there dna in the
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database because of a conviction were whatever and that could be a long wait. >> in 2014, jean miller retired, leaving her in charge of the cold case unit and she had a new helper, jenny's mom. 29 years after her daughter's murder. >> my career was winding down and i thought i should probably do something so i volunteered to help. >> she was not allowed to touch the murder files but could help in other ways. >> we hit it off. she was so supportive and positive and volunteered for anything she could do to help us. >> around then the detective decided to try something new with the dna. she consulted this woman, doctor colleen fitzpatrick, a
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expert in forensic genealogy. >> it has been referred to as csi meets roots. >> you can sometimes track down distant relatives by uploading your dna profile to to public genealogy websites. doctor fitzpatrick searches data to find not matches but similarities. >> it is the first big development in human identification in 20 years. >> her method in linking unknown dna to possible relatives and therefore possible last names. the detective was skeptical at first. >> it sounded like smoke and mirrors to me but i thought i will give it a shot. >> she sent the doctor the two
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dna profiles from the crime scenes. >> she did her magic and entered it into her databases. >> there were no exact matches but there were some possible family names. >> i dug into the names and there was nobody that jumped off the page. >> the only name that seemed interesting was washburn. there was a guy by that name in the case file but he was not a suspect, he was a witness. the jogger that told police he saw someone at point defiance park that resembled the sketch of michelle's killer but more confusing, the doctors research linked the name washburn to the dna in jenny's murder which happened months after he phoned in that tip about michelle. so it was all just a fluke probably. >> it was something i kept in the back of my mind as we continued with the investigation.
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>> she also to a company that turned dna profiles into computer-generated images showing what the suspect probably looked like. in 2016, armed with the snapshots the police department told the public they were searching for two killers. they needed help to find them. jenny's sister teresa was hopeful. >> i did not know exactly where it would end up but i knew it was a next step in the case. >> we got multiple tips on the same person because he looked so much like the sketch. >> when they checked him out they eliminated him as a suspect. so much for new approaches. the detectives once again looked at the huge list she made, 2300 men connected to the cases. she could not test all of them against the dna. >> there were several hundred that stood out because they did
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have documented history for violence and sexual assault. >> she set out to collect the dna of bozeman. she called them high-priority suspects. also included one guy that was not a suspect. the witness, washburn. though they were scattered all over the country, with the fbi's help one by one she tracked them down. >> i knocked on the door and told them we were investigating a cold case and we would like to eliminate you as a potential suspect. we had in total about 160 people we get samples from. >> 160 samples. they all needed to be compared to the dna samples from the crime scenes. easier said than done. this would take months. no idea if any of it would pay off. >> coming up.
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a year of dead ends and then came the phone call. >> no way. >> when dateline continues. tel o target the source of pain with nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory medicine directly at the source. voltaren, the joy of movement. everybody wants super straight, super white teeth. they want that hollywood white smile. new sensodyne clinical white provides 2 shades whiter teeth and 24/7 sensitivity protection. i think it's a great product. it's going to help a lot of patients.
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because advil targets pain at the source of inflammation. so for faster pain relief, advil the pain away. and keith morrison (voiceover): four more seasons came and went in tacoma, washington, as ever so methodically in batches of 20, detective lindsey wade sent her collected samples of dna four more seasons came and went in washington. as the detective center collected dna to the lab.
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dna from 160 men looking for two killers. >> the first batch goes out, i wait months and then get a report back that none of them are a match. then i send the next batch out. it was really frustrating because there were some people that looked like fantastic suspects until they were eliminated. >> a year of dna tests and not a single match. it was enough to where any detective down, even one as passionate as lindsay. she had given her best but now she made a tough decision. >> it was time for me to move on. >> in the spring of 2018,
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lindsey retired. >> working on cold case's is typically more frustrating than rewarding. you can work and work and do a ton of investigation and come up with zero. >> she investigated jenny in michelle's case is four years and saying goodbye was not easy especially to jenny's mom. >> by that time you grew pretty close to patty. >> yes. >> she is a special gal. i told her mother i am going to adopt her. >> before she left, she sent one last small batch of samples to the dna. no point in waiting for the results. >> we are down to the last 18 and i am doubtful we will get a match. >> she said goodbye and went on with her life. 25 days later -- >> my phone buzzed. it was her replacement on the cold case unit. >> he said there is a match on jennifer ashton.
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i asked for the name. he said robert washburn. >> no way. >> i knew who it was but i could not believe it. >> robert washburn. the guy that phoned in the tip about michelle's murder, he was never a suspect. on the short list only because of the genealogy analysis. >> because of his last name. >> because he was in the list that was sent to you. >> correct. >> at the time it seemed like a fluke but now here it was, robert washburn's dna on jenny's swimsuit. it was head spinning. >> the funny thing is he was not a high priority suspect. >> they learned in the years after the murder and assault of jenny, robert washburn blinded
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into middle america. he moved to illinois, got a job, paid taxes and stayed out of trouble. when investigators came knocking at his door he voluntarily gave them a dna sample. now more than three decades after that terrible day in the park, washburn was arrested at home and then then new detective spoke with him. >> how did he react? >> he was scared, he was nervous and sweating, he asked me if it was about the swap he gave the fbi a year ago and then he told me i did not kill that little girl. >> with washburn in handcuffs it was time to let jenny's mom no and that job went to the retired detective. >> of course i rehearsed what i was going to say and it went
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out the window by the time i got there. >> she walked in, i could tell she had been crying. she said we got him. >> that is all i could say. >> the next thing we were doing was crying and hugging each other. >> after 32 years, jenny's alleged killer was finally in custody. what about michelle's? his identity was still a mystery. of the 160 men whose dna was tested, none matched. >> did you get to the point where you thought it was never going to be solved? >> yes. >> whether it was solved or not, it was never bringing her back. but i did not want that to happen to other children so in my mind it was a great idea to
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find him. >> remember in 2016, there was a sketch based on the dna but it did not lead to the suspect. in 2018 the company decided to try a more advanced version of forensic genealogy. >> coming up. one mother still seeking answers and one more phone call from out of the blue. >> i believe in the devil and people that do not believe in the devil, i think they are in for a surprise. >> went dateline continues. lin with the freestyle libre 3 system know your glucose levels.
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welcome back. for more than 30 years, the tacoma police worked every angle to solve the murders tl welcome back, for more th 30 years the police worked every angle to solve the murders of two little girls. horrific crimes that shook the city to its core, yet jenny in michelle's case files passed through three generations before forensics gave them their first big break. jenny's suspected killer was behind bars and investigators were determined that michelle's would be next. here is keith morrison with the conclusion of evil was watching. >> it is a big hole that nothing else can fit. >> the loss of her daughter hit barbara like one of the sufferings of job. >> there is never a and to the grief.
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not until i see her again. the bible is true and it says the dead are sleeping and they will be resurrected. that is how i am able to maintain a relationship and understand others' pain. >> barbara was glad for the family when she heard there was a arrest in jenny's case but she knew it would not shed any light on michelle's murder. >> it was two different distinct people. >> for 40 days and 40 nights, until june 20, 2018 when barbara's phone rang. >> the police chief cause and says we have apprehended the man we feel is responsible. >> after 32 years, the breakthrough was genealogical
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dna. >> through this process two brothers were identified as possible suspects. >> at the press conference, detective steve told how he shattered one of them to the restaurant where he got lucky. >> i observed him using the napkin multiple times and i was able to collect it and submit it to a lab. >> it was a match. >> it was surreal, after all of this time how could he still be out there? >> michelle's alleged killer gary was a nurse of all things, in a psychiatric hospital. a working class guy with no history of violent crime just like robert washburn. >> i believe in the devil and i think people that do not believe in the devil are in for a big surprise. >> barbara and her daughters
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were in court the day he was charged with michelle's murder. >> i was looking and i thought who is this person? how could somebody that looks so normal to something like this? >> in january 2019, robert washburn, the subject in jenny's it was back in court, this was the final step in a plea deal. >> how do you plead? >> guilty. >> he pled guilty to first- degree murder and sentenced to 27 years in prison. >> i had prayed he would not go to trial. i wanted it to be over. >> as part of the agreement he had to tell the court about the murder. any statement read by the judge he said he grabbed jenny by the arm, brought her into the woods and strangled her. that was it, which for patty was not enough at all. >> i will always have this question in my head, so you woke up on august 4, it was a
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beautiful sunny day, you went to the park, did you intend to kill a little girl? why? did you know what you did? do you know how many birthdays she missed, smiles, laughs. >> do you have any expectation that he will answer the question? do you hope that he will? >> yes, the reason for that is not for me, the reason is for the future, to help psychologists, parents, detectives, understand what can be in a human. what made him this person. >> also, why did washburn call in a tip about michelle's
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murder months before he killed jenny? >> another question we would like an answer to. >> could he be planning it all of that time? watching for somebody? >> it is possible. >> three years after jenny's killer pled guilty in march of 22, lindsey sat in another courtroom along with michelle's mom and sisters as gary was found guilty of first-degree murder for killing michelle. >> finally after all of these years, this is the day he faces the judge, i say lock him up and throw away the key. >> the judge sentenced him to 26 years in prison. to kill is now behind bars for what will likely be the rest of their lives, in large part thanks to the determination of lindsey but she was not quite done. >> each state gets to determine
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their own laws regarding dna collection, who they can collect it and when. >> it does not make it easy for you folks. >> she decided to do something about that in washington, the governor signed a law, that expanded dna collection and made sure it got into a national registry right away. it is called jennifer and michelle's law. it is one way to honor those two little girls. two innocents riding their bikes through a park on a sunny day. that is all for this edition of dateline. thank you for watching. watchin thhello, i'm andrea canning and this is dateline. did you shoot your pare
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