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Month: June 2018

Another Big Cold-Case Arrest

Another big arrest announced today by the Tacoma Police Department.  Twelve-year-old Michella Welch was found murdered in Puget Park in Tacoma in March of 1986.

The suspect, believed to be a man in his 60’s, was arrested locally.

This case tugged at the heartstrings of everyone involved, along with the murder of Jennifer Bastian, another little girl who was found murdered in Point Defiance Park.  For years, detectives believed they may have been committed by the same person. DNA tests more recently proved that samples collected came from two different males.

This case highlights that any case can be solved with persistent work by detectives.  Never give up.

Here is a link to the story reported in the Tacoma News Tribune.

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Upcoming Event

I’ll be at Seaport Books, (106 1st St., La Conner, WA) on Thursday, August 16th for an “Author Event”.  The link to their website with the details are here.

If you’re in the area, stop by and say hi.

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Cold Case Child Murder, Springfield, MO.

I was interviewed last week, by a news station in Springfield, MO. for a blog they run.

The topic was a more than 40-year-old murder of an innocent little girl, still unsolved.

I had some suggestions about how to move the case forward.

I’ll post a link to the podcast when it’s posted.  In the meantime, you can read about the murder here.

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Is it a Serial Killer or a Spree Killer?

Great blog post in Psychology Today about the difference between serial and spree murders, written by my friend, Katherine Ramsland.  Read it here.

The Café Racer shooting  (detailed in my book) is a good example of what started as a mass shooting when Ian Stawiki shot almost everyone in the café, and then drove downtown, where he shot a woman for no reason and stole her car, thus making him a spree killer.

Stawiki killed himself when confronted by officers in West Seattle later that afternoon.

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