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Suspect arrested in 1986 murder of 12-year-old Tacoma girl

Police arrested a suspect over 30 years after a Tacoma girl, Michella Welch, was raped and murdered.
12-year-old Michella Welch went missing on March 26th, 1986. Her body was discovered later the same day in Puget Park. Credit: Tacoma Police Department Child Abduction Response Team

Tacoma Police have arrested a suspect in the 1986 murder of 12-year-old Michella Welch.

The suspect is awaiting arraignment, Tacoma police said Wednesday.

Investigators blocked off a street Wednesday afternoon in Lakewood where the suspect may have lived. Neighbors came home to flashing lights.

“What do I say? This monster lives next door to us, if that’s who's done this that’s all I could say,” said Cindy Peterson.

“I am really impressed by the detectives who found these people and their doggedness to find it, they hadn’t forgotten. That really says a lot, it makes us all feel a little better about justice and what is happening,” said Barbara Pinckney.

Pinckney, then Barbara Garrett, remembers the sounds outside of her home on the north end of Tacoma in March 1986.

“All of a sudden there were all kind of helicopters, news helicopters we knew something had happened,” said Pinckney, who lived just up the street from Puget Park.

The Tacoma girl was babysitting her siblings when she went missing on March 26, 1986.

Welch was at Puget Park in North Tacoma with her two younger sisters when she rode her bike home to pick up sandwiches. When Welch got back to the park, police believe she may have gone looking for her sisters, who had left to use the restroom at a nearby business.

Welch’s sisters went back to the park about 1 p.m. and found Welch’s bike and lunch on the table, but Welch was missing.

Her body was found later that night in a nearby gulch. She had been raped and murdered.

Four and a half months after Welch was murdered, another Tacoma girl – Jennifer Bastian – was found raped and strangled in Tacoma’s Point Defiance Park.

That case also went unsolved for over three decades until last month when Robert Washburn was charged for Bastian’s murder. Washburn had initially been a suspect in the Welch case because he told police he had been at the park when Welch’s body was found.

The two cases had similarities: Both girls were blonde, just entering puberty, and had ridden their bikes to a park.

However, police now believe the two cases are unrelated and any similarities are coincidental.

Pierce County Prosecutor released a brief statement Wednesday after the arrest announcement:

“We appreciate the partnership and collaboration with the Tacoma Police Department. Tomorrow we will ask the court for a 72-hour hold on the defendant while we review the evidence. Understanding the importance of this case to the community, we will announce a decision on charges as soon as possible.”

WATCH: Forensic process of solving cold cases

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