Man Who Killed Tacoma Girl in 1986 Sentenced, DNA Helps Solve The Case
Gary Hartman, 70, was found guilty of first-degree murder yesterday in a Pierce County, Washington court in connection with the 1986 murder of 12-year-old Michella Welch.
Pierce Count Superior Court Judge Stanley Rumbaugh came down with this verdict and sentencing in a bench trial which lasted little more than two-hours. Hartman sobbed in court while Welch’s family were reading their victim impact statements. He was sentenced to 26 and a half years, effectively a life sentence for Hartman.
Welch was killed on March 26, 1986, after taking two of her younger sisters to Puget Sound Park in Tacoma. She decided to go home and grab sandwiches for lunch for the girls. Her sisters left the park to use the restrooms, but when they returned to their home, they found her bike, their food, and she was missing.
Detectives believe that Welch went looking for her sisters. Witnesses say she encountered a man pointing down a trail into a ravine. A K-9 found Welch’s body in the nearby gulch. She had been sexually assaulted, had her throat cut, and sustained blunt force trauma to her head.
Hartman was arrested in 2018 after a genetic genealogist used a DNA sample to build a family tree which led police to Hartman and his younger brother. After following both brothers, they received DNA samples from both from restaurant, one having used a napkin and the other a straw, according to the News Tribune.
