Decades after 12-year-old Michella Welch's death, her family faces her alleged killer

After 32 years waiting for answers, the family of Michella Welch was able to face the girl's alleged killer Monday.

Welch's mother and sisters watched as 66-year-old Gary Charles Hartman pleaded not guilty at arraignment to first-degree murder. They then spoke with reporters outside Pierce County Superior Court.

"You never expect the face of somebody who's done something this terrible to look normal, you know?" Welch's mother, Barbara Leonard, said. "You should always be aware of your surroundings and know who your children are playing with and know where they go. I guess I was an innocent mother. I didn't think things like this could happen."

Welch's body was found in a gulch near Tacoma's Puget Park on March 26, 1986. The 12-year-old's death became one of Tacoma's most notorious cold cases.

The family praised the police work and DNA testing that led to Hartman's arrest June 20.

They thought through the years that a suspect might come forward out of guilt, that someone who knew the killer would go to police or that the person was dead.

In the end, it was DNA on a napkin Hartman used at a restaurant that linked him to the crime.

Defense attorney Bryan Hershman represented Hartman at the arraignment.

"This was a horrible tragedy that gripped this entire community. I was there and lived it with everyone else," Hershman said outside court. "Everybody was praying for the victim and the family."

He also said Hartman "has a right to be defended, and he has a right to maintain his innocence and to prove his innocence. And that's what we're doing now."

Leonard said she learned about the arrest when Tacoma Police Chief Don Ramsdell called her and asked if she was sitting down. Ramsdell then told her Hartman was in custody.

"I was getting a hitch put on my car," Leonard said. "... I didn't know whether to laugh or cry."

Welch's younger sisters, Angela Velazquez and Nicole Eby, described playing with her at Puget Park the day she disappeared.

Welch and Velazquez had been on bikes, and Eby was on roller skates, being pulled along by a jump rope.

Instead of everyone going back home to get their lunches, Welch said she'd grab them and come back.

"She took a very long time, and we had to go to the bathroom," Velazquez said. "And when we came back her bike was there, it was locked up, and the (lunch) bag was ripped open. And it was unusual, it was bizarre, and we started looking from that point on."

Eby described a flash of hope when the younger sisters heard someone calling their names from the top of the gulch.

"I thought it was Michella, but it wasn't," she said.

It was the family babysitter, who'd they'd called for help.

The babysitter called Leonard, who called police. Officers searched the park, and Welch's body was found.

Five months later, a second Tacoma girl, 13-year-old Jennifer Bastian disappeared in Point Defiance Park.

Her body was found off Five Mile Drive, and police initially believed the same suspect had killed both girls.

But DNA testing led a different man being charged last month with Bastian's death.

Still, Bastian's mother, Pattie Bastian, attended Hartman's arraignment. She has been a source of support for the Welch family, they said.

Eby described Welch as "an amazing, amazing girl," who was a talented artist and played the piano and violin.

It's been hard on Leonard and her daughters as other children in the family have reached Welch's age.

"Every time one of my grandchildren got to that age, it was just like: 'Watch them, you know?'" Leonard said. "I was praying every day."

This story was originally published June 25, 2018 at 5:41 PM with the headline "Decades after 12-year-old Michella Welch's death, her family faces her alleged killer."