More than 100 new tips logged in Tacoma girls’ 1986 slayings

More than 100 tips about who might have killed two Tacoma girls in 1986 were relayed to police within five days after police launched a Child Abduction Response Team to investigate the deaths as if they just occurred.

Police spokeswoman Loretta Cool said detectives are following up on 106 potential leads that were passed along in the cases of Michella Welch and Jennifer Bastian.

The tips came in since the exercise was launched April 6 with the help of the Pierce County Department of Emergency Management.

The girls were once believed to be killed by the same man, but DNA recently proved there are two suspects and the cases are not linked. Police decided to go public with the new information in hopes of shedding new light on the cold cases.

Welch, 12, was kidnapped in Puget Park on March 26, 1986, after riding her bicycle home to bring lunch for her younger sisters back to the park. Her body was found in a gulch later that night. Her throat had been cut.

Bastian, 13, disappeared from Point Defiance Park while riding her bike on Five Mile Drive on Aug. 4, 1986. Her body was found 22 days later near her bicycle in a wooded area between Five Mile Drive and the cliffs. She’d been strangled.

Anyone with information on either case is asked to call 253-798-TIPS (8477).

This story was originally published April 12, 2016 at 11:24 AM with the headline "More than 100 new tips logged in Tacoma girls’ 1986 slayings."