5-24-2019
WHATCOM COUNTY, Wash. – Sheriff Bill Elfo says the 1989 rape and murder of 18-year-old Mandy Stavik was never a cold case for his department or the Whatcom County Prosecutor’s office.
“It’s a good reflection on our detectives that have worked this case doggedly, for both those that are retired now and those that are currently here, they never gave up.”
He says the guilty verdict for first degree murder the Superior Court jury returned for 51-year-old Timothy Bass of Everson on Friday brings justice for Mandy and her family “to the extent that justice for someone that has been murdered can be achieved.”
The case remained unsolved for decades after Mandy disappeared while jogging near her family’s Acme home and was later found dead in the south fork of the Nooksack River in November, 1989.
DNA evidence led investigators to Bass and they arrested him in December 2017.
Sentencing for Bass hasn’t been scheduled.