Kim Wagner was 19 years old and working as a bidder for Acme in Washington in 1989 when Mandy disappeared. She remembers the horror that spread through the community.
“It affected me. It was the first time something really scary happened,” she tells ABC News.
“It changed everyone’s perspective in our small town. It could be your neighbor. We never thought that.” She continued.
In 2013, the case was reopened and Kim was contacted by the police. Kim was now working at a bakery, and the police were interested in one of her colleagues, Timothy Bass.
When Mandy was killed, Timothy lived just a few houses away from Mandy. Right after the murder, he moved. When the police picked up the case again, they went to his house to ask some questions about Mandy. Then he claimed that he did not even remember the name of the girl who had been killed.
“That was definitely a red flag to me, indicating that he was lying,” says Detective Kevin Bowhay.
“Everybody knew about the Mandy Stavik case and she ran because his house every day. How could he forget her name,” he continued.
But Kim did not want to interfere in the matter. So she didn’t mention Timothy to the police.
Many years later, Kim happened to talk to her husband about the murder of Mandy and that his colleague Timothy had lived nearby. Then lit a candle for Kim. That is why the police had wanted to cooperate with her.
So she chose to contact the police to cooperate with them. She offered to get his DNA.
One day she saw Timothy drinking water from a water cooler at work. He then threw the plastic cup into the bin next to him. Kim took the cup and gave it to the police.
In May 2019, Timothy Bass was found guilty of Mandy’s murder. He will now spend 27 years in prison.
Below you can see a video about the case.
