Mandy Stavik: The Case No One Could Forget
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[Music] Acme is a very small community. Everybody knows each other. [Music] They go to the local diner to have their breakfast, lunch or dinner, and they shop at the general store. You have that feeling of safety, keep your doors unlocked. On November 24th, 1989, Mandy Stavick went out running with her dog. The dog had returned, but she hadn't. And when she didn't come back, I panicked. There was a massive hunt for her. Everybody was out looking. It was three days later when we found her. This is the South Fork of the Mixac River. She was just floating lightly. The only thing I could see were her tennis shoes and socks. When I rolled her over, it was kind of a real shock to me because she looked like my dog. And people would say to me, "Oh, you're so strong. Oh yeah, right. You can't be strong through something like that. It just rips you to pieces." Oh, we were in shock. People were crying. They were, "Whoa." There was a killer out there somewhere. The question is, was this person going to strike again? Yeah, so much unknown. For 25 years, we had no viable suspects in this case. You've got to keep working, keep persisting, keep going. Mandy's dead, but this case was not going to die. No. I absolutely did not think it would ever get soft. Amazingly enough, it was two women talking in a water park that gave us the break in this case. One of the moms brought her name up. I just kind of turned to Marilyn and said, "Well, I am sure I know who killed her." And turned to her and I said, "Oh, I do too." [Music] So take me back. It's November 27th, 1989. Where are we right now? We're upstream from where I recovered her. This is all in place for you, isn't it? It is. Back then, Detective Ron Peterson led the search team for Mandy Stavik, moving upriver in a zodiac boat. We came around the corner and we got out of the main river and into the little side channel and I could see pink, something pink. It was Mandy, wearing only her running shoes. When you lifted her out of the water as a father, do you say anything to her? You're the first person I asked that. I said, "I got you." Peterson and so many others in the small community of Acme Washington are still emotional, even 30 years later. Jim Freeman was Mandy's high school basketball coach and gave the eulogy at her memorial service, attended by nearly a thousand people. He had mentored her off the court as well, becoming a father figure after Mandy's parents divorced. Mandy expressed after admiration for him in this card. For Mr. Freeman, the one person who was inspired and influenced me more than anyone. Thank you, you're the greatest, most sincerely Mandy Stavik, class of '89, number 13. Basketball player, cheerleader, top student, once an aspiring airline pilot, Mandy Stavik truly stood out, says her mother, Mary. She wanted to do everything. She wanted to be very good to the best at everything she did. And she was. Mandy's older sister, Molly Brighton. Mandy, she was larger than life. She accomplished a lot in the short time that she was here. All that promise came to an abrupt end in 1989, when the college freshman came home from Central Washington University for Thanksgiving. The day after the big holiday meal at her house, Mandy set out on the last jog of her life, with her German shepherd, Kyra. How many times you driven this road? Oh, geez, probably close to 100 over the over the 30 years of working on the case. Detective Kevin Bowie, who was just a rookie deputy back then, has pieced together Mandy's route from the few people who briefly saw her that day. She always started from the house here, and then ran down westbound toward the west side of the strand road. The last person to see Mandy alive was a man in a pickup truck, who pulled up right here. Mandy ran right in front of him, heading
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How a bakery worker’s secret plan to recover DNA from a discarded Coke can helped investigators solve the cold case of a college student murdered over Thanksgiving weekend. "48 Hours" correspondent Peter Van Sant reports.