The last time Michella Welch’s sisters saw her alive, the 12-year-old was leaving a park with promises to bring them back a picnic lunch.
The girl, who had been playing with her two younger sisters in the park in Washington state, rode her bicycle home, made some sandwiches, then took them back to the park. But her sisters found only her abandoned bicycle and the sandwiches, which she had laid out for them on a picnic table in Tacoma’s Puget Park, prosecutors said.
Following an hours-long search that Wednesday in March 1986, authorities discovered Michella’s body in a gulch not far from the playground. Prosecutors said an investigation revealed that she had been sexually assaulted and killed.
For years, Michella’s sisters had few answers. More
