Mandy Stavik Case: Unsolved Murder Solved After 28 Years

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On November 24, 1989, Mandy Stavik Went Out Running with her dog. The dog had returned but she didn’t.

About Mandy

She was a free soul. Smiling and loving the life she lived in. She was very close to her professor Mr Freeman who influenced and inspired her after her parents. She was a basketball player, cheerleader, top student in her class, and once an aspiring airline pilot. 

She accomplished everything she could in the short term of life, she had. But there is an old saying “All good things come to an end”. Her death brought chaos and nightmares to all the people living in the community.

Incident

In 1989, she came home from her college for Thanksgiving. The day after the big holiday meal at her house. As usual, Mandy went jogging with her dog, Kyra. When she didn’t come back her mom panicked. There was a massive hunt for her, everybody in the town was out looking for her. 

After three days of a thorough search, she was found floating. The only thing that was recognizable about her was her tennis shoes and the socks she wore. For 25 years, the police couldn’t find any suspect in this case.  On her way home Mandy was abducted in a car with a gun pointed at her. 

The killer kicked the dog and then sexually assaulted her about three and a half miles away, she tried to run away as much as she could as she had scratches on her arms and legs when she was found dead. When they did the autopsy, they were able to recover male DNA which was semen inside her body.

Searching The Suspect

After finding the male semen the detective made a thorough search, and over 30 local men gave a test including Mandy’s Boyfriend Rick Zender. But couldn’t find any suspects. So, the case was closed giving the worst nightmare to the people leaving in the town. 

In 2009, Detective Kevin Bowie became the lead investigator of the case. He didn’t leave the hope of finding the answer to this case. On June 2013, two women who had just met in a water park started talking about the incident. 

They concluded that they suspected a certain person as the murderer. The detective got a tip regarding this information. That certain person was Timothy Bass.

Suspect

Both the women had experienced creepy incidents with Timothy Bass. Timothy lived in the same community as Mandy Stavic. His House was 2 miles away from Mandy. Tim along with his brother and father had never been asked to give a DNA sample.

In the past 25 years, Timothy used to live in a nearby community married three children, and drove a delivery truck for a bakery. The detective asked for Timothy’s saliva as a DNA sample. 

He refused it saying “ I don’t want to give my DNA, I have seen people going to prison after giving it”. The detective was almost convinced that he was the suspect, so he kept some of his members following him. 

Hoping that he could throw away used products to find his DNA. But they couldn’t find anything. Back in 1989, Timothy Bass lived down the road where Mandy used to jog past his house daily which is how he studied her movements. But the day Mandy disappeared she didn’t jog across Timothy’s house but Timothy was still the prime suspect there. 

The investigators got DNA from more men in the area but Timothy wasn’t cooperating, the last option was to call the bakery where he was working and tried to talk with his boss. 

She helped the investigators by trying to get any items that contain Timothy’s saliva. It took her three months to find the items which are a plastic cup and a coke can used by Timothy. 

After Three months the detective got the results saying “It’s a Match”. On December 12, 2017, 28 years after Mandy had died Cops arrested 50 years old Timothy Bass in the Bakery parking lot. They charged him with kidnapping, rape, and murder it was also the day Mandy was born.