BELLINGHAM, Wash. — As they rested their case on Tuesday, defense attorneys raised the possibility that someone other than Timothy Bass killed Mandy Stavik as she was out for a run Thanksgiving weekend of 1989.
Neighbor Nancy Brown testified she saw an unknown man outside her home a short time before Mandy jogged by.
"I kinda asked my husband, 'What do you think he's doing out there?'" said Brown. "It looks like he's putting up a fence or something because it was all field at that point, there were no trees. We just kind of watched him for a little bit. Said hmm, don't know."
Mandy was found three days later in the Nooksack River. DNA testing cleared a man matching Brown's description.
DNA found inside Mandy did match that of Tim Bass when the bakery truck driver became a suspect decades later.
DNA, however, may not tell the whole story. Bass claims he and Mandy had consensual sex shortly before her disappearance.
Detective Charles Frakes testified two other men were questioned but never arrested, including a drug abuser described as having a "sexual dysfunction."
"I remember that he was in the area and then left the area at the time the incident occurred with Mandy," Frakes said. "Then he came back later."
The case may rest on whether the jury believes the story that Bass' DNA got into Mandy Stavik consensually, long before someone else abducted and killed her.
That could prove difficult as several friends and relatives of Mandy testified she barely knew Bass, and he asked his mother and brother to concoct a fake alibi for him.
Bass did not testify is his own defense. The jury is expected to get the case Wednesday.