Defense brings in DNA expert at Bass murder trial

SEATTLE -- Key testimony came Monday in the Whatcom County trial of Timothy Bass who is accused of the 1989 rape and murder of Mandy Stavik.

Police arrested Bass for the murder last December after new DNA samples linked Bass to the decades-old crime.

But the defense brought its own DNA expert to testify who disputed some of the prosecution's key findings.

The defense argued the trial should be dismissed because of lack of clear evidence, but the judge ruled the trial may continue.

The DNA is a critical part of the trial, and prosecutors say Bass had been a suspect in Stavik's death for many years, but they could not definitively link him to the crime until they got the new DNA samples.