Caleb Hutton/Everett Herald
For three decades, the families of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg had been left with only questions and fleeting memories.
On Friday morning, one long-awaited answer arrived.
A jury found William Talbott II guilty of two counts of aggravated murder in a trial that was the first of its kind.
The truck driver, 56, of SeaTac, had been identified in a pioneering investigation led by the Snohomish County Sheriff鈥檚 Office.
| Detective Jim Scharf hugs Lee Cook, mother of Jay Cook after 55-year-old William Earl Talbott II was found guilty of Jay's murder. (Caleb Hutton/Everett Herald) |
A genealogist used a public DNA site, GEDMatch, to help build a family tree for the suspect based on DNA from a crime scene. Her research pointed to Talbott.
Since then, dozens of arrests have been made in cold case crimes nationwide because of the forensic tool known as genetic genealogy, stirring a heated debate over police use of genetic databases.
Many suspects, including the former cop arrested in the Golden State Killer case, await a trial. This was the first case using the technique to go before a jury.
Other than semen at two crime scenes, little else tied the defendant to the killings. His defense argued the semen came from a consensual act.
Talbott did not testify. He grew up seven miles from a third crime scene south of Monroe, where Jay Cook had been bludgeoned with rocks, strangled with twine and left dead under a bridge.
Standing room only.
鈥� Caleb Hutton (@snocaleb)
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Jay & Tanya
Cook stood a stalky 6-foot-4.
At age 20, he hadn鈥檛 beefed out.
He鈥檇 learned to play rock 鈥檔 roll bass guitar, with friends in his hometown on Vancouver Island.
He worked at a pizza parlor for a while. One night after a shift, he rode his bike three hours through rain and darkness to a cabin where friends were staying for a weekend, balancing a pizza the whole way to bring them food, his sister Laura Baanstra said.
He had a bizarre habit of losing his clothes, his sister said. Sometimes after school he鈥檇 come home without his jacket, and no idea where it ended up. One day the family packed for a ski trip, about a four-hour drive.
鈥淲e get there 鈥� snow on the ground, right? 鈥� and Jay only had one shoe,鈥� Baanstra said.
| Jay Cook, about a year before he was killed. (Cook family) |
He had a sweetness about him, taking his younger sister out for dinner and, once, for high tea, with the good money he鈥檇 earned on a fishing boat.
One uncle had coined a phrase about his nephew: 鈥淛ay had no rough edges.鈥�
鈥淚t鈥檚 really no wonder that Jay ended up with someone like Tanya,鈥� Baanstra said. 鈥淭anya was very sweet and caring, and they looked up to each other.鈥�
She was 18.
Much like the Cooks, her family loved long boating trips around the Salish Sea. Van Cuylenborg played tennis at her family鈥檚 home on an acre, and led a student push for a girl鈥檚 basketball team at her high school, her brother said.
For years she lobbied her parents, too, to get a dog. Her mother gave in around 1982. The Golden Retriever, Tessa, became first and foremost Tanya鈥檚 pet.
| Tanya Van Cuylenborg with her Golden Retriever, Tessa. |
She hoped to work with animals one day, maybe as a veterinarian. Cook鈥檚 dream was to be a marine biologist. Neither had made concrete plans. They were young. The two started dating in the summer of 1987.
Cook鈥檚 father ran a furnace business with a man named Spud, whose last name, Talbot, ended in one T. Jay Cook didn鈥檛 have a job at the time. So his father asked him to run an overnight errand to pick up about $750 in parts from Gensco, in south Seattle. He had cash for a hotel, but planned to sleep in the van outside the business.
His girlfriend was invited to come along. They set out on Nov. 18, 1987, in a bronze Ford Club Wagon van. Their ferry docked in Port Angeles around 4 p.m., a half-hour before sunset. Perhaps an hour later on Highway 101, they missed the exit to the Hood Canal Bridge. They stopped in Hoodsport for snacks.
Store clerk Judith Stone testified that they wanted to know how close they were to the bridge.
鈥淥h, you鈥檙e a little past that,鈥� Stone recalled saying. 鈥淎 long way past that.鈥�
She told them how to reroute to Seattle.
A deli clerk spoke with them in Allyn. They did not seem distressed, and it didn鈥檛 seem like anyone else was traveling with them.
Exactly how they encountered a killer remained a mystery, even through the trial.
Prosecutors suggested they may have pulled over for directions again.
Days later police found a ticket for the Bremerton-Seattle ferry, inside the abandoned Ford van. The ferry had docked in Seattle around 11:35 p.m.
That鈥檚 where the couple鈥檚 path went cold.
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The case
Almost a week later, a passerby collecting cans found Van Cuylenborg dead against a rusty culvert Nov. 24, 1987, off Parson Creek Road in Skagit County.
She was nude from the waist down. She鈥檇 been shot in the back of the head with a .380-caliber bullet.
The next day, police learned her wallet, ID, a box of .380-caliber ammo and surgical gloves had been picked up 20 miles north in downtown Bellingham, beneath a tavern鈥檚 back porch. The bronze van sat parked around the corner, next to a Greyhound station.
The money order was still inside, unused. There was blood on a comforter, a used tampon on the floor and orange Camel cigarette butts in an ash tray.
Pheasant hunters stumbled upon Cook鈥檚 body on Thanksgiving Day under the High Bridge over the Snoqualmie River, south of Monroe.
A blue blanket covered his upper body. Investigators peeled it back to find he鈥檇 had been beaten around the head and strangled with twine tied onto two dog collars. Tissues and a pack of Camel Lights had been shoved down his throat. Days later police seized bloody rocks from the grass nearby.
The crime scenes were scattered over three counties. At each site, police found interlocked zip ties. Neither of the victims had obvious marks on their wrists or ankles.
A generation passed.
For Cook鈥檚 parents and sisters, the gaping wound began to heal. They talked often about Jay, but in happy, friendly, joking terms.
鈥淔or us, I think we put Jay鈥檚 tragic death behind us a long time ago,鈥� Laura Baanstra said in an interview. 鈥淲e all assumed that whoever did it was either dead or in jail. I don鈥檛 think I ever thought the guy had gotten away with it, because I just assumed he would鈥檝e done something else.鈥�
John Van Cuylenborg said his parents were never the same after his sister鈥檚 death. When his father died in the 1990s, John became the one who kept in touch with the sheriff鈥檚 office in Snohomish County.
| Tanya Van Cuylenborg with her father, Willem. (Courtesy of John Van Cuylenborg) |
鈥淲hat I鈥檝e had to live with for 31 years was just no answers to anything, in this case, other than you had a couple of dead bodies,鈥� he said.
John, his sister鈥檚 only sibling, is now a civil attorney in Victoria. He was forced to accept that there was a good chance that the murders would never be solved.
鈥淵ou kind of had to,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou needed to have some perspective on it, and be able to focus on other things in life, rather than continuing to wait day after day, week after week, for a resolution.鈥�
He never gave up hope, though. He knew there was evidence that could, someday, implicate somebody. His sister鈥檚 Minolta camera body had gone missing from the van, and detectives had the serial number.
A jacket and a backpack had gone missing, too.
He knew the sheriff鈥檚 office had a suspect鈥檚 DNA.
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He couldn鈥檛 have predicted how police ended up using it.
Detectives had built a list of hundreds of potential suspects. Many were ruled out through DNA tests.
Semen had been found both on Van Cuylenborg鈥檚 body and in the van, on the hem of her pants. The sample was sent to Parabon NanoLabs, a private lab offering a new service to help police to build a rough digital sketch of a suspect鈥檚 face, through DNA.
Behind the scenes Parabon was working on another project, using public genealogy databases to identify suspects through their family ties. Quietly, the lab uploaded the genetic profile to GEDMatch.
By chance, second-cousins on both sides of Talbott鈥檚 family had uploaded genetic profiles to the database.
A genealogist, CeCe Moore, traced the family lines to Talbott鈥檚 mother and father. He had sisters. But he was the only son. The data report returned to the lab on a Friday in late April 2018. By that Monday, the genealogist had identified who it belonged to.
Until then, police had no reason to suspect Talbott.
He was a short-haul trucker with no felony record. In his spare time, he rode motorcycles, and he was well liked in his circle of friends.
Plainclothes officers put Talbott under surveillance on his driving routes for days. A paper cup fell from his work truck on May 8, in south Seattle. It was tested by a state crime lab. His DNA matched the semen. Talbott was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder.
John Van Cuylenborg had been in touch with Snohomish County cold case detective Jim Scharf over the preceding months, about the work Parabon was doing. Scharf called him in May 2018, with news of the arrest. Van Cuylenborg had many questions.
鈥淎nd I said, 鈥榃ell, where is he?鈥� And he said, 鈥業n the back seat.鈥� A shiver went down my spine, thinking Jim鈥檚 riding in the same vehicle as this guy, after 31 years, you know?鈥� he said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 just 91原创enal.鈥�
Later, detectives took a swab from Talbott鈥檚 cheek.
Again, the DNA matched.
The trial
Defense attorneys did not challenge the legality of police using genetic databases to identify a suspect.
Instead, at least in this trial, the genealogy work was treated like any tip that police might follow up on.
Jurors listened to 1陆 weeks of witness testimony: retired police officers who uncovered evidence in 1987; the bird hunter who found Cook鈥檚 body; the Bellingham bartender who gave Van Cuylenborg鈥檚 ID to the cops; the store clerks, the last people known to have seen the couple alive; and detective Scharf, who fought tears on the witness stand as he recalled receiving word of a DNA match.
According to Talbott鈥檚 defense, the detectives had tunnel vision.
鈥淭hey never stopped to consider that perhaps the person who left the DNA was not the murderer,鈥� defense attorney Rachel Forde said in the trial.
In her closing argument, Forde said semen could鈥檝e been the result of a consensual act. It only showed, she said, that Talbott had sexual contact with her. It doesn鈥檛 prove Talbott is guilty of murder, Forde said.
The deputy prosecutor, Matt Baldock, fired back in his rebuttal.
He asked the jury if it was plausible that a teen girl would have sex with a stranger 鈥� on an overnight trip with her boyfriend? In the midst of the AIDS crisis? When she was on her period?
Attorneys clashed over the credibility of a witness who found further evidence that seemed to link Talbott to the van: a palm print, on a back door.
At first, a Washington State Patrol crime lab investigator had ruled out Talbott as a match.
A colleague told forensic scientist Angela Hilliard to look again. The forensic scientist realized she鈥檇 been examining the sample upside down. She changed her conclusion: The print matched Talbott.
The defense pointed out how convenient that seemed for the police, but did not call an expert witness to challenge the final conclusion of the lab, nor did the lawyers dispute it was Talbott鈥檚 semen in the van.
Defense witness testimony lasted about 10 minutes 鈥� a brief discussion of an address on Talbott鈥檚 driver鈥檚 license in Okanogan County, where he owned land.
Talbott grew up near Woodinville, in a house that鈥檚 no longer there. At the time of his arrest, he lived in SeaTac.
None of his relatives recalled ever seeing him with a blue blanket, a Minolta camera, dog collars or guns.
The jury began deliberating around 4 p.m. Tuesday.
As they waited for a verdict, Cook鈥檚 family spoke with The Daily Herald.
鈥淩egardless of how this case comes out, I know they鈥檒l survive,鈥� said Cook鈥檚 brother-in-law, Gary Baanstra. 鈥淚鈥檝e seen them do it. Their closure is just going back to that place where they can say, 鈥楯ay,鈥� and there鈥檚 just no baggage against it anymore.鈥�
To Cook鈥檚 sister, it has seemed mind-boggling that a killer could do this once. Never before. Never again.
Tanya鈥檚 brother has thought about that, too.
鈥淲e鈥檙e trying to logically understand an illogical act,鈥� John Van Cuylenborg said. 鈥淥r acts, in this case. You鈥檙e starting off to do the impossible.鈥�
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