Whаt dօ уօu thіnk abօut thіs casе?

[Anonymous]

In the summer of 1987 in Victoria, Canada 20 year old Jay Cook and 18 year old Tanya Van Cuylenborg began dating. Both were sweet, quiet, loving people who met in Oak Bay High School through mutual friends. Jay's father owned a furnace business and in November of 1987, asked the couple if they could to drive to Seattle, Washington to pick up some parts for a client. They agreed. The couple used a van belonging to Jay’s family and this would be their 1st prolonged trip overnight out of the country. Jay's father even gave them enough money so they could stay overnight at a hotel. However, the couple instead chose to save that money by sleeping in the van.

The next morning Jay and Tanya did not show up for the appointment. They didn't call the client and they didn't call home. No one knew their whereabouts. Police on both sides of the border began searching for the couple. Tanya's father had an acquaintance who owned a small airplane. They did a flyover of the Olympic peninsula and the cascade mountains looking for the needle in the haystack. Unfortunately, they did not find the couple.

On November 24, Six days after Jay and Tanya left Canada, a man collecting cans in Alger, Skagit County, Washington found the half-naked body of a young woman. She had been shot in the back of the head. Nearby, police found a .380 caliber shell casing and zip ties presumably used to restrain the victim. Family members identified the victim as Tanya Van Cuylenborg. Investigators initially considered Jay a suspect, though both families vehemently rejected this possibility.

On 25 November, Tanya's wallet and keys were found discarded near the Greyhound station in Bellingham. The van was found a few blocks away. Inside the van were dozens of zip ties and Tanya's pants which had a semen stain in the pant leg. A scientist cut out the stain and preserved it in a lab. DNA samples were taken from the zip ties and a partial palm print was lifted from the van which didn't match Tanya, Jay or Jay's family members. On 26 November, Jay Cook's body was discovered nearly 60 miles from where Tanya's body was found. He had been beaten in the head with rocks and had a tissue and cigarettes stuffed down his throat. Plastic zip ties and a .380 caliber shell casing were also found near the scene. The crime appeared to be premeditated. Whoever did this came equipped to commit this crime. Jay and Tanya didn't know anyone from the area, had no known enemies and the families did not know of anyone who could do something like this.

In the months after the murders, both families received handwritten greeting cards from a person claiming to be responsible for the crime. They were postmarked from various cities such as NY, LA, and Seattle. In 2003, there were considerable improvements in DNA technology. The DNA taken from the crime scene was added to CODIS, but unfortunately it did not match anyone in the system. The DNA from the crime sample did not match the DNA from the letters. In 2010, the letters were published and someone recognized the handwriting and investigators were able to identify a suspect. He was mentally ill, homeless and apologized for writing the letters. His DNA did not match the crime scene so he was eliminated as a suspect. Sometimes people with mental illness insert themselves into crimes. The case went cold again. There was a possibility the killer would never be found.

In 2018 Snohomish County Sheriff's detective Jim Scharf was asked to take a look at the cold case. He enlisted the help of Parabon NanoLabs, a DNA phenotyping organization for law enforcement. In 2013, at home DNA testing services like Ancestry and 23andMe became popular. GEDmatch is an online service that compares DNA data files from different testing companies. The company alerts users law enforcement can use their database. Cece Moore, a genetic genealogist, took the killers DNA profile and uploaded it to GEDmatch. She found a 2nd cousin of the killer Chelsea Rustad. Then she did reverse genealogy, establishing a family tree by searching public records and obituary pages. The search ultimately leads to a Seattle family with 4 children. 3 of the children were female, so they could not have been the killer. So the killer had to be William Earl Talbott II, a truck driver who was never married and had no criminal record.

Talbott was 24 when the murders occurred, and his family home was just 7 miles from where Jay's body was found. Detectives began following Talbott without his knowledge, and when he discarded a coffee cup, they immediately seized it for DNA testing. The DNA on the coffee cup matched the DNA from the crime scene. In May 18, the Snohomish County Sheriff arrested Talbott for the murders. His palm print also matched the partial palm print lifted from Jay's truck in 1987. His name never came up before in the investigation. In June 2019, he was found guilty of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder and sentenced to two life sentences without parole. On December 7 2021, an appellate court overturned the conviction of William Earl Talbott II citing juror bias. Prosecutors are planning on holding a second trial.
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https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/gs8tfw/i_am_chelsea_rustad_genetic_witness_to_the_first/fs3paim/

Chelsea Rustad did an AMA on Reddit about this case. In 2015, she won an AncestryDNA kit from a Facebook contest. At the suggestion of a genealogist cousin, she uploaded her raw DNA file to GEDmatch. In 2018, two cops knocked on her door telling her that her cousin William Earl Talbott II was arrested for a double homicide cold case from 1987, and was identified using her DNA. Rusted says upon learning this, she was "deeply disgusted by his actions and also weirdly ashamed of being related to him," even though she had never met him or his family members.

"Strangely enough, before the investigators knocked on the door and I knew anything about the case, I had been invited to the funeral of Talbott's sister Angel, who had passed away just a couple weeks prior. Then I found out that Talbott was arrested, and asked to make sure there was no chance he would be there. I don't think he would have gone anyway as apparently he skipped his own mother's funeral, but I had to be sure.

I did attend Angel's funeral. I was pretty nervous because I hadn't met any of the Talbotts in person before, but they were all there: his father Bill Talbott Sr., his sisters Inga and Malena, his brothers-in-law, nieces, nephews, etc. One of the first things said to me after I was welcomed in was the question: "Did you hear about what happened with Bill?" I realized then that they didn't know it was my DNA that identified him. So I said yes, and they assured me that they just didn't want that to be the topic that sidetracked from Angel's memorial. I agreed in full."

William Earl Talbott II was estranged from his own immediate family for 20 years. "The first time I ever saw him in person was when I attended his sentencing hearing in support of the families in 2019. He had never met me and had no reaction to me. I imagine he had no idea who I was."

If Rustad had known in 2015 what she knows now, would she still have made the decision to upload her DNA profile to GEDmatch? "I definitely still would have made the choice to share my DNA, knowing what I know now. It made me feel empowered, not just as a genetic witness, but as a survivor of assault myself. Victim advocacy is very important to me, and this is something folks can do to significantly improve the odds of these cold cases being solved."

"According to a reporter who contacted the Talbott family for fact-checking, they said that Malena was "furious with me" and was arguing that he couldn't have possibly done it. She refuses to accept his guilty verdict and thinks I'm to blame for identifying him. Not that it bothers me too much at this point; she can be wrong all she likes. He got life without possibility of parole."

"My immediate family has been completely supportive of me every step of the way. They were proud. As for Talbott's siblings, I strongly suspect that William's sister Malena believes he is innocent and angry that my DNA resulted in his conviction. She unfriended me off Facebook. I never got to meet his sister Angel before she passed away a couple weeks before his arrest, unfortunately. Inga's statement was very straightforward regarding Talbott's past abusive behavior and held nothing back. But I only met Malena and Inga in person once at Angel's funeral. There's been no contact since."

https://inheritedsecrets.com/

Rustad has written a book titled "Inherited Secrets: Memoir Of America's Groundbreaking Genetic Witness". She appeared on "PBS NOVA Secrets In Our DNA", "CTV W5: Family Secrets" and "CBC Fifth Estate: Is Murder In Your DNA?".

[Anonymous]

2 thoughts:

Your post is way too long, you could have summarized, I just beginning and end

Never do a ancestry.com 23andme or similar tests or your personal genetic info will be used by others without your permission

[Anonymous]

It is probably a rare family in which someone has NOT done this, so our DNA can already be found indirectly.

60 Minutes has a very interesting segment on who owns these DNA results. The Chinese government is collecting much of it.