ARRESTED IN WASHINGTON
Suspect linked to 1987 killing of Victoria couple
Family members of two young Victoria sweethearts murdered 31 years ago expressed relief and gratitude Friday after a Washington state man was arrested in connection with their brutal slayings.
William Earl Talbott, 55, was picked up as he left his Seattle trucking job Thursday and charged with killing Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, in November 1987.
He is also expected to be charged with murdering Tanya’s boyfriend, Jay Cook, 20, Snohomish County Det. Jim Scharf said Friday.
Cook’s mother, Lee, said she had “waited and hoped for a day like this” ever since Jay and Tanya vanished while on an overnight trip to Seattle.
Days later, their bodies were found dumped in neighbouring Washington counties.
“How could we have known that instead the day could be so bittersweet. On one hand, we are closer to closure. And on the other, we are still at a loss and I don’t have my only son Jay,” Lee Cook said after thanking investigators for their dedication to the case.
For Tanya’s brother, John Van Cuylenborg, the arrest has given him “a sense of some justice that is starting to happen here for these two wonderful kids.”
“They deserve justice to be done. They were both gentle souls, caring and trusting kids, and they were betrayed,” he said.
Talbott was identified after a company called Parabon Nanolabs was hired to assist investigators using new DNA technology.
Genetic genealogist CeCe Moore used a public databank to upload the suspect’s DNA and build a family tree from those with partial matches back to Talbott’s greatgrandparents.
She then started building the tree forward until “two of the closest matches’ trees converged. They intersected into a marriage, and from that marriage there was only one son.”
“That led us to really only one person who could carry this mix of DNA,” said Moore, who offered her condolences to the families.
Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said Talbott’s arrest “shows how powerful it can be to combine new DNA technology with the relentless determination of detectives.
“We never gave up hope that we would find Jay and Tanya’s killer.”
But he said more work needs to be done in the case.
“Skagit and Snohomish County detectives are looking to speak to anyone who knew Talbott or knew of his activities in 1987 or 1988,” Trenary said. “He would have been 24 years old at the time of the crime and living in Woodenville.”
Police want to know if anyone saw Talbott driving the Cook family ’s brown van or in possession of Tanya’s Minolta X700 camera.
Trenary’s voice broke when he described arresting someone after so much time.
“It is a difficult thing for us but, candidly, this is what we do our jobs for,” he said.
Scharf said Talbott refused to talk to investigators when he was arrested.
He said the suspect appears to have never married or had a family.
“We don’t have any idea what the motive was here. We are not even sure how the individual met up with our victims,” Scharf said.
Talbott had been arrested before for drugs and possibly indecent exposure, but the cases were dismissed, Scharf said.
Just last month, Snohomish County detectives held a news conference to release composite drawings of a suspect that Parabon had created using DNA markers.
Scharf said the images did not have any impact on the break in the case, which only happened because of the use of the genealogy website.
In April, police in California used the same technique to arrest Joseph James DeAngelo, who is suspected of being the Golden State Killer.
Critics complained that law enforcement was potentially invading the privacy of unwitting website users. But Scharf and the family members of the slain couple defended the investigative technique.
“If it hadn’t been for genetic genealogy, we wouldn’t be standing here today,” he said.
“And if it’s not allowed to be used in law enforcement, we would never have solved his case.”