SEARCH FOR KILLER
New images in cold case
EVERETT, WASH. Laura Baanstra still remembers waving to her brother Jay Cook as he drove away from their Victoria home on Nov. 18, 1987 to pick up his girlfriend and head to Seattle for an overnight trip.
She never imagined it would be the last time she would see her 20-year-old sibling.
Jay’s body was found days later dumped on the side of the road in Snohomish County, covered with a blue blanket. He had been strangled.
His 18-year-old sweetheart, Tanya Van Cuylenborg, was also found slain in a ditch in neighbouring Skagit County. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the back of the head.
For more than 30 years, detectives in both counties have worked tirelessly to find the young couple’s killer without success, despite having collected his DNA. But they hope new DNA technology that helped create composite drawings of a person of interest in the case might lead to a breakthrough.
Baanstra, her husband Gary and sister Kelly Cook were on hand at a news conference in Everett on Wednesday where images were released of what the man may have looked like at ages 25, 45 and 65.
Baanstra said she couldn’t quite bring herself to look at the pictures of the person who likely killed her brother. But she still hopes someone might recognize the person and contact police.
“If these new pictures that this amazing new technology created triggers a memory you had — perhaps of someone who said something odd that lived in or near the Snohomish area or even Vancouver in late 1987 — please, for the sake of my brother Jay, Tanya and all of our families, call it in,” she said.
“When your brother or sister, daughter or a loved one walks out the door, you have no way to know that it’s the last time you will ever see them.”
Det. Jim Scharf of the Snohomish County cold case unit has worked the case for the past 13 years. He laid out a meticulous timeline that investigators have created in the decades-old case.
The pair was planning a short overnight trip to pick up furnace parts in Seattle for Jay’s father’s business.
Scharf said they caught the MV Coho ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles on Nov. 18, 1987, arriving at about 5:30 p.m. They missed a turnoff, so stopped at a local grocery store.
They got to Allen, Wash., at about 9:30 p.m. and stopped at a deli there. At 10:16 p.m., they bought a ticket for the Bremerton ferry to Seattle, which would have put them in the city about 11:30 p.m.
The pair had planned to sleep in the van near the former Kingdome stadium. A missing person’s report was filed two days later, according to news archives.
On Nov. 24, a man walking on an isolated road near Alger, south of Bellingham, discovered Tanya’s body.
“Her autopsy revealed she had a .38-calibre gunshot wound to the back of her head,” Scharf said. “Tanya had been restrained with zip-tie-type fasteners, and she was sexually assaulted.”
The following day, her wallet, her ID, keys for the van, a pair of surgical gloves and a partial box of ammunition were found under the back porch of a Bellingham pub, he said. The brown van that Jay and Tanya had been driving was found a block away from the pub, beside the Greyhound bus station, locked and in a parking lot.
A witness told police it had been there since Nov. 21.
On American Thanksgiving — Nov. 26, 1987 — Jay’s body was found, Scharf said, near a minimum-security prison that has since closed but was operating at the time. More of the killer’s ziptie restraints were found near his body. “The person who did this came prepared to do a brutal crime,” Scharf said.
Some of the couple’s items were missing — a green backpack and a black men’s jacket, as well as Tanya’s Minolta camera, which has never been found, although its lens turned up at a Portland pawnshop in 1990.
Scharf said investigators hope the new composite images will bring the tip that closes the case.
“It has been over 30 years since this all happened, but the Snohomish County Sheriff ’s office and the Skagit County Sheriff ’s office have never given up hope in solving this case because we do have DNA evidence that will identify the killer,” he said.
So far that DNA has not matched anything on file in either the U.S. or Canada, Scharf said.
“We have these new clues. We believe someone out there knows something that will help us solve this terrible crime.… The smallest
detail might end up being the lead we need.”
Snohomish County Investigations Capt. Jeff Miller warned that the images are not photographs, but feature the killer’s characteristics. He is a white male, with hazel or green eyes, possibly freckles, and possibly balding. He could have been heavier or lighter than the composites. His hair might have been longer. “It is not 100 per cent accurate,” Miller said.
The technology that led to the image was developed by a Virginia company called Parabon NanoLabs and has been successful in solving other cases in the U.S.
The couple’s family and friends are offering a $50,000 Cdn reward only until the end of 2018 for information leading to a DNA match.
Miller said someone out there knows who the killer is.
“Maybe you were too afraid to come forward at the time or you thought someone else already had. Now is the time to share what you may have seen or heard and bring closure to this crime,” he said.
Det.- Sgt. Jenny Sheahan-Lee of Skagit County was an 18-year-old volunteer in 1987 helping in the search of the area where Tanya’s body was found. It was emotional at the time because she was close in age to the victims. She found a shell casing that turned out to be critical evidence. And now she is the officer in charge of her county’s part of the investigation.
“It has been very difficult because we know that behind this case there are families that are waiting for answers,” she said. “Thirty-one years is a long time for these folks to wait for any answer. So I am really hopeful that this is going to give us that lead that we need.”