Bloodline Detectives - Episode 9 - Road trip to Hell | Forensic Files

I'm Nancy Grace. And this is "Bloodline Detectives." Road trips can be fun, exciting adventures.
Off the beaten path, silence surrounds you. Nothing to hear, but the wind in the trees.
In 1987, that also meant no cell phones and no way to call for help. Two Canadian teens, Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg,
take such a trip. The route from their home in British Columbia down to Seattle is to be a romantic getaway for this couple still
getting to know each other. But, ultimately, they never return home. Both are murdered.
Tanya's body was found quickly, but Jay's is not. They've gone missing in the dense labyrinths of
Washington's national forests. Police will spend years looking for a predator that
took advantage of young love. A killer intoxicated by his prey, but the Hunter eventually would become the hunted.
The target of the Bloodline Detectives. November 1987, a young couple from Saanich, British Columbia,
are reported missing. They haven't returned from an overnight road trip to Seattle.
CLOYD STEIGER: They were coming down on a little adventure from Vancouver Island.
Little did they know when they left that island, they'd never be back. NANCY GRACE: Their bodies are discovered
more than 60 miles apart. The victims of a sadistic killer. DAVID HEITZMAN: Even as a experienced homicide detective,
it was quite shocking. NANCY GRACE: An investigation is launched and a manhunt starts.
DAVE WILLARD: Everybody who worked together passed along information. Any little scrap that anybody found or knew of
was relayed to everybody involved in the case. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: Detective Scharf
was chasing those leads down day by day, the pit bull that he is. It took a lot of Detective Scharf's time
to track down those leads only to find that that wasn't the person. NANCY GRACE: This is the story of a romantic road trip
turned real-life horror movie. A police investigation that leaves no stone unturned
and how DNA and genetic genealogy helps solve the murders for the Bloodline Detectives.
[THEME MUSIC] NANCY GRACE: On November 24, 1987, police in the Skagit County Sheriff's Office in Washington
State get a 911 call. It came in from a gentleman who lived in the area of Parsons Creek Road.
He had been out walking his dog and he saw what he believed to be a person's body rolled down the side of a ditch up
against a culvert. NANCY GRACE: Police are immediately dispatched to the area. I went down to examine the body and see what was there.
I saw a half-clothed female. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: She was naked from the waist down.
Her bra had been pushed up above her breast. She did have socks on, I believe, but her pants had been removed, her underwear had been removed.
DAVE WILLARD: On closer examination, I could see that there was blood coming out of the back of her head.
She was laying on her back. And there was blood in the dirt and the leaves underneath the head.
NANCY GRACE: The coroner is called and detectives start processing the scene for evidence.
DAVE WILLARD: I found what appeared to be brain tissue like something had leaked
out of the gunshot wound. And that was collected. GERALD BOWERS: I stayed up at the top just looking.
Found a pair of zip ties that were discarded fairly close to the road, actually.
Skagit County did not have a coroner's office where they could do autopsies so they would bring
the body to a funeral home. And the autopsy would have been done there. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: They did find a 380 Partridge in her brain,
so it was pretty obvious the way that she had died. The medical examiner or the coroner
took swabs from her mouth. JIM SCHARF: We learned from the swabs that were taken that the suspect had had
anal and vaginal sex with her. And that she had been shot with a 380 automatic handgun.
[GUNSHOT] NANCY GRACE: Police get an alert from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police or the RCMP a few days before.
The RCMP sent out a BOLO saying that there were two missing persons. And they described the two young people and the van
that they were in. They said that the van would have been traveling on the international ferry
coming to Port Angeles. NANCY GRACE: Investigators immediately contact the RCMP to find out more about the missing couple.
Their names are Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg. And they're from Saanich, British Columbia.
Jay and Tanya were boyfriend and girlfriend. Tanya was two years younger than Jay.
She just graduated from high school. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: I don't think she fully knew exactly what she
wanted to do in life yet, but she did have dreams of becoming a veterinarian. She was passionate about her family, animals.
Jay was the type who was quiet, but someone who you wanted in your circle. Someone that you wanted to be friends with because he'd
take the shirt off his back and give it to you if you needed it. JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: They met through some mutual friends.
They both gone to the same high school in Victoria. And they'd been dating about five or six
months at the time of the trip. JIM SCHARF: His father owned a heating business.
And they had a job that they were working on where they needed some furnace parts in Seattle.
So for whatever reason, Jay decided that it would be fun for him to go down and run
this errand for his dad. And she decided to go with Jay on this trip and get to know him a little bit better.
Jay's parents owned a large Ford van. It was like a 3/4 ton window van. It was copper brown in color.
Because of the furnace parts they were going to put in the back, the back seat had
been removed out of that van. Their plan was to get on the Coho ferry, which was one of the most common ways to get off the island.
That ferry would take them to the Port Angeles. And then head south at that point
to catch another ferry in Bremerton, make it over to Seattle, and then stay the night
in the van in Seattle. Wake up, get to GENSCO first thing in the morning, pick up those parts, and then head back north.
NANCY GRACE: But on Thursday, they don't arrive back as planned. And Tanya's family grows very concerned.
JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: Initially, on that Thursday, my dad started to approach the local police
saying they were missing, and started the process, so to speak. Saanich police took a report and they notified the Seattle
Police Department to put out an all-points bulletin looking for the van and for Jay and Tanya.
GERALD BOWERS: We were talking about geographically a tremendously large area. You're talking about the province of British Columbia
and the state of Washington, and three counties in the state of Washington-- Whatcom, Skagit, Snohomish.
NANCY GRACE: Despite police issuing a BOLO, be on the lookout, Tanya's father realizes it will take time for them
to launch a full-scale search. So he takes matters into his own hands. JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: Someone he knew had a small aircraft who
did some search by aircraft over the Olympic Peninsula and across over Seattle through the Olympic Mountains.
From that distance or range, they were looking for the van to see if they could see it on some--
parked on some road. NANCY GRACE: But with no sign of the van from the air, Tanya's family starts their own ground search.
JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: My dad took two trips down to Seattle looking for any sort of lead, talking to anyone we could,
and putting up more missing persons type posters. So there were two trips like that
and I was on the second one. NANCY GRACE: While continuing the search in Seattle,
they get the news that she might have been found. My father phoned home to my mom at about 7
o'clock that night from the Seattle waterfront. My mom earlier that afternoon had received a call
from the Skagit County Sheriff's Department saying that they had recovered a body that they thought might be Tanya,
but there was no identification with the body. And so they were wanting a family member
to come identify the body. We were quiet. There wasn't a lot to be said between the four of us.
And, you know, um-- and, unfortunately, after we got to Sedro-Woolley. And my dad and I together identified Tanya's body.
And she wasn't battered or beaten in that sense, but, unfortunately, was lifeless.
It was very hard for me to see how devastated my parents were from this. But there's nothing I could do to fix it, so--
other than spend time with them. NANCY GRACE: With Tanya's body now formally identified,
the hunt is on to find Jay. Investigators are searching for boyfriend Jay Cook, who is now the key to understanding
his girlfriend's murder. Is he alive? Is he a suspect? Is he being held by a deranged killer?
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] The body of 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg
is discovered in Skagit County, Washington, November 24, 1987. The search for her missing boyfriend, Jay Cook,
with whom she's been on a road trip, goes on. Detectives receive a call from Bellingham, 66 miles north
of Skagit. A local business worker has made a discovery. A woman who worked at Essie's tavern in the city
of Bellingham, was out on the back porch. And she and another employee found several items, namely a purse that had
Tanya's identification in it. And in further searching, keys to the van were found under the porch along with surgical gloves,
a partial box of ammunition, zip ties, and a lens cap for a Minolta camera. Bellingham police department has a detective
and a sergeant come out to Essie's tavern, take a look at the wallet. When they see who's on the identification,
they know immediately that it's the same person who was found. NANCY GRACE: About to depart with the evidence,
a police officer makes a crucial discovery. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: As one of the Bellingham sergeants
is leaving the scene, he just goes down the back alley about a block to a little republic parking lot
and he sees that copper Ford van which was sort of a distinct van. NANCY GRACE: A potentially crucial
source of evidence, the van is towed for forensic processing. The license plates are photographed for identification
purposes on that vehicle. Once that's all done, the doors were opened and we examined anything we could find inside the van.
Well, after the van was processed inside and out and all items were collected, it was processed on the outside
for latent prints. I believe there was a couple of prints found inside the van that were to identify to Tanya and Jay.
And the main one was a palm print found on the back door of the van. You know 1997, they didn't have
all the forensic tools that we have today, not even close. The only thing you could get to identify a person absolutely
in 1997 was a fingerprint. With no sign of Jay, suspicion is growing amongst officers
working the case. Since Jay hadn't been found at the same location, they told the Cook family to be prepared for the fact
that Jay could possibly be a suspect. NANCY GRACE: But 48 hours after Tanya's body is found,
a resident in Monroe County makes a gruesome discovery. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: Jay's body was found
on November 26, which happened to be Thanksgiving day, 1987. There's a lot of blood.
He has numerous wounds on his head, on his ear. It appears there's a ligature. JIM SCHARF: They tied twine and a dog collar around his neck
and strangled him. And they'd also beat him in the head with rocks. It was a very violent murder.
JUSTIN HARLEMAN: They could see in his mouth at the time was what appeared to be a pack of cigarettes.
There was a tissue that was stuffed down Jay's throat behind the pack of cigarettes.
And the medical examiner came to the conclusion that Jay died from asphyxiation both from the ligature that
was around his neck, but also the fact that the tissue in the cigarette pack had pushed his tongue
to the back of his throat. It became clear, I think, pretty quickly, that Jay had suffered, unfortunately.
The wounds that he had and the way that he had been killed is not something that happens fast.
They noticed some hemorrhaging around Jay's eyes, around his neck, that told them that he
was still trying to breathe. He was still trying to fight back as he was being suffocated or asphyxiated.
CLOYD STEIGER: I don't think this person targeted those two on a specific day to go out and murder
those people because he didn't know those people most likely. I think he came across them.
Now he may have fantasized about something like this before and entered his mind generically.
And then the question of premeditation is once he has them it only takes a moment
and he decides he's going to do it, that's enough premeditation. You have to plan it in advance.
If you see these people and think, I'm going to rape and kill that woman and I'm going to kill him, that's premeditation if you
go out and do it immediately. So how and where did these two young lovers meet their killer?
Was he stalking them or was it a chance encounter? Investigators need to trace their movements.
That's next on "Bloodline Detectives." [THEME MUSIC] In November 1987, Skagit County and Seattle police
are investigating the last movements of a beautiful young Canadian couple, Tanya
Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook. Brutally murdered, their bodies discovered almost 60 miles
apart in Washington State. They are just a couple of kids in the prime of their lives
coming down on maybe a little adventure to go buy a part down in Seattle from Vancouver Island.
JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: They boarded a ferry that runs regularly between Victoria and Port Angeles
on the Olympic Peninsula, which is part of Washington State. So they took the ferry across to Port Angeles,
cleared customs, then started driving down the peninsula. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: There were two witnesses
that had seen them at sort of mom-and-pop grocery stores on the peninsula. So that told us that they traveled through Hoodsport
through Allyn. And then, of course, we knew that they had at least purchased a ferry ticket to cross
from Bremerton to Seattle because that was found in the van. They also found the certified check from Jay's father
to GENSCO for the parts that they were supposed to pick up. And that, obviously, that told us that they
never made it to GENSCO. From the evidence collected, detectives start to build a picture of what they
believe happened that night. I think that they did get on that ferry from Bremerton
to Seattle. I think they likely parked somewhere in South Seattle where they thought they were going to stay the night,
whether it was in front of GENSCO or near GENSCO. JIM SCHARF: Jay and Tanya were kidnapped, probably
within a half an hour of when they arrived in Seattle because their intention was
to sleep all night in the van. And had they gone to sleep in the van, I don't think the killer would have
even known they were in there. He had a gun, surgical gloves, extra bullets, and he had a lot of zip ties.
He was a predator that wanted to have sex with Tanya. And to do that, he killed Jay.
And after he did it, he killed her so that he wouldn't get caught. NANCY GRACE: With no obvious suspects,
detectives start reviewing local and state records in the hope of identifying a suspect.
JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: None of it really made sense to me that there really wasn't much of anything
I could figure out that would have caused this to happen. Neither one of them were the kind
to have the sort of enemy that would have this kind of vengeance to carry out this kind of crime.
It just didn't make sense. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: They were looking for someone who had possibly done this before or had
threatened to do this before. And I think that that was based mostly on just the brutality
of the crimes and the fact that they did appear to be so premeditated. There were certain things that stuck out
as things that would have made it a serial killer type of a situation. Jay's body was found close to the honor farm, which
was a farm that was run by the inmates that were in the prison in Monroe. At the time, a lot of people felt that the person knew
about that location because they had been housed in the Honor Farm sometime in the past.
NANCY GRACE: While investigators explore every avenue, the victims' families and the community are left grieving.
JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: There was a memorial service for her at the University of Victoria at the interfaith Chapel.
And it was-- it was a-- yeah, it was a good service. A number of people spoke. There was a lot of people there because of, you know, Tanya,
as I say, it was quite social so she had a lot of young people a lot of her friends were there.
I mean, the community was in shock for these two kids to have gone missing and both murdered.
It was-- so it was a-- there was a lot of people there as has happens in these situations.
So hard to understand. So hard to fathom how you could raise kids like that and then
for no apparent reason, then and really as of today still no apparent reason have them taken in such a brutal way.
So we were just devastated both of them. And you got to change their outlook on life
and, yeah, definitely had a massive impact on them. NANCY GRACE: Then the unthinkable happens.
The victims' families get a letter. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: And he claimed responsibility for the murders.
He included some really hurtful and just hateful things in those letters. NANCY GRACE: The Bloodline Detectives not only
have a killer, but it looks like a bragging psychopath on their hands. His letters are grotesque teases to an identity
that only the latest forensic science will be able to find. [THEME MUSIC] In November 1987, a young, innocent, Canadian couple
are murdered somewhere between Seattle, Washington, and British Columbia. American and Canadian law enforcement joined forces
to solve the brutal murders of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook. Then only a few weeks after their murders,
the case suddenly takes a bizarre twist. The families started receiving Christmas cards
or holiday cards from someone-- just happy birthday, Merry Christmas, Happy Halloween, or whatever.
The letters were really unusual because they were coming to the family on holidays and Mother's Day.
And they were being mailed from different parts of the United States like New York, San Diego, and Seattle.
DAVE WILLARD: They brought the cards into our office and I processed them for latent prints.
CLOYD STEIGER: When the families receive cards from people claiming to be a killer,
it's usually some nut trying to aggravate them. It's almost never from the killer.
Most of the time it's just some sick, crazy person getting their thrills that way.
I wouldn't expect that to be from the real killer. Although, when it happens, you have to treat it like it is.
NANCY GRACE: Detectives decide to feature the case on America's Most Wanted. We ended up getting a tip that identified a person who they
believe the letter writer was. NANCY GRACE: The suspect was based in Seattle. JIM SCHARF: We found his apartment.
He admitted that, yes, he had written these letters. NANCY GRACE: The man is a 78-year-old Canadian transient
with serious mental health issues. JIM SCHARF: He also voluntarily gave us his DNA sample.
But that DNA did not match the DNA that was left at the scene. DAVE WILLARD: At that time, he was the best
lead we had in the case. And then once they finally found him and cleared him of involvement, we were back to square one
again. NANCY GRACE: Police continue to appeal for information and follow up other leads.
We probably developed a couple hundred different names of possible suspects none of whom turned
out to be the perpetrator. NANCY GRACE: The case spans decades without results. But any time there's a new tip it's investigated.
JUSTIN HARLEMAN: Detective Scharf was chasing those leads down I think day by day, the pit bull
that he is. Unfortunately, it took a lot of Detective Scharf's time to track down those leads only to find
that that wasn't the person. NANCY GRACE: But in 2018, officers working the case
learn about a new forensic technology-- phenotyping. Phenotyping would give us a description of our suspect.
It would show the race, his complexion, his hair color, his eye color. And they could even come up with a possible shape of a face
to make up a composite likeness of what our suspect could look like. NANCY GRACE: Detectives ask Parabon, the company
that developed phenotyping, to build a profile of the killer from DNA taken from the crime scenes.
JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: It was in February of 2018 when Jim Scharf phoned me and said they were looking to have
these composite sketches done with this new technology, with Parabon. And they were hoping to generate more interest.
It only took us two or three weeks to get the report back from Parabon. They told us that the suspect that we should be looking for
had ancestry from Northern European descent. He had blond or reddish hair. He had green or hazel eyes.
He was very light complected. We went ahead and did a news release showing what the suspect could look like at age 25, age
45, and age 65 because our crime was over 30 years old by then. We got probably another 120 tips coming in.
But they were tips like the composite looks like the guy that lives down the street or he looks like a guy
that I saw buying something in the store behind me in line. We didn't get any tips that said it was a person that I saw
driving a van like that or a person who was in the area of Monroe on this day when
the murder happened. These profiles-- you're looking for the boogeyman, sometimes.
And you can't spot the boogeyman on a street in any city because they look like everybody else
and they act like everybody else. They may have a job, they may have a family, but they have this dark side that nobody knows about.
NANCY GRACE: With no solid leads coming from snapshot, Parabon notifies investigators of a new technique they're
using that involves matching the killer's DNA with genealogy databases. Parabon, they can create the profile.
They can give that profile to the genealogists who they started to work with, people like CeCe Moore.
That sort of set them on a different route which we're all thankful for today. NANCY GRACE: Jim Scharf is dealing
directly with Dr. Steven Armentrout, Parabon's founder and CEO. Steve told me that he was hoping that by next week
he could tell me who the person was. And I kind of laugh. But on Monday, I received an email from Steve
asking me to call him. I was on my day off and I called him. He told me that he has narrowed my suspect down to one name.
I was, like, I don't know if I can believe this or not. I was kind of skeptical.
The second cousin had submitted DNA into an ancestry-type database. And from there, the genealogists were
able to work out looking through various public records who the relatives were. The suspect name ended up being William Earl Talbott.
NANCY GRACE: Have police finally found the killer who's evaded them for over 30 years?
Having pored through this file for the last year and had written all these names down more than once,
I knew that I had never come across this name before. When we return, will incredible
science combined with sheer determination pay off for the Bloodline Detectives? [THEME MUSIC]
NANCY GRACE: In 2018, detectives in Skagit County, Washington, have just been given the name of the likely killer
of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook in November 1987. William Earl Talbott II has been identified
through genetic genealogy. But despite a major investigation, officers have never come across his name before.
The only criminal record that he had was an assault conviction where he had a $150 fine
and he got deferred prosecution. At home, he would get in fights with his sister.
He threatened his disabled father. He pushed the cat into the well. He dropped out of school in high school.
And he wouldn't work. One of his friends did get him a job as a delivery person.
And one of the destinations that he delivered to was two blocks south of the heating company
where Jay and Tanya were supposed to stay the night that night. So I believe that he was down there prowling around that area
that night for some reason when he ran into Jay and Tanya. NANCY GRACE: Detectives must collect
evidence to prove William Earl Talbott is the killer. CLOYD STEIGER: People have a misunderstanding
about genealogy. Genealogy isn't evidence. It's not presented in court as proof that the person is the killer.
That's just a lead. The evidence is when you finally get that guy and you get a DNA sample somehow.
And you match that sample to the evidence sample. And that's the evidence present it in court.
Genealogy is only a lead that points detectives in the right direction. NANCY GRACE: Investigators discover that Talbott is still
working as a truck driver. JIM SCHARF: We enlisted the violent offender task force and the narcotics task force
to start following him around. And we told them that we wanted them to recover anything that he discarded
that had touched his mouth. Because we wanted to get his saliva sample. They were sitting outside his place where he drives a truck.
And they watched him drive away. He stopped at a light or stopped somewhere right by the place
and got out of his truck. And when he did, a coffee cup fell out of the cab of his truck.
He got back in the truck and drove away. They collected the coffee cup. DAVID HEITZMAN: That cup was taken to the lab
and a DNA profile was obtained from that. And that ended up being the match of the suspect DNA
that was found in and around Tanya's body. JIM SCHARF: It was a really, really powerful moment in my life.
My eyes teared up and I yelled out a scream and said, we got him. NANCY GRACE: The investigation team starts to put
a plan together for his arrest. What I wanted to do was arrest him under the most favorable
conditions to us, which was probably leaving work, because he probably wouldn't be allowed to carry a gun with him
while he's working. Jim Scharf and the team stake out Talbott's workplace. About 6 o'clock that night, they
said that they saw him coming. And when he pulled up to the gate, I was sitting across the street.
And I could see him, and I recognized him from the pictures that I'd seen. So as soon as he pulled through the gate, then I moved in.
JUSTIN HARLEMAN: Initially, Detective Scharf and his partner approached the suspect
and asked him if he wanted to discuss this case. The suspect wasn't willing to talk.
JIM SCHARF: And he said, no, why don't you come back tomorrow or the next day. And I said, no, we'd like to take care of this today.
Why don't you show me your ID so that I'm sure that you're who you say you are. And he said, I told you who I am.
I said, I know you told us who you are, but I'd still like to see your identification.
And he said, no. I could see that he was not going to cooperate. I told him to turn around and put your hands behind your back
you're under arrest. And he said, what for? And I said, for one count of first-degree murder.
Now turn around and put your hands behind your back. And he just stood there. So I'm ready for him to fight.
So I reached up with my left hand and put it behind his right shoulder. And I said, I told you you're under arrest, now turn around.
And as I pushed him, he actually turned around. And that surprised me. Because I was thinking that he was going to fight.
They put him in the back seat of the car. And we headed off to the courthouse. I had Luke turn up the radio and put
the speakers in back so that all he could hear was the radio. And I got on the phone and I called John Van Cuylenborg.
He told me that-- he goes, yeah, we got him. We've arrested him. And I said really?
My first question was, well, where is he? And I said, he's sitting in the back seat.
And that was a moment where I realized, oh, this is-- this is. This is unbelievable.
This is like Jim sitting a few feet away from this guy now in some vehicle. And, yeah, it was just a surreal moment.
In all those years, of all the phone calls, and all the information, all of a sudden, finally someone
had been arrested. The first arrest in 31 years. I felt a relief that we had him.
He didn't get away. So now it was just a matter of getting him processed, getting him booked.
And we were on our way to getting the conviction. NANCY GRACE: June 11, 2019, the trial
begins and John Van Cuylenborg finally faces his sister's killer. JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: It's very difficult,
obviously, to restrain your emotions in that kind of setting. But he never really showed any emotion
at the arraignment or any of the pretrial hearings-- certainly nothing close to remorse, no.
NANCY GRACE: Willard, who was at the crime scene, is brought in to testify. It was tense.
I was a little nervous trying to remember things that you did 32 years ago when you can't remember what you had
for breakfast in the morning. He had me re-identify the pants that the semen stain was found on.
CLOYD STEIGER: The only thing you could possibly have to say is, well, is there a way that she could have
had consensual sex with him? Could that have happened? And, of course, in this case, ridiculous.
Of course, it couldn't happen. She's with her boyfriend, came down from Canada, and this guy meets her and has consensual sex?
I don't think so. NANCY GRACE: The trial ends on June 28. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: In an opening statement,
I remember at the end when I told the jury that they were going to have some questions about what exactly had happened
and why it had happened. But I told them, they weren't going to have any questions
about who had done it. And I looked at him and I pointed to him. No reaction. No smirk.
No looking down. No blinking. Just no reaction. I think that he was convinced that he was
going to be found not guilty. And that he would be on his free way. NANCY GRACE: After three days of deliberations,
the jury comes back with a verdict. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: They found the defendant guilty of both of the murders and guilty
of the aggravating factors. There's two things about DNA, it absolutely convicts the guilty and it absolutely
exonerates the innocent. DAVID HEITZMAN: He was sentenced to two terms of life imprisonment.
And that is the highest that he could be sentenced to in this state. JOHN VAN CUYLENBORG: I was very happy that somebody
had been arrested. And knew that it was going to be a long process to get through trial, to get to a conviction.
But knowing that it was the right thing to do to have that process play out and have someone
held accountable. It was just a necessary part of the process. Tanya's parents never recover from Talbott's
horrific actions. My mom was even more withdrawn than before. She was not the most outgoing person, but she was--
it just devastated them both and broke their hearts. I got to meet Tanya's brother and Jay's
family, Tanya's cousin. They're all wonderful people. I love them dearly. And I'm glad I was able to help them get some answers.
Life isn't fair. You can't make everything fair. But you can hold somebody accountable.
And even though it took a long time, we finally held Talbott accountable. He's locked up in a cell 23 hours a day.
And nobody's ever going to be harmed by him again. JUSTIN HARLEMAN: I'd like to think that justice
delayed is still justice. It's 30 years too late, but I think it's a credit to Detective Scharf
and to the other people who stuck by this case who were just relentless over the years.
All I ever wanted to do from when I was a little kid is to help other people and catch the bad guy.
And to me, this tool of genetic genealogy has given me the greatest opportunity in my career.
It's fulfilled every dream I've had from when I was a little kid. And I'm still a little kid.
And I still want to catch more crooks. CLOYD STEIGER: There's no case too cold to be solved, right?
There's not. Although these guys, when they're sitting at home, and they watch the news and hear about another cold case
from 25, 30 years ago getting solved, they start to get nervous. And that's my message to any people
out there that killed somebody and thought you could get away with it. Be afraid, be very afraid.
Wake up in the middle of night thinking about it because they're coming to get you.
NANCY GRACE: The gruesome murders of Jay and Tanya are finally solved. And justice has been served.
William Earl Talbott, a man with a history of violence as a boy, has grown up to become an angry, deranged monster.
Over three decades, so many dedicated members of law enforcement worked this case.
But one of them, a resourceful cold case detective named James Scharf, seized the opportunity to collaborate
with genealogists and science. An opportunity that led to a conviction for the Bloodline Detectives.
[THEME MUSIC]

Brief Summary

The episode details the 1987 murders of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg and the use of genetic genealogy to identify their killer.

Key points

The Disappearance of Jay and Tanya. A romantic road trip takes a dark turn when the couple goes missing.
The Discovery of Tanya's Body. Tanya's body is found, but Jay remains missing, raising urgent questions.
The Gruesome Discovery of Jay's Body. Jay's body is found with signs of a violent struggle and murder.
The Killer's Letters. The families receive bizarre letters from someone claiming responsibility for the murders.
The Case Goes Cold. Despite numerous leads, the investigation spans decades without results.
The Breakthrough in Forensics. In 2018, detectives discover phenotyping, a new forensic technology that could help identify the suspect.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Little did they know when they left that island, they'd never be back.

Foreshadowing the couple's fate.

1:36WatchApr 1, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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