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Thread: William Earl Talbott ll Conviction Overturned in 1987 WA Murders of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook

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    William Earl Talbott ll Conviction Overturned in 1987 WA Murders of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook







    Washington man could face death penalty if convicted in killings of Saanich couple

    By Louise Dickson
    The Times-Colonist

    A Seattle-area man could face the death penalty if convicted of the aggravated first-degree murders of a young Saanich couple.

    William Earl Talbott ll was arrested in May and charged with murder in the deaths of 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and 20-year-old Jay Cook, who were killed in November 1987. He has pleaded not guilty to the crimes.

    Talbott, 55, is expected to appear in Snohomish County court on Thursday.

    Snohomish County’s chief criminal deputy prosecutor Craig Matheson expects the hearing will be brief.

    “All we are doing is extending notice of the date of death penalty decision until Nov. 30 and continuing the trial date into 2019,” Matheson said. “It’s just the start of a very long process. I think it will be anywhere between a year-and-a-half and two years before we’re actually in a courtroom.”

    Under Washington state law, there are two penalties available for aggravated murder: the death penalty and life without the possibility of parole, Matheson said.

    Once an individual has been charged with aggravated murder, the elected prosecutor has to make a decision within 30 days and then serve written notice upon the defence on whether he or she plans to seek a special sentencing proceeding, also known as a death-penalty hearing.

    “Typically, the defence will request that the 30-day time frame be extended so they can put together a mitigation package,” Matheson said. “We’re agreeable to it because when you’re making a decision of that magnitude, having more information is better than having less.”

    The mitigation package, which will be forwarded to elected Snohomish prosecutor Mark Roe, will contain all of the reasons the prosecution should not seek a special sentencing proceeding on Talbott or any other defendant in his position.

    A decision will be then made on how prosecutors want to proceed.

    In the U.S., murder is when a victim is killed intentionally with malice aforethought. This means the person committing the crime had the intent to kill another person.

    Aggravated murder occurs when the accused is alleged to have done one of the following:

    • killed someone intentionally with planning;

    • intentionally killed a person younger than 13 years of age;

    • intentionally killed a person while serving a term in prison or while a prison escapee;

    • intentionally killed a law officer on official duty or with planning;

    • killed someone or illegally terminated a person’s pregnancy while in the process of committing rape, kidnapping, arson, robbery, burglary, terrorism or trespassing.

    There are eight inmates on death row in Washington state. The last execution in the state took place in 2010. Washington utilizes two methods of execution: lethal injection and hanging. Lethal injection is used unless the inmate chooses hanging as the preferred execution method.

    Cook and Van Cuylenborg boarded the Coho ferry to Port Angeles on Nov. 18, 1987, in the Cook family van. They planned to return home the next day via the Interstate 5 highway. At 10:16 p.m., they bought tickets at the Bremerton ferry dock to catch the ferry to Seattle. Neither was seen or heard from again.

    Van Cuylenborg’s body was found in a ditch in Skagit County in a wooded area of Parsons Creek Road, between Old Highway 99 and Prairie Road. She had a .38-calibre gunshot wound to the back of her head. She had been restrained with zip-tie fasteners and sexually assaulted.

    On Nov. 26, Cook’s body was found near High Bridge on Crescent Lake Road, east of Monroe. He was covered by a blue blanket. He had been strangled and restrained with the same type of zip-tie fasteners as Van Cuylenborg.

    Police have said they do not know what the motive was for the killings.

    DNA led to a breakthrough in the 30-year-old case.

    A genealogist, CeCe Moore, worked with experts at Parabon NanoLabs to build a family tree for the suspect based on the genetic evidence recovered from the crime scenes. They used data that had been uploaded by distant cousins to public genealogy websites to pinpoint a suspect.

    Police kept Talbott, a trucker living north of Sea-Tac International Airport, under surveillance until a paper cup fell from his truck in Seattle in early May. A swab of DNA from the cup came back as a match to evidence from the crime scenes.

    http://www.timescolonist.com/news/lo...ple-1.23371444
    Last edited by CharlesMartel; 07-18-2018 at 01:48 PM.
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    Death-penalty decision delayed for alleged cold-case killer

    William Talbott is charged here in the 1987 slaying of a young Canadian couple.

    By Rikki King
    Heraldnet

    EVERETT — Snohomish County prosecutors now have until Nov. 30 to decide whether to seek the death penalty in the 1987 killings of a young Canadian couple.

    Superior Court Judge Linda Krese approved the extension Thursday at the request of prosecutors and the defense. A new trial date was set for March.

    William Talbott II is charged with two counts of aggravated first-degree murder. Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20, of Saanich, B.C., disappeared in November 1987 while on a road trip that took them to Seattle.

    A week later, Van Cuylenborg’s body was found in the woods off a rural road in Skagit County. She’d been raped and shot in the head. Cook’s body later was found near Monroe. He’d been beaten and strangled.

    Prosecutors say they were led to Talbott, three decades later, due to advances in genetic profiling. At 55, he was living in SeaTac and working as a trucker. In 1987, his home was off Woodinville-Duvall Road.

    He appeared in custody Thursday. His attorneys told the court that he maintains his innocence.

    If Talbott is convicted as charged, the death penalty and life without parole are the only sentences available under state law. The trial could take as long as seven weeks, Krese said.

    Talbott is being held without bail at the Snohomish County Jail in Everett. On Thursday, the judge denied a motion from the defense to reconsider bail or house arrest pending trial, which previously had been scheduled for August.

    https://www.heraldnet.com/news/death...d-case-killer/
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    Local Cold Case Helps ‘60 Minutes’ Explain Genetic Genealogy

    An arrest in a 1987 double-murder was one of three examples highlighted in a segment you can watch here.

    By Eric Stevick
    Seattle Weekly

    EVERETT — A local 31-year-old cold case was highlighted Sunday on the CBS newsmagazine “60 Minutes” during a segment exploring a new crime-solving tool that combines DNA analysis and family genealogy.

    The episode was reported by Steve Kroft, a long-time correspondent for the half-century-old program.

    It described how the research technique led to the arrest of a 72-year-old suspect earlier this year in the so-called “Golden Gate Killer” case. Police in California believe a serial killer is responsible for 13 murders, more than 50 rapes and over 100 burglaries in California from 1974 to 1986.

    The “60 Minutes” story explained how a detective submitted the unidentified killer’s DNA to a public database called GEDmatch, which is used by genealogy enthusiasts who voluntarily provide DNA to research family history.

    The idea, detective Paul Holes told “60 Minutes,” was this: “If we can’t find him, can we find somebody related to him? And then work our way back to him? And so ultimately, that’s what we did.”

    Detectives in Snohomish and Skagit counties did the same thing with the help of CeCe Moore, lead genealogist for Parabon NanoLabs, a small DNA technology company in Reston, Virginia.

    And that led “60 Minutes” producer Michael Karzis to the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office in Everett earlier this month for an interview with cold-case detective Jim Scharf. Scharf had been looking for a breakthrough in the homicides of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, a young Canadian couple killed in 1987 while on a road trip to Seattle from their hometown of Saanich, British Columbia, on Vancouver Island.

    Van Cuylenborg’s body was found off a road near Alger in Skagit County. She had been sexually assaulted, shot in the head and dumped in the woods. She was 18.

    The body of Cook, 20, was discovered beneath a blanket near a bridge south of Monroe. He appeared to have been beaten with rocks and strangled.

    Earlier this year, Scharf got “the tip of a lifetime to solve this case,” he told “60 Minutes.”

    A new analysis of DNA evidence led Moore and cold case detectives to identify the suspected killer, by way of second cousins who had uploaded their DNA to public genealogy sites. The cousins were searching for relatives. Detectives arrested one of those relatives, William Earl Talbott II, on a murder warrant in May.

    Talbott was the only male carrier of the DNA mix from the two families that could match the DNA found at the homicide scenes.

    Scharf said Monday that “60 Minutes” did a good job of describing the technology and practical applications for a national audience.

    In the segment, the detective recalled getting the call about the DNA link.

    “And she told me that we had a match to the suspect that killed Tanya and Jay. And it brought tears to my eyes. And then I screamed. ‘Yeah!’ You know, ‘We got him!’”

    Scharf watched “60 Minutes” on Sunday night with his wife and son.

    He was particularly interested in the interview with Moore. She is someone he’s worked with from afar but has not met in person.

    “You could see how she really cares about what she is doing to help the victims and their families,” he said.

    Talbott, a trucker who grew up in Woodinville, is charged with two counts of aggravated murder.

    Talbott’s parents lived six miles from the bridge where Cook was found, a straight-shot of a drive with only one turn, according to charging papers.

    Talbott’s name never made a list of more than 300 potential suspects, according to the sheriff’s office. If convicted, Talbott, 55, faces life in prison. His trial is set for March 26 .

    https://www.seattleweekly.com/northw...tic-genealogy/

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    Prosecutors confirm they won’t seek death in Talbott case----The state Supreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional. Trial expected in 2019 in slayings.

    1 month after the state Supreme Court set aside the death penalty in Washington, Snohomish County prosecutors confirmed for a judge Monday that they won't try to get around the ruling in a decades-old double murder cold case.

    The confirmation was largely a formality during a pretrial conference.

    Until the October decision, prosecutors had been considering whether to seek the death penalty in the case against SeaTac truck driver William Earl Talbott II, 55, who is charged with the aggravated murders of Jay Cook, 20, and Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18. The Canadian couple were on an errand to the Puget Sound area to pick up furnace parts for Cook's father when they were abducted and killed more than 30 years ago.

    Superior Court Judge Linda Krese asked deputy prosecutor Matthew Baldock Monday if the state didn’t intend to file paperwork seeking the death penalty.

    "That is correct your honor," he said. Use of capital punishment effectively ended in Washington when the Supreme Court ruled last month that the state's death penalty law is unconstitutional. Justices concluded the law is imposed in an arbitrary and racially biased manner, and converted all death sentences to life imprisonment.

    Even so, the court did leave open the possibility for lawmakers to revise the law in a way that's constitutional.

    Monday's hearing was a chance to check on the status of the case with prosecutors and defense attorneys.

    The plan at the moment is for trial to begin in early April with pretrial motions March 29.

    Preparations have been challenging, given that there are more than 11,000 pages of investigative reports from 2 law enforcement agencies to comb through, Baldock told the judge.

    "Discovery is voluminous," he said.

    The time-consuming task is making it hard to quickly come up with a final witness list to send to defense lawyers, he said. Even so, that should be done by mid-December.

    The trial is expected to last a month with the bulk of the 1st week spent choosing a jury, defense attorney Jon Scott told the judge.

    Cook and Van Cuylenborg were killed in 1987 while on a road trip from their hometown of Saanich, B.C., on Vancouver Island, to Seattle's industrial area.

    Days later, a passerby found Van Cuylenborg's body off a road 80 miles north, near Alger in Skagit County. She had been sexually assaulted, shot in the head and dumped in the woods.

    The body of Cook was discovered beneath a blanket that week, near a bridge south of Monroe. He appeared to have been beaten with rocks and strangled.

    Talbott's parents lived 6 miles from the bridge, according to charging papers.

    The case went unsolved for 3 decades. Talbott's name never made a list of more than 300 potential suspects, according to the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office.

    This year a new analysis of DNA evidence led a genetic genealogist and cold case detectives to identify him as the suspected killer, by way of 2nd cousins who had uploaded their DNA to public genealogy sites. The cousins were searching for relatives. If convicted, Talbott faces life in prison.

    (source: heraldnet.com)
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    How taking a home genetics test could help catch a murderer

    Specialists are using public-access DNA databases to track down violent criminals such as the notorious Golden State Killer. But the technique raises a host of legal and ethical questions

    DNA sleuth CeCe Moore recalls the moment that the pieces came together, in May, in the hunt for her first suspected killer – the man now thought to be responsible for the brutal 1987 murders of a young Canadian couple on a trip to Seattle. While Moore is used to uncovering secrets – she’s helped hundreds of adult adoptees to identify their biological parents – finding someone who might be guilty of murder was shocking. “It is hard to even put into words. It was a very surreal feeling,” she says. Moore, a genetic genealogist known in the US as an expert on the PBS television series Finding Your Roots, runs DNA Detectives, a Facebook group of 100,000-plus members, which helps people find their biological parents.

    Since May, she has also headed a forensic genealogy unit at the DNA tech company Parabon, which helps police find perpetrators of violent crimes – mostly unsolved murders and rape. She uses a controversial method called genetic, or forensic, genealogy that is becoming indispensable to police forces while raising legal and ethical questions. To date, the work of Moore and her team has led to identifications in 21 US cases and she says that there will be more soon (no case has yet come to trial, so all those identified are for now suspects only).

    The technique entails uploading a crime-scene DNA profile to a public-access genealogy database called GEDmatch. The database allows people to trace relatives by uploading DNA tests carried out by companies such as 23andMe and Ancestry and holds the DNA profiles of about 1.2 million people.

    Major genealogy data-holders, including the consumer genetic testing companies, may give up information to law enforcement if subpoenaed, but GEDmatch is the only one that permits open searching by law enforcement officials for the purpose of solving violent crimes, which the site defines as homicide or sexual assault.

    Moore looks for partial DNA matches between the crime scene DNA profile and other GEDmatch profiles to find relatives, with typically second or third cousins – of which we have on average about 30 and nearly 200 respectively – needed for a good chance of success. Family trees are then built backwards to shared ancestors, and forwards using birth, death and marriage records and public Facebook pages, to identify potential perpetrators, who then have DNA samples taken by law enforcement officials to see whether their DNA matches that found at the crime scene. Parabon charges police $1,500 (£1,200) for the DNA processing and genetic genealogy assessment to determine if the case is “workable”.

    The partial matching of crime-scene DNA from an unknown person to that of their relatives isn’t new, says Mark Jobling, a professor of genetics at the University of Leicester, who co-directs its Alec Jeffreys Forensic Genomics Unit. “Familial search”, using police DNA databases, was pioneered in the UK in 2004. But searching GEDmatch is potentially more effective because the DNA profiles in it are based on newer DNA technology that provides more points of comparison, making it possible to find more distant relatives.

    Police databases, in contrast, can’t go much beyond detecting immediate family members such as parents, siblings, and children. The older technology has advantages, however – the profiles are cheaper to create and don’t need much, or as good quality, DNA.

    One recent study puts the chances that a search in GEDmatch will result in a match with a third cousin or closer at about 60%, where the search is for US individuals of European descent. (Unlike police databases, where black people are over-represented, in GEDmatch the bias runs the opposite way.) The author of the study, Yaniv Erlich, a computer and genetics expert who has taken leave from Columbia University to work for the genealogy company MyHeritage, expects that it will take only a few years until almost all those in the US with European ancestry achieve such a match. Though of course to find a perpetrator you also need the genealogy and descendancy work – which is where Moore’s experience comes in. “That additional step is not trivial, and it is not automatable at the moment,” says Jobling.

    The first case where genetic genealogy yielded a result for police was April 2018, with the arrest of a former police officer Joseph James DeAngelo, the alleged “Golden State killer”, who was one of the most prolific predators in US history, committing rape and murder across California, beginning 40 years ago. It was not the work of Moore but of another genetic genealogist working anonymously (later revealed to be Barbara Rae-Venter, the ex-wife of US scientist Craig Venter), that helped lead to his arrest – a DNA profile was created from an old DNA sample and uploaded to GEDMatch using a spoof name.

    Afterwards, the co-founder of GEDmatch, Curtis Rogers, barely slept for two weeks trying to decide whether to bar or embrace law enforcement’s use of the site. “I never really gave a thought about law enforcement until it hit me over the head,” he says.

    He decided, in the end, to allow police use for violent crimes but to make site-users aware that their data might be used for this purpose. It has always been possible for people to remove their data from GEDMatch, he says. After the terms of service were updated, there was a small exodus, but it settled down. “We get love letters thanking us for doing what we do,” Rogers says.

    His decision also freed Moore to use the technique to identify perpetrators. Before GEDmatch’s terms of service were updated, she considered it personally unethical, because she had spent years encouraging people to participate in genetic genealogy by getting tested and uploading to the service. “I didn’t feel like I could then turn around and use that very data for a purpose [people] weren’t aware of,” she says.

    It took just a weekend for Moore to identify her first suspected killer – William Earl Talbott II. She “works” her cases intensively – on the sofa in her pyjamas, barely sleeping, with her husband bringing her dinner. Parabon uploaded the crime-scene DNA profile to GEDmatch on a Friday and got a match list the next morning – ranked by those in the database that shared the most DNA with the suspect. She deduced that he had two second cousins – from different branches of the family tree – in the database (though it later turned out one was a half first cousin once removed, which is genetically equivalent). Knowing second cousins share great grandparents, Moore built family trees back to each set. Then she flipped the method and began trying to find their descendants.

    It was an obituary that gave Moore what she calls her “triangulation” – where the two family trees converged. A woman from one side of the tree had the married surname of the other side of the tree. Moore looked up the public marriage record and went on to find that the couple had had four children, only one of whom was male. “It was pointing right at [him],” she says. She spent the rest of the weekend firming up her theory. “I don’t want to hand the name over unless I am really sure,” she says. It included discovering that he lived close to where the bodies were found. By Monday she was certain. She gave the name to detectives, who followed him and got a sample of his DNA from a discarded paper cup. It matched that of the crime-scene DNA and he was arrested and charged.

    Moore estimates about half of the cases she gets are “workable” – meaning that they have strong enough matches to proceed. They then divide roughly into three: those resolvable quickly, those that will take time, and those that need more than genetic genealogy alone to solve but could be done with in depth police collaboration. She notes that this can change, because new people upload to GEDmatch daily. And while Moore has mostly worked decades-old unsolved cases to date, where she would like to help more is in shortening “careers” of active murderers and rapists.“ There is no reason why we can’t address these crimes as they are happening,” she says.

    The use of genealogy databases to solve violent crimes appears to have high public support. A survey of nearly 1,600 people following the Golden State Killer case showed that, in such cases, nearly 80% of respondents supported police searches of websites that identify genetic relatives – but there are concerns about the technique.

    One is how to protect the privacy of people who have not chosen to upload their DNA to GEDmatch. This is because the technique requires identifying relatives of people who have uploaded their DNA – relatives who have not themselves voluntarily shared any information at all. “It potentially affects everyone and not just those who are in the GEDmatch database,” says Debbie Kennett, a UK-based genealogist and author who has also been outspoken on the ethics of genetic genealogy.

    Amy McGuire, a professor of biomedical ethics at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, says that it is an open legal question. Should law enforcement, in pursuit of justice, be allowed to go on what is “essentially a fishing expedition” to try to identify somebody who might be a relative of the potential suspect without a warrant and without reasonable cause, or should their privacy be protected?

    Privacy also comes into play in the case of false leads – where innocent people are investigated, and surveilled often for several days so their DNA can be surreptitiously collected. Before the Golden State Killer was identified another person was identified based on the technique, but ultimately not confirmed as the suspect. Moore says that she and her team have the expertise to narrow things down significantly, but both she and Kennett worry that the lack of requirement for formal qualifications, and recent publicity about the technique, could attract people who are not so skilled.

    Moore is now waiting to see if genetic genealogy stands up to scrutiny in court, and wins its first convictions. In the meantime, observers such as Kennett hope that the technique will be regulated, bringing it into line with searches of police DNA databases. Erlich would like to see some security built into the system to reduce the chance of GEDmatch being used for nefarious purposes.

    Moore’s hope is that because of her work people will find it much harder to get away with these violent crimes – and that maybe, for someone out there in the heat of the moment, knowledge of her work will act as a deterrent. “If even one life is saved because of that, it would all be worth it,” she says.

    Genetic genealogy – coming to the UK?
    While genetic genealogy techniques don’t appear to have been applied by UK law enforcement officials yet in any British cases, there is “interest and enthusiasm,” says Mark Jobling, a professor of genetics at the University of Leicester. “It probably is only a matter of time.”

    Parabon, a DNA tech company based in the US, says it has had inquiries from the UK but has not taken any cases. The Metropolitan police said it was aware of Parabon and public-access genealogy database GEDmatch, and “would be keen to utilise such techniques as and when they are deemed appropriate”. The chances of a British suspect matching to relatives on GEDmatch is lower – because most people on the GEDmatch database live in the US (followed by Canada, the UK and Australia). That could change, however, as more people in the UK undergo consumer genetic testing and upload their results.

    https://www.theguardian.com/science/...n-state-killer
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    U.S. man accused in cold case deaths of Canadian couple facing trial

    By Gene Johnson
    AP

    SEATTLE -- A man charged with murder in the 1987 killings of a young Canadian couple is facing trial in Washington state beginning this week, but the case won't challenge the new investigative technique authorities used to link him to the crime.

    William Earl Talbott II is one of dozens of men authorities have arrested for old, unsolved crimes in the past year using genetic genealogy. The practice involves identifying suspects by entering crime-scene DNA profiles into public databases that people have used for years to fill out their family trees.

    Privacy advocates have expressed concerns about whether it violates the rights of suspects and whether its use by law enforcement should be restricted. But Talbott's attorneys say how detectives found him is irrelevant to their defence to charges that he killed 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jay Cook.

    Instead, they argue that he's innocent, and that the discovery of his DNA -- which investigators said was on her pants, vagina and rectum -- doesn't make him a murderer.

    "The police used this as nothing more than any other tip, which they followed up with traditional investigative techniques," defence lawyer Rachel Forde said. "DNA on the hem of one of the victim's pants doesn't tell you who killed her and why."

    Van Cuylenborg and Cook disappeared in November 1987 during what was supposed to be an overnight trip from their hometown of Saanich, British Columbia, to Seattle, to pick up furnace parts for Cook's father's business. After a frantic week for their families, Van Cuylenborg's body was found down an embankment in rural Skagit County, north of Seattle. She had been shot in the back of the head.

    Hunters found Cook dead two days later next to a bridge over the Snoqualmie River in Monroe -- about 60 miles (95 km) from where his girlfriend was discovered. He had been strangled with twine and dog leashes.

    Over the next three decades, detectives investigated hundreds of leads, to no avail. But in 2017, Snohomish County sheriff's detective Jim Scharf learned about Parabon Labs in Reston, Virginia, which was using a new DNA processing method to extract more information from samples. CeCe Moore, a genealogist there who is known for her work on the public television series "Finding Your Roots," was using the more robust genetic profiles to find distant relatives using the public genealogy database GEDmatch.

    In 2018, investigators in California used this technique to arrest and charge a man with being the sadistic attacker known as the Golden State killer who killed 13 people and raped nearly 50 women during the 1970s and 1980s.

    With a sample from Van Cuylenborg's pants, which were discovered in the couple's van in Bellingham, Washington, after their deaths, Moore built a family tree and determined that the source must be a male child of William and Patricia Talbott. William Talbott II, now 56, was their only son. He was 24 at the time of the killings and lived near where Cook's body was found.

    Detectives tailed Talbott, a truck driver, and saw him discard a coffee cup. They tested the DNA left behind, confirming it matched that found on the pants. They say he also matched a palm print from the rear door of the couple's van.

    Talbott's friends were stunned. Several wrote the court, describing him as kind, gentle and helpful.

    Opening statements in the case are expected Thursday in Snohomish County Superior Court, with the trial scheduled to last four weeks. In an agreement reached Tuesday, prosecutors and defence attorneys agreed the jury did not need to hear testimony from anyone at the genealogy lab. Instead, the detective will testify about how Talbott came under suspicion.

    Among the privacy issues raised by the investigation method is that the technology is so powerful that even without a warrant, police can identify people based on the participation of distant relatives in the public databases.

    Mary D. Fan, a University of Washington Law School professor and former federal prosecutor, said the use of genetic genealogy in criminal investigations may have broad support among the public when it's being used to arrest serial killers or to solve other cold homicides. It's less clear that support would hold if authorities used it to identify shoplifters or other low-level suspects.

    Any restrictions on the technology's use would best come from lawmakers, she said.

    "If you're going to take away the ability of people to participate in these services or to make their data available to police, or if you're going to restrict the ability of the companies to offer these services, that's best left for the legislative branch," Fan said.

    GEDmatch itself has recently changed its policy to require people to opt-in if they want law enforcement to have access to their DNA profile. That closed off more than a million profiles to law enforcement. More than 50,000 users have agreed to share their information -- a figure that the company says is growing.

    For John Van Cuylenborg, the victim's brother, a lawyer in Victoria, seeing serious crimes solved is worth the potential privacy cost. He remembers his sister as a compassionate young woman and called having to identify her body "the darkest of days."

    "For the computing power and DNA technology to advance together to make this kind of thing possible, it was fantastic," he said.

    https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/u-s-man...rial-1.4463514

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    Trial begins in case of young Canadian couple killed in 1987

    By Gene Johnson
    AP

    EVERETT, Wash. – Jurors in Washington state on Friday heard about the mysterious final days of a young Canadian couple killed in 1987 — as well as the novel method authorities used to finally make an arrest three decades later.

    William Earl Talbott II was arrested last year and charged with aggravated murder, after authorities said they used genetic genealogy to identify him as the person who left his DNA on the clothing of one of the victims. The practice involves identifying suspects by entering crime-scene DNA profiles into public databases that people have used for years to fill out their family trees.

    Opening statements began with a prosecutor describing how 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jay Cook, left their hometown of Saanich, near Victoria, British Columbia, for what was supposed to be an overnight trip to Seattle in November 1987. When they didn't return, their families began a frantic search for them, including renting a plane to try to spot the copper-colored Ford van they had been driving.

    About a week later, Van Cuylenborg's body was found down an embankment in rural Skagit County, north of Seattle. She was naked from the waist down and had been shot in the back of the head.

    Hunters found Cook dead two days later in brush near a bridge over the Snoqualmie River in Monroe — about 60 miles (95 kilometers) from where his girlfriend was discovered. He had been beaten with rocks and strangled with twine and two red dog collars, authorities said.

    The couple's van was found in Bellingham, Washington, near a bus station. Van Cuylenborg's pants were in it; investigators found semen on the hem, and said it matched that on her body.

    Detectives investigated hundreds of leads in the ensuing decades and tested the DNA against criminal databases, to no avail. But Snohomish County sheriff's detective Jim Scharf learned about Parabon Labs in Reston, Virginia, which was using a new DNA processing method to extract more information from samples.

    Last year, CeCe Moore, a genealogist there who is known for her work on the public television series "Finding Your Roots," used the public genealogy database GEDmatch to find distant cousins of the person who left the DNA. She built a family tree and determined the source must be a male child of William and Patricia Talbott, of Monroe.

    William Talbott II, now 56, was their only son. He was 24 at the time of the killings and lived near where Cook's body was found.

    Genetic genealogy has taken off as an investigative tool in the past year, since police in California revealed that they used it to arrest and charge a man suspected of being the sadistic attacker known as the Golden State killer, who killed 13 people and raped nearly 50 women during the 1970s and 1980s. Since then, authorities have used the DNA method to identify more than 60 cold-case suspects across the country. Talbott was one of the first.

    Deputy prosecutor Justin Harleman told jurors that once Talbott became a suspect, investigators tailed him, saw him discard a coffee cup, and then tested the DNA from the cup, confirming it matched evidence from the crime.

    Genetic genealogy, he said, "simply gave law enforcement a tip, like any other tip that they follow up on."

    Privacy advocates have expressed concerns about whether the technique violates the rights of suspects and whether its use by law enforcement should be restricted, but Talbott's attorneys agreed that how detectives found him is irrelevant, and they didn't challenge it. Instead, attorney Jon Scott told jurors in his opening statement Friday that the presence of the DNA doesn't make his client a killer. He offered no explanation of how Talbott's DNA got there, and said the evidence doesn't explain how the couple spent their final days or with whom.

    Scott described his client as a "blue-collar guy" who had worked in construction and as a truck driver and lived a "quiet, unremarkable life."

    "He's just lived and worked, and that's all he's done," Scott said.

    Relatives of both victims attended the beginning of the trial, which is expected to last four weeks. Cook's mother, Leona Cook, said it's still difficult to hear of the killings, but added: "It's been 32 years. My heart's been hardened, I think."

    https://www.foxnews.com/us/trial-beg...killed-in-1987

  8. #8
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    Testimony ends in trial over 1987 murders of young Canadians

    By Carleen Johnson
    KOMO News

    EVERETT, Wash. - Jury deliberation is set to begin Wednesday morning at 9 a.m. in the trial of a man accused in the 1987 double murder of a young Canadian couple in Western Washington.

    One of the attorneys tells KOMO News they should reach a verdict by the end of the week, though it could take longer.

    William Earl Talbott II was charged with the killings after authorities said they used genetic genealogy to identify him as the person who left his DNA on the clothing of one of the victims. The practice identifies suspects by entering crime-scene DNA profiles into public databases that people have used for years to fill out their family trees.

    The prosecution argues Talbott’s DNA, plus evidence like blood and Talbott’s palm print found in the couple’s van, proves beyond a reasonable doubt that he raped 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and killed her and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jay Cook.

    The defense doesn’t dispute Talbott’s semen was found on Tanya’s pants, but they argue that doesn’t prove rape or murder. They called the state’s evidence into question, claiming his DNA – the result of a consensual act – is the only link between Talbott and the couple.

    Prosecutors said Van Cuylenborg and Cook were killed after they left their hometown near Victoria, British Columbia, for what was supposed to be an overnight trip to Seattle in November 1987.

    About a week later, Van Cuylenborg's body was found down an embankment in rural Skagit County. She was naked from the waist down and had been shot in the back of the head. Hunters found Cook dead two days later in brush near a bridge over the Snoqualmie River in Monroe. He had been beaten with rocks and strangled with twine and two red dog collars, authorities said.

    The case went cold for decades after detectives investigated hundreds of leads and tested the DNA against criminal databases, to no avail. But it was reopened after CeCe Moore, a genealogist, used the public genealogy database GEDmatch to find distant cousins of the person who left the DNA. She built a family tree and determined the source must be a male child of William and Patricia Talbott, of Monroe.

    William Talbott II, now 56, was their only son. He was 24 at the time of the killings and lived in Woodinville, not far from where Cook's body was found.

    The defense called only one witness - an investigator who testified about various addresses where the defendant has lived. The idea was to establish the fact Talbott was not trying to hide from anyone in the decades that have passed since the 1987 murders.

    On cross examination, the prosecutor pressed the defense investigator about Talbott's address at the time of the murders, and the investigator conceded that previous testimony indicated Talbott had been living in Woodinville at that time.

    The defense then rested, bringing an end to testimony from witnesses and experts.

    The case is in the hands of the jury for a decision on Talbott's guilt or innocence.

    https://komonews.com/news/local/test...oung-canadians

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    Conviction comes after DNA, family tree crack 1987 killings

    EVERETT, Wash. (AP) — A jury convicted a Washington state man Friday in the killings of a young Canadian couple more than three decades ago — a case that was finally solved when investigators turned to powerful genealogy software to build a family tree of the then-unknown suspect.

    Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and her 20-year-old boyfriend, Jay Cook, disappeared in November 1987 after leaving their home near Victoria, British Columbia, for what was supposed to be an overnight trip to Seattle. Their bodies were found in separate locations in northwestern Washington state about a week later.

    Investigators preserved DNA evidence that was recovered from Van Cuylenborg’s body and pants, but they didn’t know whose it was until last year. Authorities used genetic genealogy to identify the suspect as William Earl Talbott II, a construction worker and truck driver who was 24 at the time of the killings and lived near where Cook’s body was discovered.

    The genealogy technique has revolutionized cold-case investigations across the U.S. in the past year. It involves entering crime-scene DNA profiles into public genealogy databases, finding relatives of the person who left the DNA and building family trees that lead detectives to a suspect.

    Talbott did not testify during the trial in Snohomish County Superior Court, and the jury rejected the suggestion from his lawyers that he had sex with Van Cuylenborg but did not kill her or her boyfriend. It’s still unknown how Talbott encountered the pair and what happened during their final days.

    “It’s been such a long wait for all of us,” John Van Cuylenborg, Tanya’s older brother, said after the verdict in a video posted by The Daily Herald newspaper . “It feels great to have some answers. We don’t have all the answers, but we have a lot more than we had for 31 years.”

    When the couple didn’t return from their trip as scheduled, their families began a frantic search for them, including renting a plane to try to spot the copper-colored Ford van they had been driving.

    About a week later, Van Cuylenborg’s body was found down an embankment in a rural area north of Seattle. She had been shot in the back of the head.

    Hunters found Cook dead two days later in brush near a bridge over the Snoqualmie River — about 60 miles (95 kilometers) from where his girlfriend was discovered. He had been beaten with rocks and strangled with twine and two red dog collars, authorities said.

    Talbott flinched and gasped when the jury read its verdict, then was pushed out of the courtroom in a wheelchair, the newspaper reported.

    He is one of dozens of suspects authorities have arrested in old cases over the past year through the genetic genealogy, including a California man charged in the Golden State Killer case. The serial attacker killed 13 people and raped nearly 50 women during the 1970s and 1980s.

    In Talbott’s case, a genetic genealogist used a DNA profile entered into the GEDmatch database to identify distant cousins of the suspect, build a family tree linking those cousins and figure out that the sample must have come from a male child of William and Patricia Talbott.

    The couple had only one son: William Talbott II.

    Once Talbott was identified as a suspect, investigators tailed him, saw him discard a coffee cup and then tested the DNA from the cup, confirming it matched evidence from the crime, prosecutor Justin Harleman told jurors during the trial.

    “The use of GEDmatch — I hope more and more people will be willing to allow their DNA on these sites so that this world can be safer,” said Cook’s sister, Laura Baanstra.

    https://www.apnews.com/bf9f969fa9dd49c2a8194da130f1c7ad

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    Killer of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook gets 2 life sentences for 1987 murders

    by Ronna Syed
    CBC News

    The first person to ever be convicted as a result of genealogy research has been handed two life sentences for killing a young B.C. couple in 1987.

    William Talbott II, 56, was sentenced on Wednesday at Snohomish County District Court in Everett, Wash. The sentences are to be served consecutively.

    Jay Cook, 20, and Tanya Van Cuylenborg​​​​, 18, were travelling from Saanich, B.C., to Seattle for an overnight trip in November 1987 when they disappeared. Their bodies were found days later in rural areas in Washington.

    It took 30 years and family tree research by genealogist Cece Moore to identify Talbott, whose DNA was found on Van Cuylenborg's body, and also on her pants and zip ties found in the couples' van.

    Police in Washington state used information from public genealogy websites to pinpoint Talbott as a suspect, then arrested him after getting a DNA sample from a cup that fell from his vehicle.

    Van Cuylenborg's body was found down an embankment in rural Skagit County, north of Seattle. She had been shot in the back of her head.

    Cook's body was found two days later near a bridge over the Snoqualmie River in Monroe, Wash. He had been beaten with rocks and strangled.

    On Wednesday, Van Cuylenborg's brother John and Cook's parents Leona and Gordon, as well as his two sisters Lauralee and Kelly, were present in court for the sentencing.

    The only person present from Talbott's family was one of his second cousins, Chelsea Rustad, whose DNA helped to identify him. She sat between John Van Cuylenborg and Jay's father Gordon during the sentencing.

    Four men who appeared to be Talbott's friends were also present.

    Rustad, who met the two victims families for the first time, said she was happy to be able to support them.

    "It felt really good to be part of that and to be present with them and be able to introduce myself face-to-face and just to let them know that I support them in every capacity," said Rustad.

    She said she did not feel conflicted about the fact that Talbott is her cousin and that her DNA helped to convict him.

    "Absolutely not, in light of the horrific nature of the crime. And of course, he's guilty of the crime, there's absolutely no defence there that would make any sense."

    The Fifth Estate reached out to several members of Talbott's family for comment — including his father and two surviving sisters — but they did not respond.

    Talbott was arrested in May 2018 and convicted on June 28, 2019.

    https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/briti...rder-1.5223418

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