GUILTY WA - Jay Cook, 20, & Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, Skagit County, 24 Nov 1987

For the past three decades friends and family of Tanya and Jay have been raising money to help find their killer. Now, the reward is $25,000 Canadian dollars. “Since it’s been 27 years we don’t know if the person that did this is alive or not, but even if they’re not we feel that somebody out there has information that can help us resolve it by identifying that person because we do have DNA evidence that will be a positive match,” Scharf explains.

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djtopcat said:

Doesn't anyone else find it strange that everything started in Canada, and made a loop all the way back to the Canadian border?
I would bet money that the killer/s knew the couple in their hometown and followed them into Washington.
They never did say what business errand the kid was doing for his father in Washington. That may be a key to the whole mystery.
Something just does not add up. Has anyone thought of the possibility of the kids being drug mules? Before legalization, a lot of marijuana was coming down from Canada at that time through the ferry system. The fact the killer/s dumped the bodies as they headed north back towards the border tells me they were likely Canadian criminals. The van was abandoned near the border in Bellingham by a Greyhound bus station. Whoever committed this crime could have easily hopped on a bus and went right back to Canada.

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The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office in Everett, Wash. is scheduled to release new DNA evidence in the unsolved 1987 murder of a Victoria couple who were running an errand in the state.

According to the sheriff’s office, there will be a press conference about the double homicide on April 11 at 11 a.m., which will include “new suspect information from Snapshot DNA phenotyping.” DNA phenotyping technology can be used to predict physical appearance from DNA

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EVERETT, Wash. -- Police in Washington state have released images of a man created through groundbreaking DNA technology that they say could help solve the murders of a young British Columbia couple more than 30 years ago.

The composite images released by the Snohomish County Sheriff's Office show a Caucasian man with fair hair and green or hazel eyes, traits that investigators said are connected to the DNA of the person they think killed Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20.

"We believe that someone knows who our person of interest is," investigations Capt. Jim Miller said at a news conference on Wednesday. "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."

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A suspect image created by DNA profiling depicts what the suspect may have looked like at 25 years old, 45 years old and 65 years old. (Snohomish County Sheriff's Office)

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Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jack Cook, shown in this image from "Washington's Most Wanted" were both murdered in 1987.
The high school sweethearts from Saanich, B.C., were on their way to Seattle to pick up furnace parts for Cook's father when they disappeared in November 1987.
Their bodies were found in separate locations outside the city days later. Van Cuylenborg had been restrained with zip ties, sexually assaulted and shot in the back of the head. Cook had been strangled and zip ties were found near his body.

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The families have put up a $50,000 reward in an attempt to motivate anyone with information to come forward. Authorities say if the information leads to a DNA match, the reward money will be paid out. Detectives from both Snohomish and Skagit County are working on the case.

“The person who did this came prepared to do a brutal crime,” said detective Jim Scharf, who has been working on the case for the past 13 years. “The smallest detail could end up being the lead we need to solve this case.”

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