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

[Niner]

Thursday, June 27th:
*Trial continues (Day 10)-Verdict Watch! (@ 9am PT) – WA – Jay Cook (20) & Tanya Van Cuylenborg (18) (Nov. 19, 1987, Skagit County; Tanya found 11/24/87, Jay 11/26/87) – *William Earl Talbott II (56/24 @ time of crime) arrested (5/17/18), charged (5/18/18), indicted (6/15/18) & arraigned (6/19/18) with 2 counts of 1st degree murder. Plead not guilty (6/19/18). $2.5M bail. DA will not seek DP.
Investigators made a break in the cold case using a new strategy involving genetic genealogy (Parabon Nanolabs) & uploading DNA from the crime scene to a public, online genealogy (GEDMatch) database.
Trial started 6/14, and will last about 2-3 weeks (end of June). 12 jurors with 3 alternates.
Jury Selection hearings from 6/11/19 to 6/13/19 & Trial dates (1-6: 6/14/19 to 6/21/19) reference post #126 here:
VERDICT WATCH - WA - Jay Cook, 20, & Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, Skagit County, 24 Nov 1987
6/24/19 Day 7: State witnesses: Detective Jim Scharf. State Crime lab supervisor Lisa Collins. Prosecutors rest. Both sides say they will be ready to do closing arguments on Tuesday, 6/25.
6/25/19 Day 8: Prosecutors rested. Defense called one witness, a defense investigator. Defense rested. Talbott did not testify. State calls no rebuttal witnesses. Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Linda Krese denied a defense motion Tuesday morning to dismiss both charges. Defense witness: Todd Reeves, a defense investigator. Defense rests. Closing arguments. Jury began deliberating Tuesday @ about 4pm. No other info available on how long they deliberated. Jury deliberations continue on 6/26.
6/26/19 Day 9: The jury has asked to see a map of Western Washington. Request has been denied. Jurors were told they have access to all the exhibits that were admitted. (There were maps of portions of Western Washington.) Deliberations continue to 6/27.

 

[jaejae]

Here is an interesting video report about this case:

 

[Awsi Dooger]

The only way the defense can win a case like this is through jury selection. It was the obvious strategy all along. Notice they didn't put on an affirmative defense or really any defense whatsoever.

I'm not surprised the verdict isn't quick, based on questions posed by the female defense attorney during jury selection. She was obviously aiming at the gullible types she needs for a verdict in her favor. She wants jurors who think sure it's no problem for an almost immediate consensual sexual relationship to develop, even if the female is on a trip with her boyfriend.

With a logic-based jury this should have been a short deliberation. I think a conviction is most likely. But I'm worried that prosecutors on these genealogical DNA-only cases don't realize how critical jury selection can be. Otherwise you can get suckered like Marcia Clark, who thought she had bonded with black female jurors in prior cases and had no clue that it was the type of juror who was most likely to be antagonistic toward Nicole and dismiss physical evidence including DNA.

 

[Legally Bland]

• Caleb Hutton
  
  @snocaleb

Jurors have been excused for the day. Back again tomorrow.

 

[Niner]

Friday, June 28th:
*Trial continues (Day 11)-Verdict Watch! (@ 9am PT) – WA – Jay Cook (20) & Tanya Van Cuylenborg (18) (Nov. 19, 1987, Skagit County; Tanya found 11/24/87, Jay 11/26/87) – *William Earl Talbott II (56/24 @ time of crime) arrested (5/17/18), charged (5/18/18), indicted (6/15/18) & arraigned (6/19/18) with 2 counts of 1st degree murder. Plead not guilty (6/19/18). $2.5M bail. DA will not seek DP.
Investigators made a break in the cold case using a new strategy involving genetic genealogy (Parabon Nanolabs) & uploading DNA from the crime scene to a public, online genealogy (GEDMatch) database.
Trial started 6/14, and ended 6/25/19. Jury started deliberations on 6/25/19. 12 jurors with 3 alternates.
Jury Selection hearings from 6/11/19 to 6/13/19 & Trial dates (1-6: 6/14/19 to 6/21/19) reference post #126 here:
VERDICT WATCH - WA - Jay Cook, 20, & Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, Skagit County, 24 Nov 1987
6/24/19 Day 7: State witnesses: Detective Jim Scharf. State Crime lab supervisor Lisa Collins. Prosecutors rest. Both sides say they will be ready to do closing arguments on Tuesday, 6/25.
6/25/19 Day 8: Prosecutors rested. Defense called one witness, a defense investigator. Defense rested. Talbott did not testify. State calls no rebuttal witnesses. Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Linda Krese denied a defense motion Tuesday morning to dismiss both charges. Defense witness: Todd Reeves, a defense investigator. Defense rests. Closing arguments. Jury began deliberating Tuesday @ about 4pm. No other info available on how long they deliberated. Jury deliberations continue on 6/26.
6/26/19 Day 9: The jury has asked to see a map of Western Washington. Request has been denied. Jurors were told they have access to all the exhibits that were admitted. (There were maps of portions of Western Washington.) Deliberations continue to 6/27.
6/27/19 Day 10: Jury continues to deliberate. Continued to 6/28.

 

[Niner]

Anyone think this jury is going to go into Monday still deliberating.... ??

 

[Legally Bland]

Yay! Just in:

• 
  
  Caleb Hutton
  
  @snocaleb

"All rise for the jury."

BREAKING: Jury finds William Talbott guilty of two counts of aggravated murder in the first degree

Talbott flinches and gasps.

Judge Linda Krese is polling the jury. All say this is their verdict.

Detective Jim Scharf hugs Lee Cook, mother of Jay Cook.

 

[Legally Bland]

From earlier:

BREAKING: The jury has reached a verdict in the William Talbott trial.

Family has filed into the courtroom. Expecting verdict to be read in the next 15 minutes or so.

Standing room only.

Twitter

 

[Legally Bland]

Caleb Hutton

@snocaleb
·
13m

Talbott, who was reeling in his seat, is being pushed out of the courtroom in a wheelchair.

 

[dotr]

Washington state man found guilty in 1987 murder of Vancouver Island couple

FILE - In this Friday, May 18, 2018, file photo, William Earl Talbott II enters the courtroom at the Skagit County Community Justice Center before entering a plea of not guilty for the 1987 murder of Tanya Van Cuylenborg in Mount Vernon, Wash. (Charles Biles/Skagit Valley Herald via AP, File)

 

[Legally Bland]

Talbott did not testify. After the jury read its verdict, he flinched and gasped, then was pushed out of the courtroom in a wheelchair.

Judge Linda Krese set sentencing for July 24. There is only one possible sentence: life in prison.

[...]

He [Jay] had bizarre habit of losing his clothes, his sister said. Sometimes after school he’d come home without his jacket, and no idea where it ended up. One day the family packed for a ski trip, about a four-hour drive.

“We get there — snow on the ground, right? — and Jay only had one shoe,” Baanstra said.

He had a sweetness about him, taking his younger sister out for dinner and, once, for high tea, with the good money he’d earned on a fishing boat.

One uncle had coined a phrase about his nephew: “Jay had no rough edges.”

“It’s really no wonder that Jay ended up with someone like Tanya,” Baanstra said. “Tanya was very sweet and caring, and they looked up to each other.”

She was 18.

Much like the Cooks, her family loved long boating trips around the Salish Sea. Van Cuylenborg played tennis at her family’s home on an acre, and led a student push for a girl’s basketball team at her high school, her brother said.

For years she lobbied her parents, too, to get a dog. Her mother gave in around 1982. The Golden Retriever, Tessa, became first and foremost Tanya’s pet.

She hoped to work with animals one day, maybe as a veterinarian. Cook’s dream was to be a marine biologist. Neither had made concrete plans. They were young. The two started dating in the summer of 1987.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/man-guilty-of-1987-murders-solved-with-genetic-genealogy/

BBM.

 

[Legally Bland]

Rhana Natour
@RNatourious
1/ GUILTY. That’s the verdict today in the first court case to test law enforcement’s use of genetic genealogy. We've been watching the #WilliamTalbott case closely @NewsHour
so let me break down WHY this case is so important.

2/ First, the crime: In 1987 a young Canadian couple went on a road trip to Seattle. They never came home. Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, was found murdered in the Washington state woods. Police found an intact semen sample but not many other solid clues.

3/ Cuylenborg's bf Jay Cook was found strangled & beaten 65 miles away. A pack of cigarettes stuffed in his mouth. It was a brutal & senseless crime.

4/ Police were quickly stumped: At the time, police ran DNA from that semen sample through the FBI’s DNA database. No hit. The database only has the DNA of criminals. Whoever did this had a clean record. The case remained unsolved for 31 yrs.

5/ Cut to 2018: Technology changed. Cops could use public ancestry databases--the kind ppl use to search for long lost relatives. Working with police, genetic genealogist CeCe Moore uploaded the mystery DNA into GEDMatch, a public DNA database. They found a match!

6/ Now this is the part where things get tricky:
Moore found a DNA profile of mystery man's 2nd cousin. She built this family tree. Eventually it pointed to William Talbott. He lived near the area where where one of the bodies was found. Now they had to test the hunch
Image

7/ So how did police get Talbott’s DNA? Well...they tailed him. Waited until he threw out a cup. Took that cup and tested it. It looked like a match.

8/ Talbott was charged w/ the 1987 double murder. Talbott’s defense? Prosecutors can’t prove non-consensual sex & can’t prove MURDER. Prosecutors said: There is no other scenario that makes sense. Talbott did it. Why does this matter???

9/ Since the Golden State Killer case police have used this technique to identify suspects in 55+ cases. That # is growing every month. Its kicked off a major privacy debate.

10/ Critics say: This pulls innocent people--the second cousin of Talbott for example--into a criminal investigation w/out their knowledge. In some cases, police tail the relatives AND the suspect. It’s a slippery slope. Could go places we do not want


11/ Proponents say: This technique is allowing police to solve violent crimes. They can finally crack cold cases. They are not breaking laws. This is info ppl have put out into the world. It is fair game. They are catching criminals & getting justice.

12/ The Talbott case was one litmus test but the debate rages on. What's it like to get caught in the cross-hairs of this new tech? get justice b/c of it? Where could it go? We are digging into this @NewsHour
w/ @WmBrangham
@MoNscience

Twitter

 

[Bit Analyzer]

@Legally Bland @Niner @dotr and others, thank you for following and documenting this case on WS. I likely would never have heard about it otherwise, due to lack of national coverage. The slippery slope of tips from genealogy DNA gives me pause to privacy, however, the catching of a real killer is far more important.

 

[Niner]

07/24/2019 Sentencing Hearing
Judicial Officer: Krese, Linda C
Hearing Time: 9:00 AM


link: Odyssey Portal - Washington Courts Online Case Search

 

[jaejae]

Here is a video clip with the verdict in this case:

 

[jaejae]

Here is another article about this case:

Washington cold case solved using DNA and genetic genealogy results in landmark verdict

“Folks aren’t going to get away with murder anymore when we have this information,” prosecutor Adam Cornell said. “If you’re a killer and you’re out there, then this office and other law enforcement around the country may be coming for you.”

 

[Legally Bland]

Posted in another thread, article with an interview with the jurors.

Here is a very interesting article I found at another site about the Washington State murder case where a man was convicted using genetic genealogy evidence:

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/jurors-share-why-they-found-talbott-guilty-of-double-murder/

 

[Niner]

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/jurors-share-why-they-found-talbott-guilty-of-double-murder/

In interviews, three jurors gave a window into deliberations in 1987 murders of a young Canadian couple.

 

[Niner]

I see we were posting at the same time Legally Bland!

 

[Niner]

Talbott defense doubles down on rape versus consensual sex angle in appeal


William Talbott II, who was found guilty two weeks ago of murdering a young Canadian couple on an overnight road trip to Seattle, has asked for a new trial.

In an appeal filed this week, Talbott’s attorneys pointed to a story published on Sunday in the Everett Herald, in which three jurors explain why they didn’t come around to the defense’s position.
[.....]
It was the first time in U.S. history that someone found using genetic genealogy had sat trial. The method wasn’t contested, nor was it considered in the appeal. Rather, the defense attorneys focused on the jurors’ reasons for why they found Talbott guilty.

Points made in the appeal:
too long to post! you'll have to read the article!

The defense did not dispute that Talbott and Van Cuylenborg had sexual contact in 1987. Rather, the defense said that they had sex, and someone else did the killing.

But Talbott's attorneys have insisted this was not rape. In court, one of the defense attorneys said the presence of the young woman’s fluids mixed with Talbott's semen indicated consensual sex.

One of the jurors found that explanation flabbergasting, according to the Herald. (It has been well documented that some women will not resist rape to appease their attacker.)
[.....]
t simply did not compute for them that Van Cuylenborg, on a short trip with her boyfriend, and on her period, would “consent to unprotected sex with a random stranger, then encounter another random stranger, who killed her with a gun and happened to leave behind no DNA.”


His sentencing date is 7/24.