Speaker 1: Victorian British Columbia sits on the southern tip of Vancouver Island.
Speaker 1: In November of nineteen eighty seven, the city was settling
Speaker 1: into the gray stillness of Pacific Northwest autumn. The tourist
Speaker 1: season had ended months before, leaving the Inner Harbor quiet
Speaker 1: except for the gulls and the rhythmic churn of ferry engines.
Speaker 1: Rain fell steadily just so outside the city. In the
Speaker 1: bedroom community of Saanich, life moved at a slower pace.
Speaker 1: The ferry route between Victoria and Washington State had been
Speaker 1: running for decades, a crucial artery connecting Canada to the
Speaker 1: Olympic Peninsula and beyond. Every day, vehicles lined up at
Speaker 1: the Coho Ferry terminal, work trucks, dan's, motor homes, fans.
Speaker 1: Some passengers were commuters, others were tourists eager to explore
Speaker 1: Seattle or ventured deeper into the American wilderness. On the
Speaker 1: morning of Wednesday, the eighteenth of November nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: a Braun nineteen seventy seven Ford Club wagon joined the queue.
Speaker 1: Behind the wheel was twenty year old Jay Cook. Beside
Speaker 1: him sat eighteen year old Tanya van Kulemborg. They were
Speaker 1: heading to Seattle on an errand for Jay's father's heating business.
Speaker 1: A simple overnight tree to pick up a furnace. They
Speaker 1: had blankets and foam paths in case they wanted to
Speaker 1: sleep in the van. They had cash and travelers checks
Speaker 1: in case they fancied a motel. They had a plan
Speaker 1: to call home once they picked up the equipment. The
Speaker 1: four o'clock ferry pulled away from the dock, carrying them
Speaker 1: across the Strait of Wandy Fuca towards Port Angele's. The
Speaker 1: water was choppy, the sky heavy with clouds. By the
Speaker 1: time they reached the American side, darkness was already settling
Speaker 1: over the forested coastline. Somewhere along the roads between Port
Speaker 1: Angeles and Seattle, between the ferry terminals and small hounds
Speaker 1: that dotted Highway one oh one, Tanya and Jay disappeared.
Speaker 1: Tanya van Kulenborg was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada,
Speaker 1: on the seventh of March nineteen sixty nine, to parents
Speaker 1: Willem and Jan. She had one sibling, an older brother
Speaker 1: named John, and they had grown up together in Vancouver
Speaker 1: Island in the close knit community of sanich By the
Speaker 1: summer of nineteen eighty seven, eighteen year old Tanya had
Speaker 1: graduated from Oak Bay High School, located just a few
Speaker 1: kilometers east of Johntown, Victoria's Shocks. She was in that
Speaker 1: strange spot between adolescents and adulthood, just trying to figure
Speaker 1: everything out. That summer, Tanya was saving for a trip
Speaker 1: to Holland, where she had family on her father's site.
Speaker 1: Those who loved Tanya said that she was someone who
Speaker 1: loved deeply and cared for things that needed her attention.
Speaker 1: She cared for many pets over the years, cats, fish, gerbils, and,
Speaker 1: after constant appeals to her mother, a beloved golden retriever
Speaker 1: she named Tessa. Tessa was more than just a pet.
Speaker 1: Tessa was her companion, her confidant, the kind of presence
Speaker 1: that made coming home home feel warmer. Dania had dreams
Speaker 1: of working with animals one day, but right now she
Speaker 1: was working part time as a waitress to earn some
Speaker 1: money for college. She was nicknamed Swede and was known
Speaker 1: for her sarcasm and many different laughs. She was a
Speaker 1: competent sailor on family trips, comfortable with the wind in
Speaker 1: the water at ease in the natural world that surrounded
Speaker 1: her island home. Music was another part of Tanya's life.
Speaker 1: She was a casual guitarist whose favorite band, You Two,
Speaker 1: had just released their first number one record. Danie wasn't
Speaker 1: performing on stage as her chasing fame. She just pled
Speaker 1: for herself for the joy of it. Danya's focus campaign
Speaker 1: to get a family dog or even start a girl's
Speaker 1: basketball team at her high school showed her determination and
Speaker 1: willingness to fight for the things she wanted. When she
Speaker 1: wanted something, she pursued it with quiet persistence. Daniel wasn't
Speaker 1: de typed to back down from a challenge, even when
Speaker 1: the odds weren't in her favor. She was dating twenty
Speaker 1: year old Jay Cook. Jay had been born in the
Speaker 1: Greater Victoria area of British Columbia and Canada, and he
Speaker 1: grew up in Sanach with his parents, Leona and Gordon.
Speaker 1: Gordon worked in the family business, Cook and Talbot Heating Limited.
Speaker 1: Jay had two sisters, Laura, Lee and Kelly. At twenty
Speaker 1: years old, Jay stood at six foot four inches tall,
Speaker 1: but he hadn't quite beefed out yet. His family always
Speaker 1: choked that he was gangly, but he was sweet. The
Speaker 1: kind of person whose presence felt uncomplicated, and Jay wasn't
Speaker 1: one to sit still. He'd worked on a fishing boat,
Speaker 1: in a pizza restaurant, picked up bass guitar, and loved
Speaker 1: boating with his family. He had ambitions to one day
Speaker 1: become a marine biologist. He was left handed, broad shouldered,
Speaker 1: and carried himself with an easy, unassuming confidence. It was
Speaker 1: also a sweetness to Jay that his family and friends remembered.
Speaker 1: One night, after a shift at the pizza parlor, he
Speaker 1: wrote his bike three hours through rain and darkness to
Speaker 1: a cabin where his friends were staying for the weekend.
Speaker 1: He had balanced a Pete's on his head the whole
Speaker 1: way there to bring them food. Jay had no rough edges,
Speaker 1: his uncle recollected, while his friend dor And Schiller said
Speaker 1: Jay was very warm. He enjoyed meeting people, but he
Speaker 1: didn't like hanging around with people who brought him on happiness.
Speaker 1: Tanya and Jay were high school sweethearts. They spent all
Speaker 1: of their free time together, mostly at each other's houses.
Speaker 1: Jay's sister, Laura fondly recollected Tanya was very sweet and caring,
Speaker 1: and they looked up to each other. Jay's mother Leona
Speaker 1: believed that Tanya was quite special to him. Tanya's father, Willem,
Speaker 1: felt that they seemed to be good for each other.
Speaker 1: He had no apprehension about them being together, and was
Speaker 1: in fact, very comfortable with it. In family photographs from
Speaker 1: that summer, Tanya and Jay looked to be two young
Speaker 1: people on the cusp of their lives. They had no
Speaker 1: way of knowing that time was running out. Tanya and
Speaker 1: Jay had been dating for several months when November arrived,
Speaker 1: bringing with it the gray skies and persistent rain that
Speaker 1: defined Pacific Northwest autumns. The trees had long since shed
Speaker 1: their leaves, and darkness came early, swallowing the afternoon by
Speaker 1: four point thirty pm. It was during this time that
Speaker 1: Jay asked Tanya to accompany him on which it had
Speaker 1: have been a routine trip to Seattle. He needed to
Speaker 1: pick up a furnace for his father's heating business. Not
Speaker 1: exactly the kind of adventure that teenage dreams were made of,
Speaker 1: driving south to collect industrial equipment, But Jay had an idea.
Speaker 1: It didn't have to be boring. If they were together,
Speaker 1: they could turn the mundane into something memorable. An overnight
Speaker 1: trip a small adventure, time away from parents and sibs
Speaker 1: and the familiar rhythms of home. Gordon Cook, Jay's father,
Speaker 1: saw no reason to refuse. He later recollected, Normally I
Speaker 1: would have gone down myself on a weekend, but I
Speaker 1: just thought, why not let Jay do it? Seemed reasonable.
Speaker 1: Jay was responsible, twenty years old, more than capable of
Speaker 1: handling a simple pickup and delivery. Gordon gave his son
Speaker 1: some extra money so they could stay overnight and drive
Speaker 1: back the next day. On the morning of Wednesday, November eighteenth,
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, Jay pulled up to the Vancoulenburg home
Speaker 1: in his father's company vehicle, a Broun nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 1: Ford club Wagon. The plan was straightforward. They would catch
Speaker 1: the four o'clock ferry to Victoria to Port Angele's in Washington.
Speaker 1: From there they would drive to a second car ferry.
Speaker 1: They would take them from Bremerton across Puget Sound to Seattle.
Speaker 1: They'd pick up the furnace, call home to confirm everything
Speaker 1: had gone smoothly, find a place to sleep, and return
Speaker 1: to Victoria by Thursday night. They'd packed phone pads and
Speaker 1: blankets in case they decided to sleep in the van,
Speaker 1: but they also had cash and travelers checks. If they
Speaker 1: fancied the comfort of a motel room. The options were open,
Speaker 1: the trip flexible to young people with a simple errand
Speaker 1: and a dead of themselves. After they picked up the furnace,
Speaker 1: they were supposed to call home, But that phone call
Speaker 1: never came. At first, neither family worried. Tanya and Jay
Speaker 1: were young and in love. After all, maybe they decided
Speaker 1: to explore Seattle for a few hours. Maybe they'd found
Speaker 1: a diner with good food, or walked along the waterfront,
Speaker 1: or simply gotten caught up with each other's company and
Speaker 1: lost track of time. The plan had been loose. Anyway,
Speaker 1: sleep in the van or get a motel their choice.
Speaker 1: They had the resources to handle either option. Missing one
Speaker 1: phone call didn't necessarily mean catastrophe. It could simply mean
Speaker 1: teenagers being teenagers, living in the moment, forgetting the smaller
Speaker 1: obligations to worried parents. But when Thursday night arrived and
Speaker 1: neither Tanya nor Jay returned home, concern began to form
Speaker 1: into something sharper. They should have been back. The trip
Speaker 1: wasn't meant to last more than a day and a half.
Speaker 1: The furnace pickup was a simple transaction, there was no
Speaker 1: reason for delay. On Friday, the twentieth of November, two
Speaker 1: days after Tanya and Jay had left, their families reported
Speaker 1: the missing. The search titanniaan Jay got underway with the
Speaker 1: methodical procedures that mark missing person investigations back in nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty seven. This was before cell phones, before GPS tracking,
Speaker 1: before the digital breadcrumbs that would later make disappearances somewhat
Speaker 1: easier to trace. The tectives began with the basics, retracing
Speaker 1: the couple's intended route. They quickly learned that Tanya and
Speaker 1: Jay had indeed arrived at the ferry from Victoria to
Speaker 1: Port Angele's on Wednesday afternoon. Witnesses confirmed their departure. The
Speaker 1: ferry manifest included their vehicle. They had made it across
Speaker 1: the Strait of Wan de Fuca without incident, but after
Speaker 1: that the trail went cold. They never made it to Seattle,
Speaker 1: at least not to pick up the furnace. Whatever had
Speaker 1: happened to them had occurred somewhere between Port Angeles and
Speaker 1: their destination, somewhere in the tangle of roads and small
Speaker 1: towns that dotted Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. Detectives started checking
Speaker 1: local motels and campgrounds, thinking perhaps there was an innocent explanation.
Speaker 1: They were teenagers, after all, young in love on their
Speaker 1: first trail trip alone together. Maybe they'd simply decided to
Speaker 1: extend their adventure to steal a few more days of freedom.
Speaker 1: It was a comforting theory that Tanya's family knew better.
Speaker 1: Her father, Willem said, I know she would have called
Speaker 1: home if she could. She always calls home when she's away.
Speaker 1: When she went to Europe, she always called, and whenever
Speaker 1: she goes over to Vancouver, she always calls. It wasn't
Speaker 1: just parantel anxiety. It was knowledge based on pattern, on
Speaker 1: the established rhythms of his daughter's behavior. Dania was responsible.
Speaker 1: She understood that silence created worry. She wouldn't disappear without word,
Speaker 1: not willingly, not by choice. Jay's family echoed the same certainty.
Speaker 1: Gordon Cook insisted to detectives that his son had no
Speaker 1: intention of going on a prolonged trip. This was supposed
Speaker 1: to be a quick errand not an escape. Jay was reliable,
Speaker 1: the kind of young man who showed up when expected,
Speaker 1: who kept his word. But the days pressed forward and
Speaker 1: nobody could offer any insights into the couple's whereabouts. Fort
Speaker 1: Angele's police chief, Mark Clellan addressed the media, stating, they
Speaker 1: have never reached Seattle, and that's all we know. There's
Speaker 1: no indication of file play, no indication, but also no answers.
Speaker 1: The search continued. William couldn't sit idle while others looked
Speaker 1: for his daughter. He drove to Washington State himself, scarring
Speaker 1: the Olympic Peninsula's winding roads, searching the streets for Seattle
Speaker 1: for any sign of Tanya or Jay. He walked neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: showed photographs to strangers, asked questions until his voice grew hoarse.
Speaker 1: Police forces throughout Canada and the United States were alerted
Speaker 1: to be on the lookout for the couple or their van.
Speaker 1: The alerts went out across radio frequencies and fox machines
Speaker 1: distributed to jurisdictions that stretched from British Columbia to Oregon.
Speaker 1: Somewhere someone must have seen them, somewhere, there had to
Speaker 1: be a witness or a clue. But the days continued
Speaker 1: to pass with no word from the couple. The silence
Speaker 1: stretched from ours into days, from days into a wis
Speaker 1: and with each passing or the likelihood of an innocent
Speaker 1: explanation grew smaller. It had been a week since Tanya
Speaker 1: and Jay left for Seattle. The morning of November twenty
Speaker 1: fourth dawned cold and overcast, typical weather for late autumn
Speaker 1: in Washington State. Around eleven thirty, a man was taking
Speaker 1: his daily walk along an isolated road near Alger, a
Speaker 1: small community just south of Bellingham. The area was quiet, rural,
Speaker 1: the kind of place where you could walk for miles
Speaker 1: without seeing another person. As he made his way down
Speaker 1: the road, something in a ditch caught his eye. It
Speaker 1: was difficult to say it. First fall had stripped the
Speaker 1: trees bare, and leaves had accumulated in thick, wet layers
Speaker 1: along the roadside. But there was something there, something that
Speaker 1: didn't quite belong, something unnatural against the landscape. He moved closer,
Speaker 1: trying to get a better look. Then he stopped in
Speaker 1: its tracks. It was the lifeless body of Tanya van Kulemborg.
Speaker 1: She was lying faced down over an embankment, her bodily
Speaker 1: partially obscured by fallen leaves and branches. She was made
Speaker 1: from the waist down, wearing only a pair of socks,
Speaker 1: her shoes were gone, her bra had been pushed up
Speaker 1: over her breasts. She had been shot once in the
Speaker 1: back of the head at close range. The bullet was
Speaker 1: still lodged in her skull. Nearby, there was a shell
Speaker 1: casing from a small caliber gun. The area was quickly
Speaker 1: cordoned off with crime scene tape. As detectives descended on
Speaker 1: the location. Debuty Jim Muherer would later recall the difficulty
Speaker 1: of processing sing It rains a lot up there, and
Speaker 1: the leaves were wet and it was hard to see.
Speaker 1: You couldn't see the head or the shoulders of the
Speaker 1: body because of the leaves and branches. Crime scene experts
Speaker 1: arrived and documented everything as they found it. Once the
Speaker 1: immediate area was secure, they expanded their search, coming through
Speaker 1: the brush shoulder to shoulder, looking for any evidence, any
Speaker 1: clue that might explain what had happened. They also believed
Speaker 1: that Jay's body must be somewhere nearby. The theory that
Speaker 1: Jay had killed Tanya and then fled was briefly considered
Speaker 1: and quickly dismissed. The location where Tanya was found wasn't
Speaker 1: on their route to Seattle. There was no logical reason
Speaker 1: for them to have been in that isolated road near Alger. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: the evidence told the darker story Tanya had been sexually assaulted.
Speaker 1: Near her body, detectives found the zip pies. The evidence
Speaker 1: suggested that Tanya had been killed by a stranger, and
Speaker 1: most likely Jay was dead as we well. The surrounding
Speaker 1: area was meticulously searched, but Jay's body wasn't there. Detectives
Speaker 1: put out an urgent appeal asking anybody who had seen
Speaker 1: Jay or the family's brought on ford van to contact
Speaker 1: them immediately. The next day, the Texas received their first
Speaker 1: significant hip. Strange items had been discovered underneath the porch
Speaker 1: of a local tavern in Bellingham, close to the bus station.
Speaker 1: Among them, they found Tania's ID card, keys to the van,
Speaker 1: an ammunition that mashed the bullet that had killed her.
Speaker 1: There were also zip ties and disposable surgic gloves. Detectives
Speaker 1: immediately shifted their focus to Bellingham. In a parking lot downtown,
Speaker 1: they found the van. Inside was even more crucial evidence,
Speaker 1: more zip ties, Tanya's black pants, a blood stain on
Speaker 1: a car seat, another blood stain on a comforter. The
Speaker 1: van was a crime scene, but still there was no
Speaker 1: sign of Jay. The next day, November twenty sixth, Scott
Speaker 1: Walker and a friend were hunting pheasants south of Monroe,
Speaker 1: about seventy miles from where Tania's body had been discovered.
Speaker 1: They were walking near High Bridge when Scott's dog, Tess,
Speaker 1: suddenly rushed into the tall brush beneath the wooden planks
Speaker 1: on the eastern approach to the bridge. She didn't come
Speaker 1: back right away, which was highly unusual. Tess was a
Speaker 1: well trained hunting dog, responsive to commands, but now she
Speaker 1: just stood there close to the bridge, almost in a daze.
Speaker 1: Scott recalled, she was standing at a distance, I think
Speaker 1: trying to figure out what she was looking at. You
Speaker 1: could tell she didn't want to get any closer. Scott
Speaker 1: approached his dog and looked in the direction of her gaze.
Speaker 1: Through the brush, He could see an ashen gray human
Speaker 1: or protruding from the undergrowth. He didn't get any closer.
Speaker 1: He and his friend immediately reported the discovery to the
Speaker 1: nearest Washington State Police station. Sheriff Rick Board arrived at
Speaker 1: the scene with other officers. They were directed to the
Speaker 1: location and moved cautiously towards the body. It was Jay Cook.
Speaker 1: He was lying in a fatal position, his face and
Speaker 1: upper body covered by a tattered blue blanket. He was
Speaker 1: bonded with the ziptize and gagged. Jay had been beaten
Speaker 1: over the head with a rock and strangled to death
Speaker 1: with twine and a dog collar. The missing person's investigation
Speaker 1: had just become a double homicide. Sergeant Dave Richardson said
Speaker 1: in the media they were clean cut individuals. It was
Speaker 1: a statement meant to emphasize the senselessness of their deaths,
Speaker 1: the randomness of the violence that had found them. Detectives
Speaker 1: began piecing together a theory with what had happened. They
Speaker 1: speculated that Tanya and Jay had possibly offered their killer
Speaker 1: a ride, perhaps picking up a hitchhiker, common enough occurrence
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, especially for young people who saw
Speaker 1: helping a stranger as an act of kindness as opposed
Speaker 1: to a risk. Detectives believed that Jay had been killed first.
Speaker 1: Their theory suggested that the killer had ordered him to
Speaker 1: park the van out of sight in a location where
Speaker 1: the violence could unfold without witnesses. While Tanya was zip
Speaker 1: tied and gagged in the van, unable to help or escape,
Speaker 1: the killer took Jad the isolated spat beneath high Bridge
Speaker 1: where he was murdered. Sergeant Rick Bart noted there wasn't
Speaker 1: much of a struggle. Whoever killed him knew how to
Speaker 1: park the van out of sight. He was fairly confident
Speaker 1: nobody was going to see what he was about to do. Afterwards,
Speaker 1: the killer returned to the van where Tania was held captive.
Speaker 1: She was sexually assaulted there, then she was driven to
Speaker 1: the isolated road near Alger and shot once in the
Speaker 1: back of the head. Detectives didn't believe that this was
Speaker 1: a robbery gone wrong, even though some items were missing.
Speaker 1: Tanya's from an old camera had been taken, a black
Speaker 1: and red jacket, a green backpack, but the violence spoke
Speaker 1: to something darker than simple theft. Jay's father, Gordon, examined
Speaker 1: the fan with the detectives, looking for anything out of
Speaker 1: the ordinary. He said that everything seemed normal, nothing obviously
Speaker 1: disturbed beyond the bloodstains and the evidence of violence. A
Speaker 1: crucial part of the investigation was determining where Tania and
Speaker 1: Jay were last seen alive, to narrow Down, where they
Speaker 1: had encountered their killer. Detectives soon learned that the couple
Speaker 1: had purchased gas in the small Mason County town of
Speaker 1: Alan on November eighteenth. Witnesses confirmed that they were together
Speaker 1: and they seemed to be in high spirits. There was
Speaker 1: nobody else with them, nobody else in the van, but
Speaker 1: Alan wasn't on their planned route. Detectives believed they had
Speaker 1: taken a wrong turn, a simple navigational error that would
Speaker 1: prove to be fatal. Records showed they had purchased a
Speaker 1: ticket for the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle at ten
Speaker 1: sixteen p m. It was presumed that they made it
Speaker 1: on to the ferry, but nobody could say for certain
Speaker 1: the crossing would have taken about an or they may
Speaker 1: have met their killer there or perhaps on the roads afterwards.
Speaker 1: Dania's father, Wilhelm, had his own theory. He remarked, in
Speaker 1: my mind, I'm satisfied they met their misfortune on the eighteenth.
Speaker 1: They would have picked up two hitchhikers as readily as one.
Speaker 1: They trusted the whole world. If the hitchhikers were in
Speaker 1: the same age group, I guarantee you that van would stop.
Speaker 1: It was the kind of heartbreaking observation that only a
Speaker 1: parent could make, knowing your child's kindness, their generosity of spirit,
Speaker 1: and recognizing how those very qualities might have made them vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Detectives weren't quite sure whether there was one killer or multiple.
Speaker 1: Posters featuring photographs of Tanya and Jay were printed and
Speaker 1: distributed along two routes they or their killer may have taken.
Speaker 1: The posters went up in store, service stations and businesses
Speaker 1: along Interstate five and Highway nine. The investigation was then
Speaker 1: ramped up. A fifteen thousand dollars reward was offered for
Speaker 1: information leading to the conviction of the couple's killer, but
Speaker 1: detectives admitted it wasn't going to be an easy case.
Speaker 1: Tania and Jay were believed to have been killed by
Speaker 1: a complete stranger in an area that neither of them knew.
Speaker 1: There were no obvious witnesses, no clear motive beyond random violence.
Speaker 1: Police spokesman Roy Reid acknowledged the difficulty and set and
Speaker 1: I understand it's a pretty cold trail at this point.
Speaker 1: While detectives worked around the clock processing evidence and chasing leads,
Speaker 1: the community gathered to mourn. Around two hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: people assembled at the University of Victoria Chapel for a
Speaker 1: memorial service for Tania. The chapel was full standing room only,
Speaker 1: filled with classmates and teachers and neighbors. Reverend Francis a
Speaker 1: Day spoke to the assembled mourners with words meant to
Speaker 1: transform grief into purpose. Tanya and Jay will not have
Speaker 1: died in vain if each of us is motivated to
Speaker 1: go from this room to try to make the world
Speaker 1: a safer place in which to live. She urged everyone
Speaker 1: to work towards raising children who wouldn't need violence, who
Speaker 1: could resolve conflicts without brutality. It was not domestic message
Speaker 1: delivered into her room that was heavy with loss. Tanya
Speaker 1: was fondly remembered as the sort of girl who was
Speaker 1: there whenever he needed her. Oak Bay High School Principal
Speaker 1: Court Brusom recalled her as the Jorden who had persuaded
Speaker 1: him to form a senior girls basketball team and coach
Speaker 1: it himself. It was classic Tanya, saying something that should
Speaker 1: exist and refusing to accept its absence. Jesy's memorial service followed.
Speaker 1: He was remembered as a peaceful, easygoing young man who
Speaker 1: enjoyed meeting people and a good joke. His friend Kathy
Speaker 1: Clark said simply, he was a warm, peace loving person.
Speaker 1: Very easy going and mild tempered. These were the testimonials
Speaker 1: of lives cut short. Not the grand eulogies of people
Speaker 1: who had lived long enough to accumulate impressive achievements, but
Speaker 1: the smaller, more intimate observations of character. Tania and Jay
Speaker 1: had been killed before they could become whoever they might
Speaker 1: have been, before college, before careers, before the life they
Speaker 1: might have built together. In early December of the investigation
Speaker 1: struggled to gain traction, detectives started looking outward, searching for
Speaker 1: patterns that might connect Tanya and Jay's murders to other
Speaker 1: unsolved cases. What they found was disturbing. There had been
Speaker 1: several unsolved double murders in Washington State over the past
Speaker 1: two years. Since nineteen eighty five, three other couples on
Speaker 1: sightseeing or camping trips had been found killed, or disappeared
Speaker 1: under mysterious circumstances. Deputy Pete Panissy had investigated the August
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty six disappearance of sixty four year old Robert
Speaker 1: Linton and his sixty two year old wife, Dagmar. He
Speaker 1: said he had a gut instinct that the cases were
Speaker 1: somehow connected. Robert and Dagmar had been on their way
Speaker 1: to Vancouver when they parked their trailer at the Naco
Speaker 1: West Camground near Brennan. They took their truck on a
Speaker 1: day trip and were never seen again. An unidentified suspect
Speaker 1: produce their gasoline card and was tracked the previous year
Speaker 1: through Alger just north of where Tanya's body had been found.
Speaker 1: Then the suspect dropped out of sight. The deputy noted
Speaker 1: the similarities. Tanya and Jay had a van, the Lintons
Speaker 1: had a truck with a canopy. The Linton's truck was
Speaker 1: left in a public parking lot. The van belonging to
Speaker 1: his Tanya and Jay was found in a parking lot.
Speaker 1: The suspect in the Linton disappearance was described as a tall,
Speaker 1: bulky man in his early to mid forties. A composite
Speaker 1: sketch had been compiled from descriptions provided by clerks in
Speaker 1: two stores where purchases were made with the missing couple's
Speaker 1: credit cards. There were two other cases under review as well,
Speaker 1: the March nineteen eighty five murderers near Vantage in Grand
Speaker 1: County of twenty five year old Edward Smith and twenty
Speaker 1: six year old Kimberly Diane Levine of Kent. Newly arrived
Speaker 1: from New England. The engaged couple had been on a
Speaker 1: sightseeing trip to eastern Washington. Their car was discovered at
Speaker 1: a scenic overlook near Vantage Edward's body was found on
Speaker 1: the tenth of March in a gravel pit several miles south,
Speaker 1: his hands bound and his throat cut. Kimberly's skeletal remains
Speaker 1: were found ten miles further south in August of nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty five. Sheriff's deputy said she might have been sexually assaulted,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't determine how she was killed. The only
Speaker 1: similarities with Chany and Jay's case, officials noted were that
Speaker 1: they were a young couple traveling in an area they
Speaker 1: were unfamiliar with. Then there was the August nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: five disappearance in Slang near tul Lake in Pierce County
Speaker 1: a forty three year old Ruth Cooper and twenty eight
Speaker 1: year old Stephen Harkins of the Coma. The two had
Speaker 1: left on a camping trip on August tenth. Four days later,
Speaker 1: Stephen's body was found inside their car, wrapped in a
Speaker 1: sleeping bag. He'd been shot in the head, where of
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty five, roofs remains were found in heavy brush
Speaker 1: in a timber area about a mile and a half away.
Speaker 1: Bob Keppel, an expert in serial murderers who had worked
Speaker 1: as a consultant on the Green River case, the Atlanta
Speaker 1: child murderers and served as lead investigator in the Ted
Speaker 1: Bundy case, urged caution. He remarked, whether the person who
Speaker 1: killed Cook and Van Kulenberg killed in the past or
Speaker 1: will kill again, we just don't know. Eventually, it was
Speaker 1: determined that the cases weren't connected. Whatever patterns detectives thought
Speaker 1: they saw dissolved under close scrutiny. Tanya and Jay's murders
Speaker 1: stood alone. The investigation continued. Just before Christmas, the reward
Speaker 1: was increased to fifty thousand dollars, offered by a committee
Speaker 1: headed by the president of the Victoria Bar Association and
Speaker 1: funded through private and corporate donations. New posters were printed
Speaker 1: displaying the updated reward amount. Tanya's father, William, personally put
Speaker 1: some up in bars around Pioneer Square and the Pike
Speaker 1: Place Market. This is where he believed his daughter and
Speaker 1: Jay had met their killer. He said, the apprehension of
Speaker 1: this individual will do nothing to diminish our anguish over
Speaker 1: the loss of Tanya. But we don't want to repeat.
Speaker 1: We don't want someone else to suffer at the hands
Speaker 1: of this crazed man. William speculated that Tanya and Jay
Speaker 1: had met someone in a bar after the ferry and
Speaker 1: offered to drive them somewhere. He was determined to find
Speaker 1: his daughter's killer, but soon enough Willim found himself the
Speaker 1: focus of something sinister. The letters started at Christmas. Tanya
Speaker 1: and Jay's parents received Christmas cards from somebody claiming to
Speaker 1: be the killer. The sender wrote that he hated all
Speaker 1: Canadians and threatened to kill again. One card read, in part,
Speaker 1: you and ever going to apprehend me? Good luck? Do
Speaker 1: the Mounties always get their man? The card contained details
Speaker 1: of the murders, but detectives cautioned that it could be
Speaker 1: a hoax. The information could have been learned from newspaper
Speaker 1: articles that had covered the case. But the letters didn't stop.
Speaker 1: They just kept coming. They were harassing and mean. Detectives
Speaker 1: set They arrived on Father's Day, Mother's Day, and Christmas.
Speaker 1: They had specifically chosen to maximize pain. Another letter was
Speaker 1: sent to the RCMP, mocking them for their inability to
Speaker 1: solve the case. The letters came from several US cities,
Speaker 1: suggesting someone who moved frequently or was deliberately trying to
Speaker 1: obscure their location. In the new year, crimestoppers ran a
Speaker 1: report on the unsolved murders, hoping to generate fresh leads,
Speaker 1: but time pressed forward and the case grew colder with
Speaker 1: each passing month. The months eventually dragged into years. The
Speaker 1: letters continued. The families received an average of one per
Speaker 1: month for an entire year. Sometimes they were signed Tanya
Speaker 1: or Jay, a particularly cruel touch seeing their children's names
Speaker 1: scrawled by the hand of someone claiming to have killed them.
Speaker 1: Detectives weren't sure whether the letters were genuinely from the
Speaker 1: killer or from someone else, perhaps a transient who traveled
Speaker 1: along the West coast and had read about the case,
Speaker 1: someone disturbed enough to torment graving families for their own
Speaker 1: twisted satisfaction. In October of nineteen eighty nine, nearly two
Speaker 1: years after the murders, Unsolved Mysteries ran a segment on
Speaker 1: the case. Elliot Wirrell, the Sheriff's offices public information officer,
Speaker 1: admitted the frustrating truth detectives really have been unable to
Speaker 1: determine the exact movements of the pair and whoever they
Speaker 1: may have been in contact with. They don't know whether
Speaker 1: they picked someone up. For the first time publicly, detectives
Speaker 1: shared their working theory of what happened. They believed that
Speaker 1: Tanya and Jay were killed by a serial killer, someone
Speaker 1: who had come well equipped, carrying his own surgical gloves, septies,
Speaker 1: and a gun. They believed the motive was sexual and
Speaker 1: that he had made up his mind when he saw
Speaker 1: them somewhere in or around Seattle. One detective said, we
Speaker 1: spent a lot of time on the ferry, going back
Speaker 1: and forth and showing pictures of the two, but we
Speaker 1: couldn't find anybody who saw them. Detectives also believed that
Speaker 1: the killer was taunting them by dumping items underneath the
Speaker 1: tavern porch near the Bellingham bus station. The ID card,
Speaker 1: the van cays, the ammunition, the gloves. It was a message.
Speaker 1: Under Sheriff rom Panzero said, the obvious thing he's telling
Speaker 1: us is that here you can have the gloves. You're
Speaker 1: not going to find any prints, have the bullets and shells,
Speaker 1: because you're not going to find the gun. He revealed
Speaker 1: for the first time that A fine coating of talcon
Speaker 1: powder had been found inside the glove. The killer knew
Speaker 1: that the powder would make it almost impossible to lift
Speaker 1: fingerprints from the latex surface. Panzero continued, we did everything
Speaker 1: we knew to the gloves, fumed them, and lazered them,
Speaker 1: but we found no prints. Sergeant Rick Borr wasn't entirely
Speaker 1: convinced by the serial killer theory. He instead believed that
Speaker 1: two people were involved. He said, they got Jay away
Speaker 1: from Tanya and killed Jay. I don't believe Tanya knew
Speaker 1: that Jay was being killed. I don't think they wanted
Speaker 1: her to know. They killed him away from the van
Speaker 1: and dragged him into the bush. Further, both investigators believed
Speaker 1: that a gun wasn't used on Jay because the killer
Speaker 1: or killers didn't want Tanya to know he was dead.
Speaker 1: They wanted to give the impression that he'd been left
Speaker 1: alive in the brush, that maybe there was still still
Speaker 1: a chance she might survive if she cooperated. Sergeant Bart added,
Speaker 1: he died slow. Whoever did it didn't show much mercy.
Speaker 1: It was very sloppy. There was another disturbing detail. Jay's
Speaker 1: body had been found inside of the Washington State Reformatory,
Speaker 1: Honor Form, a medium security prison. Detective Ron Perniasso said,
Speaker 1: the way he dropped Jay off near the prison Honor Form,
Speaker 1: this guy's telling us things. There's a good possibility he
Speaker 1: has done this before, and he has probably served time before.
Speaker 1: It was the kind of criminal signature that suggested confidence,
Speaker 1: even arrogance. Someone knew how law enforcement worked, someone who
Speaker 1: wanted them to know. He was smart enough to get
Speaker 1: away with it, but knowing that didn't help them catch him.
Speaker 1: It wasn't until March of ninety ninety the detectives got
Speaker 1: their first handible lead. Tanya's stolen Camra lens was found
Speaker 1: in an Oregon pawnchop. It should have been a promising development,
Speaker 1: but the trail quickly grew complicated. Detectives learned it was
Speaker 1: the second time the lens had been pawned in the
Speaker 1: same area. The first time had been within six months
Speaker 1: of the murders. They were only made aware of it
Speaker 1: after the serial number was entered into the National Crime
Speaker 1: Information sent their computer. From there, they hit another dead end.
Speaker 1: Six months later, detectives turned their attention to suspected serial
Speaker 1: killer Charles Sinclair. He was being held in Alaska awaiting
Speaker 1: extradition to Billings, Montana, where he was charged with the
Speaker 1: murders of Charles Barbot and Catherine Newstrom. Charles owned a
Speaker 1: coin shop in Billings and Catherine was his assistant. Sinclair
Speaker 1: was suspected of killing up to twelve people, and crucially,
Speaker 1: he had been living about twenty kilometers from Bellingham, close
Speaker 1: to where Tanya was killed at the time of the murders.
Speaker 1: The families were hopeful. William stated there's more than a
Speaker 1: fifty percent chance it's him. I want this thing finished
Speaker 1: so we can make a new beginning. At least we
Speaker 1: can come to the end of a long, dark tunnel.
Speaker 1: But in the end, detectives couldn't find any connection between
Speaker 1: Sinclair and the murders of Tanya and Jay. However, he
Speaker 1: remained the leads suspect in the disappearances of Robert and
Speaker 1: Dagmore Linton, who was mentioned earlier. He'd been using the
Speaker 1: Elias Robert Linton, and a clarinet found in his home
Speaker 1: linked back to the Linton stolen credit cards. Unfortunately, however,
Speaker 1: no convictions ever claim. Charles Sinclair died of a heart
Speaker 1: attack in jail on the thirtieth of October ninety ninety
Speaker 1: The years continued to drag past. In January of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six, it was announced that detectives were turning to
Speaker 1: a new technology. DNA's asking had advanced significantly over the
Speaker 1: DECKAD DNA and semen had been discovered on Tanya's black
Speaker 1: pants in the van and on her body, but there
Speaker 1: had been no technology back then to do the DNA
Speaker 1: patterning that was required now. The DNA was retrieved and
Speaker 1: detectives began monitoring databases in Washington, Oregon, and California, hoping
Speaker 1: for a match. No match came, However, the DNA testing
Speaker 1: did answer one lingering question. The profile didn't match the
Speaker 1: DNA from the letters that had been sent to the families.
Speaker 1: That meant that the letters were indeed a hoax, just
Speaker 1: as some investigators had suspected. Detectives asked the letter writer
Speaker 1: to come forward before the families knew that ten years
Speaker 1: had passed since the murders. Jay's father, Gordon said at
Speaker 1: the anniversary, I keep hoping something will turn up, but
Speaker 1: you have to be realistic. After ten years, I think
Speaker 1: we're continuing to deal with it. Tragically, Tania's father, Williem,
Speaker 1: died from a stroke on the fourteenth of May nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety six. He was sixty two years old. Friend said
Speaker 1: that he never recovered from his daughter's murder. He'd spent
Speaker 1: nearly a decade searching for answers, putting up posters, driving
Speaker 1: through Seattle neighborhoods, carrying photographs of Tanya wherever he went.
Speaker 1: He died without ever knowing who killed his daughter. The
Speaker 1: next year, the FBI established a national DNA bank. The
Speaker 1: killer's DNA was uploaded, but detectives hit another brick wall
Speaker 1: when no match came back. That meant that the killer
Speaker 1: hadn't been arrested for another crime since the murders. In
Speaker 1: August of twenty ten, detectives finally tracked on the person
Speaker 1: who had sent the letters, and it wasn't the killer.
Speaker 1: It was a mentally ill Canadian man who was now
Speaker 1: in his seventies. He had been identified after detectives released
Speaker 1: more information about the letters. A man in Canada had
Speaker 1: recognized the handwriting and called police. The letter writer had
Speaker 1: been a transient man who had roamed between Canada and
Speaker 1: Washington for decades. He'd lived on the streets, disconnected from
Speaker 1: family and community, nursing grievances that had festered into something cruel.
Speaker 1: He admitted descending the letters and was said to be apologetic.
Speaker 1: He revealed that he had once even called Jay's father
Speaker 1: with the intention of apologizing, but couldn't reach him. He
Speaker 1: said he had read about the murders and was at
Speaker 1: a low point in his life and wanted to lash out.
Speaker 1: He was angry about how he had been treated by
Speaker 1: his fellow Canadians. The statute of limitations had passed, so
Speaker 1: the man was never publicly identified and never charged. He
Speaker 1: had tormented Graving families for years, adding an extra layer
Speaker 1: of pain to their loss, and there was no legal recourse.
Speaker 1: The years continued to pass, the case grew colder with
Speaker 1: each one. Detectives had everything they needed to solve it.
Speaker 1: They had DNA, they just needed a match. They didn't
Speaker 1: know it, but a breakthrough was finally coming. By twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: DNA technology had advanced even further. A composite sketch of
Speaker 1: the suspect was created through a process called snapshot DNA
Speaker 1: phenotyping by parabonde aanolobs. DNA phenotyping analyzes pieces of DNA
Speaker 1: code to predict a person's appearance, including eye color, skin tone,
Speaker 1: hair color, facial features and ancestry. The sketch was released
Speaker 1: by the Snowhomish County Sheriff's Department during a Facebook livestream.
Speaker 1: The composite showed what the killer might have looked like
Speaker 1: at the ages twenty five, forty five, and sixty five.
Speaker 1: It depicted a white man with fair hair and green
Speaker 1: or hazel eyes. Jay's sister Laura made a public appeal.
Speaker 1: If these new pictures that this amazing new technology created
Speaker 1: triggers a memory you had, perhaps of someone who said
Speaker 1: something odd that lived in or near the Snawhomish area
Speaker 1: or even Vancouver in late nineteen eighty seven, please for
Speaker 1: the sake of my brother Jay, Tanya and all of
Speaker 1: our families call it in. But in the end, it
Speaker 1: wasn't the sketch that led to a suspect. It was DNA.
Speaker 1: Just days after the composite sketch was released, fifty five
Speaker 1: year old William Earl Talbot was arrested and charged with
Speaker 1: the murders of Tanya and Jay. The suspect's DNA was
Speaker 1: uploaded to the public website geed match by parabomb. The
Speaker 1: website contained about one million genetic profiles that people had
Speaker 1: uploaded after having their DNA analyzed by companies like twenty
Speaker 1: three in me. Ged Match had updated its privacy policy
Speaker 1: following the Golden State killer case to explicitly state that
Speaker 1: law enforcement could access a person's profile to solve murder
Speaker 1: and sexual assault cases. Privacy advocates had expressed concerns about
Speaker 1: whether such techniques violated rights or whether their use by
Speaker 1: law enforcement should be restricted. Genetic genealogists C. C. Moore
Speaker 1: built family trees using people who shared promising amounts of
Speaker 1: DNA with the suspect. Two close matches were discovered from
Speaker 1: people who had married and produced only one son. She
Speaker 1: then used a process called reverse genealogy, where researchers look
Speaker 1: for living matches that fit DNA profiles. They were led
Speaker 1: to William Earl Talbot. Talbot was put under surveillance. Detectives
Speaker 1: collected the DNA sample from a cup he had used.
Speaker 1: It was a match. After more than thirty years, they
Speaker 1: had found the killer. When he was stopped to be arrested,
Speaker 1: Talbot refused to hand over his identification. At first, he
Speaker 1: wouldn't even turn around or put his hands behind his back,
Speaker 1: but eventually he complied. Back in nineteen eighty seven, William
Speaker 1: Earl Talbot had been a twenty four year old delivery
Speaker 1: driver in Seattle. One of his routes at the time
Speaker 1: went along sixth Avenue South in Sodo, a destination that
Speaker 1: Tanya and Jay apparently had in mind. He had lived
Speaker 1: in the Woodinville area of Washington State, and his parents'
Speaker 1: home was about ten kilometers away from where Jay's body
Speaker 1: had been found. According to a friend of Talbot's at
Speaker 1: the time, he recalled seeing a distinctive van at the
Speaker 1: Talbot home that year. This friend also recalled seeing a
Speaker 1: blue blanket in his car, similar to the one found
Speaker 1: with Jay's body. Some people described Talbot as a hard
Speaker 1: worker and a kind man. Not everybody saw him that way,
Speaker 1: Michael said. A former roommate said that Talbot had a
Speaker 1: tumultuous relationship with his father. He'd once gotten into a
Speaker 1: fight with his sister and broke her arm. He was
Speaker 1: said to be like a jackal in hide when he
Speaker 1: drank alcohol. Another person described him as a scammer who
Speaker 1: was good at lying, and crucially, he was known to hitchhike.
Speaker 1: William Earl Talbot pleaded not guilty to the murder charges
Speaker 1: against him. Prosecutors announced that they wouldn't be seeking the
Speaker 1: death penalty. The state Supreme Court had ruled that Washington's
Speaker 1: death penalty law was unconstitutional. The murder trial began on
Speaker 1: June fourteenth, twenty to nineteen, more than thirty one years
Speaker 1: after Tanya and Jay's murders. Prosecutor Justin Harlman led out
Speaker 1: the details of the case, describing Tanya and Jay's ill
Speaker 1: fated trip. The lights were turned on low so the
Speaker 1: jury could see the photographs of the couple smiling, alive,
Speaker 1: full of potential. Then they saw the copper Ford club
Speaker 1: wagon that Jay had been driving, and finally the photographs
Speaker 1: of their discarded bodies. Prosecutor Hollman said, this is a
Speaker 1: case about two lives lost far too young, and two
Speaker 1: extremely violent acts. The evidence in this case will show
Speaker 1: you that there is only one reasonably possible perpetrator of
Speaker 1: those acts. Talbot's defense attorney, John Scott told the jury
Speaker 1: in his opening statements that the presence of his client's
Speaker 1: DNA didn't make him a killer. I have re offered
Speaker 1: no explanation of how the DNA got there. He described
Speaker 1: his client as a blue collar guy who worked in
Speaker 1: construction and as a truck driver. He said that Talbot
Speaker 1: had lived a quiet and unremarkable life. He said to
Speaker 1: the jury, the evidence doesn't tell us anything. We know
Speaker 1: at some point during that time they were killed. We
Speaker 1: don't know how, We know the means of their death,
Speaker 1: but we don't know the context. The jury heard testimony
Speaker 1: from Tanya and Jay's family members before testimony turned to
Speaker 1: the evidence. It was revealed that in a draft report
Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, a forensic scientist named Angela Hilliard had
Speaker 1: ruled Talbot out as a possible match for a handprint
Speaker 1: found in Jay's van. She then realized she'd been looking
Speaker 1: at one of the samples upside down, changed her opinion
Speaker 1: and said that it was Talbot's hand. She explained, Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it's because I'm human. Sometimes you just don't see things
Speaker 1: at the time. You're evaluating and looking, and you can
Speaker 1: search and search and search, and sometimes you just don't
Speaker 1: find it. My original opinion was wrong, and the new
Speaker 1: information and data showed that the information was indeed there.
Speaker 1: The jury heard about the DNA evidence and how it
Speaker 1: was connected to Talbot all those years later. The odds
Speaker 1: of a random match were one in one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty Quadrillion. They also heard from Michael Sayat, Talbot's one
Speaker 1: time roommate. He said that Talbot was familiar with the
Speaker 1: fields where Jay's body was found, and that his mother
Speaker 1: had a dark room about seven miles away. It was
Speaker 1: used to develop photography, and Talbot had an interest in photography.
Speaker 1: He said Tanya's camera had been stolen and never recovered,
Speaker 1: although the lens had appeared in a pawnshop years later.
Speaker 1: Michael admitted he had never seen Talbot with a gun
Speaker 1: and had never heard him talk about guns. He said
Speaker 1: that Talbot declined invitations to shoot clay pigeons. Another roommate,
Speaker 1: Timothy Macpherson, said that Talbot didn't smoke cigarettes and that
Speaker 1: he had never seen him with a camera, a blue blanket,
Speaker 1: dog collars, or zip ties. The defense called only one witness,
Speaker 1: a defense investigator, who answered questions for about ten minutes.
Speaker 1: Todd Reeves testified that Talbot's past driver's licenses showed an
Speaker 1: address in Riverside and that he lived in Sea Tack
Speaker 1: at the time of the arrest. That was it. During
Speaker 1: closing arguments, prosecutor Matt Baldock dimmed the lights and projected
Speaker 1: high school portraits of Tanya and Jay. He asked what
Speaker 1: might their lives have looked like? Would they have traveled
Speaker 1: the world? Would they have had children? He then said
Speaker 1: these are all questions that their family and friends have
Speaker 1: asked more than once in the softer moments, But there
Speaker 1: are also questions that they have asked over and over
Speaker 1: again over the past thirty one years, questions that framed
Speaker 1: their grief and their loss. Did they know they were
Speaker 1: going to die? Did they suffer? Defense attorney Rachel Ford
Speaker 1: said during her closing arguments that Talbot Seaman could have
Speaker 1: ended up with the crime scenes from consensual sex. She
Speaker 1: said that police had developed tunnel vision over the years,
Speaker 1: clearing people as suspects because their DNA didn't match the
Speaker 1: DNA in the van or on Tanya's body. She said
Speaker 1: they never stopped to consider that perhaps the person who
Speaker 1: left the DNA was not the murderer. She noted that
Speaker 1: in the ninety nineties, Talbot had rented a room from
Speaker 1: a police officer. She then said, someone who has just
Speaker 1: brutally murdered two people and gone undetected would not rent
Speaker 1: a room from a police officer. He just wouldn't. The
Speaker 1: jury was sent off to deliberate. They found William Talbot
Speaker 1: guilty of aggravated murder. When the verdict was announced, Tabot
Speaker 1: looked surprised. He flinched and then gasped before he was
Speaker 1: passed out of the courtroom in a wheelchair. After the verdict,
Speaker 1: Tanya's brother John remarked, it's been such a long wait
Speaker 1: for all of us. It feels great to have some answers.
Speaker 1: We don't have all the answers, but we have a
Speaker 1: lot more than we had thirty one years ago. After
Speaker 1: the conviction, a lab report was unsealed that revealed even
Speaker 1: more DNA evidence linking Talbot to the murders. His also
Speaker 1: discovered on the zip ties of the crime scene. The
Speaker 1: odds of a mismatch were one in ninety million. Before
Speaker 1: the DNA had been far too complex and degraded for
Speaker 1: a meaningful comparison, but since then the lab had started
Speaker 1: using new software, the Cadizai, for individual profiles from a
Speaker 1: mixed sample of several people. It was retested and came
Speaker 1: back as a match to Talbot. William Talbot returned to
Speaker 1: court on July twenty fourth to be sentenced. He addressed
Speaker 1: the judge, telling her the level of violence in This
Speaker 1: is something that I cannot comprehend. I've got all my
Speaker 1: life as a passive person. He didn't explain how his
Speaker 1: DNA ended up at the crime scenes. The judge then
Speaker 1: handed him a sentence of life in prison without parole.
Speaker 1: That should have been the end, but it wasn't. In
Speaker 1: December of twenty twenty one, an appeals court overturned Talbot's conviction,
Speaker 1: citing juror bias. They found that one of the jurors
Speaker 1: should have been dismissed during jury selection because she said
Speaker 1: she didn't know if she could be fair. She had
Speaker 1: experience with violence against women and didn't know if she,
Speaker 1: as a mother, could be unbiased. That juror was still selected.
Speaker 1: The families were devastated. After thirty four years, justice had
Speaker 1: finally been served, only to be snatched away on a technicality.
Speaker 1: But a year later, the State Supreme Court reinstated the
Speaker 1: murder conviction. They found that the defense had peremptory challenges available.
Speaker 1: This meant they could have dismissed the juror, but they
Speaker 1: had opted against it. William Earl Talbot remains in prison,
Speaker 1: serving life without parole for more than three decades. Tanya
Speaker 1: and Jay's families lived with unanswered questions. Tanya's father, Williem,
Speaker 1: died without ever knowing who killed his daughter. Jay's parents
Speaker 1: grew old, waiting for justice that seemed like it might
Speaker 1: never come. The case went cold because detectives didn't care,
Speaker 1: but because the technology didn't exist yet to match the
Speaker 1: killer's DNA. The evidence was always there, preserved in a
Speaker 1: crime lab, waiting for science to catch up. Tanya in
Speaker 1: Jay's lives were stolen on a dark road in Washington
Speaker 1: State by somebody they likely tried to help. The case
Speaker 1: is closed now the killer's in prison, but the loss
Speaker 1: remains permanent, irreversible, a wound that time can only dull,
Speaker 1: never heal. Tanya and Jay deserved better than they got.
Speaker 1: Their families deserved answers sooner than thirty one years. But
Speaker 1: in the end, justice delayed, complicated, imperfect did come, and
Speaker 1: sometimes that has to be enough. Well that is it
Speaker 1: for this episode of Morbidology. As always, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening, and i'd like to say a massive
Speaker 1: thank you to my newest supporter up on Patreon, Rosie.
Speaker 1: The link to Patreon is in the show notes. If
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Speaker 1: as one dollar a month, and there are absolutely new obligations.
Speaker 1: You're free to cancel your subscription at any point. I
Speaker 1: upload a free and early release episodes behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: and I also send out some cool Patreon exclusive merch
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Speaker 1: and these are also available over on Apple subscriptions. Remember
Speaker 1: to check us out at morbidology dot com for more
Speaker 1: information about this episode and to read some true crime articles.
Speaker 1: Until next time, take care of yourselves, stay safe, and
Speaker 1: have an amazing week. Ble