31 Year Old Twisted Cold Case FINALLY Solved | The Case of Tanya Van Cuylenborg

On November 17, 1987, a young Canadian couple named Jay Cook (20) and Tanya Van Cuylenborg (18) embarked on a romantic overnight road trip from Saanich, British Columbia, to Seattle, Washington. However, their journey took a sinister turn when they mysteriously vanished, never reaching their intended destination. Even a thorough investigation could not offer concrete answers to what happened to them.

The truth finally emerged after 31 long years, revealing a harrowing tale of deception, manipulation, and a cold-blooded killer lurking in the shadows. Why did the young couple never make it to their destination? Why did it take so long to unravel the mystery?

Welcome back to Mysterious Hook, where we shed light on mysterious cases from across the country. Today, we’ll delve into the unsettling case of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg—a 31-year-old case that was finally solved in 2022 thanks to technological breakthroughs in forensic science. But first, if you still haven’t subscribed to our channel, please don’t forget to like, subscribe, and click the bell icon below, as it motivates us to create more intriguing content for you. So without further ado, let’s dive right into this mystery.

Skagit County is located in the northwestern part of the state of Washington, USA. It is known for its picturesque landscapes shaped by the Skagit River and the Cascade Mountains. The county is home to several charming towns and communities such as Mount Vernon, Anacortes, and Sedro-Woolley. Lush with forests and waterways, Skagit County offers many outdoor recreational activities, including hiking, fishing, boating, and bird watching. No one would ever guess that a place this beautiful has been holding the dark secrets of a mysterious crime for over 30 years.

Tanya Van Cuylenborg was born on March 7, 1969, in Victoria, British Columbia. She grew up in a loving household with her parents, Willem and Jean Van Cuylenborg, and shared an idyllic childhood full of laughter with her older brother, John. Tanya had a love for adventure and often enjoyed long boating trips across the beautiful Salish Sea, creating cherished memories. Two of Tanya’s favorite pastimes were sailing and strumming melodies on her guitar. She also found joy in playing tennis on their spacious Woodacres property. She was a determined student who advocated for a girls’ basketball team at her high school, showing her passion for equality and sports. Socializing with her friends was a big part of her life, and Tanya had a soft spot for animals, longing for a furry companion. Finally, in 1982, her mother gave in, and a golden retriever named Tessa joined the family. Caring for their golden retriever and other pets was a real passion of hers, and Tessa became Tanya’s faithful and beloved pet. Tanya dreamed of working with animals, possibly as a veterinarian.

Jay Cook was born on December 16, 1966, in Saanich, British Columbia. He grew up in a warm, close-knit family with two loving sisters, Laura Lee and Kelly, and their parents, Gordon and Leona Cook. Standing at an impressive height of 6’4″, Jay possessed a lanky frame at 20 and had yet to fully develop into his adult physique. Jay was not just an ordinary young man from Vancouver Island; he had a passion for music and had mastered playing the bass guitar, rocking out with his friends.

“Jay was the type who was quiet, but someone who you wanted in your circle. Someone that you wanted to be friends with because he’d take the shirt off his back and give it to you if you needed it. He’s the type that avoided a fight; he wasn’t the type that would go out and initiate any sort of physical violence with anybody.”

He was working at a pizza parlor and was known for his dedication. Once, he biked through rain and darkness for three long hours while balancing a whole pizza just to surprise his friends staying at a cabin. However, Jay had a peculiar quirk of misplacing his clothes and often returned home without his jacket, feeling puzzled about its whereabouts. He possessed a heart of gold and frequently treated his younger sister to special outings—like dinners and high tea—using the hard-earned money he made at the pizza parlor. He aspired to become a marine biologist.

Jay and Tanya’s paths crossed in the halls of Oak Bay High School, igniting a connection that would shape their lives. Despite being two years older than her, Jay was captivated by Tanya’s charm. By May 1987, with Tanya on the brink of graduation, their friendship blossomed into a romance. They met through some mutual friends who had both gone to the same high school in Victoria, and they had been dating about five or six months at the time. Although their future plans were not set in stone, their dreams held the promise of a meaningful and exciting future. Through it all, the young couple radiated happiness, earning the admiration of their families who saw the love they shared.

Their relationship had spanned only six beautiful months when tragedy befell and snatched away the young couple’s promising future together.

On the chilly morning of November 18, 1987, Jay woke up excited about picking up his girlfriend, Tanya, and embarking on a road trip from British Columbia to Seattle in his father’s shiny copper-brown 1977 Ford Club van. Jay’s father, Gordon, who ran his own business, required furnace parts worth $750 from Gensco Heating in Seattle. He asked Jay to collect the parcel from Seattle, as he was already going there with Tanya.

The couple got ready for the cross-border road trip, excited about the long hours they would spend in each other’s company. Tanya also packed her camera—a Minolta X-700 with a 35mm lens—hoping to capture some memorable photos of their time together.

After a smooth ferry ride on the MV Coho from Victoria to Port Angeles on the Washington coast, Jay and Tanya continued their journey along Route 101 toward Bremerton. However, they accidentally missed the exit for the Hood Canal Floating Bridge and found themselves in the charming town of Hoodsport by 8:00 PM. Seeking guidance, they entered Hoodsport Grocery, where they encountered a friendly store clerk named Judith Stone who helped them with directions.

As the evening unfolded, Jay and Tanya continued their journey and arrived at the peaceful town of Allyn. They stopped at Ben’s Deli Mart for some food at 9:29 PM. The friendly clerk at the deli noted that the couple appeared calm and relaxed, traveling without any companions.

It was late in the evening, well past 10:00 PM, when Jay and Tanya finally reached Bremerton and purchased a ferry ticket to Seattle for the next day. Their plan was to find a suitable spot to park their van and spend the night before continuing their journey the next morning to collect the parcel.

The next day, November 19, 1987, they boarded the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle, ready to continue their adventure. However, destiny had something unexpected in store for them. This was the last time they were seen.

They never reached Gensco Heating to pick up the parcel. They were scheduled to return home that same evening, but to the dismay of their families, they never arrived. Tanya’s older brother, John Van Cuylenborg, was away at college when he received an alarming phone call from their concerned father, Willem. Tanya and Jay had not returned home and had not called to inform them of any change in plans.

“My dad called and asked whether I’d heard anything from Tanya and Jay, and I think they were hoping that maybe, by chance, they decided to come home a different route.”

This unusual silence worried both families, who knew Tanya and Jay were responsible young people and would always call if they were going to be late.

“When they didn’t return home, my parents were quite certain that there was something wrong. It was very out of character for Tanya to not be in communication. I mean, this was pre-cell phones at this point in time, but still, the family expectation that we had at that time was that if your plan was going to change like that, you had to at least phone in and tell the parents what was going on.”

Despite their growing concern, their parents clung to the hope that maybe the van had broken down and left the couple stranded without access to a phone. As the morning of November 20th arrived without any word from Tanya and Jay, a wave of panic washed over their families. The unsettling silence drove them to report their beloved children as missing.

This sparked a massive search operation as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police contacted the Seattle Police Department about the missing couple. Determined to find their children, the families went to great lengths and even hired a plane to soar above the area where Tanya and Jay had last been seen, hoping for a glimpse of their van amid the vast expanse.

“You know, it takes them a while to be convinced, I think, that there’s something in this because there was really no evidence of anything being wrong yet… a couple of quite young kids a few hours overdue. I think it was a bit of an uphill battle that my dad had convincing the police of that. Someone he knew had a small aircraft who did some search by aircraft over the Olympic Peninsula and across over Seattle through the Olympic Mountains… they were looking for the van.”

For the investigators, the search for Jay and Tanya was like unraveling a complex puzzle with no trace of the couple and no clues to guide them. Step by step, they retraced the path Jay and Tanya had taken, reconstructing their trip to try and unlock the secrets behind their sudden disappearance.

After nearly a week of uncertainty, fate dealt a devastating blow. On November 24, 1987, a passerby gathering cans in Skagit County stumbled upon a heart-wrenching scene beside a weather culvert along Parsons Creek Road, some 80 miles north of Seattle. It was the lifeless body of Tanya Van Cuylenborg. She was found unclothed from the waist down. The shocking cause of death was soon uncovered: a single gunshot to the back of her head, inflicted with a .38 caliber bullet.

That evening, with a heavy heart, John took the somber responsibility of identifying his sister’s lifeless form.

“My mom earlier that afternoon had received a call from the Skagit County Sheriff’s Department saying that they’d recovered a body that they thought might be Tanya, but there was no identification with the body. And so they were wanting a family member to come identify the body. It’s a very quiet, somber drive… you’re hoping that it’s not Tanya, but after not having any other answers, there’s a bit of a sinking feeling that this may well be the answer… Unfortunately, after we got to Sedro-Woolley, my dad and I together identified Tanya’s body. She wasn’t battered or beaten in that sense, but unfortunately was lifeless. It was very hard for me to see how devastated my parents were from this, but there’s nothing I could do to fix it other than spend time with them.”

As Chief Deputy Ron Panzero of the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office described, Tanya’s body was found with the distressing signs of a violent attack. A trace of another person’s DNA was recovered from inside her body. During the investigation, a dedicated volunteer named Jennifer Sheehan Lee discovered a shell casing from a .38 caliber bullet not far from Prairie Road.

“Looking around the area for about 25 feet around the body to see if anything obvious or unusual was there, I found what appeared to be brain tissue, like something had leaked out of the gunshot wound, and that was collected.”

Along the road, the officers found plastic ties commonly used for bundling wires, which they believed were used to restrain Tanya in the van. As the investigation deepened, detectives couldn’t ignore the puzzling absence of Jay. Their suspicion immediately turned toward Jay as a potential suspect in Tanya’s tragic murder. However, both families vehemently disagreed with this notion, as they knew Tanya and Jay were intensely devoted to each other and deeply in love. The relationship had been filled with joy and had never exhibited any signs of trouble or violence.

On November 25, 1987, a day after Tanya’s body was found, a perplexing discovery shed new light on the case. The authorities located Jay’s van in a bustling parking lot in downtown Bellingham in Whatcom County, 90 miles north of Seattle.

Detectives scoured the surrounding area and stumbled upon a treasure trove of evidence just two blocks away from the van. Tanya’s wallet, ID card, driver’s license, the van’s keys, and most importantly, a box of bullets that seemed to be .38 caliber had been discarded near the Greyhound station in Bellingham. A woman who worked at Essie’s Tavern in the city of Bellingham was out on the back porch when she and another employee found several items. Curiously, these items were found hidden beneath the porch adjacent to the busy bus station, along with surgical gloves, a partial box of ammunition, zip ties, and a lens cap for a Minolta camera.

Inside the van, investigators made a series of unsettling discoveries. They found zip ties and Tanya’s black pants, which raised their suspicions. The money order for Gensco was still inside, unused. A stained comforter and a used tampon were evidence of a distressing struggle.

“We examined anything we could find inside the van. There was some blood on the middle seat, or what appeared to be a bloodstain in the back of the van. They found a pair of black pants, which appeared to be a pair of female pants, and they found a used tampon sort of back in the rear compartment near the spare tire.”

The presence of orange Camel cigarette butts in an ashtray hinted at a connection to a third person—and possible killer—since Tanya and Jay never smoked. Authorities also found a pair of surgical gloves that they believed the killer had donned to avoid leaving behind any telltale fingerprints. Also in the van were various receipts, including the ferry ticket from Bremerton to Seattle, confirming that Jay and Tanya had indeed taken the second ferry as a part of their journey, and a fuel receipt indicating the couple had stopped to purchase fuel. These findings helped investigators piece together the timeline of their travels. However, one significant item was missing: the Minolta X-700 35mm camera that Tanya had brought along.

Jay’s Body Discovered

Tragically, on November 26, 1987, a group of pheasant hunters made a grim discovery: the lifeless body of Jay Cook, concealed under the majestic High Bridge overlooking the Snoqualmie River in Snohomish County. His head and torso were carefully covered with a blue blanket. Investigators who gently unveiled the blanket were met by a horrifying sight.

“His upper body was covered in a blue fleece blanket so you couldn’t see a lot at first other than his legs sticking out from the blanket. They start to remove the blanket and they quickly realized that there’s a lot of blood. He has numerous wounds on his head, on his ear… it appears there’s a ligature.”

Jay had suffered severe head injuries from a beating, and his life had been cruelly cut short by strangulation with twine tied to two vivid red dog collars. On top of that, a pack of Camel Lights and some tissues had been forcefully pushed down his throat.

Sergeant Robert Bart from the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office noted that Jay’s hands had been bound with plastic ties similar to the ones found near Tanya’s body, which is often a sign of an individual with a criminal past. What added to the intrigue was the location where Jay’s body had been found: in Monroe, just a few miles away from the Monroe Correctional Complex. Detective Jim Scharf of the Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office had a sinking feeling that the perpetrator could be a seasoned predator, even a serial killer.

The search for the double murderer posed a daunting challenge to investigators and forensic scientists. The four crime scenes were spread across three counties: Skagit, Snohomish, and Whatcom. A small glimmer of hope emerged when the bullet casing discovered near Tanya’s body was found to match the bullets recovered at the tavern in Bellingham. Unfortunately, the murder weapon used to shoot Tanya remained elusive.

Among the various leads found at the crime scene were blood-stained rocks that investigators had meticulously collected from the surrounding grass where Jay’s body had been found. Forensics also discovered a palm print on the back of the van, which they hoped belonged to the killer.

In their search for clues, the police focused on the black pants found in the van. They sent the pants to the medical examiner’s office for analysis, hoping to uncover a new lead. Upon examination, forensic experts found traces of bodily fluid on the pants. More significantly, the DNA profile obtained from the bodily fluid did not match Jay’s, but it did match the unknown DNA recovered from inside Tanya’s body. Investigators believed that this mysterious DNA sample was their link to the murderer, referred to as “Individual A”.

Tanya and Jay, described as mild-mannered and soft-spoken, were not seeking conflict with anyone. The devastating impact of their loss was felt deeply by both families. In a desperate attempt to bring the killer to justice, Tanya’s family offered a reward of $50,000 for any valuable information. Although tips poured in from far and wide, none of them yielded the breakthrough they were hoping for.

On December 5, 1987, a heartfelt memorial service took place at the University of Victoria’s Interfaith Chapel, honoring the memory of Jay and Tanya.

“It was a good service, a number of people spoke. A lot of people were there because Tanya was quite social, so she had a lot of young people, a lot of her friends were there. I mean, the community was in shock. For these two kids to have gone missing, then both found murdered… it was so hard to understand, so hard to fathom how you could raise kids like that and then for no apparent reason have them taken in such a brutal way.”

Just four weeks after the murders, during the Christmas holidays in December 1987, Jay and Tanya’s families received the first of a series of chilling greeting cards from an anonymous writer. These cards were filled with disturbing descriptions of the murders and signed by someone claiming to be their killer. Some of these cards were even signed with the names of the victims.

Even more unsettling was that the cards were sent from different cities across the United States, including New York, Los Angeles, and Seattle. The writer went to the extent of sending letters to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and a British Columbia newspaper, seemingly finding joy in causing distress and chaos.

Detectives suspected that the author might be a transient traveling along the West Coast, but the grammar and punctuation in the letters hinted at a Canadian education. Phrases like “Greetings and salutations” and “Hallelujah, bloody Jesus” caught their attention. While there was a possibility that the letter writer could be the killer, detectives believed it was more likely the work of a misguided individual. This was confirmed when the DNA extracted from the letters failed to match the “Individual A” DNA from the crime scene. (Years later, in 2010, detectives tracked down the transient suspect who had sent the letters; he apologized and cited mental illness and years of homelessness as reasons for his erratic behavior).

In 1995, a dedicated Cold Case team led by Snohomish County Detective Jim Scharf was formed. A new name emerged as a potential suspect: Charles Sinclair, a notorious figure in the western United States known as the “Coin Shop Killer.” Sinclair was suspected of being involved in 11 homicides, but he passed away from a heart attack in 1990. However, unlike other serial killers, Sinclair’s motive was primarily financial gain. In Tanya and Jay’s case, all the money they had been carrying—including Tanya’s wallet and the money order in the van—had been left untouched. Detectives dismissed this theory.

In 2003, forensic scientist Lisa Collins from the Washington State Patrol uploaded the “Individual A” DNA profile to CODIS, the FBI’s national database, but it did not provide any matches.

In 2018, Detective Jim Scharf learned about Snapshot Phenotyping, a new tool that used DNA evidence to predict a suspect’s physical appearance. Working with Parabon NanoLabs, they analyzed the DNA and created composite sketches of the suspect at the ages of 25, 45, and 65. Despite receiving almost 70 leads, none provided a solid clue.

But a surprising arrest in California that same year offered a glimmer of hope: the capture of the Golden State Killer (Joseph James DeAngelo) using a genetic database called GEDmatch. This inspired Detective Scharf to use the exact same technology.

In 2013, Chelsea Rustad, a 31-year-old resident of Tumwater, Washington, began exploring her family history. In 2015, she won an AncestryDNA test kit in a contest. She took the test and eventually posted her results on GEDmatch, a public DNA database website. Little did she know, a new story was unfolding.

In 2018, Parabon NanoLabs uploaded Individual A’s DNA to GEDmatch. CeCe Moore, a renowned genetic genealogist, took on the challenge. The case held personal significance for her, as she was born the same year as Tanya.

After a tense night on April 27, 2018, CeCe found two individuals in the DNA database who shared enough DNA with Individual A to qualify as second cousins. However, they were related to him on different branches of his family tree. CeCe had to trace those branches back to identify the common ancestor.

“I recognized Talbot immediately from the other match’s family tree… right away I knew, ‘Aha! This marriage combines the two different families that I’m researching.’ So then we follow that forward… Patricia Peters is married to Talbott and they had four kids, and we’ve got one male.”

Within two hours, she built the family tree and discovered the suspect’s name. When the police arrived at the cousin’s address, the door opened to reveal Chelsea Rustad. The suspect was none other than her mysterious second cousin: William Earl Talbott II, who had no presence on social media.

The Suspect: William Earl Talbott II

William Earl Talbott II was born in 1969 to William Earl Talbott Sr. and Patricia Peters. He had a regular job as a trucker, enjoyed riding motorcycles, lived in a pleasant home near the Seattle-Tacoma airport, and had a relatively clean record except for a few minor arrests.

However, from a young age, he displayed severe anger issues and aggressive behavior. Talbott’s younger sister, Melina, recalled incidents where he had kicked her with boots on, prompting her to call the police. He allegedly pushed his disabled father, assaulted his sister Inga multiple times (causing serious injuries including a broken tailbone), and once dropped the family cat into a well. Due to his violent actions, Talbott became estranged from his family for nearly two decades.

For years, he managed to stay unnoticed, living a regular life as a truck driver without any online footprint. Detectives discovered that Talbott had grown up just a few miles away from where Jay Cook’s body was found—a crucial connection.

Detective Scharf faced a critical task: he had to match the DNA found at the crime scene directly to William Talbott. To gather evidence, investigators closely followed Talbott on his trucking routes. One fateful day in May 2018, Talbott unknowingly dropped a paper cup he had been drinking from at a traffic signal and drove away. Investigators promptly recovered the cup and delivered it to the Washington State Patrol lab.

The lab swiftly tested the cup and confirmed their suspicions: Talbott’s DNA was a perfect match to Individual A.

“A really, really powerful moment in my life. My eyes teared up, and I yelled out a scream and said, ‘We got him!'”

After nearly three decades of anguish, they had the killer at last. On May 17, 2018, William Talbott II was arrested. He was charged with kidnapping, assault, murder, and robbery in Skagit County Superior Court for the death of Tanya Van Cuylenborg. On June 15, 2018, the charge for Jay Cook’s murder was added in Snohomish County Superior Court.

The trial of William Talbott began on June 11, 2019. He pleaded not guilty to two counts of aggravated murder. The prosecution, led by Deputy Prosecutor Matt Baldock, presented the DNA evidence, Talbott’s proximity to the crime scene, and the zip ties.

Talbott’s defense attorneys attempted to challenge the DNA evidence, arguing it was not strong enough to prove he committed the murders. They suggested the idea of a consensual relationship between Talbott and Tanya as the reason for his DNA being present, arguing that an unidentified killer had later murdered the couple. However, Talbott denied having any relationship with Tanya, leaving jurors struggling to understand the defense’s narrative.

Another point of contention was the palm print found on the Ford van’s back door, which was initially deemed a mismatch for Talbott but later conclusively identified as a match.

Finally, after just 30 minutes of deliberation, the jury reached a unanimous guilty verdict. Later, the jury learned a detail that hadn’t been presented in court: the zip ties found in the victim’s van also contained DNA traces that potentially matched Talbott’s DNA, providing even further proof.

On July 24, 2019, William Talbott II was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Jay Cook’s sister took the stand to highlight the profound devastation of losing two young people with such promising futures.

In 2020, Talbott filed an appeal, arguing against the use of DNA evidence in his case. In December 2021, an appeals court briefly overturned the conviction, citing that a juror had shown actual bias that was not adequately addressed. The prosecution vehemently opposed this decision and took the case to the State Supreme Court. On December 22, 2022, the Supreme Court upheld the original decision and reinstated Talbott’s conviction. He will serve his life sentence without parole at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.

Chelsea Rustad, Talbott’s second cousin whose DNA upload cracked the case, found closure by connecting with the families of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg. Attending the sentencing, she offered support to the families and later wrote a book titled Inherited Secrets about the experience of discovering her relation to a cold-blooded killer.

Talbott’s conviction brought a sense of closure to the families, providing them with peace after decades of pain and uncertainty. The double murder of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook was a landmark case that tested the boundaries of forensic science—and ultimately proved that justice, no matter how long delayed, can still be served.