EVERETT, Washington — For more than 30 years, the families of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook have waited for answers in their unsolved murders.
The young Victoria-area couple was visiting Washington state in November 1987 when they were found slain in two separate locations.
On Wednesday, the Snohomish County Sheriff’s office released new details of a description of the person they believe was behind the killings of Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Cook, 20.
High school sweethearts, Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook, vanished on a trip to the Seattle in 1987. Their bodies were found a few weeks later in separate locations in Washington state.\
The new suspect information comes from technology called Snapshot DNA phenotyping which has been used on DNA police collected during their investigation.
“Jay and Tanya were brutally murdered and more than three decades later, their killer has yet to be brought to justice,” Sheriff Ty Ternary of Snohomish County said at a news conference in Everett on Wednesday.
“We hope this new technology will help us positively identify a suspect and finally provide answers to their families.”
Victoria couple Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook were murdered in 1987 in Washington State. On Wednesday, police released an image of a potential suspect in the unsolved killings that was created by Snapshot DNA phenotyping. The suspect aged 25, 45 and 65.
He said detectives from both Snohomish and Skagit County hope the public can provide new tips that will lead to the identification of a suspect.
“We are looking for anyone who knows something related to the case, or can identify a person of interest from the Parabon DNA predictions and images,” said Jeff Miller, the sheriff’s department captain of investigations. “Maybe you were too afraid to come forward at the time, or thought someone else would. Now is the time to share what you may have seen or heard.”
New technology suggests the killer is a white male, with hazel or green eyes, possibly freckles, and possibly balding. He could have been heavier or lighter than the images created, Miller said.
Miller said that the image his department released is not a photograph but a composite sketch. He hopes someone knows someone “similar” but not necessarily identical to image.
“It is not 100 per cent accurate,” he said.
Snohomish County Cold Case Detective Jim Scharf, left, presents new images rendered using phenotype technology of a potential suspect in the unsolved case of the 1987 double homicide of Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg during a press conference in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, April 11, 2018.
At the news conference, Cook’s sister, Laura Baanstra, spoke about the tragic loss of her brother calling it a calculated crime. She urged anyone with information to call the authorities.
“For the sake of my brother Jay, call it in,” she said. Family and friends are now offering a $50,000 Canadian reward if the information provides a DNA match with the suspect.
Baanstra said she hasn’t been able to look at the image yet of the person who may have killed her brother. Her husband Gary said it is shocking.
Det. Jim Scharf, who has worked on the double murder case for years, said the homicides happened between Nov, 18 and Nov. 21, 1987.
“The person who did this came prepared to do a brutal crime,” said Scharf.
Laura Baanstra, center, a sister of 1987 homicide victim Jay Cook, speaks at a press conference held in Everett, Washington on Wednesday, April 11, 2018 in which new images, digitally rendered with phenotype technology, were presented of what the murder suspect possibly looks like. The families of victims Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg announced they are offering a $50,000 reward to anyone that can solve the mystery of the killer’s identity until the end of 2018.
Two years after the terrible crime, investigators provided details of the case to a Province reporter.
The Oak Bay Secondary grads left their Victoria homes on Nov. 18, 1987, for a trip to Seattle. They were driving a brown 1977 Ford window van owned by Cook’s dad. They crossed the Juan de Fuca strait to Port Angeles by ferry.
The plan was to buy furnace parts for Cook’s family business, sleep in the van near the former Kingdome stadium, then travel back to Canada the next day.
The couple bought a ticket for the Bremerton-Seattle ferry and are believed to have got on the boat. But they never arrived at their Seattle meeting.
And they were never seen alive again.
A missing-person report was filed two days later.
On Nov. 24, a man walking on an isolated road near Alger, south of Bellingham, discovered Van Cuylenborg’s body in a roadside ditch. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the head.
A day later near a Bellingham pub, police found some surgical gloves and unused rounds of ammunition they believed were linked to the murders, as well as several pieces of Van Cuylenborg’s identification.
Nearby police found their locked van. Plastic binding ties the killer had used to tie up his victims were scattered around the van.
Cook’s battered body was found the next day in the bushes by the side of a bridge near Monroe, southwest of Bellingham. He was covered by a tattered light-blue blanket.
Over the years, police have had promising leads in the case.
In 1990, a lens from Van Cuylenborg’s camera was found in a Portland, Oregon, pawnshop.
In 2000, police suspected a serial killer who had been arrested and convicted in other murders might be behind their deaths. But he was cleared.
The murders were featured on the U.S. TV show Unsolved Mysteries. But still no arrest.
In 2015, a $25,000 reward was offered for information that would solve the case.
October 13 1989. Snohomish County Sgt. Rick Bart (left) and Det. Ron Perniciaro display plastic bindings used in killings of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook. The binding ties were scattered around Cook’s van. The ties were of the kind used to bind together bundles of electrical wire. They make excellent handcuffs, noted Panzero.
November 25 1987. Search & Rescue squad from Mt. Vernon, Washington search area where body of 18-year-old Saanich resident Tanya Van Cuylenborg was found on a lonely road near Alger, Washington.
December 5 1987. Skagit County Sheriff Gary Frazier examines Jay Cook’s 1977 Ford van in which he and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg were on their way to Seattle. Cook’s 1977 bronze-coloured Ford van was found abandoned in Bellingham parking lot a week after the couple went missing.
The Province, November 26 1987, page 3.