The summer of 1987, a young canadian couple had just started dating j. Cooke was 20 his Girlfriend Tenure then Carlin Berg was 18 they both mental pay high, but they werent in the same year at school. And so it was through some mutual friends. They met jay was six foot four, broad shoulders very lean, very handsome, both j and thani were quiet. Suite loving people. Jays father owned a Furnace Business and in november, as the couple, if they could drive from victoria, that theyd taken overnight out of the country. Narrator Jay And Tanya were using jays family van. The trip was just over 100 miles,
And he had been beaten in the head with rocks. Narrator Jays Body was located about 70 miles away from where tanya was found. Hed been strangled. The boy who found my Brothers Body was 24 at the time. Hes now in his 50s, and he remembers it and has carried it with him this whole time. Narrator the Plastic Zip ties found with both victims indicated this was not a haphazard, spurofthemoment attack. This was something that appeared to have been premeditated. This person came equipped to commit this crime. Narrator who would do this . Jay and tanya appear to have been targeted, but they didnt know anyone in the area. Tanya i mean, i couldnt even imagine her coming close to having enemies of this sort. Baanstra we didnt know anybody that we could even dream of doing this kind of damage to someone
But since they had to take a couple of ferries, it was going to take some time. So instead of rushing home, they planned to stay overnight once they got to seattle. My dad had given them enough money to stay in a hotel. As it turned out, they chose to save that Money And Sleep in the van instead. Narrator Jay And Tanya didnt make it to the next mornings appointment. They didnt call the client, and they didnt call home. No one knew where they were. My parents were very concerned right away, by that afternoon, that something was amiss. Narrator days passed. Police on both sides of the border mounted searches. So did Jay And Tanyas families. My dad had an acquaintance who had a small airplane. They did a flyover of the Olympic Peninsula and out towards the cascade mountains, just sort of looking for the needle in the haystack. Unfortunately, it didnt turn up anything. Narrator six days after Jay And Tanya left canada,
Who was carrying the correct mix of dna. And so the genealogist said that the perpetrator has to be that male child. Narrator that person was william talbott, who was 24 years old at the time of the murders. This was the first time that id ever heard the name william talbott. He was not in the Case File anywhere. His Family Home was just about 7 miles down the road from where Jays Body was found. Narrator talbott, a nevermarried truck driver, had no criminal record, so his Dna Wasnt in codis, the genetic database used by law enforcement. Investigators needed a sample of Talbotts Dna to either expose or eliminate him as a suspect in jay and tanyas murder. Collins they were having a really hard time getting a piece of evidence from him. Narrator but, eventually, talbott, who, after all this time,
Dozens of plastic zip ties, presumably used to bind both victims, and among the various items of tanyas clothing, one item stood out. Scharf they found tanyas pants, which eventually were found to have semen on the pant leg. Narrator they also took swabs from Tanyas Body during her autopsy. And so they kept some of the vaginal swabs, and they retained them, frozen, in the laboratory. Narrator but this was 1987, and Dna Science was in its infancy. In fact, the Firstever Conviction using Dna Evidence happened in england just weeks before jay and tanyas murders. Collins when these murders happened in 1987, we werent using dna testing. It hadnt been brought into the lab yet. Narrator despite being relatively unfamiliar with dna technology, analysts realized