EVERETT — The state Supreme Court will review a SeaTac trucker’s overturned conviction in a 1987 Snohomish County double homicide.
A trial in State v. William Talbott II led to the first jury conviction in the world where detectives identified the suspect through forensic genealogy — a tool now widely used to crack cold cases through the combined powers of crime scene evidence, genetic research and public family DNA databases.
After weeks of testimony, a Snohomish County jury found Talbott, now 59, guilty of two counts of aggravated first-degree murder for killing young Canadian couple Jay Cook and Tanya Van Cuylenborg in November 1987.
Snohomish County Superior Court Judge Linda Krese gave Talbott the only possible sentence in July 2019: life in prison with no chance of parole.
Talbott’s conviction was overturned in December, when the state Court of Appeals found that a juror had shown “actual bias” when she disclosed she wasn’t sure if she could be fair. Her mother had been the victim of domestic abuse, so if the case recounted evidence of violence against a young woman, she said, “a flood of emotion might come over me … and cloud my judgment.”
The prosecutor responded by asking if she could set aside her emotions and base her verdict on the evidence alone.
“I could try,” the juror said.
She was allowed to serve on the jury.
The Court of Appeals found it tainted the convictions.
Snohomish County prosecutors appealed to the state Supreme Court in January, arguing the appellate court’s ruling conflicted with case law in Washington, citing a state Supreme Court ruling: “a mere possibility of bias is not sufficient to prove actual bias; rather the record must demonstrate that there was a probability of actual bias.”
Meanwhile, Talbott has remained behind bars at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
On Wednesday, justices unanimously granted a motion to hear arguments in the case. Of 42 cases reviewed this week by the state’s highest court, it was one of only two that justices agreed to examine.
“I’m certainly grateful that the Supreme Court decided to grant the petition, and we look forward to defending our case,” Snohomish County Prosecutor Adam Cornell said Wednesday.
Cook, 20, and Van Cuylenborg, 18, had made a trip from Victoria to Seattle on Nov. 18, 1987, as an errand for Cook’s father, who needed someone to pick up about $750 in furnace parts from a company in south Seattle. The young couple never arrived.
A passerby found Van Cuylenborg’s body on Nov. 24, 1987, off a rural road in Skagit County. She was nude from the waist down, and she had been shot in the back of the head.
Hunters discovered Cook’s body on Thanksgiving Day under a blue blanket, near the High Bridge on the Snoqualmie River, south of Monroe. He’d been beaten around the head and strangled with twine tied to two dog collars.
If the Court of Appeals ruling stands, he would still face a new trial.
One of the defense attorneys who worked on the case, Jon Scott, was appointed to serve as a Snohomish County Superior Court judge in April.
