Wed, Nov 13, 2019
Part 2 of 2: In 2019, American law enforcement agencies identified over 70 suspects using a new technique called genetic genealogy, which California detectives leveraged in 2018 to identify the Golden State Killer. In the second of a two-part series, William Brangham shares the story of the first genetic genealogy case to go to trial -- and how the science behind it solved a 32-year-old double murder. In 1987, both Jay Cook, age 20, and his girlfriend Tanya Van Cuylenborg, age 18. were found murdered in Washington state. Tanya had been raped, and evidence from that crime had been saved. Thirty-two years later, the DNA was matched to William Earl Talbott II.