A relentless detective and a civilian genealogist solve a haunting cold case—and launch a crime-fighting revolution
The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Murder, by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Humes, is the new True Crime book about one of the Pacific Northwest's most enduring mysteries, the disappearance and deaths of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.
In this brilliantly told, addictively readable book, Edward Humes reminds us that the term “cold case” is misleading, that unsolved murders simmer for decades with angry life, grief and the long shadow of justice denied. And he also reminds us to hope that the answers to our most stubborn mysteries can yet be found if we simply refuse to give up on them.
— Deborah Blum, NYT bestselling author of The Poisoner's Handbook
Engrossing…. Humes' writing is suspenseful yet also journalistic, providing fascinating details about the case, technological advances in police work, and genetic genealogy. A winner for any fan of true crime.
— Booklist Starred Review
In November 1987, a young couple on an overnight trip to Seattle vanished without a trace. A week later, the bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend Jay Cook were found in rural Washington. It was a brutal crime, and it was the perfect crime: With few clues and no witnesses, an international manhunt turned up empty, and the sensational case that shocked the Pacific Northwest gradually slipped from the headlines.
In deep-freeze, long-term storage, biological evidence from the crime sat waiting, as Detective Jim Scharf poured over old case files looking for clues his predecessors missed. Meanwhile, 1,200 miles away in California, CeCe Moore began her lifelong fascination with genetic genealogy, a powerful forensic tool that emerged not from the crime lab, but through the wildly popular home DNA ancestry tests purchased by more than 40 million Americans. When Scharf decided to send the cold case’s decades-old DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, he hoped he would finally bring closure to the Van Cuylenborg and Cook families. He didn’t know that he and Moore would make history.
Genetic genealogy, long the province of family tree hobbyists and adoptees seeking birth families, has become a cold case solution machine, exposing the darkest secrets of seemingly upstanding citizens. In the hands of a tenacious detective like Scharf, it has solved one baffling killing after another. But its sheer power has sparked a national debate: Can we use DNA to catch the murderers among us, yet still protect our last shred of privacy in the digital age—the right to the very blueprint of who we are? (continued...)
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