SPECIAL REPORT: Part four of six
During this week, ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½ reporters Rob Shaw and Lindsay Kines will highlight several unsolved cases of missing or murdered people from the Island, and examine new techniques being used to solve old crimes.
Monday: How a young North Vancouver mother of two ended up strangled to death on the Island 24 years ago.
Tuesday: The baffling disappearance of 17-year-old Carmen Robinson.
Yesterday: How a mysterious call from "Mr. Murdoch" ended in murder.
Today: Why detectives hope playing cards hold the key to cracking a 20-year-old murder of two Oak Bay High school grads in Washington.
Friday: Minutes after his routine physical at CFB Esquimalt, a strapping 17-year-old cadet was found lying near Admirals Road with a severe injury.
Saturday: In 1958, Tommy (Babe) Price was dumped in the ocean with a broken neck, and an axe wound to his head. He was just 13.
Missed a story? Read the series online at timescolonist.com.
Have a tip? If you have information that might help solve these cases,
you can reach Lindsay Kines at 250-381-7890 or [email protected] and Rob Shaw at 250-380-5350 or [email protected].
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Who: Tanya van Cuylenborg, 18; Jay Cook, 20.
What: Homicide
When: Nov. 18, 1987
Where last seen: Bremerton, Wash.
Where found: Van Cuylenborg's body found near Alger, Skagit County, Wash.; Cook's body found near Monroe in Snohomish County, Wash.
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LINDSAY KINES
ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½
U.S. cold case detectives hope a deck of playing cards will help solve the murder of a young Victoria couple in Washington state 21 years ago.
The killing of Tanya van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20, is one of 52 unsolved cases featured on playing cards recently distributed to prisons and jails by the Snohomish County sheriff's office. Each card features a picture of the victim and a short narrative of the case.
The theory is that prisoners will read about the crimes on the cards, recall hearing someone talking or bragging about them and alert police.
"You may think that the information you have is not important, but it could be the missing link that family members have been waiting years for that could solve their loved one's case," states the message on one of the cards.
The cards include a tip line and a promise of rewards up to $1,000 for information leading to arrests or charges.
Snohomish County cold case Det. James Scharf said the program originated in Florida. Police in that state got the idea from the playing cards that U.S. troops carried in Iraq to help them identify wanted war criminals. (Saddam Hussein was featured on the Ace of Spades.)
Florida investigators credit the "cold case cards" with helping solve at least three murders since 2005. The Florida Department of Law Enforcement recently issued a third edition of the cards, and the idea has spread to other police departments across the United States.
In Snohomish County, the Stillaguamish Tribe of Indians picked up the $7,250 tab for printing 5,000 decks.
"We felt that this was a way to try to generate more information that could help us solve some of our cases," Scharf said. "We've got about 65 unsolved cases of homicides or missing people that we believe are homicide victims."
He said investigators put the Cook-van Cuylenborg case on the King of Hearts as a sign of its ongoing importance.
The Oak Bay high school grads disappeared on Nov. 18, 1987, while on a trip to Seattle to pick up furnace parts for Cook's dad.
Travelling in a brown 1977 Ford van, they crossed to Port Angeles on the Coho ferry, were seen later in the little town of Allyn between Shelton and Bremerton, and were last seen alive shortly before buying a ticket for the Bremerton-to-Seattle ferry. Police would later recover the ticket showing that it was purchased at 10:16 p.m. for the 10:25 p.m. ferry.
Police speculate that the couple met their killer aboard the ferry late that night; they never made their business appointment in Seattle the next day.
Van Cuylenborg's body was found six days later, on Nov. 24, in a ditch near Alger, Wash., about 20 kilometres south of Bellingham. She had been sexually assaulted and shot in the back of the head.
The next day, the van was found in the parking lot of a tavern in downtown Bellingham; the ferry ticket was found inside. A short distance away, investigators recovered the van keys, van Cuylenborg's driver's licence, a box of ammunition for a handgun, plastic ties that could be used as slip cuffs and a pair of plastic surgical gloves, leading police to speculate that the killer or killers were travelling with their own "murder kit."
Hunters found Cook's body the following day, Nov. 26, under a bridge near Monroe, Wash., northeast of Seattle and within sight of a minimum-security prison. He had been beaten and strangled.
A short time later, the families began receiving taunting letters. Police were never able to find the sender, but suspect it was a cruel hoax.
Two years after the murders, the TV show Unsolved Mysteries aired a story about the case that generated hundreds of calls. None led to an arrest.
Victoria lawyer John van Cuylenborg said in an interview this week that it's reassuring to know police are still trying new techniques in the hunt for his sister's killer.
"Around the time of the crime, there was a reasonable amount of speculation by law enforcement that the people involved in the crime were hardened criminals," he said. "So, I suppose to that extent, they may well have been in and out of prison and talking with others. So circulating [the playing cards] among the prison population probably has some merit."
But van Cuylenborg said it's difficult to be optimistic given the amount of time that has passed since the crimes.
"It continues to be an open question, an open wound," he said. "But, after this length of time, you come to some resolution with it; you kind of have to, to keep living with it."
Gordon Cook said he, too, came to terms long ago with the possibility the case may never be solved. "We've all watched detective shows and think they solve everything, but I guess they don't," he said.
Still, he added, "there's always hope."
Scharf said the location of the bodies in relation to where the van was recovered raises the possibility that the killer was headed north, possibly to ÎÚÑ»´«Ã½. He urged anyone in British Columbia with information on the murders to contact the Snohomish County sheriff's office tip line at 425-388-3845.
Scharf said investigators follow up on every tip.
A few years ago, Scharf chased a tip about a man in a Wal-Mart who resembled someone the tipster allegedly saw talking to van Cuylenborg and Cook on the Bremerton-Seattle ferry in 1987.
"They were thinking maybe that's the guy that killed them," Scharf said.
Investigators pulled the Wal-Mart surveillance tape and used credit card transactions to track the man down.
"We ended up ruling him out," Scharf said. "But still, there has been a lot of work that has been done on that case. It hasn't been forgotten about."
Lindsay Kines can be reached at 250-381-7890 or at [email protected].
