Breathe To Read

Breathe To Read

Wednesday, June 7, 2023

Book: The Forever Witness - How DNA and Genealogy Solved A Cold Case Double Murder

 Book: The Forever Witness- How DNA and Genealogy Solved A Cold Case Double Murder

Author: Edward Humes

Pages: 384


This is my 50th read for the year

This is a non-fiction book about the murder of two teenagers in 1987 - Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook.  They went on an overnight errand from their home in Canada to Seatle Washington and never returned.  Days after they went murder they were both found - brutally murdered and not together.  Thus started a manhunt for the killer. But with no witnesses and very little clues, the case quickly went cold.

Then 30 years later, as Detective Jim Scharf was combing through cold case files, he decides to pull the evidence for DNA analysis and sends it to Parabon Nanolabs and CeCe Moore, and they soon find that due to the advanced in DNA databases they might have found their killer.

This was a pretty good book.  It was interesting to see how DNA has been used to solve cases and where the controversies lie.  I always think it is amazing that they can take hair or samples from even 30 year old cases and still get a DNA match.  The only downside of this book I would say is it was a bit dry in places and the language a bit flowery in the begining which didn't really fit the story.  It was almost as if the author was just trying to stretch the pages.  It wasn't anything that took away from the general story though and I am glad I read this one.

Stars: 4


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