For the past 13 years, Snohomish Det. Jim Scharf has been working with Skagit County detectives trying to solve the kidnapping and slaying of Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and Jay Cook, 20.
At a news conference Wednesday, Scharf presented this timeline:
• Nov. 18, 1987 — Cook and Van Cuylenborg left Saanich for Seattle in the Cook family van, a bronze 1977 Ford Club wagon. They planned to pick up an item for Cook’s father at Gensco Heating in Seattle and return home the next day via the Interstate 5 highway.
The couple took the Coho ferry from Victoria to Port Angeles, Washington, arriving at 5:30 p.m. It’s likely they missed the turnoff at state route 101 and 104, because they ended up at the Hoodsport Grocery, Scharf said.
At 9:29 p.m., they were at Ben’s Deli in Allyn.
At 10:16 p.m., Cook and Van Cuylenborg bought tickets at the Bremerton ferry dock to catch the ferry to Seattle. Neither Cook nor Van Cuylenborg was seen or heard from again.
The couple should have arrived in Seattle at 11:35 p.m., Scharf said. They had planned to sleep in the van that night and go to Gensco Heating in the industrial district the next day before heading home.
• Nov. 24, 1987 — Van Cuylenborg’s partially clothed body was found in a ditch in Skagit County in a wooded area of Parsons Creek Road, between old highway 99 and Prairie Road. She had a .38-calibre gunshot wound to the back of her head, Scharf said, and had been restrained with zip-tie fasteners and sexually assaulted.
• Nov. 25, 1987 — Van Cuylenborg’s wallet, ID, keys for the van, a pair of surgical gloves and a partial box of .38-calibre ammunition were found under the back porch of Essie’s Tavern, next door to Rumors Cabaret in Bellingham. Cook’s van was found one block east of the tavern, next to the Greyhound bus station. It was abandoned and locked in a Blue Diamond parking lot at State and Holly streets. Police found the ferry ticket inside the van.
A witness told police the van had been parked in the lot since Nov. 21.
• Nov. 26, 1987 — Cook’s body was found near High Bridge on Crescent Lake Road, just east of Monroe and about three-quarters of a mile west of the Monroe Honor Farm prison facility.
He was covered by a blue blanket. The blanket did not belong to the prison.
Cook had been strangled and restrained with the same type of zip-tie fasteners as Van Cuylenborg. “The person who did this came prepared to do a brutal crime,” Scharf said.
