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The Forever Witness

How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder

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The Forever Witness

Written by: Edward Humes
Narrated by: Edward Humes
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About this listen

“Thought-provoking true-crime thriller…the book raises urgent questions of balancing public and private good that we’ll likely be dealing with as long as the title implies.”—Wall Street Journal

A relentless detective and a civilian genealogist solve a haunting cold case—and launch a crime-fighting revolution that tests the fragile line between justice and privacy.

In November 1987, a young couple from the idyllic suburbs of Vancouver Island 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 in the vast and foreboding Olympic Peninsula, 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 their birth families, has made headlines as a cold case solution machine, capable of exposing the darkest secrets of seemingly upstanding citizens. In the hands of a tenacious detective like Scharf, genetic genealogy has solved one baffling killing after another. But as this crime-fighting technique spreads, 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?

©2022 Edward Humes (P)2022 Penguin Audio
Biological Sciences True Crime Cold Case Genetics Exciting Detective
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What the critics say

"Whether one is interested in cold case puzzles or genealogy, or just curious about solving crimes, The Forever Witness should be read and reread until it becomes a dog-eared part of one’s library.”—New York Journal of Books

“This book was fabulous. The Forever Witness was thorough, informative, and deeply emotional.”—True Crime Index

“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)

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engaging

I really like true crime, like most. this book was not clunky in giving information. the writer easily made the true story interesting, and I learned a lot.

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Excellent work!

One of the most compelling true crime books that I have read. So happy that Audible suggested it to me because I had never heard of it. I am from Vancouver Island and was familiar with this sad, sad story. It is obvious that the writer is an excellent journalist and displays compassion and fine details without being gratuitous.

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I’ve recommended it to everyone I know!

As a Canadian genetic genealogist, this book hit home in so many ways. It was well written and researched, weaving a tragic tale that ended with the justice that so many true crime stories never get. Thank you for explaining this in a way that anyone can understand. I hope that investigative genetic genealogy is used as common practice everywhere in North America one day in the near future. It’s books like this that push the cause forward.

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Excellent

Truly riveting. Stayed up all night listening. While I was interested in hearing the details about how the first DNA conviction came about, it was that the victims were from close to home, travelling to an area I visited, that really sparked my curiosity. Such a senseless tragedy. If there can be good news in all this is that the evidence was preserved, allowing it to be processed with new technologies later. Well written. I might listen to the chapters about the DNA again - these were handled as a bit of an aside, part way through the book, right when my brain was asking about how all these tests and databases worked. I understood, but might listen again to cement that knowledge. Fortunately, this audiobook has well titled chapters. Recommended.

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