EVERETT, Wash. — A defense lawyer for a man charged with killing a young Canadian couple in 1987, described his client as a blue-collar guy who's lived "a quiet, unremarkable life."
In his opening statement Friday at William Earl Talbott II's trial, attorney Jon Scott noted there's little or no evidence about who 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jay Cook, were with or what they did in the days before they were found dead in Washington state.
Talbott was arrested last year after authorities used a novel method called genetic genealogy to identify him as the person they say left his DNA on Van Cuylenborg's pants.
Scott's opening statement did not offer any theory about how the DNA wound up there.
Opening statements began Friday with a prosecutor describing how Van Cuylenborg and Cook left Victoria, British Columbia, for an overnight trip to Seattle.
When they didn't return, their families began a frantic search for them, including renting a plane to try to spot their copper-colored van.
Their bodies were found in separate locations about a week later.
