Edward Humes

Fascinating true crime.

"Genetic genealogy...was the source that never lied, never faded with time, never forgot. It was the forever witness."

The murdered bodies of Tanya Van Cuylenborg and her boyfriend, Jay Cook, were found separately in isolated parts of Washington State in November, 1987. The lack of clues hampered the investigation and eventually the case went dormant without new leads. Decades later, in 2018, Detective Jim Scharf working the cold case in Snohomish County, Washington, show more would team up with genetic genealogist, CeCe Moore, to identify the killer. The man, William Talbott II, was subsequently tried and convicted using this new and powerful forensic tool -- but it has been widely misunderstood.

Along with details about the Cuylenborg/Cook case, the book also focuses on the controversial use of genetic genealogy as a method of fighting crime and identifying criminals. The argument centers on privacy and the rights of those who submit their DNA to both public or private labs. Many of us have willingly put our saliva in a tube and mailed it to one of the ancestry sites looking for information. The question then is whether or not that voluntary surrender implies consent for police or other organizations to search those data bases for their own purposes -- mostly to secure and identify a suspect in a murder or other violent crime. Keep in mind that when you send off your DNA, you are also revealing that of your relatives and mostly without their knowledge or consent. It's definitely an interesting debate, and I know on which side I fall. Several US States have already begun the process of regulating and establishing clearcut laws about using genetic material.

I found the entire book absorbing and extremely interesting. I was not aware of the cold case and was astonished to hear the outcome of the trial and subsequent appeal. I liked the way the author wrote the story of Tanya and Jay and the way the narrative included so much detail that created in me a desire for the couple to get some sort of resolution and ultimately, justice. Sometimes I forget how much I enjoy reading well-written true crime. I recommend it.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Group Dutton for this e-book ARC to read and review. show less

The Forever Witness: How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder by Edward Humes is a very highly recommended true crime account that reads like a novel. This investigative novel introduces the 1987 cold case of victims 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg and 20-year-old Jay Cook and then explains how the case was solved thirty-one years later by investigator Jim Scharf and genetic genealogist CeCe Moore.

Canadian citizens Tanya and Jay were taking an overnight trip from Vancouver to show more Seattle, Washington, to purchase some furnace equipment for Jay's father. The young couple never made it home and their bodies were found in separate locations in rural Washington. There were few clues and no witnesses, so the case went cold and the biological evidence from the crime was frozen.

Thirty-one years later Detective Jim Scharf is examining cold case files, looking for clues. Scharf decided to take a chance and work with CeCe Moore. Moore with her interest in genetic genealogy has been looking at the information from home DNA ancestry kits being used as a forensic tool. It is through the test that a link to familial DNA points out a suspect, Bill Talbott, a 55-year-old Seattle trucker.

This is a well-written and well-paced true crime story that follows the facts of the case and how a suspect was found and reads like a novel. Humes does an excellent job introducing us to the victims, the detectives working the case and later the cold case. There is an accessible discussion covering the advances of DNA research, the science behind it, and explaining the creation of GEDmatch, the DNA database that genetic genealogists and law enforcement use to solve cold cases. There is also a thoughtful discussion involving the pros and con of using genetic genealogy. Included at the end are notes for Humes research.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Penguin Random House via NetGalley.
http://www.shetreadssoftly.com/2022/11/the-forever-witness.html show less

An interesting, readable account of the Dover, Pennsylvania "intelligent design" trial that led to ID being barred from America's science classrooms. Since I'm not particularly science-literate, I felt pretty well-served by this book. Humes walks the reader though the basics of evolutionary theory and evolution-related jurisprudence, as well as the often-strange origins of the intelligent design "movement" itself. Humes's style is pretty straightforward, sometimes verging on newspaperly, but show more he also knows how to build tension. The pages of "Monkey Girl" fly by as we approach Judge Jones's final ruling. As might be expected, Humes is not a "teach the controversy" kind of guy: he's not afraid to call ID ridiculous and to describe its proponents in terms that are less than kind. Still, to his credit, he takes care to humanize one of the main proponents of the Dover school board's intelligent design policy, William Buckingham, who suffered from a string of personal troubles that is likely to seem sadly familiar to many residents of rural Pennsylvania. His portraits of the teachers, parents, and lawyers on the anti-ID side of the aisle are much kinder, but they also suggest that the author is particularly adept at making people come alive on the page.

It's not a knock on "Monkey Girl" to say that it's more interested in the people and ideas surrounding Darwin's theory than it is in the nuts and bolts of evolutionary theory. It probably shouldn't be the only book you read about evolution or the difficulties facing science educators. Still, it's well-constructed and concise, and I couldn't help thinking that Humes was largely right about what most of the protagonists in this story felt was at stake in the case. He convincingly places the Kitzmiller case in a larger cultural and political context that hasn't changed all that much since the events described here took place fifteen years ago. show less

Mississippi Mud reveals the dark underbelly of Mississippi life. Two upstanding citizens of Biloxi, MS, Vincent and Margaret Sherry, were slain in their house in a typical hired assassin style. Vincent was a Circuit Court judge and Margaret was active in city politics. Their bodies were discovered by their best friend and Vince's law partner, Pete Halat. When their oldest daughter, Lynne Sposito, was contacted she immediately assumed that Margaret's attempts to clean up the Strip and oust show more the current mayor were the reason for the killings. Lynne was therefore wary that the Biloxi Police Department which was controlled by the mayor would be able to solve the murders. As it turned out, the Biloxi PD did mess up the initial investigation and it was only because of Lynne's relentless probing that the case continued to be investigated. She even hired a private investigator at a substantial cost. Eventually, charges were brought against a number of hardened criminals who had conducted a scam against gay men from prison. However, one of the people involved on the outside was not charged because of a lack of evidence.

This book goes into substantial, sometimes excessive, detail about the investigation and trial. But it was a fascinating read and ultimately satisfying. The details revealed about the scam and prison life in Angola, one of the worst prisons in the US, were especially interesting. According to the book the scam even reached into Canada with one MP being caught up. show less