Prosecutors in Washington State confirm they will not seek the death penalty against William Earl Talbott II in a more than 30 year old cold case. The 55 year old Seattle-Tacoma trucker is charged with the aggravated murders of a young Saanich couple in 1987.
Jay Cook, 20, and his girlfriend, 18 year old Tanya Van Cuylenborg, were abducted and killed after travelling to the Seattle area to run an errand for Cook's father. Van Cuylenborg had been sexually assaulted, shot in the head and dumped in the woods. Cook was found near a bridge, and appeared to have been beaten with rocks and strangled.
After his arrest Snohomish County prosecutors indicated they would consider seeking the death penalty for Talbott. Then, last month, the state Supreme Court ruled Washington's death penalty law is unconstitutional as it’s imposed in an arbitrary, racially-biased manner. But the court left the door open for lawmakers to revise the law so that it would be constitutional.
According to the Skagit Valley Herald, deputy prosecutor Matthew Baldock confirmed for the judge at a pretrial conference Monday they won’t try to get around the ruling. Baldock expects to produce a final witness list to share with the Defense by mid-December.
Pretrial motions are slated for March 29, with Talbott's trial expected to begin in early April and last a month.
Over a 3 decade investigation that produced a list of 300 potential suspects Talbott's name never surfaced until new technology allowed investigators to generate suspect sketches using DNA from second cousins. If convicted, he faces life in prison.
(with files from Skagit Valley Herald)