A 55-year-old man has been arrested in a 31-year-old cold case involving a young couple murdered in Washington state.

Detectives from the Snohomish County and Skagit County Sheriff’s Offices arrested William Talbott for the November 1987 murders of 20-year-old Jay Cook and 18-year-old Tanya Van Cuylenborg, the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office said Thursday.

He was ordered held on $2 million bond after a court appearance Friday, Q13 Fox reported.

“We never gave up hope that we would find Jay and Tanya’s killer,” Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said Friday. “Yesterday’s arrest shows how powerful it can be to combine new DNA technology with the relentless determination of detectives.”

Investigators tapped a public genealogy website to match crime scene DNA. The analysis was performed by Parabon, a Virginia company.

SUSPECT'S SKETCHES RELEASED IN WASHINGTON COLD-CASE MURDER OF YOUNG COUPLE

The sheriff’s office said Talbott is the first murder suspect to be arrested using results from Parabon’s genetic genealogy service, which became generally available less than two weeks ago. A digital file containing DNA genotype data derived from evidence at the crime scene was uploaded to GEDMatch, a public genetic genealogy website, and promising matches were found for two of the suspect’s relatives, the sheriff’s office said.

Authorities used GEDMatch to arrest a suspect in the Northern California’s notorious “Golden State Killer” case. From 1976 to 1986, the Golden State Killer murdered 12 people, raped 45 others, and burglarized more than 100 homes.

Van Cuylenborg and Cook left their Saanich, British Columbia, homes on Nov. 18, 1987, for an overnight trip to Seattle. They were driving a brown 1977 Ford van to buy furnace parts for Cook's family business.

When they failed to return home, their families reported them missing.

On Nov. 24 of that year, a man walking on an isolated road south of Bellingham, Washington, discovered Van Cuylenborg's body. She had been sexually assaulted, bound with plastic ties and shot in the head, investigators said.

Cook's battered body turned up the next day about two miles south of Monroe, Washington. The two locations where the bodies were found are about 75 miles apart.

Police were able to obtain DNA from the van.

In April, police released composite sketches of the killer that Parabon created based on the the DNA evidence.

John Van Cuylenborg told a radio talk show that he almost gave up hope his sister’s killer would be found, Global News in Vancouver reported.

“After a while you have to sort of adjust to the fact that it seems as though the case is never going to be solved, and that probably would be true if it wasn’t for these advancements in DNA techniques,” he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

The mother of a 16-year-old girl who was killed along with nine others in Friday's shooting at a Texas high school says she believes the suspect intentionally targeted her daughter.

Sadie Rodriguez, mother of Shana Fisher, said suspect Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, repeatedly made advances toward her daughter in the four months leading up to the deadly shooting.

Pagourtzis was an ex-boyfriend of Fisher’s best friend, Rodriguez added.

“He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no,” Rodriguez told the Los Angeles Times via Facebook Messenger. “He continued to get more aggressive.”

“He kept making advances on her and she repeatedly told him no. He continued to get more aggressive.”

- Sadie Rodriguez, mother of Santa Fe shooting victim Shana Fisher

The grieving mother said the week before the shooting, Fisher “stood up to him” and “embarrassed him in class.”

"A week later he opens fire on everyone he didn't like," she wrote. "Shana being the first one."

Rodriguez didn't say how she knew her daughter was the first victim, the Times reported.

Authorities say Pagourtzis killed two teachers and eight students, who were identified as teachers Glenda Perkins and Cynthia Tisdale, 64; and students Jared Black, 17; Fisher, 16; Christian Riley Garcia, 15; Aaron Kyle McLeod, 15; Angelique Ramirez, 15; Sabika Sheikh; Christopher Jake Stone, 17; and Kimberly Vaughan.

In addition, the FBI said Saturday that the number of injured had been corrected to 13 from 10, the Houston Chronicle reported.

On the day of the shooting, Rodriguez wrote a Facebook status to “love like (you’re) getting one more day with them.”

"Make sure they know (you) love them. Anything can happen," she wrote. "I will no longer get to see my baby my 1st born anymore."

Rodriguez shared a video of Fisher from 2015, in which the teen contemplates whether she'll continue making gaming videos because her computer keeps crashing.

The mother also created a Facebook Fundraiser in her daughter’s memory, describing Fisher as “the most sweet and shy young lady.”

“My heart is being ripped out,” Rodriguez wrote. “My baby is gone.”

She wanted to raise awareness about importance of teachers and parents to recognize students’ mental state.

“Please help to make teachers and students aware of (their) surroundings and the mental state of their students and peers,” she wrote.

One survivor’s mother penned a Facebook post, titled “The longest day of my life,” in which she details a harrowing account of the gunman repeatedly taunting students during the attack, the L.A. Times reported.

Mother Deedra Van Ness wrote that her daughter Isabelle Van Ness was “covered in dust from the bullets hitting the walls around her” and could hear the shooter in a next-door classroom “yelling ‘Woo Hoo!’ and firing more shots.”

Deedra describes her daughter’s reaction “as the media announces the names of the confirmed dead.”

“Isabelle falls apart,” Deedra wrote. “She’d been watching the TV so intently waiting for this. She had prayed that her friends lying around the school were just injured and the confirmation of their deaths was crushing.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

The discovery of a 5-year-old girl's body inside a storage unit in Sacramento last week led to the arrests of her father and stepmother, and prompted a joint investigation by police in California and Nevada.

Sacramento police linked the unit to Tyler and Averyauna Anderson, both Nevada residents, the Sacramento Bee reported.

Reno police identified the girl as Cali Anderson, who was Tyler Anderson's daughter. Leyanie Robinson, Cali's biological mother, told Sacramento's FOX 40 that Tyler Anderson had full custody of the child.

“It’s hard for me to believe Tyler would do anything like this or be involved in something like this,” Kevin Ward, an acquaintance of Tyler Anderson’s, told FOX 40. “He loved that little girl but you don’t know what people do behind closed doors.”

“He loved that little girl but you don’t know what people do behind closed doors.”

- Kevin Ward, acquaintance of Tyler Anderson’s

The body was discovered Tuesday night after police received a call, FOX 40 reported, adding that the manager of the storage facility said the business was "cooperating with law enforcement, 100 percent."

Cali died sometime within the last two weeks inside the Andersons' apartment, Reno police said. She showed signs of being malnourished and emaciated, according to coroner's office information in an affidavit.

The affidavit said the child became unresponsive May 4, but the couple did not call 911. They later allegedly placed the body inside a duffel bag and kept it in a closet for a week.

The couple then transported Cali’s body to Sacramento in a rented vehicle, police said.

Police arrested the Andersons on Wednesday. Tyler Anderson was booked into Sacramento's main county jail on suspicion of manslaughter, police said.

Averyauna Anderson was booked into the Washoe County Jail in Reno on child abuse charges and destroying or concealing evidence.

The investigation is continuing, authorities said.

Two people have been arrested in connection with Friday night’s fatal shooting that followed a high school graduation ceremony in Jonesboro, Ga.

One woman was killed and another was injured when shots rang out in a parking lot of a performing arts center where students of the Perry Career Academy, an alternative high school, received their diplomas, police said.

“We are saddened that such an incident has occurred that overshadows such a positive ceremony involving an exceptional group of graduating seniors,” Clayton County Public Schools Superintendent Morcease Beasley said in a statement.

“We are saddened that such an incident has occurred that overshadows such a positive ceremony involving an exceptional group of graduating seniors.”

- Morcease Beasley, superintendent, Clayton County (Ga.) Public Schools

Two shooters had begun firing at one another following an argument, according to police.

Marcena Davis, a spokeswoman for the Clayton County Police Department, confirmed the arrests, but said the suspects’ names and charges were not being released yet, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The arrests were made after investigators interviewed several people late into the night, Davis said.

Jonesboro is about 20 miles south of Atlanta.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

An Ohio man, accused of stabbing his son to death in an attempted murder-suicide may have been involved in a custody battle with the boy’s mother. 

Jason Shorter, 41, drove to the Parma police station on Saturday night and told officers that “he wanted to turn himself in for an ‘attempted murder, suicide,’” Sgt. Dan Ciryak said in a news release.

Police noticed that Shorter had “self-inflicted lacerations” on both wrists and that he also had a “single self-inflicted stab wound to his chest.”

NEW YORK NANNY WHO MURDERED TWO KIDS GETS LIFE SENTENCE

After learning that his son, 18-month-old Nicholas, was in the trunk of the car parked outside, police searched the vehicle and found the boy unresponsive. He also had an apparent stab wound to the chest.

Attempts to resuscitate the child were unsuccessful and he was taken to an area hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

A GoFundMe page, set up for Nicholas to help pay for funeral expenses, revealed that Shorter had been involved in a year-long custody battle with the boy’s mother. According to the page, the woman, Nicole, allegedly won full custody of Nicholas on May 4, just eight days before his brutal killing.

“On the eve of her second Mother’s Day, and just months before his second birthday, Nicholas was tragically killed by his father,” the donation page alleges.

Shorter was released from Metro Hospital late Tuesday night where he was being guarded by police while receiving treatment.

He was taken to Parma jail to await his first court appearance.

Shorter has been charged with one count of aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, in connection with the child's death.

Five people were found dead in a rural North Texas home Wednesday after police say a man entered the home of his ex-wife, and shot and killed her three children and her boyfriend before killing himself.

Capt. Orlando Hinojosa from the Denton County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the killings, adding that the gunman also shot his ex-wife, but she had survived the incident. He said that he did not know her exact condition, but that he didn’t believe that her injuries were life-threatening.

Dispatchers received a call at around 8:28 a.m. about a self-inflicted gunshot victim at a Ponder home and, while police were en route, they were notified of multiple other victims, the Denton County Sheriff’s Office said.

The details surrounding the deaths weren’t immediately clear.

Police did not release the ages or identities of any of the victims.

Ponder is a small town just 40 miles north of Dallas with about 2,000 residents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Five people were found dead in a rural North Texas home Wednesday after police say a man entered the home of his ex-wife, and shot and killed her three children and her boyfriend before killing himself.

Capt. Orlando Hinojosa from the Denton County Sheriff’s Office confirmed the killings, adding that the gunman also shot his ex-wife, but she had survived the incident. He said that he did not know her exact condition, but that he didn’t believe that her injuries were life-threatening.

Dispatchers received a call at around 8:28 a.m. about a self-inflicted gunshot victim at a Ponder home and, while police were en route, they were notified of multiple other victims, the Denton County Sheriff’s Office said.

The details surrounding the deaths weren’t immediately clear.

Police did not release the ages or identities of any of the victims.

Ponder is a small town just 40 miles north of Dallas with about 2,000 residents.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

A second transgender woman has been found dead in the Dallas area in just one week, police revealed Tuesday.

Dallas police were called to an area near Merriman Parkway on Saturday evening after reports of a body floating at White Rock Creek were called in, according to a news release.

Officers pulled what they said was the body of a black, transgender woman, approximately 5’3” and 130 pounds. The unidentified victim was wearing a black shirt and black scrub pants.

The body, first discovered by a kayaker, was found “in a severe state of decomposition,” the Dallas Morning News reported citing Dallas police.

Investigators have ruled the death unexplained “pending a cause of death determination” from the medical examiner’s office.

The case came just days after another transgender woman died -- from apparent “homicidal violence,” police said.

Carla Patricia Flores-Pavon, 26, was found “unconscious” by Dallas Fire and Rescue on May 9 after witnesses said they saw an “unknown Latin male” leaving the victim’s apartment, a news release said.

She was transported to a nearby hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Investigators said they did not believe this was the result of a hate crime and did not have any information suggesting that the two cases are related, the Dallas Morning News reported.

A suspended Pennsylvania school teacher was gunned down while standing on her mother’s driveway on Mother’s Day, police said.

Rachael DelTondo, 33, was returning from an ice cream shop Sunday night when she was struck by a hail of bullets on the driveway outside her family’s Aliquippa home, KDKA reported. Her death was ruled a homicide.

“I counted six shots that I heard,” Fred Poore, a neighbor, told KDKA about the shooting. Several neighbors said they heard up to 12 gunshots.

DelTondo died of multiple gunshot wounds to the torso. Police are hunting for the suspect, but authorities have released no description as of Tuesday. Officials said they are looking at a cellphone for information.

It’s unclear what prompted the deadly shooting.

DelTondo was an elementary school teacher at Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, an online public school in Midland, until she was suspended in October 2017, Brian Hayden, the school's CEO, told Fox News. The school issued the suspension after school officials received an anonymous email about a former police report filed involving DelTondo and an underage boy that was not a student at Pennsylvania Cyber.

Hayden said the school reported the incident to authorities under Pennsylvania law and placed DelTondo on paid suspension.

"We were saddened to learn of the tragic death of Rachel DelTondo, apparently the result of a violent incident in the City of Aliquippa. We have no additional information beyond what is being reported by local media," Hayden said in a statement. "We express our sympathy to her family and coworkers and will support them in any way possible in the weeks and months ahead as they mourn her passing." 

DelTondo had been teaching at Pennsylvania Cyber for nearly 10 years.

A mother of a former Aliquippa High School student also told WPXI about an incident involving DelTondo and the woman's then-16-year-old son. A police report from 2016 said the two were found in a "steamed-up" parked car around 2 a.m. She had told police the boy had called her because "he was upset and needed someone to take to." She insisted they were friends and that she didn't want her fiance to know about the meeting. 

The report said no charges were filed in the incident.

The 33-year-old was supposed to get married prior to her suspension. The wedding was ultimately scrapped, KDKA reported.

A Michigan woman was arrested Friday after her boyfriend was found shot to death inside their home, police said.

Marita Talley, 34, of Pontiac, called police saying her boyfriend was dead on the couch, the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office said. Talley shared the home with 36-year-old William Bell, police said.

Talley admitted to shooting and killing her boyfriend when she was on the phone with authorities and waited on the porch to be arrested, according to FOX2 Detroit.

Bell’s family said that Talley had a history of criminal activity.

“She has arrest records in several states, aliases with different names,” Bell’s aunt told FOX2 Detroit.

Talley met Bell two years ago when she said she was homeless and he gave her a place to stay, the station reported. The family reportedly grew suspicious of Talley.

"When I met her I got the vibe the devil was all up on her," Bell's aunt told the station. "She was evil.

Bell’s family said that the couple broke up about a week ago. Bell’s father said Talley even said her goodbyes.

"When I met her I got the vibe the devil was all up on her."

- William Bell's aunt

"We were all sitting at the table and she said this is the last time I am going to see you guys," he said. "She gave us a hug and everything."

Talley is set to be arraigned Tuesday.

A woman was stabbed to death at a Connecticut home Saturday afternoon, police said.

The unidentified woman was on Matson Court in Waterbury when she was killed, FOX61 reported.

Police were responding to a stabbing incident around 3 p.m. when they found her dead.

It’s unclear if the stabbing occurred inside or outside of a home.

AUTHORITIES: MAN REPEATEDLY STABS YOUNG SON DURING STANDOFF

Officials with the Waterbury Police Crime Scene Unit could be seen at the scene, with police tape closing off the area.

Officials said the death is being investigated as a homicide, WFSB reported.

Video shows a Florida courtroom erupting in violence after four accused killers were found guilty.

The wild melee Friday in Ocala involved three of the defendants and court security officers who used stun guns to restore order.

Defense attorney Daniel Hernandez is seen being pummeled by his client, Troy Davis.

“I got about five punches to the back and the side of my head, forehead. I got a few bumps and bruises, some scratches,” Hernandez told Fox 35 Orlando.

The attorney said he had been trying cases for 40 years without ever being struck by a client. He said he never expected Davis to strike him.

“We’d had our disagreements on some things, but we never, nothing physical had ever happened, and I certainly was not expecting to get punched,” he told the station.

A young boy told the jury Davis shot and killed his 28-year-old father, Courtney London, in 2016, the Gainesville Sun reported. The boy was 5 at the time.

Davis apologized to Hernandez when he addressed the judge before being sentenced to life in prison. His co-defendants were also given life sentences.

 

An Army veteran, who served three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, was sentenced to 55 years in prison Friday for the murder of his wife, whom he also admitted to burying behind his parents’ home.

Luc Tieman was convicted last month in the August 2016 murder of his 34-year-old wife, Valerie Tieman, who he says died of a heroin overdose. Results from the autopsy report revealed the cause of death as two gunshot wounds.

Investigators said that Tieman originally told them that his wife disappeared at a Walmart. He later changed his story and said that she died of an overdose. The autopsy confirmed that she had ingested painkillers, but that this was not the official cause of death.

Prosecutors alleged that the Army vet killed his wife so he could  be with another woman he'd met online. They said that after her death, Tieman moved in with the woman and never reported Valerie missing. It was only on Sept. 9, 2016, that she was reported missing by her parents.

Valerie Tieman was found in a shallow grave, wrapped in a blanket, buried alongside a wedding band, flowers, a bag of potato chips, a note and a bottle of Gucci cologne, ironically named "Guilty."

Tieman admitted to burying his wife but offered no explanation for the items found in her grave.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

An Illinois man has been arrested in the cold case rape and murder of a 13-year-old girl in Washington state more than 30 years ago, according to reports.

Jennifer Bastian, who was last seen riding her new 18-speed Schwinn bicycle in a local park in Tacoma on Aug 4, 1986, had been strangled, local media reported. Police found her body near a wooded trail in the park 24 days later.

The suspect was identified Thursday as Robert Washburn, 60, of Eureka, Ill., according to the Tacoma News Tribune. He is a former Tacoma resident, who lived near the park at the time of the murder.

“I think everybody who has been involved with this over the years is extremely happy that it’s been solved,” Tacoma police spokeswoman Loretta Cool said, according to the paper.

“Not a day goes by that we don’t think of her,” Patti Bastian, Jennifer’s mother, told the newspaper in 2013. “She’s our little girl.”

For years, police believed the man who killed Jennifer also raped and killed 12-year-old Michella Welch in March 1986 in another North End Tacoma park, the Sky Valley Chronicle in Monroe, Wash., reported.

But police ruled out a connection in 2016 when they released composite sketches of a male suspect in each case. Welch's murder is still unsolved.

James Peterson, one of Jennifer’s former classmates, told Q13 Fox in Seattle that he last saw Jennifer the day she disappeared.

“I distinctively remember Jennifer riding up and asking if we wanted to go riding with her and, being teenage boys, we all kind of ignored her,” he said. “Then, we never saw her again.”