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The Forever Witness
- How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder
- Narrated by: Edward Humes
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
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Publisher's Summary
“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?
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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What listeners say about The Forever Witness
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- Amazon Customer
- 2023-02-10
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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- Pursuing Pretty
- 2024-05-02
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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