Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
True crime

THE FOREVER WITNESS

Edward Humes

How DNA and Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder

After 30 years, Detective Jim Scharf arrested a teenage couple's murderer - and exposed a looming battle between the pursuit of justice and the right to privacy.

When Tanya Van Cuylenborg and Jay Cook were murdered during a trip to Seattle in the 1980s, detectives had few leads. The murder weapon was missing. No one witnessed any suspicious activity. And there was only a single handprint on the outside of the young couple's van. The detectives assumed Tanya and Jay were victims of a serial killer - but without any leads, the case seemed forever doomed.

In deep-freeze, long-term storage, biological evidence from the crime scenes sat waiting. Meanwhile, California resident CeCe Moore began her lifetime fascination with genetic genealogy. As DNA testing companies rapidly grew in popularity, she discovered another use for the technology: solving crimes. When Detective Jim Scharf decided to send the cold case's decades-old DNA to Parabon NanoLabs, he hoped he would bring closure to the Van Cuylenborg and Cook families. He didn't know that he and Moore would make history.

Anyone can submit a saliva sample to learn about their ancestry. But what happens after the results of these tests are uploaded to the internet? As lawyers, policymakers, and police officers fight over questions of consent and privacy, the implications of Scharf's case become ever clearer. Approximately 250,000 murders in the United States remain unsolved today. We have the tools to catch many of these killers - but what is the cost?

Edward Humes is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and author whose fifteen previous books include Burned, Mississippi Mud, and the PEN Award-winning No Matter How Loud I Shout.

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Book Published 2022-11-29 by Dutton Books

Comments

Humes matches taut prose with assured storytelling. This fascinating look at how technology has revolutionized crime solving is must reading.

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.

In this brilliantly told, addictively readable book, Edward Humes reminds us that the term "cold case" is misleading, that unsolved murders simmer for decades with angry life and grief and the long-shadow of justice denied. And he also reminds us to hope that the answers to our most stubborn mysteries can yet be found if we simply refuse to give up on them.

This week's Publishers Weekly has a mystery/thriller/true crime feature that includes FOREVER WITNESS and a nice quote from editor Stephen Morrow! : "The Forever Witness...explains the development and practices of forensic genetic genealogy", says Stephen Morrow, an executive editor who acquired the book for Dutton. "But the book also delves into the risks of sharing one's genetic information publicly." "If you give your DNA to a searchable database, you can implicate some relative you've never met, and you don't know you're doing it," Morrow says. "And who owns that database? Who owns that information about you?" Read more...

A story within a story within a story - once you think you know what The Forever Witness by Edward Humes is about, Humes takes you deeper. It is not only a story of the tragic murders of two young people - but about the tale their bodies told, and how, after decades, that tale was able to come to light. Layered and informative, compassionate and analytical, this book picks up where Michelle McNamara's I'll Be Gone in the Dark leaves off, explaining the miracle that is genetic genealogy as well as the ethical quagmire that surrounds it, while also offering a dignified eulogy to two lives violently, monstrously cut short.

Top-notch, must-read true crime. Edward Humes has crafted a brilliant and riveting account of a haunting cold case, a relentless detective, and the birth of a cutting-edge forensic tool.

The Forever Witness is a remarkable achievement in true crime reporting, as Edward Humes brilliantly guides readers through a cold case investigation that's smart, suspenseful, and on the cutting edge of forensic science. This book will keep you reading well into the night.

Some detectives never give up, and in this expert retelling, you'll follow Jim Scharf as he attempts to crack the coldest of cases: A golden young couple abducted and murdered in Washington state in 1987, with almost no clues left behind. This book is that rare thing, terrifying true crime told with a beating heart.

A well-paced true-crime procedural that offers new twists on old methods of police work.

Fans of Michelle McNamara's acclaimed I'll Be Gone in the Dark should clear their schedules, because Edward Humes' riveting account is nearly impossible to put down. The Forever Witness has earned a well-deserved place among top-notch true crime.

Ed Humes is not a fancy writer, and I mean that as a compliment. He does not write for the applause of literary reviewers or book critics. He writes for smart readers. He is a gifted storyteller, an absolute master of the narrative. The Forever Witness, the story of a kidnapping and murder, seizes you on the first page and holds you captive until the end.