Victoria residents Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and her boyfriend Jay Cook, 20, who were murdered in 1987. Their deaths have not been solved. Photograph by: File photo, Victoria Times Colonist

Evidence gathered in the unsolved 1987 killings of two young Canadians in the U.S. — a case that has haunted police in northern Washington state ever since — has been presented to an international team of criminal profilers in hopes of generating a breakthrough in the double-homicide.

The violent and seemingly random deaths of Tanya Van Cuylenborg, 18, and her 20-year-old boyfriend Jay Cook — both of Victoria — occurred sometime after the pair took a ferry across the Canada-U.S. border to run an errand for Cook's father in Seattle.

State investigators recently opened their files in the case to 12 FBI profilers as well as homicide experts from Britain who were assembled in Washington for a crime-solving conference.

Police revealed publicly for the first time that a suspect's DNA had been collected at the rural site in Skagit County where the body of Van Cuylenborg — who had been raped and then shot to death — was discovered on Nov. 24, 1987.

Cook's remains were found in a different location two days later under a bridge where he'd been beaten and strangled.

"It's a case we would love to solve, and we believe it is solvable," Chief Deputy Will Reichardt of the Skagit County Sheriff's Office told Canwest News Service. "What you hope for is that you get every possible expert interested in your case and maybe something comes up."

Investigative technologies have progressed and DNA databases have continued to expand since 1987, said Reichardt. Police haven't yet matched genetic material from the Van Cuylenborg crime scene to any known offender, but the search for a link carries on, he added.

"All cases are important, but this was a particularly high-profile one and we've spent thousands and thousands of hours on it over the last 20 years," he said. "We just need to keep working on it."

The American and British experts involved in assessing the evidence were taking part in Pacific region workshops with the U.S. National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime. Reichardt said there were no immediate "light bulb" insights into the killings, but expressed hope that sharing information about the Canadians' deaths with some of the top minds in criminal profiling could yield fresh leads.

The sheriff's office in Snohomish County, where Cook's body was found, recently received $400,000 federal funding to bolster its cold-case squad and forensic testing.

The two had been reported missing on Nov. 20, 1987, after failing to check in with family during their planned two-day trip to Seattle to pick up parts for a furnace.

It was determined that they had taken a ferry from Vancouver Island to Port Angeles, Wash., but disappeared before taking a second ferry to Seattle.

The van Cook was driving was later found abandoned in a parking lot in downtown Bellingham, Wash.

After their remains were discovered, Tanya's father William Van Cuylenborg told a Seattle newspaper he was swearing off violent movies and criticized lax gun laws in the U.S.

"I have enjoyed Clint Eastwood movies and have always been able to separate entertainment from fact, but I have watched my last one," he said at the time. "After I walked into a morgue and saw 18 years of love and compassion shot in the head by someone cold and calculating — I don't see the point in it."

At one point, U.S. investigators suspected that Washington serial killer Robert Yates — sentenced in October 2000 to 408 years in prison after confessing to 13 murders — might be responsible for the deaths of the Canadians. He was later ruled out.

In 2008, in a bid to attract tips from the public to help crack the county's 50-plus cold cases, Snohomish began distributing decks of playing cards featuring photos and details from unsolved murders in the area.

Van Cuylenborg and Cook appeared on the king of hearts.