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Photo by Submitted / The Canadian Press

For Tanya’s brother, John Van Cuylenborg, the arrest has given him “a sense of some justice that is starting to happen here for these two wonderful kids.

“They deserve justice to be done. They were both gentle souls, caring and trusting kids, and they were betrayed,” he said.

Talbott was identified after a company called Parabon Nanolabs was hired to assist investigators using new DNA technology.

Genetic genealogist CeCe Moore used a public databank to upload the suspect’s DNA and build a family tree from those with partial matches back to Talbott’s great-grandparents.

She then started building the tree forward until “two of the closest matches’ trees converged. They intersected into a marriage, and from that marriage there was only one son.”

“That led us to really only one person who could carry this mix of DNA,” said Moore, who offered her condolences to the families.

Snohomish County Sheriff Ty Trenary said Talbott’s arrest “shows how powerful it can be to combine new DNA technology with the relentless determination of detectives.”

“We never gave up hope that we would find Jay and Tanya’s killer,” he said.

But he said more work needs to be done in the case.

“Skagit and Snohomish county detectives are looking to speak to anyone who knew Talbott or knew of his activities in 1987 or 1988. He would have been 24 years old at the time of the crime and living in Woodenville,” Trenary said.

Police want to know if anyone saw Talbott driving the Cook family’s brown van or in possession of Tanya’s Minolta X700 camera.