two tantalizing clues, a handprint. the subject had blood on their hand. and a trail on twitter. incredibly powerful. you can almost see this happening in realtime. could she help solve her own mystery? she s fighting him off. it was so emotional. i wanted to jump out of my seat. never in a million years would you expect something like that. on long island, about 10 miles down the shoreline from the mansions, the fancy cars and the elites of the hamptons, is a blue collar beach town some call the poor man s paradise. but life was rich for these brothers and sisters in mastic, new york, filled with the love of a large tight-knit family. all that was taken away one warm evening when evil rolled in with the summer tide. their youngest sister was missing. we just want you to come home safely. reporter: and for better or worse, this family would go to extraordinary lengths to find her. we re going to scour those woods right now. we were our own investigators.
Narrator when detectives finally located the Van Jay and tanya had driven from canada, they were hopeful evidence in the van would point to the killer. That same day, near a tavern a short distance from the van, police found personal items belonging to tanya. Detectives now had four separate Crime Scenes the spots where tanya and jays bodies were found, Jays Van, and the tavern. There were components of each Crime Scene that were connected both to Jay And Tanya but also from scene to scene. Narrator the key items were ammunition for a. 380caliber firearm, which was consistent with the gun used to kill tanya, a partial Palm Print lifted from Jays Van that didnt match either Jay Or Tanya or any of jays family,
The evidence tells the story, or at least part of it. Police say talbott was a Rapist Hunting for a victim. Police think he may have befriended Jay And Tanya or may have threatened them at gunpoint. They ended up in jays van, and once they were under the gun, they were helpless. He tied them up with the Plastic Zip ties hed brought along for just that purpose. Without knowing it, he left his dna on those plastic ties. He strangled jay. Then he raped tanya, creating even more dna evidence. He shot tanya and then disposed of both bodies at separate locations. At some point, amid all this activity, talbott left a partial Palm Print on the back of the van. He really set out with a premeditated plan that day or that evening to carry out some
Had no idea detectives were following him, discarded a paper coffee cup, which was seized and immediately tested for dna. Detectives and analysts waited as their case, now more than 30 years old, hung in the balance. As im going along through the series of markers, theyre matching, and so its almost like winning a lottery, and youre saying, okay, thats a match. Thats a match. Scharf the odds of this not being William Talbott was 1 in 180 quadrillion. You would have to have 36 Million planets with the same population as earth to find William Talbott with that dna profile. Narrator oldfashioned forensics also sealed talbotts fate. His Palm Print matched the partial Palm Print lifted from jays Van Way back in 1987