Sacto 9-1-1

From Sam Stanton:

The parents of the young couple found shot to death on a Sonoma County beach five years ago are anxiously awaiting word on whether a man killed by New Mexico authorities last week was responsible for the slaying of their children.

"We're always hopeful, every time something like this comes up we're hopeful," said Robert Allen, whose 26-year-old son, Jason, was killed on a Jenner beach in August 2004 along with his 22-year-old fiancee, Lindsay Cutshall. "But we don't want to get our hopes up too high because it sounds like a real long shot to us."

The young couple were found shot to death in their sleeping bag Aug. 18, 2004, while they were camped out near the mouth of the Russian River. They had been working as guides at a Christian adventure camp near Coloma at the time, and Sonoma County sheriff's detectives have doggedly worked the case since, collecting DNA samples, offering rewards and pursuing hundreds of leads.

Since almost the beginning of the case, they have been looking to question Joseph Henry Burgess, a 62-year-old man who had been living in the wild in New Mexico for the last 10 years.

Burgess was killed in a shootout last Thursday after he killed a sheriff's deputy there who had been staking out a cabin Burgess was suspected of breaking into. Family members of the slain couple say they are waiting to see if Sonoma County authorities can find any evidence that ties Burgess to the 2004 killings.

He had been wanted for years in the 1972 slaying of two campers on a beach in Vancouver Island, British Columbia, and the similarities between the two cases -- both couples were unmarried, devout Christians sleeping on a beach and all of them were shot in the head in their sleeping bags -- had intrigued investigators.

Authorities say there were indications that Burgess may have had strong religious beliefs that couples should not sleep together before they married. However, little was known about Burgess and any ties that might place him in Northern California at the time of the Jenner slayings.

"We don't have a lot on him," Sonoma County sheriff's Capt. Matt McCaffrey said today. "It seems pretty obvious this guy was living off the grid. The reason they had this place staked out was he was living and having shelter in an isolated area. That tells me this guy had some determination and wherewithal to stay isolated and off the grid. He obviously didn't have credit cards and cell phones or utility bills that would help us track him down."

McCaffrey said investigators believe Burgess had relatives living in Northern California and they were seeking to locate and question them about whether he had been in the area at the time of the 2004 slayings.

Sonoma sheriff's officials are planning to travel to New Mexico in search of any evidence that would tie Burgess to the Jenner killings.

Meanwhile, the parents of the slain couple are fielding calls from reporters and waiting to see if they can finally know who killed their children.

"We'd like to know one way or another," the Rev. Chris Cutshall, Lindsay's father, said in a phone interview from his Bible church in Fresno, Ohio. "Our faith has always been in the Lord, so we're just really settled in, but of course we would like to know. And if it's not him, we'd like to find out who it is and allow justice to come to that person."