Pod Insights Casefile True Crime Case 307: The Night Caller (Part 2/2) About this episode [Part 2 of 2]
*** Content Warning: Sexual assault, gun violence, child victims ***
By mid-1963, The Night Caller’s reign of terror had altered Perth forever, and he still remained at large and unidentified. Following another execution-style slaying in Perth’s wealthy western suburbs, investigators set a trap that would expose his identity as Eric Edgar Cooke. Cooke’s capture would ultimately lead to the unravelling of countless terrible secrets…
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Narration – Anonymous Host https://www.instagram.com/caseys.snaps/
Research & writing – Erin Munro
Creative direction – Milly Raso
Production and music – Mike Migas http://mikemigas.com/
Music – Andrew D. B. Joslyn http://www.andrewjoslynmusic.com/
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Transcript 13,830 words · 4 speakers
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1:50 Speaker 00 Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support and for a more detailed list of content warnings, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website.
2:16 Speaker 00 Saturday, August 10, 1963, was a stormy winter's night in Perth with heavy rain and thunder. But Carl and Wendy Dowd were heading out anyway to go to a party just a kilometre from their home in Dalkeith. The suburb was just south of Netherlands, which had been upended by the Australia Day shootings six months earlier. The initial panic after that event had somewhat calmed down by now. Even though the shooter hadn't been apprehended, the fact that there hadn't been any shootings since meant that locals had started to relax ever so slightly.
2:58 Speaker 00 Carl and Wendy had hired a second-year university student to babysit their eight-month-old while they were out. Shirley MacLeod was a diligent science major who was filling in for her friend, the Dowds' usual sitter. She had won a scholarship to attend university and her plan was to become a social worker. "There are so many people who need help," she had once told her father. Shirley had been devastated by the murder of her friend John Sterkey in the Australia Day shootings. They had shared some of the same uni lectures.
3:36 Speaker 00 Carl and Wendy felt confident leaving their baby in Shirley's care. She was a kind, conscientious girl who'd brought her textbooks with her. As the baby was sleeping, Shirley was hoping to get some study done.
3:51 Speaker 00 The Dowds said goodbye, then headed out to their party. It was 2 AM when they arrived home, happy and in high spirits after a fun night out. Wendy went straight to the bedroom to check on the baby, while Carl headed to the lounge room where Shirley had been sitting when they left. The lounge was well lit and warm, as Shirley had the heater running. A teacup and saucer sat on the coffee table, and the turntable was spinning with a record that had long since finished playing. Shirley's shoes sat neatly on the floor while she sat on a small couch, her head slumped.
4:34 Speaker 00 Carl assumed she must have dozed off while studying, as she was still holding a pen and notepad. Then Carl noticed that Shirley's clothes and face were covered in blood. Clearly visible in her forehead was a bullet hole. She had been shot and killed with a 22 caliber rifle.
5:21 Speaker 00 As Carl Dowd was struck by the shocking realisation that Shirley MacLeod had been murdered, he was gripped by the terrifying fear that the killer might still be in the house. He raced to the bedroom where Wendy was tending to their eight-month-old son. He was awake and smiling, clearly unharmed. Carl told Wendy what had happened, before quietly phoning the police. The Dowd family remained barricaded in the bedroom until help arrived.
5:55 Speaker 00 While the case couldn't be definitively linked to the killing spree in late January, investigating officers had their suspicions. The victims in all of the murders were random and had been targeted in homes. All had been killed with a single shot to the forehead, from a 22 caliber weapon.
6:16 Speaker 00 Perth was still scarred by the Australia Day massacre, and the sudden re-emergence of the shooter sent the city into a new wave of panic. The killer was dubbed "The Netherlands Monster". Young women stopped taking on jobs, and people opted to stay at home with their families, rather than go out at night.
6:39 Speaker 00 Shirley's murder became the police department's top priority. Almost none of the Dowd's neighbours had heard anything suspicious that night, though one man said he'd heard a particularly loud clap of thunder that could have been a gunshot. The timing of it had aligned with Shirley's suspected time of death. A squad of fifty detectives door-knocked homes throughout Dawkeith and Netherlands, interviewing more than eight thousand residents.
7:12 Speaker 00 Police recovered a single unidentified fingerprint from the home, which didn't match anyone who was known to have visited or lived there. It was decided that police would take the fingerprints of all males aged between fourteen and sixty in the Perth metropolitan area, starting with the Netherlands and Koterslohe.
7:34 Speaker 00 Police had also extracted the bullet from Shirley McLeod's head, which had distinct markings they could use to identify the murder weapon if it was ever found.
7:47 Speaker 00 William and Cecilia Keener were an elderly couple who resided in the south Perth suburb of Mount Pleasant. Their daily habit of taking a walk together every afternoon had recently been disrupted by the heavy rain Perth was experiencing, but on Friday, August 16, the sun was shining.
8:08 Speaker 00 The pair sat off sometime after 3pm. They liked to stroll down the road where they lived, which was called Hawkins Street, to the banks of the Swan River. The couple kept a little fishing boat down there, which they would check on, and they'd also stop to chat to neighbours they met along the way. On this particular Friday, they turned left upon reaching the river and walked up towards Canning Bridge. As they ambled along, they noticed that one of the trees along the path had several limbs snapped off. Car tracks were visible in the ground leading towards it.
8:49 Speaker 00 The couple wondered if there had been an accident and whether the driver had been hurt. After walking about five hundred metres along the riverbank, William and Cecilia turned left at Rookwood Street to make a loop home.
9:05 Speaker 00 Pale pink native wildflowers were growing in abundance all along the street, and Cecilia decided to pick some. As she reached up to take a sprig, something on the ground slipped and brushed Cecilia's knee. It was the butt of a rifle.
9:24 Speaker 00 Shocked, Cecilia pushed the firearm back under the bush before telling William, "There's a rifle here."
9:33 Speaker 00 After taking a look for himself, William suggested they take it home to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands.
9:41 Speaker 00 As neither of them held gun licences, Cecilia opposed this plan. Instead, when they got home, she reported the discovery to the police.
9:53 Speaker 00 It was a twenty-two gauge Winchester rifle, different from the Lithgo single-shot rifle used in the Australia Day shootings. Still, it was worth investigating. Officers searched the entirety of Rookwood Street but didn't find a single cartridge. However, the rifle was still loaded with a single bullet.
10:17 Speaker 00 When police testified the weapon, they found that the copper-nosed bullet had the same markings as the one taken from Shirley MacLeod's body. They had found the weapon used by her killer.
10:32 Speaker 00 It turned out that the rifle was registered to a former Olympic swimmer named Garrick Agnew. Garrick had spent the last month and a half overseas. When he'd returned home just a few days earlier, he'd discovered that his Winchester rifle was missing from the bedroom cupboard where he kept it.
10:53 Speaker 00 Nothing else had been taken from the home, including a second rifle that was stored in another room. Garrick had reported the rifle stolen on Tuesday, August thirteen.
11:06 Speaker 00 Police were interested in the way that the rifle had been left in the bush on Rookwood Street. It hadn't been carelessly discarded somewhere, as though the killer was tossing it aside permanently. Instead, it had been hidden inside thick vegetation, something that someone might do if they planned to retrieve it at a later date.
11:29 Speaker 00 Investigators took another rifle back to the bush where Cecilia Keena had found it, and tied it there tightly with fishing line. Police requested permission from the residents of the house opposite to set up a 24-hour-a-day lookout in their backyard, which spanned an entire block.
11:49 Speaker 00 That way, the bush with the rifle could be kept under constant surveillance.
11:55 Speaker 00 The residents gave their permission and agreed not to tell anyone about the top-secret operation. A trap to catch the killer was set. Now, all the police had to do was wait.
12:13 Speaker 00 Over the next two weeks, police kept a 24-hour-a-day surveillance running in the property opposite the rifle, with at least one officer remaining on the lookout at all times. It was a particularly cold and wet winter, which made their job even more difficult. After a fortnight passed with no sign of the shooter, investigators decided they needed to do something to lure him back to his weapon.
12:42 Speaker 00 With the cooperation of local reporters, an article had been planted in multiple newspapers that stated police working the Shirley MacLeod case would turn their attention to the suburb of Mount Pleasant by the end of the coming week. On the morning of Saturday, August 31, one of Perth's papers ran a story about how police would be fingerprinting Mount Pleasant residents very soon.
13:09 Speaker 00 That night Constable Bill Hawker was on surveillance duty in Rookwood Street. It was cool and slightly overcast, a pleasant change from the near constant rain of the past two weeks, and Bill wondered if the killer would finally be spooked enough to try retrieving his rifle. He took up his post at 6pm alongside a colleague named Peter Skeen. Several hours later Constable Hawker was keeping watch alone, while Constable Skeen rested inside a tent set up for the officers in the backyard across from the trap.
13:47 Speaker 00 Constable Hawker could hear music from a nearby pub, and occasionally couples would stroll along Rookwood Street on their way home from a night out. But so far, no one had taken any interest in the trap.
14:02 Speaker 00 At 1:15 every night, the streetlights on Rookwood Street went out. If the killer decided to return for his rifle, he would most likely do so after that time, when the street was at its darkest. When the lights switched off like clockwork, Constable Hawker braced himself and stared even more intently at the dark street in front of him.
14:29 Speaker 00 Suddenly, a grey-blue Holden sedan appeared and slowly pulled up at the curb opposite the trap. The road was steep, so Constable Hawker could only see the top of the car. His initial response was to wonder if it was a couple looking for a quiet spot to spend time together. But then, the driver's side door partly opened, with the person behind the wheel holding it ajar.
14:58 Speaker 00 Several moments passed, then the door opened more widely.
15:04 Speaker 00 A man got out and stood still in the car's doorway. Almost certain that he was looking at their suspect, Constable Hawker rushed to the tent to wake his colleague. They had to act quickly. The rifle was tied to the bush and the killer would surely flee if he went to retrieve it and discovered the trap. Nor did they want the killer to be armed by the time they were able to reach him.
15:33 Speaker 00 Constable Hawker lapped over the property's fence, closely followed by Constable Skeen. Crouching down in front of the bush was a man wearing a heavy overcoat. As he heard the sound of the police officer's footsteps running towards him, he turned around to face them. The two police officers grabbed the man in the overcoat, who struggled against them. Constable Hawker pulled out a set of handcuffs and cuffed the man's wrists, then used a second set of cuffs to secure the man to a fence. The suspect mumbled incomprehensibly in a muffled voice as he was arrested.
16:15 Speaker 00 In clearer light, the officers could see that he carried a small pencil torch and was wearing a pair of women's leather gloves. He had short, dark hair, a broad nose, and a notable scar on his mouth from surgery to repair a cleft-lipped palate. A search revealed that he was carrying a pair of women's underpants in one of his pockets and a newspaper clipping in another. He had scribbled some addresses and phone numbers on the clipping. Constables Hawker and Skeen called for backup, and the suspect was transferred to police headquarters for questioning. He was quickly identified as 32-year-old Eric Edgar Cook,
16:58 Speaker 00 a man who was already very well-known to Western Australia Police.
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21:32 Speaker 00 On Friday, October 15, 1948, Cook had committed his first break-in at the age of 17. He forced his way into a flat in Perth CBD while its resident was out, and stole a torch and a small clock. He also opened several bottles of wine and poured them all over the resident's clothing. When police later attended the crime scene, they found Cook's fingerprints all over the empty bottles. Though they didn't match anyone in the system, they added the prints to their files. A few weeks later, Cook broke into another home. Angry after he found nothing he wanted to steal,
22:14 Speaker 00 he trashed the property by pulling all of the clothing from the wardrobes and cutting it with a knife. He also slashed some bedding and a pillow before taking chocolate from the fridge and feeding it to the couple's pet goldfish. His final act was to start a fire in the living room.
22:35 Speaker 00 The resident returned to find his flat in flames, and although firefighters were able to save the home, the damage cost almost twenty thousand dollars in today's money.
22:48 Speaker 00 Two weeks later, Cook broke into another home and stole twenty shillings, an engagement ring, a watch, and a fountain pen. He laid a toss to the jury out of fear of being caught.
23:02 Speaker 00 Not long after that, at Christmas time, Cook was asked by a friend to help sit for her while she and her husband were away. Despite having a key to the property, Cook smashed a window to cover his tracks and decided to set fire to the residence.
23:20 Speaker 00 He piled all of his friend's clothing on the bedroom floor, then coated it in fly spray as an accelerant. Yet, his plan ultimately failed when he couldn't find any matches. A week later, on New Year's Eve, Cook celebrated the beginning of nineteen forty-nine by breaking into an empty flat in the CBD. He used some cellophane and a candle that he found inside to light a fire. When the resident came home at twelve thirty-five AM, she found her bedroom completely destroyed by the blaze.
23:58 Speaker 00 Cook continued to commit more break-ins across the city during the first months of nineteen forty-nine, leaving fingerprints behind when he stole whatever cash he found, along with women's underwear.
24:11 Speaker 00 He also lit more fires at other addresses. Once, he defecated in a toy cot that belonged to a child. In early March, Cook broke into a house just north of the CBD, entering via the back door. Cook knew the property, as he'd delivered groceries there previously while working for a market.
24:35 Speaker 00 It was late at night and the residents were in their beds asleep. The now eighteen-year-old Cook was more emboldened and no longer just targeted empty homes. Using a torch to see, Cook found a purse and took it to the bathroom to search through. As he was rummaging through the purse, a man entered the bathroom and found him. It was one of the residents who'd been woken by his wife after she heard Cook creeping about.
25:08 Speaker 00 Cook claimed to be a neighbour who had drunkenly entered the property by mistake and gave his first name. His lies weren't believed. When the resident tried to grapple with him, Cook fled.
25:24 Speaker 00 Police tracked him down a week later and matched his fingerprints to two previous break-ins. He was charged and taken before the court. Cook was convicted on two counts of stealing, four counts of arson, and a seven of breaking and entering.
25:43 Speaker 00 He was sentenced to three years in prison with the recommendation he be released on parole after a few months so that he could be rehabilitated.
25:53 Speaker 00 Cook's father was an abusive alcoholic who terrorised his entire family but focused most of his rage on his son. Cook had been born with a cleft palate and lip, a common birth defect that made his father hate him.
26:11 Speaker 00 He beat his son and verbally abused him. Once, when Cook had tried to stop his father from beating up his mother, his father punched him so badly he suffered a skull fracture.
26:25 Speaker 00 Students at school had also bullied and ostracised Cook, mocking his appearance and a distinctive speech impediment that was the result of his birth defect.
26:36 Speaker 00 One time, Cook's mother saw her son standing in front of a mirror violently pulling at his scarred lip. Desperate for an escape, Cook had started wandering the streets of Perth and stealing from his teachers, neighbours and peers as a child. There were concerns that hard time would only serve to further criminalise the first-time offender.
27:04 Speaker 00 The parole board ultimately decided to release Eric Attica Cook in August 1949, agreeing that his brief stint in prison had been enough to scare him straight. They felt that Cook had committed crimes because he was socially isolated and saw the acts as a way to gain notoriety and friendships. Although he had been an intelligent student, his education was hindered by his behavioural problems and his father, who forced him to leave school at the age of 14. Cook started working from then on, passing most of his earnings on to his mother and stealing to supplement his own income. From then on, Cook worked a series of menial jobs.
27:49 Speaker 00 He was an accident-prone person and his employment record was impacted by repeated accidents. Once, his face was badly scalded by steam. Another time, he fell and damaged his spine, leading to a week in hospital. Cook’s many injuries included multiple head injuries. He would often slip and hit his head, resulting in concussions and further fractures. Following his release from prison, he started working at a confectionery company and joined a church. Overall, his life improved.
28:27 Speaker 00 His probation period concluded two years later on August 15, 1951. To celebrate his return to freedom, Cook travelled east across the country to Melbourne, where he enlisted in the Australian Army. During his training, he became an excellent marksman, but was discharged three months later when the Army learnt of his previous offending. Cook returned to Perth and started working as a truck driver. The short, dark-haired man had never had much luck with women, but in 1953, he met a young woman named Sally Laven.
29:08 Speaker 00 They married in November of that year and settled in the inner-eastern suburb of River Vale. Less than two years later, the couple already had two sons.
29:21 Speaker 00 But Cook's new law-abiding image and family man lifestyle didn't put a stop to his criminal activities.
29:30 Speaker 00 In 1953, he broke into the home of some fellow church members and stole from them. His fingerprints led to his arrest and he was placed on a good behaviour bond.
29:42 Speaker 00 In September 1955, two months after the birth of his second son, Cook had set his sights on another woman. When he found out she was playing in a hockey tournament two hours south of Perth in Bunbury, he stole a car to stalk her there. Cook rolled the car along the way, suffering a broken sternum plus face and knee injuries. The incident led to him being charged with assuming control of a motor vehicle.
30:14 Speaker 00 Cook was sentenced to two years hard labour for the theft, as well as an additional six months for breaking his good behaviour bond. His young wife Sally had to raise their two children alone as a single parent, but still made sure to visit Cook in prison. She stood by her husband throughout his incarceration. He was back with his family by Christmas 1956.
30:46 Speaker 00 Following Eric Edgar Cook's second release, he appeared to mostly stick to the straight and narrow, focusing on working hard to support his growing family. He and Sally would eventually go on to have five more children, giving them a total of seven: four boys and three girls.
31:06 Speaker 00 On Monday, January 25, 1960, Cook's reputation was tarnished once again when he was arrested for loitering in a park in Lath Lane, one of Perth's inner eastern suburbs. He was sentenced to a month's incarceration in Fremantle Prison. While there, police questioned him about a horrific murder that had been committed the previous month: the brutal killing of 22-year-old heiress and socialite Gillian Brewer.
31:36 Speaker 00 During Cook's break-ins, he was known to steal women's underwear and masturbate with it. This deviant criminal history led police to label him a "sexo", and wonder if he could be behind the young woman's murder. Cook denied having anything to do with the crime, claiming he was home at the time, and his wife Sally supported this alibi.
32:03 Speaker 00 After that, Cook was still occasionally cited by the police for peeping Tom and minor theft offences, but they never suspected him of murder. Not until more than three and a half years later, in the early hours of Sunday, September 1, 1963, when he went to the suburb of Mount Pleasant to collect the rifle used to kill university student Shirley MacLeod. Following Cook's arrest, he was transferred to the Criminal Investigation Branch headquarters. He was chatty with the officers, readily admitting that he'd broken into some homes that night in the wealthy western suburbs of Clermont, Peppermint Grove and Mossman Park.
32:47 Speaker 00 He said he'd stolen more than £22 in cash from those properties.
32:54 Speaker 00 Cook explained that he'd spotted the rifle a few days earlier while he'd been driving down Rookwood Street in his work truck. He'd stopped to adjust the truck's load and noticed that someone had stashed a rifle in some nearby bushes. Cook had decided to come back to take it. His plan was to sell it to make some cash.
33:18 Speaker 00 He adamantly denied having anything to do with Shirley MacLeod's murder three weeks earlier. He claimed that he'd been at a bowling alley until 8pm, then he went straight home and stayed there for the rest of the night. Two sergeants were dispatched to Cook's home, where they explained to his wife Sally that he had been arrested for breaking and entering. They had a search warrant and they wanted to ask her a question: "Where had her husband been on the evening of Saturday, August 10?" Sally Cook told them the truth. He had been out until very late that night.
34:01 Speaker 00 Back at the Criminal Investigation Branch headquarters, Eric Cook was told that his wife was refuting his alibi. He flatly refused to believe this, instead demanding that Sally be brought in to see him.
34:18 Speaker 00 Officers obliged, and Sally was taken into the interrogation room where her husband sat. When she told him that she had in fact made the statement, he asked her why. "Because it is the truth, Eric, and you know it," Sally replied.
34:37 Speaker 00 "What do you think I should do now?" Cook asked.
34:41 Speaker 00 Sally told him that decision was his to make.
34:46 Speaker 00 Not long after this, Cook borrowed a pen from a detective and began to write.
34:56 Speaker 00 On Saturday, August 10, Cook had left home at 12:30pm and spent the afternoon bowling in East Perth. Later that night, he drove in his car to Cotterslow, then got out and wandered around on foot. When he spotted a fancy-looking house, he walked in and helped himself to some coins lying around. He opened up a wardrobe and saw a rifle, which he took along with a packet of bullets. Cook then drove to Dow Keith.
35:30 Speaker 00 By now, it was pouring rain, while thunder rumbled across the sky. Cook claimed that he must have blacked out at this point, because the next thing he knew, he was trying to exit a house with the rifle in his hand. He felt as though he must have fired the weapon, and when he learnt the next day about the murder of Shirley MacLeod in Dow Keith, he knew he was responsible.
35:56 Speaker 00 Investigators didn't believe Cook had blacked out for a second. However, they had their confession, and their case was bolstered by a cartridge case recovered from Cook's car. The case matched the rifle used to kill Shirley MacLeod. Late on Sunday, September 1, police charged Eric Edgar Cook with murder.
36:22 Speaker 00 As Western Australia still had capital punishment in 1963, Cook was looking at a death sentence.
36:31 Speaker 00 Although the rifle didn't match the firearm used in the Australia Day killing spree eight months earlier, investigators had always suspected that whoever was behind Shirley's murder committed those crimes too. They just needed to prove it. Over the following days, they spent hours and hours with Cook, questioning him about his other crimes. Just as he'd initially done when arrested, Cook openly admitted to breaking into homes throughout the Western suburbs, but denied anything to do with the other murders.
37:09 Speaker 00 On the morning of Tuesday, September 3, three officers took Cook on a tour past the Netherlands and Cottersloe addresses where John Sterkey, George Wormsley, and Brian Weir had been shot. Cook's uncomfortable body language left no doubt in the officers' minds that he was responsible. When they stopped for lunch at a pub, one of the investigators stated: "Cookie, you're going to hang. There's no two ways about that. You'll go to the gallows as a bloody coward for the way you shot those people. Your wife and your kids are going to be reading history about you as a cowardly mongrel who went to the gallows without letting the people know exactly what you've done.
37:54 Speaker 00 So, what are you going to do, Cookie? Go there like that? Or go there like a bloody gentleman?"
38:03 Speaker 00 With that, Cook indicated that he was ready to make another confession.
38:11 Speaker 00 He took the officers on another tour through Perth, this time explaining everything he'd done on Saturday, January 26. A police photographer accompanied them, snapping pictures at each location.
38:27 Speaker 00 First, Cook guided the group to a home in the suburb of South Perth, where he'd stolen a cream and yellow Holden from. The vehicle had been parked in the garage with the keys in the ignition, a common practice in Perth at the time. Cook used the car as his means of transport on the night in question, then returned it to the garage after. The car's owner hadn't even realised it had been taken, let alone used in the notorious crime spree.
38:59 Speaker 00 The Winchester single-shot rifle Cook used on Australia Day was also stolen. He'd found it in a wardrobe while robbing a home in Cotterslow. It had taken the owner five months to realise it was missing, as he rarely used it. It was only when police were asking all gun owners to hand over their rifles for examination that he discovered it was gone.
39:25 Speaker 00 Cook took the officers through his actions at each separate crime scene, explaining how he'd attacked each victim. He'd first set his sights on Rowena Reeves and Nicholas August, who he spotted in a parked car. Cook had initially intended to observe them as a peeping tom, but then he felt another urge come over him.
39:49 Speaker 00 "It was then that this power came over me," Cook explained. "It wasn't an impulse, it was stronger than an impulse. It was, it was as though I was God, and it was like a mantle, or like a cloud came over me, and I must, I must use that."
40:10 Speaker 00 He fired at Rowena and Nicholas, injuring them as they sped away. He then broke into Brian Weir and John Sterkey's respective homes and shot them in their beds. Finally, Cook rang the doorbell of George Wormsley's home and shot him as he answered it. All of the victims were random.
40:33 Speaker 00 Cook described his mood as follows: "I felt as though I was God, or some person who was untouchable, just having that rifle in my hand and doing what I had done. And I felt that no power could stop me." When asked why he'd attacked people at all, he replied: "I just wanted to hurt somebody." After he'd finished, he pulled over on the Narrows Bridge, which connects South Perth to the rest of the city, and tossed the rifle into the Swan River below.
41:10 Speaker 00 Police divers were able to retrieve the rifle from the river. It was still there seven months later, buried beneath ten centimetres of silt. Cook was charged with two additional counts of murder for John Sterkey and George Wormsley, one count of attempted murder for Nicholas August, and one count of unlawful wounding for Rowena Reeves.
41:36 Speaker 00 From there, the floodgates opened. Cook began talking more and more about other crimes he'd committed over the past five years, with an intricate level of detail. He said that he'd broken into about two hundred and fifty houses. After his early arrests, where fingerprints led to his arrest, he'd started wearing a pair of leather gloves. He also stayed quiet, so that no one would hear his distinctive, muffled-sounding voice. While he sometimes struck on weeknights, he typically offended on weekend nights, because that was when he had time to himself, free from work and able to escape the demands of his family.
42:21 Speaker 00 He would wander the streets of Perth after dark, walking through residential areas and back laneways all night long, sometimes not returning home until morning.
42:33 Speaker 00 Cook could often remember exactly what he had taken from each house and what he'd done while he was there. Often, he would steal cars too. As many people left their cars unlocked with the keys in the ignition in those days, it was all too easy for Cook to hop into a vehicle, take it for a joyride, and either discard it or return it later.
42:58 Speaker 00 Detectives followed up at the addresses Cook claimed to have burgled. Some of the burglaries could be confirmed from reports made or the victims' own recollections. Others came as a complete surprise to the residents, who had been entirely unaware that there had been a prowler in their home or that anything had been taken. Yet, Cook was able to describe their floor plans, furnishings and decor in great detail. He could name particular locations in the house where money had been hidden away or left out in the open.
43:36 Speaker 00 Of the roughly 250 burglaries Cook had detailed, he was ultimately charged for 20.
43:47 Speaker 00 Cook said that he'd sometimes done other things while trespassing in other people's homes. Cook watched women through windows, broke into their houses and stole their underwear. He was fixated with young women, angry with how rejected he felt by them and seeking a kind of vengeance against people who didn't even know him.
44:10 Speaker 00 In the early hours of Wednesday, November 26, 1958, he had assaulted a 15-year-old girl named Molly MacLeod after she woke during his burglary. Cook had admitted to more assaults of women within their own homes. He was behind the attacks against Alex Donkin, Carmel Reed and Anne Melvin.
44:33 Speaker 00 These women all survived, but others hadn't. Cook confessed to the unsolved murders of Panina Berkman and Lucy Madril. The former came as a shock. Police had been certain that Panina's then-boyfriend was behind her killing.
44:53 Speaker 00 Cook said he'd broken into Panina's flat halfway through 1958 and had robbed her. He returned six months later, armed with a knife stolen from a home in Wembley in Weston Perth. Cook claimed he'd been searching Panina's dressing table when he knocked something over and woke her. She screamed and he jumped on her, forcing his heavyweight down and strangling her with his hands. Panina tried to scratch him, which was when Cook pulled out the knife and stabbed her. He later threw away the knife after fleeing the scene.
45:32 Speaker 00 Just as he'd done with Panina Berkman, Cook had broken into Lucy Madril's flat previously, before returning and taking her life. He was able to take police to her home and explain every step of what he'd done and how her body was left.
45:51 Speaker 00 While taking another trip with detectives through the streets of Bayswater, Cook had admitted that he'd tried to hurt women in other ways. He pointed out a spot where he'd run twenty-year-old Glenys Peak down in a stolen Holden sedan. His description of the stolen car, where it was dumped, and the damage to it all matched the facts of the case.
46:16 Speaker 00 Cook ultimately admitted to all of the mystery hit-and-runs that had stumped investigators for years. In total, he had run down seven girls and young women between 1958 and 1960.
46:32 Speaker 00 Cook's newfound willingness to talk was at odds with his earlier reticence when admitting to his violent crimes. After one conversation that took place about a week and a half after his arrest, an investigator asked if there was anything else on his mind he felt like talking about. "Yes", said Cook. "I have committed two crimes for which two men are now serving a sentence of imprisonment."
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50:14 Speaker 00 Exactly two weeks after the Australian Day shootings on Saturday, February 9, three young men who'd spent the day at a racehorse track drove home together around 10:30pm.
50:26 Speaker 00 Despite the fear that was gripping Perth, the young men had enjoyed their evening immensely, with the driver, 21-year-old Barry Hanson, winning several bets that he'd placed.
50:38 Speaker 00 They were planning on having one final beer together when they reached one of their homes, but Barry noticed something as they headed along Stubbs Terrace in the western suburb of Shenton Park.
50:51 Speaker 00 Lying a few metres left of the road in some sand was what looked like a bundle of clothing. Slightly unnerved by the sight, Barry asked his two friends if they'd seen it. They hadn't. "It looks like a body", Barry said. He decided to find a wider spot up ahead where he could safely make a U-turn and then drive back by the clothing to check everything was okay.
51:20 Speaker 00 About sixty metres up the road, they reached a hospital. Barry pulled into its driveway to turn around, then slowly drove back down Stubbs Terrace.
51:32 Speaker 00 When they reached the spot where Barry had seen the clothing, they saw there was now another car pulled over. A 1962 Simca Ronde sedan with someone sitting behind the wheel.
51:46 Speaker 00 Barry kept driving further along, then made another U-turn and parked about ten metres behind the other car, making sure to switch his headlights off. He and his friends sat there in the darkness, all feeling slightly nervous.
52:03 Speaker 00 The recent shootings were on their mind as they looked on, and Barry warned his friends not to get out of the car. What if the driver of this other car was the killer?
52:16 Speaker 00 The driver of the other car opened the door and ran towards the bundle of clothing alongside the road. Barry's instincts had been right. The pile of clothing was, in fact, a young woman. The three men watched as the other driver picked up her limp body and struggled to carry it to his Simca. His actions were illuminated by his car's headlights, and Barry noticed he was a young man who looked to be wearing shorts and no shirt.
52:49 Speaker 00 The man almost dropped the woman as he took her to his car and placed her in the front passenger seat.
52:57 Speaker 00 By this time, another vehicle was passing by. Its four occupants gazing out the windows at the strange scene as they drove past the shirtless man carrying the woman. They pulled over in front of his car, troubled by what they were seeing. The shirtless man paid no attention to the rubber neckers.
53:19 Speaker 00 Barry Hanson believed the shirtless man was the Australia Day shooter and was alarmed to see him place the body of either a deceased or unconscious woman in his car.
53:31 Speaker 00 Barry started his car and took off to raise the alarm. He'd driven about 300 or 400 metres when the simca suddenly sped by him at 70 miles per hour. Barry decided to follow the simca, which soon turned left and parked outside of a doctor's office. Barry and his friends watched the shirtless man run to the doctor's front door. One of Barry's passengers, Wilson White, realised he recognised the man.
54:04 Speaker 00 His name was John Barton and he was the boyfriend of Wilson's neighbour and former schoolmate, 17-year-old Rosemary Anderson.
54:14 Speaker 00 John returned and picked the young woman out of his car, carrying her inside to where the doctor was waiting. It was clear that the young woman was John's girlfriend, Rosemary.
54:31 Speaker 00 John Barton had told the doctor, who was Rosemary's general practitioner, that she had a deep cut over her eye that was bleeding heavily. Doctor Joseph Quinlevan examined Rosemary and could tell that she had been struck by a vehicle. The cut on her forehead and the fact that her pupils weren't equal indicated a head injury. The doctor also believed she'd sustained damage to her chest. Rosemary was unconscious, her pulse was racing, and she was struggling to breathe. Her thighs, knees, and hips were covered with abrasions.
55:10 Speaker 00 Dr. Quinlevan noticed that John had blood smeared on his bare chest and his hands. There was also some blood on his trousers, which were rolled up to resemble shorts. After treating Rosemary as best as he could, the doctor called for an ambulance and the police. Rosemary was transferred to Royal Perth Hospital, arriving at eleven thirty-five pm. She was found to be deeply comatose and unresponsive to painful stimuli. Doctors worked on her for a couple of hours, but just as she was transferred to another ward, Rosemary suddenly stopped breathing. Efforts to resuscitate her failed, and at two thirty am, she was pronounced dead.
55:57 Speaker 00 Meanwhile, John Barton was being questioned by two traffic officers. He told the police that that day was his nineteenth birthday, and he'd spent the entire day with Rosemary celebrating. John's parents were out that night, leaving him and his younger brother alone at their family residence in Subiaco, and in a western suburb of Perth.
56:22 Speaker 00 Late into the evening, John and Rosemary had gone out to pick up fish and chips to share with the John's brother. While they were eating the meal back at John's house, Rosemary had reached for John's piece of fish. John had loudly told her off, mistakenly thinking it was his brother taking the fish, not Rosemary.
56:45 Speaker 00 Hurt by his angry words, Rosemary had left to walk home alone at around ten thirty pm.
56:53 Speaker 00 John got into his car and followed after his girlfriend. He repeatedly tried to talk to her, pulling up alongside her on the road as she walked, but Rosemary refused to speak to him.
57:06 Speaker 00 John said he'd begged her to get in his car so he could drive her home, to no avail. Finally, John stopped trying and parked his car, turning off the ignition and watching as Rosemary walked away and around the corner to Stubbs Terrace. After waiting several minutes and smoking a cigarette, he started the car up and decided to try again, heading left onto Stubbs Terrace as Rosemary had done.
57:35 Speaker 00 There, he found Rosemary lying unconscious by the road with a head wound. John believed she was the victim of a hit and run, and had quickly decided to take her to her doctor to get help.
57:50 Speaker 00 The police noted there was significant damage to the front-left side of John's car, and it was dotted with spots of blood. In the back seat was a girdle and a pair of stockings. When asked what had happened to his car, John claimed he'd been in an accident with another car a few weeks earlier. He said that Rosemary always took off her stockings when she rode in his car because she didn't want to get ladders in them. But he stammered as he gave his explanation, and seemed nervous.
58:25 Speaker 00 John was interrogated for six hours and provided a lengthy, detailed statement maintaining his version of events. Detectives didn't believe him. They thought a fight over fish and chips sounded ridiculous, and suspected something else had caused the young couple to argue that night. They believed John and Rosemary had likely been fooling around in the back of his car, hence why her undergarments were on the back seat. Perhaps Rosemary had wanted to stop, and that was why she'd gotten out and left on foot. Angered, John had followed his girlfriend, and ran her down in a rage. Maybe he hadn't intended to hit her,
59:09 Speaker 00 maybe he'd just planned to scare her but got too close by mistake. Ultimately though, she had been hit, and John then panicked about his actions.
59:21 Speaker 00 Detectives continued to interrogate John, and started getting physical with him as their frustration grew. They punched the nineteen-year-old several times, but all John could focus on was Rosemary, so he asked if they knew how she was doing. "Oh, she's dead," the detectives informed him.
59:44 Speaker 00 Rosemary had passed away a couple of hours earlier at the hospital.
59:49 Speaker 00 John became sick after learning this and went to the bathroom to throw up. "What have I done? It was all my fault," John said.
1:00:00 Speaker 00 "Do you mean she was struck by your car?" the detectives pressed. No longer caring what happened to him, John replied, "Yes." He then provided a new statement, this time confessing that he was the one who hit Rosemary.
1:00:20 Speaker 00 John abandoned the story about the fish and chips, instead saying they'd argued after playing strip poker. Rosemary had removed her stockings and girdle as part of the game, and then John had tried to fondle Rosemary's breasts. This caused her to storm out. John had grabbed her undergarments and tossed them into his car before driving after her. After repeatedly trying to speak with her while she walked home, he'd decided to scare her by pretending he was going to hit her. As Rosemary walked on the left side of Stubbs Terrace, John drove towards her at thirty-five miles per hour, or just over fifty-six kilometers per hour.
1:01:06 Speaker 00 Before he could realise what had happened, the left side of his car struck Rosemary with a loud crunch.
1:01:14 Speaker 00 John would later reneak his confession, explaining that he'd been through intense questioning, and in his extreme grief, he'd felt responsible, as it was his mistake of shouting at Rosemary that led to her refusing a lift from him.
1:01:30 Speaker 00 He was compelled to tell a story that sounded more believable to the police. The reason Rosemary's undergarments had been in his car was because they'd had sex there earlier that evening. John hadn't wanted to tell anyone that, as he wanted to protect Rosemary's reputation. He had adored Rosemary, and the two had been planning to get married.
1:01:56 Speaker 00 Despite all of this, John Barton was tried less than three months later and convicted of manslaughter. He was sentenced to ten years with hard labour.
1:02:10 Speaker 00 Months after John was convicted, confessed spree killer Eric Edgar Cook told investigators that he was in fact responsible for the murder of Rosemary Anderson.
1:02:22 Speaker 00 Cook said that at around 8:30 on the night of Saturday, February 9, he had stolen a brand-new two-tone green Holden from a home in South Perth.
1:02:33 Speaker 00 He drove to the city, then west, through the affluent suburbs he particularly liked to prey on. At around 10pm, he was heading along Stubbs Terrace in Shenton Park when he noticed Rosemary Anderson walking alone on the side of the road. All night, Cook had been feeling a desire to hurt someone, rise inside him, and he decided Rosemary would be his victim. He continued driving past the teenager, then did a U-turn, and drove straight at her at 40mph, or just under 65km/h. Rosemary didn't make a sound as the front right-hand side of the car struck her.
1:03:18 Speaker 00 She was thrown onto the bonnet, struck the sun visor that jutted out over the Holden's windscreen, then rolled off onto the side of the road. Cook continued driving, turning right down a side street, then left before parking. He got out to survey the damage.
1:03:38 Speaker 00 There was an obvious dent on the bonnet and a few spots of blood which he wiped away with a handkerchief. After about five minutes, Cook got back in the car and drove back to the crime scene. He passed a couple of cars headed in the other direction on the way. When he reached the spot where he'd hit Rosemary, he saw no sign of her.
1:04:03 Speaker 00 Cook figured somebody must have found the girl and taken her to the hospital. He kept driving east, heading towards a large public garden known as King's Park. Cook turned left onto a roadway called May Drive and abandoned the vehicle. The entire drive was lined with memorial trees in honour of fallen Australian soldiers, and Cook decided to drive into one. He reduced his speed to 20 miles per hour, or 32 kilometres per hour, and drove directly at a tree, further damaging the car. Cook got out, walked for a distance, then caught a taxi home.
1:04:48 Speaker 00 After he took detectives through a step-by-step process of the night in question, he completed a handwritten confession about the crime. He concluded it with the words: "My reason for running down the girl was just to inflict injury and pain on her. I never knew her. The reason I left this statement until I were arrested on other matters was: First, when it happened, I didn't want to be charged with this crime. Second, now that I have been arrested on other matters and have so much more against me, this bit can't hurt me, and I'd like to see an innocent person like John Button free."
1:05:31 Speaker 00 Even though this random attack against Rosemary Anderson would be in keeping with Cook's previous hit-and-runs, detectives weren't buying his confession. When Cook had pointed to the spot on the ground where Rosemary's body had lain, he was out by a few metres. Then, when they took Cook to May Drive and asked him to point out the tree he'd driven into, he was unable to.
1:05:58 Speaker 00 He chose a tree that was actually several trees away from the location where the Holden had been found. After the car was discovered smashed into the tree back in February, it had been returned to its rightful owner.
1:06:13 Speaker 00 Following Cook's new claims, investigators went to inspect the vehicle but found none of the damage to the bonnet that he'd described, although it had been repaired after its recovery.
1:06:26 Speaker 00 Detectives also found some of Cook's other details to be at odds with the actual events.
1:06:33 Speaker 00 Rosemary had been hit at around 10:45pm, not 10pm. Some items belonging to her were found some distance from where Cook said that he'd struck her, and his descriptions of where he'd been when he spotted Rosemary then drove towards her did not align with where Rosemary was found. As one investigator told him,
1:06:58 Speaker 00 "Considering the pace you say you were travelling and the distance you say you covered from the time when you first saw her to where you say you hit her, it appears impossible that these circumstances could have occurred."
1:07:11 Speaker 00 Cook became confused, stating: "I don't understand it. I am sure I killed her."
1:07:20 Speaker 00 Not long after he had written his confession, Cook penned a retraction in which he put his vivid recollection of killing Rosemary Anderson down to an overactive imagination. Quote: "By reading all the available papers on this crime and remembering where it took place and the person involved, I were able to describe what I believe I did. Having read some books, I get so engrossed in them that I project myself and believe I'm the person in those books.
1:07:52 Speaker 00 Having given further thought to my admissions to the detectives, I'm now of the opinion that I couldn't have been the person associated with the death of Rosemary Anderson."
1:08:04 Speaker 00 As Cook's certainty about this confession waned, so too did his belief in another admission that he'd made.
1:08:16 Speaker 00 The vicious and violent murder of 22-year-old socialite and heiress Gillian Brewer on Saturday, December 19, 1959, had sent shockwaves through Perth. The young woman had been struck with a hatchet and stabbed with scissors while asleep in her bed, with Perth's coroner calling it "the worst murder he had ever seen."
1:08:39 Speaker 00 Investigators hadn't linked it to the spate of break-ins or other murders of women.
1:08:46 Speaker 00 After a nineteen-year-old deaf, non-verbal man named Daryl Beamish came to the police's attention for other offences in 1961, detectives began to suspect him of Gillian's murder.
1:09:00 Speaker 00 Daryl had a difficult life, in which he faced discrimination and social exclusion due to his disabilities. He was described as having the verbal understanding of a seven-year-old, and communicated via signing and using his fingers to spell out words.
1:09:18 Speaker 00 Daryl was close with his family, who knew him to be gentle and kind, but struggled to make friends with other members of the community.
1:09:27 Speaker 00 In turn, he didn't always act appropriately, with some reports that he would rush up to girls at a local cinema in an attempt to get close to them. Daryl later befriended a young woman named Dan, who lived at Brookwood Flats, the same Cotter's Low apartment complex where Gillian Brewer had lived.
1:09:49 Speaker 00 Ann later moved away around January 1961. As Daryl couldn't telephone her due to his disabilities, he began hanging around the flats in search of someone who might know where he could find her. At the same time, a prowler around the area had been breaking into apartments. This would lead police officers to believe Daryl and the prowler were one and the same.
1:10:18 Speaker 00 In April 1961, Daryl was charged with a very serious crime. In four separate incidents, little girls aged between four and five years old accused him of coaxing them into his car, driving them to King's Park, and then parking the car.
1:10:37 Speaker 00 He would then lift up their dresses, pull down their underwear, and look at them, before driving them back to the location where he'd found them. Daryl admitted to these assaults and would later plead guilty to them in court. His status as a sex offender and association with the Brookwood Flats led investigators to wonder if he could be Gillian Brewer's killer. He initially denied having anything to do with the murder, but eventually admitted to it after hours of intimidation and threats. His written confession was made by copying down the written answers that the detectives provided.
1:11:18 Speaker 00 In total, the statement was four pages long with very scant detail about the actual crime. Another confession was also made via a sign language interpreter, who repeatedly ignored Daryl when he told her he was innocent. He was ultimately convicted of murder and given the death sentence.
1:11:42 Speaker 00 The matter was considered solved until Eric Edgar Cook threw a spanner in the works two and a half years later by confessing to the crime. Just as he'd done with all the other crimes, he gave a detailed description of how he had killed Gillian Brewer and his actions on that night. Cook had actually already been questioned about the crime one month after it was committed due to his known history as a prowler. He'd said he was home at the time, an alibi his wife backed up. Years later, Sally Cook explained that the day after Gillian's murder, Cook had shown her an article about the crime in the paper.
1:12:25 Speaker 00 The two had discussed how warful it was, and then Cook had asked his wife to tell the police he was at home that night if they asked any questions. He explained that due to his prior convictions for prowling, they would try to pin it on him. Sally Cook accepted this and did as her husband asked.
1:12:48 Speaker 00 Cook's confession to the murder of Gillian Brewer amounted to fourteen pages when transcribed. He said that he had been to Gillian's apartment building before and had robbed her mother. On the night of Saturday, December 19, 1959, he went there again and watched Gillian with her fiance through her bedroom window. He heard the two chatting and saw when Gillian's fiance left. Cook went around the back of the apartment and entered via the rear door, which was unlocked. As he pushed the door open, he heard a scraping sound on the cement floor.
1:13:30 Speaker 00 Shining his torch down, he saw a small bottle of milk that had just been delivered to the home, placing his time of entry at 1am. Cook used the bottle to keep the door propped open, then went to Gillian's bedroom, where he attacked her with a hatchet he'd stolen from a nearby property. The sound of the assault woke Gillian's pet poodle, who hid under the bed in fear while barking at the intruder. Cook was able to soothe the dog by patting him and making a gentle shushing sound. A neighbour had verified hearing Gillian's dog briefly bark at this time. But, once again, police were able to convince Cook that he could not have committed this
1:14:15 Speaker 00 crime, and he agreed to retract this admission as well. Three weeks after his initial arrest, Cook was transferred to prison to await his trial. He was assigned two defence lawyers through Western Australia's Legal Aid Programme. He provided more candid confessions to his attorneys, even going so far as to confess to killing Rosemary Anderson and Gillian Brewer again. Police would keep many of these confessions secret from the public, including the seven hit-and-runs against women and the assaults of women in their own homes.
1:14:57 Speaker 00 Eric Edgar Cook's trial began in November 1963, less than three months after his arrest. The first charge he was facing was for the murder of John Sterkey during the Australia Day shootings. Because Cook openly admitted to killing his victims, his lawyers were arguing that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. After reviewing Cook's background and speaking extensively with his family, they believed he was suffering from a mental illness, most likely schizophrenia. Cook's mother told the attorneys about her son's history of headaches and blackouts.
1:15:37 Speaker 00 The defence wanted to have a private psychiatrist examine Cook and provide an assessment of his mental state, but this was denied by the court. Instead, he was assessed by a senior mental health practitioner employed by the state, Dr Aaron Ellis.
1:15:56 Speaker 00 Dr Ellis found no indication that Cook was suffering from delusions, a symptom of schizophrenia, nor that he lacked the ability to control his actions. In fact, Dr Ellis pointed to the lengths Cook had gone to in order to conceal his responsibility, such as wearing gloves and discarding weapons. These were not the actions of someone who wasn't in control. Cook had also been able to maintain the facade of being a good husband and father, and worked hard to provide for his family. His total lack of remorse for his crimes was concerning, but not an indication of insanity.
1:16:40 Speaker 00 Instead, it was more likely the consequence of a "psychopathic character disorder", such as antisocial personality disorder.
1:16:52 Speaker 00 Dr Ellis believed Cook's criminal behaviour was the result of a long simmering resentment towards society at large. In superficial encounters, he presented as polite, compliant and passive. Beneath that surface image was a self-obsessed man who wanted to vent his rage against those who he perceived as rejecting or wronging him. He often chose victims from well-off areas because they represented the people he believed had rejected him. Cook himself had always lived in working-class suburbs.
1:17:32 Speaker 00 "I think this man's antisocial reactions can be traced back to his early childhood and his resentment at having been born with a hare lip and cleft palate. The children at school picked on him and he regarded himself as the freak of the family. His persistent stealing, arson and finally murders all seemed directed towards satisfying his craving for power over others."
1:18:00 Speaker 00 Cook harboured particular resentment towards women, who made up the majority of his victims. He was both traumatised by his father's violence towards his mother and angry at the women he perceived as rejecting him socially and romantically. His wife Sally would later tell Perth journalist Brett Christian: "Eric wasn't really insane, he had a grudge against society. He saw his mother beaten up, he didn't know how to relate to women."
1:18:35 Speaker 00 The trial lasted just three days and it only took the jury of eight men and four women one hour and five minutes to reach a verdict: guilty.
1:18:47 Speaker 00 Eric Edgar Cook would be sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of John Sterkey. This sentence meant that the prosecution would not be pursuing the other murder and criminal charges against Cook.
1:19:02 Speaker 00 Cook ordered his attorneys not to file an appeal, even though they were still concerned about his mental state. His hanging was set to be carried out at 8am on Monday, October 26, 1964, one year and two months after his arrest. Fifteen minutes before Cook was executed, he took a bible from the hand of a reverend who was visiting him, and while holding it, he stated: “I swear before Almighty God that I killed Anderson and Brewer.” Eric Edgar Cook was the last person to be executed in the state of Western Australia.
1:19:45 Speaker 00 The death penalty was later abolished in 1984.
1:19:53 Speaker 00 Cook had repeatedly confessed to the murders of Rosemary Anderson and Gillian Brewer during his incarceration. He’d written statements detailing those crimes and signed affidavits. But neither the police nor the judiciary believed him, instead thinking he was just trying to delay his sentence. However, the truth was there were multiple issues and inconsistencies with their cases against the two men who had been convicted of those crimes. John Barton tried to appeal his manslaughter conviction, citing Cook’s confession as new evidence.
1:20:32 Speaker 00 His appeals failed, and he served five years of his 10-year sentence before being paroled. He struggled to put the pieces of his life back together, grappling with grief and an intense guilt for not being able to prevent Rosemary’s murder. The young couple had been planning to get married when Rosemary turned 18. Instead, John had to mourn Rosemary, and also take the blame after her life suddenly ended in a violent and shocking way. Rosemary’s parents and many of John’s friends cut him off, believing he was guilty.
1:21:11 Speaker 00 He was still desperate for his name to be cleared, so he wrote to everyone he could think of who might be able to help. John did this for three decades with no success. He eventually married and had two children, but still felt stuck, haunted by grief and injustice. John sunk into a deep depression. He attempted suicide multiple times and had to be admitted for psychiatric treatment. The aftershocks of Cook's crime would continue to be felt by John Button's wife and two children, who also suffered the consequences of John's trauma.
1:21:52 Speaker 00 John's story eventually caught the attention of Perth's journalist Estelle Blackburn. She had been in her early teens when the Nightcrawler stalked the city and had experienced the same fear as other residents after the Australia Day shootings. She was so terrified that she refused to use the outhouse at her family home after dark in case the shooter was lurking nearby. Three decades later, in 1991, Estelle was at a dance where she had a chance encounter with John Button's brother Jim, who told her that his brother had been wrongfully convicted for a crime actually committed by Eric Edgar Cook.
1:22:35 Speaker 00 Estelle didn't believe Jim at first, as she had a strong faith in the police and the justice system. But she began digging into the case out of curiosity. Estelle met with John and was intrigued by his story. Through her contacts, she was able to access all of the police files about the Cook and Button cases, which had been archived decades earlier and never made public.
1:23:02 Speaker 00 While trawling through the files, Estelle stumbled across confession after confession made by Eric Edgar Cook, admitting to countless violent crimes across Perth. Through these statements, Estelle Blackburn was able to track down other victims and hear their stories firsthand. She spoke to the seven women who'd survived Cook's hit-and-runs. All of the stories matched up. Estelle believed their stories were deliberately withheld from the public, as they would make the case against John Button far weaker, and police did not want to undermine his conviction.
1:23:42 Speaker 00 She continued digging over the next six years, and her efforts uncovered a brand-new witness who had never been interviewed before: a man who had been out riding his Vasper scooter with his girlfriend on the night Rosemary Anderson was killed. Doug Wilkie had been riding along Stubbs Terrace, the street where Rosemary was run down, when a light-coloured Holden sped up behind them. Doug also sped up to put some space between them, but the Holden pursued, its engine revving. Doug knew the driver wanted to run them down. Suddenly, another car appeared ahead of them.
1:24:23 Speaker 00 This new witness prompted the Holden driver to slow down, and Doug was able to get away.
1:24:30 Speaker 00 This story seemed to back up Cook's claim that he was in the area looking for victims.
1:24:37 Speaker 00 Estelle Blackburn wound up writing a book about the case titled Broken Lives. It was published in 1998 by Brett Christian, who owned the Perth community publication Post Newspapers. Broken Lives led to renewed interest in the old case, and soon lawyers were offering to represent John Button pro bono. An American crash test expert was brought in and conducted a series of tests using a dummy and the same models of Holden and Simca that Cook and John had been driving, respectively.
1:25:13 Speaker 00 Via these tests, the expert was able to determine that the damage to John's car was inconsistent with having hit a pedestrian, as it was too low down on the bumper. There was no dent on the bonnet where Rosemary would have fallen. Meanwhile, Cook's description of how Rosemary's body was struck and fell when hit by the Holden he was driving was entirely accurate. Eventually, four years after the publication of Broken Lives, John Button's conviction was quashed in 2002.
1:25:48 Speaker 00 The following year, he was awarded $460,000 by the state as compensation. John Button's exoneration paved the way for Daryl Beamish to file his own appeal. He had originally been sentenced to death for killing Gillian Brewer. However, this sentence was subsequently reduced to life in prison, and Beamish was ultimately released after 15 years. While many across Perth breathed a sigh of relief after Daryl's conviction for the horrific murder, those who knew him well were uneasy.
1:26:29 Speaker 00 Although Daryl was a convicted sex offender, there was a belief that these crimes had stemmed from his childlike manner and repressed curiosity about sex. He wasn't known to be at all violent or aggressive, as Gillian's killer clearly was. It turned out that there had always been issues with Daryl's confession. He hadn't accurately described the injuries to Gillian's body, said he had raped her despite no evidence of sexual assault, and even named the wrong day the attack had taken place.
1:27:04 Speaker 00 Journalist Astel Blackburn’s friend and colleague Brett Christian of Post Newspapers turned his focus to Daryl Beamish’s case in his own book Presumed Guilty. He described how Daryl had difficulty communicating with police officers due to being deaf and non-verbal. He repeatedly got facts wrong about Gillian’s case, including saying he’d fled her flat via the back door, which was locked from the inside when the crime scene was discovered.
1:27:36 Speaker 00 The lead detective had also taken Daryl to Gillian’s home and lay on her bed, miming how she had been stabbed in various parts of her body by making chopping motions with his hands. Daryl had apparently nodded as the detective did this, which was taken as a confession. In contrast, Eric Edgar Cook’s confession aligned perfectly with the details of the case. He overheard part of Gillian’s conversation with her fiancé, which her fiancé was able to confirm was most likely correct. Evidence also linked him to her home at the Brookwood Flats well before her murder and a burglary of Gillian’s mother’s home next door.
1:28:22 Speaker 00 In 2005, three years after John Button was exonerated, Daryl Beamish had his conviction overturned as well. He was awarded $425,000 compensation by the state government. Although Eric Edgar Cook apologized to John Button and Daryl Beamish for their wrongful convictions prior to his execution, the Western Australia Police Force never has.
1:28:51 Speaker 00 Much of the blame for the wrongful convictions has been placed on a former detective named Owen Leach. He was the officer who extracted a confession from Daryl Beamish, and his solving of Gillian Brewer’s high-profile murder directly led to him being promoted to the top position of Western Australia’s Police Commissioner.
1:29:13 Speaker 00 Leach was also responsible for convicting another deaf man who was friends with Daryl Beamish for a burglary and assault committed by Eric Edgar Cook. The victim’s description of her attacker matched Cook exactly, but Leach instead pinned it on an innocent man who was taller than Cook and looked nothing like him.
1:29:35 Speaker 00 In the documentary series After the Night, former Western Australia Premier Brian Burke said that in his experience Owen Leach intimidated other officers and was “a frightening person to deal with. There was no one more fervent in his efforts to keep innocent people in jail”. One of Leach’s detectives, who was directly responsible for Cook ultimately confessing to the Australia Day attacks, admitted to driving Cook past Gillian Brewer’s home after his arrest. His hope was that Cook would admit to the murder, which the detective didn’t believe Beamish was responsible for.
1:30:21 Speaker 00 John Barton and Daryl Beamish were just two of Eric Edgar Cook’s living victims whose lives were permanently altered and damaged. Cook’s own family were victims of him as well. He kept up a facade with his wife Sally while also spending copious amounts of time away from her and their children. Sally was never allowed to ask her husband questions about what he got up to at night or query his frequent absences from home. She believed her husband was cheating on her, as strange women often came to their house looking for Cook. He had told them Sally was his widowed sister and he was helping to raise her children.
1:31:05 Speaker 00 In the aftermath of the Australia Day shootings, Cook acted as though his family needed to fear the night caller the same as everyone else. In the documentary series After the Night, Sally Cook told the filmmakers how Cook had insisted their children no longer sleep outside during the summer.
1:31:25 Speaker 00 They all had to sleep on the bedroom floor next to her instead. He'd demand that she lock all the doors to stay safe while he was out prowling the streets of Perth.
1:31:37 Speaker 00 He came up with his own special knock and whistle, so when he returned home after a long night out, she would know it was him outside. When he arrived home, Sally quickly pulled him inside and said, "I hate this killer on the loose. When are they gonna catch him?"
1:31:57 Speaker 00 The date that Cook was finally arrested for murder in 1963 was Father's Day. When there was a knock at the Cook residence later that morning, the children all raced down the hallway with presents in their hands, expecting to greet their father. Instead, they were met by police officers who'd come to inform Sally Cook of her husband's arrest.
1:32:23 Speaker 00 The news of what he was charged with had come as an enormous shock. As Sally Cook stated in After the Night,
1:32:33 Speaker 00 "I knew he was a thief and a womanizer, but that's far different to being a murderer."
1:32:41 Speaker 00 The family also had to grapple with what might have happened to them if police hadn't managed to arrest Cook first. He admitted to detectives that he'd been keeping a rifle and ammunition in the ceiling of his home and intended to kill his wife, children, and finally himself if it ever seemed the police were closing in.
1:33:03 Speaker 00 "I wasn't going to leave them behind for anybody else," he stated.
1:33:09 Speaker 00 Sally Cook was left with no money and had to survive on a pension while raising seven children all alone. Her siblings would no longer associate with her due to the social stigma. Despite this, Sally refused to leave Perth, explaining that she wanted to teach her children that painful experiences had to be met and confronted head-on. In After the Night, Sally described how proud she was of her seven children, stating: “My family could have been a lot different to what they were. Not one of them took after him.”
1:33:50 Speaker 00 The couple’s eldest child, Tony Cook, became a highly regarded social worker and later a union leader who fought for workers’ rights. In 2002, he and his mother met with John Button and the parents of Rosemary Anderson to apologise for his father’s crimes. This meeting was covered in an episode of the ABC television programme Australian Story. When asked in a televised interview about how his father’s crimes had shaped his life, Tony answered: “I’d have to say it has made a huge impact on me as a person. It guides me in what I do. It’s formed my values and my attitudes.
1:34:34 Speaker 00 It’s given me the conviction that what I should be doing is working towards a more positive society, the sort of society that doesn’t breed people like my father.” Tony Cook passed away in 2018, followed by his mother Sally one year later in 2019. The victims of Cook’s attacks who survived were also changed forever by what was done to them. Some suffered permanent or temporary physical disabilities and brain damage. Many battled post-traumatic stress in the months and years after their assaults.
1:35:18 Speaker 00 Their goals and ambitions changed, some relocated and moved away from their homes. A sense of safety, freedom and security was taken from them.
1:35:31 Speaker 00 Even victims of Cook's burglaries, who had no idea they'd been robbed until later notified by the police, have had to live with knowing they'd had a close brush with the notorious murderer. Others faced different battles when they realised they would never get their day in court. According to Astell Blackburn's book Broken Lives, hit-and-run victim Jill Connell only realised who was behind her attack after her mother read an early headline about how Cook had lived nearby.
1:36:04 Speaker 00 She immediately suspected he must have been Jill's attacker and followed it up with the police. The police confirmed their suspicions, and Jill was overjoyed to finally know what had happened to her. However, her relief turned to despair when investigators told her Cook would not be trialled for her crime.
1:36:27 Speaker 00 Jill wanted the vindication of a public trial, so everyone would know who had hurt her. The hit-and-run left Jill with significant scarring, physical pain and emotional trauma. When she initially told her friends that her case was solved and Cook was responsible, they hadn't believed her. This further traumatised victims like Jill, who were left with a feeling of injustice.
1:36:56 Speaker 00 Journalist Astell Blackburn has argued that police never publicised Cook's confessions about assaulting women in their homes because they didn't want the public to make the connection between Cook and Gillian Brewer's murder. This was in keeping with their decision to keep Cook's hit-and-runs a secret so he wouldn't be suspected of Rosemary Anderson's murder.
1:37:19 Speaker 00 Just as she had done with those cases, Astell Blackburn tracked down the survivors who had been assaulted in their homes. One of these was Molly MacLeod, who had been 15 years old when Cook hit her over the head while robbing her family's home, concussing her. For 30 years, the MacLeod family had believed Molly had simply fallen out of bed, until Astell Blackburn uncovered Cook's confession and reached out to Molly's father.
1:37:49 Speaker 00 Police hadn't just concealed Cook's non-fatal crimes. For years, they had believed that Cook's first murder victim, Penina Berkman, was killed by her boyfriend, who subsequently left Australia for Greece. After Cook provided a highly detailed admission to the crime, they accepted that he was the true culprit. But they never charged him with Penina's murder, and nor did they notify any of her family members that the case was solved. At the time of her murder in 1959, Penina had an eight-year-old son named Mark. She and Mark had relocated to Perth from Melbourne after Penina and her Polish-born husband divorced.
1:38:35 Speaker 00 On the night of his mother's murder, Mark had been staying at a friend's house for the school holidays. He never understood the truth of what happened to his mother, and the next four years of Mark's life remain a blur to this day. His father took Mark back to Melbourne, and the pair later relocated to Israel. In the documentary series After the Night, Mark described his grief as follows: "All of a sudden, you lose a mother. One day you see her, the next day you don't. And you don't know the reason, and it doesn't really matter. I see it as a private Holocaust. It only belongs to me."
1:39:23 Speaker 00 In 2004, Mark visited Australia to see some extended family members. A cousin told him about the book Broken Lives and how it told his mother's story. Mark got hold of a copy and was stunned to learn the truth. It was the first he'd ever heard about what happened to his mother and who was responsible for taking her life.
1:39:49 Speaker 00 The family members and friends of Cook's seven other murder victims have been dealt a life sentence as well. Countless individuals have had to grieve loved ones under the most painful circumstances and live in a new reality that was far more terrifying than the one they knew before. This loss of innocence was felt more broadly by the entire city of Perth, which was fundamentally different after Cook. Even though Cook's crimes are now more than 60 years old, some long-time residents still have firsthand memories of his reign of terror.
1:40:27 Speaker 00 As Estelle Blackburn stated in the 2020 documentary After the Night, quote, "All these years on, there are still all these people who carry the scars of the crimes of Eric Edgar Cook. Far more people than we realized at the time, really affected by his attacks. Their families, their friends. There are a lot of people still in Perth who sleep with a light on at night."
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