Robert Raymond Cook

Robert Raymond Cook (July 15, 1937 - November 14, 1960) was a Canadian mass murderer, convicted for the killing of his father Raymond Cook in Stettler, Alberta, in June 1959. Cook murdered his family, including his father, step-mother, and five half-siblings at their home in Stettler, but was only charged for his father's murder, for which he was convicted and sentenced to death.

Robert Raymond Cook
Born
Robert Raymond Cook

(1937-07-15)July 15, 1937
Hanna, Alberta, Canada
DiedNovember 14, 1960(1960-11-14) (aged 23)
Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta, Canada
Cause of deathExecution by hanging
Criminal statusExecuted
Conviction(s)Murder
Criminal penaltyDeath sentence
Details
DateJune 1959
Location(s)Stettler, Alberta
Killed7
WeaponsShotgun

Cook was executed in 1960, the last man to be executed by the province of Alberta.[1]

Murders and execution

On 28 June 1959, police discovered Raymond Cook, his wife Daisy Cook and their 5 children shot and bludgeoned to death in the grease pit of their garage in Stettler, Alberta. Raymond Cook's son by his first marriage, Robert Cook, had been arrested in Stettler the day before and charged with obtaining goods under false pretenses, after he had traded the family's 1958 Chevrolet station wagon for a '59 Impala convertible. Robert was arrested for the murders, and despite being implicated in the deaths of all of his family members, was only charged with the murder of his father in order to speed up the trial process.

At just after midnight on July 11, 1959, Cook escaped from the Ponoka Mental Institution he was detained in, for a psychiatric assessment, after he had been denied permission to attend the funerals of the family members he had killed, and was found several days later hiding at a pig farm near Bashaw, Alberta. It took two trials and just under 16 months for Cook to be convicted of murder, where he maintained his innocence up until his execution.[2]

While awaiting his execution at the Fort Saskatchewan Provincial Gaol, Robert authored a poem as part of a last-minute plea for clemency sent to the Solicitor General of Canada, and Prime Minister John G. Diefenbaker.[3]

I sit here in my death cell, I know not why,
  For the evidence proved me innocent, and that is no lie
Seven members of my family, murdered to date,
  The jury on a guess would make it number eight,
Was it planned that way or was it just fate.
  My lawyers family threatened with the same,
What reason can there be for such a dirty game,
  The judge directed, pay no heed and reject that lead,
Pay no heed to another one, pay no heed to the shirt and gun,
  Close your eyes, you need not see,
Two places at once I could not be,
  So I ask you is it strange that I am sentenced to the noose.
While my family's killer is on the loose.

  He wiped up his finger prints, all traces of his crime,
Putting a stained suit under the mattress, no doubt he knew it was mine
  His purpose clear to see the murder of the missing member without fear of the fine

Time he would gain and safe he would be
  So I ask you is it strange that I am sentenced to the noose
While my family's killer is on the loose.

  My family's funeral I wanted to attend,
I had to escape and sealed my own fate in the end.
  If my loved ones saw, and wondered why I was not there,
I pray God told them of the hounds and the hare.
  They hounded me by day, they hounded me by night
Blood hounds and helicopters, oh, what a sight.
  Out to murder, armed and dangerous they said,
That is so funny, I'll laugh till I am dead.
  So I ask you is it strange that I am sentenced to the noose.
While my family's killer is on the loose.

  I've heard of justice, but where can it be,
I looked in the dictionary, behold! there it is to see.
  When I sent for my lawyer he just shook his head.
Justice will only come long after you're dead.
  So you people of the world take note,
It's murder when the innocent die, at the end of a rope.

Cook was sent to the gallows at the Fort Saskatchewan Provincial Gaol at midnight, November 14, 1960, and pronounced dead at 12:19AM on November 15, 1960. The case has been the subject of several books and two plays.[4][5]

References
  1. Alberta Law Source
  2. "Hanged: A special series about the history of capital punishment in Alberta". www.edmontonjournal.com. Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  3. george. "Last Man Hanged Virtual Gallery | LASA". Retrieved 2020-08-14.
  4. "ASA Honours Hugh Dempsey". Legal Archives Society of Alberta. Winter 2000–2001. Retrieved 2007-07-18.
  5. "New Play a Success" (PDF). Legal Archives Society of Alberta. Summer 2001. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-10-13. Retrieved 2007-07-18.

Further reading
  • Jack Pecover (1996). The Work of Justice: The Trials of Robert Raymond Cook : the Story of the Last Man Hanged in Alberta. Wolf Willow Press. ISBN 1-55056-423-4.



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