Billy Cook (serial killer)

William Edward "Billy" Cook (born December 23, 1928 in Joplin , Missouri , † December 12, 1952 in San Quentin , California ) was an American murderer who hitchhiked and killed six people and was executed for it.

Biography and offenses

Billy Cook lost his mother at the age of five, after which his father abandoned him and his seven siblings in an abandoned mine shaft near Joplin. However, the children were found there and, with the exception of Billy, were placed with foster families. The authorities had big problems with Billy because his behavior and his deformed right eyelid prevented him from being accepted into a foster family. He spent most of his youth in correctional homes and penal institutions, and his previous convictions included theft, robbery, car theft and grievous bodily harm. His deformed eyelid, which could never be closed completely, and the words "Hard Luck" tattooed on his four fingers on his left hand became his most famous identifying features.

In 1950 he was released from prison and hitchhiked across the American Southwest, briefly working as a dishwasher in California, the only job he ever had. In December 1950, he purchased a .32 caliber short-barreled revolver and hitchhiked through Texas again. On December 30, 1950, he hitchhiked into Lee Archer's vehicle at Lubbock and threatened him at gunpoint after a short time. After robbing it and locking it in the trunk, he continued driving. Archer managed to escape from the trunk, however, while Cook drove on until the tank was empty and he had to stop in Oklahoma on the highway between Claremore and Tulsa .

There, however, after a few minutes he was picked up as a hitchhiker by the Mosser family from Illinois , who were on their way to New Mexico . In the vehicle were Carl Mosser (33), his wife Thelma (29), their three children Ronald (7), Gary (5) and Pamela (3), and their dog. Cook also threatened the family at gunpoint, forcing them to wander through Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arkansas for 72 hours before directing them to his hometown of Joplin. There he shot the family of five and the dog and threw the bodies into a mine shaft. The family's vehicle was found two days later in Oklahoma, not far from where they took Cook. It also contained the bill for the revolver sale, so the police now knew who to look for.

In Blythe , California, Cook took a deputy hostage and forced them to go with him through the neighborhood, where he told the officials also of the murder of the family Mosser. After about 40 miles, he forced the deputy to lie face down in a ditch and threatened to shoot him, but he stopped and instead drove on with the patrol car. After a while he hitchhiked a car that was driven by Robert Dewey from Seattle . He murdered him with a shot in the head after they had left the street after a scuffle and remained in a field.

The last people he got in the car were two men on their way on a hunting trip. He forced them to take him to Santa Rosalía in Mexico , where he continued on foot. However, he was recognized there by a local police officer and immediately arrested, ending his 22-day rampage. Cook was extradited to the FBI and sentenced to death in California. While in custody, he said, "I hate everyone profoundly, and everyone hates me." On December 12, 1952, he was executed in the gas chamber of the San Quentin State Prison .

Trivia

In 1953 the film The Hitch-Hiker was released , based on the crimes of Billy Cook, down to the deformed eyelid. The film focuses in particular on the kidnapping of the two hunters with whom he went to Mexico.

The song Riders on the Storm by the American rock band The Doors is partly inspired by Billy Cook.

A detailed portrait of Billy Cook, his crimes and executions appeared in 2005 in the book "LA John Gilmore's Despair: A Landscape of Crimes & Bad Times".

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Time Magazine, Billy's Last Words article , December 22, 1952

Web links

• Young Man with a Gun
• The kid with the bad eye
• The Ghost of Billy Cook