Cook, Billy (1928-1952)

Mennonite Weekly Review obituary: 1952 Dec 25 p. 3

Birth date: 1928

text of obituary:

MURDERER BURIED UNDER DARKNESS OF NIGHT

The strange burial of Billy Cook, 24-year-old killer of six persons, gave tragic testimony last week that truly “the way of the transgressor is hard.”

Cook, executed at San Quentin prison, in California, was brought first to Oklahoma then to Missouri, where he was interred in an isolated cemetery near Joplin. To avoid further public curiosity, relatives buried him by lantern light, in a grave beside his mother, who died when he was three.

Early last year the youthful criminal wiped out an Illinois family, a man and wife and their three hidden [sic children] who had picked him up as a hitch-hiker in Oklahoma. From there he fled to California, killing also a traveling salesman before his capture in Old Mexico. The judge pronouncing sentence placed part of the blame on an “indicated society” which failed in its responsibilities toward a homeless, unwanted lad who went astray since tender youth.