Repeat burglar 299th inmate executed in Texas
03/12/2003
HUNTSVILLE, Texas - A convicted burglar and thief paroled from prison numerous times apologized and then was executed Tuesday for robbing and fatally shooting a sleeping East Texas fisherman 10 years ago.
In a brief statement, Bobby Glen Cook said he would like to tell his victim's family that he knows "they've got grief and I know with this execution it will not be any relief to them. With my death, it will just remind them of their loved one." None of the victim's relatives were there to witness the execution.
Cook asked for forgiveness and repeated his assertion that the shooting was in self-defense.
"I was never able to get up on the stand to tell them," he continued, his voice choking with emotion. "I know this is wrong, but I'm going home to the Lord."
He gasped slightly as the drugs began taking effect. Eight minutes later, at 6:20 p.m., he was pronounced dead.
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Cook, 41, of Corsicana, had been free for 10 months on his fourth parole when he was arrested for the slaying of Edwin Earl Holder, 42, of Buffalo.
Cook was the 10th Texas prisoner executed this year and the 299th since the state resumed carrying out capital punishment in 1982. Another inmate, Delma Banks, was set to become No. 300 Wednesday night.
Cook's appeals were exhausted.
But Banks, 44, convicted 23 years ago of fatally shooting a Texarkana-area youth and stealing his car, had an appeal before the U.S. Supreme Court that questioned his trial lawyer's competence, the testimony of two prosecution witnesses and the racial makeup of his jury. His appeal, being pushed by the NAACP Legal Defense Fund and a Washington, D.C.-based organization called The Justice Project, additionally was supported by three former federal judges, including William Sessions, a former FBI director.
In the Cook case, the former painter, heavy equipment operator and concrete truck driver admitted being a thief but said he was no killer.
"I've never been violent," he said in a recent interview. "Just thefts."
At the time of the slaying, Cook had five convictions - three for burglary and two for theft - had been to prison four times and was paroled four times, committing another crime each time while on parole.
"When people are speaking of the mythical nonviolent offender who can be released with no adverse consequence, one has to at least think there may be a Bobby Cook among those nonviolent offenders," Gerald Garrett, chairman of the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, said. "His record was really amazing to look at, the number of opportunities he was afforded to get his life together before ultimately going down a path of extreme violence."
AP Bobby Glen Cook |
"Our argument was he was a repeat offender and he continued to victimize individuals," Pamela Foster Fletcher, one of the prosecutors at Cook's capital murder trial, said Tuesday. "The system isn't perfect but it's best system we have."
Holder failed to return from a fishing trip on the Trinity River and his body was found Feb. 8, 1993 inside a sleeping bag in the bed of his pickup truck, partially submerged in the river near Cayuga in Anderson County, about 75 miles southeast of Dallas. He had been shot six times in the head.
Holder's boat also was sunk, but the motor and a couple of lanterns were missing along with his wallet and $21.
Cook and two companions, Stephen Ray Cockroft and Robin Jenkins, both of Dawson, were arrested a few days later at Cockroft's home after a witness described Cockroft's truck leaving the area where Holder's body was found. Cockroft was convicted of capital murder and sentenced to life. Jenkins testified against Cook and received a 15-year term.
"It was self-defense," Cook said, describing the shooting from a closet-like cage in the visiting area of death row. "The dude pulled a gun on me."
Cook said the .22-caliber chrome-plated pistol misfired and he grabbed it, then fired at Holder.
"If the gun hadn't misfired, I'd be dead," he said.
Fletcher called the slaying senseless, said there was no evidence to support Cook's version of events and that evidence instead pointed to Holder being asleep in his sleeping bag when he was shot. Wounds to his head were in a close pattern, fired no more than three feet away, and there was no sign of a struggle.
"I think the punishment fits the crime and his past history," she said.
Cook said he threw the .22-caliber chrome-plated pistol into the river. It never was found. As for the $21, "I think I spent it on gas," he said.
Cook blamed his burglary sprees on a need for money to support a methamphetamine habit.
"At that time, and with those drugs, you didn't care," he said. "I wish this never happened."
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