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Hey, it's Nancy. Before we begin today, I just wanted to let you know that you can listen to Crime Beat early and ad-free on Amazon Music, included with Prime. He's the most terrifying serial killer you've never heard of. Haddon Clark has confessed to several murders, but investigators say he could have over 100 victims. At the center of the mayhem, a cellmate of Haddon's that was able to get key evidence into Haddon's murder spree across America.
because hadn't thought he was Jesus Christ. Born Evil, the Serial Killer and the Savior, an ID true crime event, premieres Monday, September 2nd at 9. Watch on ID or stream on Max. Set your DVR. A listener's note. This podcast contains coarse language, adult themes, and content of a violent and disturbing nature. Listener discretion is advised. Think back to the very first time you ever heard about a crime.
Can you think of one? How old were you? I was five and I'll never forget it. It's burned into my brain. That's when a young girl vanished from a small town in southern Alberta, just 30 minutes away from me. I had nightmares as a child of being kidnapped. Lots of us do. So when this actually happened, so close to my house,
This was my worst fear come to life. I grew up on a cattle farm about an hour northeast of Calgary. And when this happened, this was all anyone was talking about. I also remember there were search parties, massive search parties. My dad was a member of a rural crime watch group called the Range Patrol. And he was one of hundreds of people who volunteered to help search.
Everyone knew the young girl's name because of the unbelievably common scenario that led to her disappearance. The girl had simply taken a job babysitting someone new, and then she was gone. But our path, really, in life changed that day. I'm Nancy Hixt, a crime reporter for Global News.
This case has always stood out to me, from that first moment as a young kid glued to the news, right through to when I became a journalist and picked up covering the case myself. In the next two episodes of Crime Beat, I'll tell you the story of Kelly Cook. It was 1981. Raiders of the Lost Ark had just opened in theaters,
And if you were driving down any road in Alberta, you could pretty much guarantee country music was blaring out the window of every truck. Standard Alberta is a town not even big enough to be called a town. With just a few hundred people, technically it's considered a village. It's a small farming community about an hour straight east of Calgary.
It's the kind of place where everyone knows everyone, and a stranger passing through tends to stand out. That spring, there was an unusual call to the principal of the standard school. Like many small country schools back then, it had classes from kindergarten right through to grade 12.
A man who identified himself as Bill Christianson wanted information about a 17-year-old female student. Specifically, he was looking for her address. Now, that might seem weird to you, but the teenage girl Bill Christianson was calling about was a very popular babysitter in the area. So it wasn't unusual for someone to be asking about her.
Remember, this was rural Alberta in 1981. Word of mouth was everything. The last name Christensen was common in the community. Even now, if you look up that last name, there's more than a dozen listed in the phone directory. What was unusual and stood out to the principal was the first name Bill.
He wasn't familiar with a Bill Christensen. In fact, the only Bill he knew had passed away. When the principal pushed the collar for further details, the man hung up. The principal didn't think much more of it and put the mysterious request out of his mind. It was six weeks later, on Easter weekend, when the name Bill Christensen popped up again.
Somehow, the man had managed to track down the girl he'd been asking the principal about. The girl got a call on a Saturday afternoon, April 18, 1981. Christensen asked the teen if she was available to babysit for him and his wife that evening. Normally, the girl would have jumped at the opportunity, but she already had big plans that night. She was going on a date.
Easter dinner at her boyfriend's parents' home. Bill Christensen asked if she could recommend any other babysitters. She passed along two names. One of those was a girl she went to school with, Kelly Cook.
Kelly Cook was a slender girl with big bright blue eyes and short brown hair. A little longer than a pixie cut. The same style as figure skater Dorothy Hamill. It was a very popular haircut in the late 70s and early 80s. Kelly was born in Montreal and as a kid she moved around a bit as her dad worked in oil and gas. She was 12 when her family finally settled in Standard.
Kelly was known as an old soul. She was happy to hang out with adults and talk about social justice issues. She was a good kid. She was very good at school and she had plans for the future. She always was like that. Even when she was tiny, you know, she was three going on 90 always. She was very smart. That's Kelly's mom, Marion Cook.
Marion said Kelly had aspirations of one day becoming a lawyer, but she also did her fair share of kid stuff. She loved sleepovers, bike rides, figure skating, and reading Nancy Drew. Kelly had the entire collection of the popular amateur sleuth books.
Kelly and her little sister Marnie would collect bottles, return them for change, and then spend their coins at the local candy store. At age 15, Kelly was just starting to talk about boys, and recently shared details of a crush with Marnie. Kelly was excited to drive. She already had her learner's license, and in just a year, she could take her full driver's test.
Kelly was also a huge fan of the TV show Dallas. Every Friday night, she made a date with the Ewing family at South Fork Ranch in Texas. Kelly absolutely loved Dallas.
I could relate to that. I was 10 years younger than Kelly at the time, but I was also hooked on Dallas. My family would make popcorn and we would all snuggle in and watch as the ongoing drama unfolded. The show was pretty intense in the early 80s. That's when everyone was trying to figure out who shot J.R.
Kelly was an all-round good kid. She loved her family and she was just very likable. No one foresaw the tragic twist her life was about to take. On Wednesday, April 22nd, 1981, Kelly was busy getting ready for school. It was just after 8 a.m. when the phone rang at the Cook house. Kelly answered, but there was no one on the line.
A few minutes later, another ring. When Kelly picked up the second time, there was a man on the line, Bill Christensen. He told Kelly she'd been recommended as a babysitter. Christensen wanted to know if she was available that night from 8:30 till midnight. Kelly was one that left home for school at the same time every day. And this phone call came in maybe
four minutes before her usual time going. And he wanted a babysitter. And when she asked me about it, it was during the week, and I didn't really like her babysitting during the week. But she said, "Well, you know, I have all my homework up to date and the whole bed." And so unfortunately, I reneged and she went. Kelly's mom wanted to know more about this Bill Christianson.
She asked Kelly to see if any of her friends knew him. And the kids in school said, "Oh yeah, he lives up around Rosebud, which Rosebud isn't very far." With that information, Kelly was given the green light, and the babysitting job was set up for that night. Kelly's dad, Walter Cook, got home from work just as Kelly was leaving. As planned, she was picked up at 8:30.
Kelly's little sister Marnie was looking out the basement window at the time.
It was at the end of the driveway. And, like, she left. I heard her close the door, and I saw her walk down the path and open the car door and get in. And it drove away. There was one single, very important rule in the Cook home whenever Kelly or her sister would go babysitting. The girls were expected to call and let their parents know they had arrived safely. That was a thing we had. And, uh...
The call never came, and I just, I knew something was wrong. Kelly's parents waited and waited for her call, but it never came. The more time that passed, the more anxious they became. An hour went by, and still no word from Kelly. That's when Marion started calling around. Then I called, like, me at the post office, and, uh...
Gosh, who else did I call? I called Rusty from the bank. That's the bank teller. She would probably know if somebody opened a new account. And I called Lil from the co-op because she was on cash and she would have known if there was somebody new. And they all said no and no. I had exhausted everybody I could think of that could help me. I went to bed about 10:30 that night and mom was on the phone making calls.
I knew something had happened because Kelly was very responsible. And I knew when that call didn't come that something was bad. I mean, I never imagined how bad that never occurred to me. I just knew that we had to find her. Kelly's parents were frantic. Just after midnight, around the time Kelly should have arrived back home from babysitting, her parents called police.
The nearest RCMP detachment was Strathmore. That's about a 25-minute drive from Standard, where Kelly was last seen. And then the constable came and he took Walt up the highway and around and checked some culverts and that sort of thing. And I can remember standing at the door and the light hit the yellow stripe on his pants and to this day
RCMP officers were quick to arrive at the Cook home. Kelly's disappearance was completely out of character. She wasn't a troubled teen, had never run away, and wasn't into anything bad.
So for police, her disappearance was very concerning. And there was no time to waste. They went out, my dad went out with them in the police car and, you know, they had their lights on in the ditches and stuff looking. Immediately, immediately. Like there was no 24-hour wait time or anything. It was, it was that night. The man we're looking for, the man who abducted Kelly Cook...
He may very well live in this area. He may live on one of these farms. So you may be talking to him today. Please be careful. Helicopters were brought in and volunteer search teams started scouring farms, outbuildings, checking all places where Kelly might be. Okay, have you completed sector four yet? Okay, and the next one you'll be going to?
The normally quiet community was abuzz with media. The police investigation into what still is considered an abduction escalates. Every single car that drove to or from the area was searched. Every person questioned. Is there a problem? No, just a routine check, sir.
Do you travel this road frequently? No, as a matter of fact, not often. Hundreds of volunteers, including complete strangers from neighboring towns, joined in the search. People wanted to do whatever they could to help find Kelly. You all know why we're here. On the 22nd of April, Kelly Cook was abducted from her home in Standard. She has been seen or heard of since.
From the background information we've been able to put together, there's every reason to believe that she may still be alive. The purpose of our search today is to cover about a thousand square mile area around the community of Standard. We have about 350 searchers here and even with that number of people it's going to be quite a task. I want every foot of land covered. Searchers have been assigned to check on horseback, all of the irrigation ditches,
The total search area has been broken up and assigned to different groups and you folks have been given descriptions of Kelly Cook, her clothing, etc. I want you to search every ditch, every coulee, every barn, granary, culvert or any other place that you can think of. And please remember folks when you're doing your search today, the man we're looking for, the man who abducted Kelly Cook,
He may very well live in this area. He may live on one of these farms. The days just kind of blur together for that. But I, like I know, mom went out. My aunt went out. My grandmother went out with my mom and my aunt. And they took us like we were never left alone.
Just days after Kelly's disappearance, her parents received what would be the first of many cards in the mail. Marnie told me that card still stands out to her. It was a sympathy card. Marnie remembers how devastated her mother was when she opened it. She said the card was handwritten with cryptic-looking block letters.
The message clearly alluded to Kelly being dead. It was signed Sick Stewart, spelled S-I-C-K Stewart, a name the family didn't recognize. The card was turned over to police, but the devastating impact of the hurtful words haunted the Cook family. They were trying to remain hopeful Kelly would return safely, and the person who sent that card was
stole some of that hope away. I have letters you wouldn't believe that I don't think I'll ever be able to read them anymore. It was social media 37 years ago. From that day forward, police began monitoring all mail to the Cook family, as well as all calls to their home. The phones were watched, the mails were watched.
I guess that was the hope, that maybe it would be ransom. There wasn't a day that the police weren't at the house. There wasn't a day that the media wasn't at the house. Every day that it was reported, and dad would-- he'd kind of be at the helm of the interview. Mom-- like, mom would talk. Mom would be a part of it. But dad definitely was the leader of it. And at the end of every interview, he would talk to Kelly through the camera.
in hopes that, you know, he'd say to her, you know, we're looking. Don't give up. So every day there was that in the house. Over the years, I've gotten to know Kelly's sister Marnie really well. I've done several interviews with her. Marnie is one of the sweetest, kindest people I know.
She's compassionate, confident and pretty with blonde hair and blue eyes and there's a special gentleness in her eyes. She's the kind of person who's easy to talk to and easy to be around. Every interview we've done has been difficult and emotional for Marnie. Recently she invited me to have more of a group discussion with her family at her farmhouse.
She still lives near Standard. Marnie, her mother Marion, and Marnie's younger brother Heath all gathered around the kitchen table. Heath was just 11 years old when Kelly disappeared. He's now in the military, stationed at an Air Force base in BC. He's very quiet and reserved. This was my first time meeting with a family as a group, and my first time interviewing Marion, Kelly's mother.
Marion Cook is now in her 70s, but you wouldn't know it to look at her. She's a very youthful and attractive lady.
She has short blonde hair that's perfectly styled. She always wears rosy-colored lipstick. She doesn't leave her house without it. She has gorgeous blue eyes, but what really stood out to me is the pain and sadness in her eyes. There's no mistaking it. Immediately, I could tell Marion is caring, shy and quiet,
And I knew it took a lot for her to work up the courage to do this interview. "But our path, really, in life changed that day." All searches for Kelly came up empty in those early days following her disappearance. Her family said Kelly didn't really have any personal belongings with her when she went babysitting that night,
She didn't even have a bag or a purse. She didn't take anything babysitting with her. The day before, we had been shopping and we came through Strathmore and we went to the bakery and she ate one of the cream puffs or something and she got hives. So we went and got some cream from the doctor. So she had no rings, nothing. All she had was her earrings.
And also on one of the babysitting jobs, the dog had ate her purse, the strap off her purse, so she never even had her purse with her.
The days turned into weeks, and still no sign of Kelly. Police report no new leads in the abduction of 15-year-old Kelly Cook from her home at Standard six weeks ago. An RCMP spokesman tells CFAC News the case has hit a dead end, and police are appealing to the public to gain further clues. Kelly Cook was abducted from her home April 22nd by a man posing as Bill Christensen, who picked her up to babysit.
Every day you just waited for the police to come in and tell you something different, I think. Marion said at that point, some of the investigators were basically living at the Cook home.
That's also when complete strangers began contacting the Cook family, offering their own insight into Kelly's disappearance. We had people up at the door, psychics, telling us, you know, look for that white building in the middle of a field and...
That's where you need to go. And how do you not? How do you not get in your car and do that, right? Because that is, that's all you've got. So how do you not, as you're driving by or anything, oh, there's a white building. Like, we should stop there. Or there's a red barn. Oh, like, we should look there. Because that's all you have at the time. The one thing I felt we had to do everything we could possibly do because...
I mean, as the time went on, you knew it wasn't going to be good. And you had to live with yourself afterwards. And you have to feel you have done absolutely everything. Even though some people think you're off the wall, I felt we had to do it so that you can live with yourself. So what were some of those kinds of things? Well, it was just if somebody told us, you know, there was...
an area that was quite wild and you know you could put somebody there. We went and looked around and we did searching on our own which I mean the police didn't like that because they didn't know where we were half the time. Well how did you feel about all of the psychics and that kind of stuff? Well you kind of listened and you just you know they felt they were trying to help you.
You know, most of them are very genuine. And you know, there was one that came out and she was bang on just the wrong direction. And she had an interpreter. She was Japanese. But she was bang on water and frogs. And when she was leaving, she put her hand on me and she told me, "You're thinking one way, but it's the other."
The first real lead where Kelly might have been taken came to police from a phone operator. The operator saw Kelly's case in the news and immediately came forward to investigators. That very same night, sometime between 10 and 10:30, an AGT, which is TELUS now, Alberta Government Telephones, TELUS, operator in Calgary received a phone call from a payphone in Hazar.
That's Earl Peters. Back then, Peters was working in the Calgary Major Crimes Unit of the RCMP. Early on, Peters was brought in to help with the investigation. He told me the call was made at a payphone in Hussar, about a 20-minute drive from Standard.
That call to the operator was made the same night Kelly went missing, about an hour and a half after she left her parents' home with Bill Christensen. She simply hears a girl screaming. It's loud enough to cause her to remove her headset, and then the phone went silent. A scream and a hang-up. It was the worst news the Cook family could have received. I knew he killed me.
The problem was, the possible trail to Kelly ended with that call from the payphone. There was a witness, however, who offered some information about who this fellow Bill Christensen might be.
The owner of a local gas station came forward and told police he may have seen the suspect and witnessed the call made to Kelly on April 22nd. He was also able to explain why the first call to Kelly was a hang-up.
Back then, with most payphones, you had to dial, then be connected to the person you were calling, and then put your coins in. In this case, the man put his coins in first and the call was disconnected. At that point, the man went into the service station and asked to use the landline. The owner agreed, but watched to make sure he was making a local call.
He told police the man was talking about getting a babysitter. There was a fellow that approached the service station manager to use his phone. He said the payphone outside doesn't work and he wanted to use the phone. So the service station manager, having been stung before, said yes, but he stood there and wanted to make sure it was a local call. So he saw there was a local call and he heard conversation babysitting.
So in all probability, we believe that this is our perpetrator, this Bill Christensen. That was the first really detailed physical description of the man believed to be Bill Christensen. Earl Peters still has notes on what the gas station owner said. So he said, "To me, the man looked like a farmer. I don't remember him wearing a hat, but he was rude. Dark hair, possibly curly, no gray.
Fair to dark complexion, fair tan, clean shaven, a man in his 40s. Teeth yellowed, like he smoked, but he didn't smoke while he was here. Not bad looking guy, not wearing glasses, eyes sunk in. Heavier eyebrow, dark, not well dressed, but not a slob. Could be blue jean jacket, approximately 5 foot 9, 190 to 195 pounds, well built. Not a beer gut, dark pants.
From that description, police were able to create a composite sketch of Christensen, who was at that point considered a suspect in the abduction of Kelly Cook.
That sketch looks pretty primitive and very generic. I'll get more into that a bit later. It was a key factor in how the investigation unfolded. Even after the sketch of Christensen was released, the police manhunt for him came up empty. The man was a phantom. No one knew him.
No one knew where he might live or why he may have taken Kelly. We investigated Bill Christensen's all across Canada and I think that we investigated at least 35 of them. So Bill Christian was just a name we believe that he used. At this point, I'm going to stop and tell you a little bit more about Earl Peters. I've interviewed him several times over the years.
Peters is retired now and on this particular day he invited me to his acreage, a beautiful home located in a breathtaking rural area north of Calgary. Hello! Hi! You found me? We found you. No problem. Beautiful drive out here. It's nice to see you again. Yes, yes, likewise. Peters has a big personality.
He has friendly eyes. He's charming and witty, but also very matter-of-fact. Peters became an RCMP officer in 1967. So by the time he was assigned to Kelly's case in 1981, he had already been on the force for 14 years.
Nearly 40 years later, his hair has grayed, but he still knows all the facts in this case. He kept every single notebook from back then. He laid them all out for me on his coffee table. And...
This is number one in that particular investigation. Peters has kept a record of every single detail that was key in the case, including one folder that he calls his Bible. This is my Bible. Oh.
Okay, so this is, and no, you can't have it. No, you can't see it. But I will refer to it. When Kelly disappeared, police were inundated with tips. Unfortunately, not a lot of those were good tips.
good tips. We were getting so many tips I can't even begin to remember how many from like clairvoyance and I remember one that said oh she had this vision and Kelly was tied to a tree and animals were eating her and of course that wasn't true but again you dare not investigate those things.
It was nearly two months after Kelly took that babysitting job and disappeared before there was a break in the case. But it was far from the news Kelly's loved ones had hoped and prayed for. My dad was at work and the RCMP had actually gone to dad's work and told him that they had found her and that he needed to go home.
obviously, and tell everyone, but that the news media did have the information as well. And that there was a risk that if we were listening to the radio, that that's how we could have found out about it. And so one of dad's co-workers and friend drove him home to tell us. And of course he comes home in the middle of the day and we knew why he was home.
Do you remember the conversation? Kind of, I guess. Takes you back. I remember the night she left, it was dark, so of course the outside light goes on. The outside light never got shut off. So that afternoon when dad came home and told us, mom went down and shut the light off.
Kelly's body was found June 28, 1981. She was found in Chinn Lake, an irrigation canal south of Tabor, a two-and-a-half-hour drive south of Standard. A young man out riding his motorcycle in the area made the horrific discovery.
Investigators said it was obvious someone had gone to a lot of work to make sure Kelly would never be found. But a drought in the area had lowered the water level and revealed her weighted down body. Drained five feet in recent days to meet exceptional water demands, a decomposed body is discovered near the Highway 36 bridge by a group of trail bikers.
The body is fully clothed, bound with ropes and weighted by two cement cinder blocks. Within 24 hours, dental charts will reveal it is the body of Kelly Cook and has been in the water for a considerable length of time. Every intent was made to ensure that she wasn't found. It's just that the perpetrator, Bill Christensen, was somewhat ill-informed in what he had to do to dispose of the body.
Marion and Walter Cook spoke to the media soon after. Kelly's parents were in disbelief.
So much so that Earl Peters felt he had to provide extra proof of Kelly's death to Marion. She was badly decomposed, and so she was identified using dental charts. Marion, after the fact, had some concern. Was this really Kelly? Did the dentist make a mistake?
And so simply I asked Marion if she would recognize Kelly's earrings. She said yes, and I gave them to her. So that gave, I believe, Marion the peace of mind she needed. He reached into his pocket, and he reached across the table, and he put her earrings. And I thought I was going to just-- I couldn't even pick them up. It was just so-- but he said I felt that he
you had to come to grips that you hadn't. And I said, of course I had. But I mean, you know, but he said, well, he felt that he had to do that. You know, he stopped my heart. The next few days were a blur for Kelly's family. A funeral needed to be planned, but police wanted to protect the family from seeing her. No one from the family were even going because nobody
The police really didn't want any of the family to ID her because of the fact that if you saw her, that would be the last thing. You wouldn't be thinking of how she actually was. It would always be that last. And so we never went to ID her. And a friend's father, he called one day and he said,
He was going down and pick out the casket and stuff so we never went into Calgary. We never even went to that funeral home. None of the family members went? No. They didn't want us to have that memory. That's why what happened next was so strange to police.
So Kelly's body was found on 28th of June. Postmortem was conducted. So on the 2nd of July at 7:30, an unknown male attended the Garden Chapel Funeral Home where the body of the deceased was resting. And there was a request for a view of the body. The attendants of the funeral home turned the subject away and he departed. It's unknown if this man had any direct connection to the disappearance. It just seemed unusual.
Why would you show up there? Investigators weren't told about the mystery visit until well after the man had left the funeral home. So police weren't able to track him down for questioning. It's just somebody that went in and asked to see her. And they said there was no viewing. And he got a little bit upset and excited. And he did leave.
He said he was a friend of ours, but I could never understand that. They never reported it right away. Like you would think as soon as he left, he'd be on the phone, but he didn't. Again, composite drawings were obtained from the two folks in the funeral home that observed him.
Peters said each of those drawings were different. So police weren't able to determine if it was in fact the man known as Bill Christiansen. But officers always felt it was likely him. It was just too much of a coincidence to have another mystery man asking to see Kelly. Let's just take a minute to think about how creepy the situation at the funeral home was.
If you were a friend of the family looking to pay your respects, you would likely clear this kind of thing with the family directly. If you were a stranger who heard about the case, why would you possibly want to see this young girl's body? And if it was the killer, the most likely scenario according to investigators, why was he there?
To say it was a bold move would be an understatement. Why risk getting caught? Had staff at the funeral home been more astute, and it was the killer, this move could have easily led to an arrest. The next day, a funeral was held in Standard. Bells rang out in honor of Kelly. The church was filled to capacity. Local businesses closed for the day.
and Kelly's entire class attended the funeral. We still had police around, and for the funeral, the media was there, of course. We didn't only have to grieve the loss, we had to grieve how she was lost. So there's no positive around her loss. It's all very sad. It's all very negative. It's all very wrong.
The case was now a homicide investigation and the hunt for a killer intensified. The circumstances of this case indicate that the suspect did not act spontaneously or take advantage of a circumstance to commit this offense but rather stalked his victim and carried out the offense according to some perverted plan that he had.
The use of the name Bill Christensen is thought to be an alias and it is a very, very common name in the community of Standard. The use of this name again would indicate to us premeditation. I can remember as a child watching a TV news special about Kelly's case. Investigators spoke out pleading with the public for help in solving the case. We have people standing by now to take your calls.
The program showed a reenactment of the crime, including the original call to Kelly from the gas station. Police went through the entire timeline of events and showed a map of possible routes the killer took. Does the person that was responsible for this crime have some connections in Standard and in Chin Lakes? Kelly's mom and dad were also interviewed for the show.
They were desperate for answers. There's only one person that does have them. Until that day that he's caught or whatever, this is all we'll ever know, which is nothing. As it gets longer, there's less and less chance of solving it. No matter what is said or done right now, nothing will bring Kelly back. If through this program we can prevent or the program can prevent this from happening to someone else and
Last but not least is to catch this guy for his arrest and conviction. A reward fund is established which will exceed $40,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Kelly's abductor. People started sending money to the Cook family. Walter or Marion would go to the post office and find envelopes of cash donations from complete strangers.
Marnie told me she remembers seeing her parents opening those letters. Some would include a few words of sympathy, while other envelopes would just include a $5 or $10 bill. No note or anything. All that money was put into a reward fund, along with money donated by the Cook family, their friends, and local businesses.
Police hoped the lure of a cash reward would stir things up and lead to an arrest. At that time, $40,000 was a lot of money. Investigators needed any help they could get. They were working around the clock on this case.
I think most everybody who worked on it put in a week of voluntary overtime or unpaid overtime. Yeah, I was just actually flipping back through my notebook a little bit there and come to work at 7:30 and go home at 7:30 in the evening. Well, we got paid for eight hours, not for 12. But that was a common thing. We just, we wanted to solve it. Then finally, a confession.
A man named Robert Brown told police he killed Kelly. Brown was already on their radar for the sexual assault and murders of two other women in late 1981 and early '82. He confessed to killing Kelly. He was being interviewed on the murder of Laurie Boyd and Debbie Stephens, and he was asked about Kelly, he said, "Yeah, I killed her too." Police said it was the break they were waiting for.
Or at least it appeared to be. After I spent three days in the interview with him, I was finally able to alibi him to prove he absolutely could not have done this. And only then did he admit that he was just jerking us around. Peters said it was the first of several wrongful confessions they received in Kelly's case.
This is a good example of why hold back evidence is so important to police. Hold back is information about a crime that's only known to police and the person responsible for the crime.
That could include a wide range of things, like specific details about a crime scene, a weapon, or the exact manner or cause of death. There are people out there that will confess to crimes they haven't committed. And if you've got no hold back information, you've got no way of eliminating them as a potential suspect. Investigators were back to square one.
There was a database that did a kind of cross-referencing. We find nothing there that leads us to believe that it would be a serial killer or that it was a transient moving right across the country. I think this person probably lives in Alberta, probably lives in southern Alberta, or did.
Peters said very early on, Kelly's case became bogged down. The problem was not a lack of tips to follow up on, but rather the opposite. Too many tips. Remember that composite sketch of Bill Christensen I told you about? The one that was super generic? Well, that sketch created an investigational nightmare.
That perhaps was a bit of the problem here is that when the composite drawing was released we were just flooded then with tips. So and so looks similar to the composite drawing.
Probably from day one that the composite drawing was released, we were backlogged by 500 tips for the next two years or more. Every single tip had to be investigated for fear some key information would be missed or overlooked. We probably would have been better off if we had not released the composite drawing because unfortunately now, once we have all of these tips, we have to follow through on them. We can't just ignore them.
So we plowed an awful lot of resources into following up on the tips as opposed to concentrating more on the key investigation itself. Would you say that the tips based on the composite kind of led nowhere?
Oh yes, absolutely, I would say it led nowhere. By the time I left the investigation, by the time I left Calgary in 1990, we had already interviewed 2,200 suspects. The vast majority of them would look similar to the composite drawing. 2,200 suspects. As a crime reporter, I deal with police looking for suspects all the time.
In most cases, there are one or two suspects, maybe four or five max. But more than 2,200? That's pretty much unheard of. Yeah, yeah, it's mind-boggling. It's mind-boggling. Has there ever been anybody who you're like, well, I think it could be this person? Like you have one person in your mind or no? No, there's...
Not one, several. There's a number that are really very interesting. How do you view this case in the scope of your career? Oh, huge, huge. I worked on nothing but this case for two years. Nothing else but this one case. Peters has held certain details of Kelly's case close to his chest for years.
decades. Nancy, obviously I'm still choosing my words carefully because there remains the possibility that there would be a prosecution. And so as I explained to Kelly's parents years ago, I will not reveal
certain information, even to them, if it may jeopardize the successful prosecution of the person responsible for this. For years, Walter and Marion Cook tried to shelter their two surviving children from the news reports related to Kelly's case. When the newspapers came in to start with two, we try and get to them first so that the kids wouldn't
be reading all that. But my next door neighbor's kids would save them for money, which I didn't know. So I would just take our newspapers and put them in the trunk. Marion kept track of every single story that was done. About a year after Kelly was taken, she went through them all and put them all into an album. Marion can't bring herself to look through those articles now.
Marnie showed me the scrapbook. Every single newspaper article, every photo was cut out and placed neatly in an album. That was the day after she was found. They wouldn't let us read. And this one too. That's the flyers that they made up. It must have been hard for your mom to even just cut these out. Yeah, to put it all together. Statement of death. I didn't even know that was in there.
In 2007, Kelly's father, Walter Cook, passed away at age 70. It was his life goal to see justice served for Kelly's murder. He never got to see that happen. That was always his goal. He wanted the town square hanging, basically. He wanted justice, and he wanted the world to see that justice had been done.
had been done. My dad wanted justice on earth and wanted him to pay and wanted people to see that he paid. Whereas I believe that even with that justice, the ultimate justice, he'll get somewhere else. That's what I believe. 38 years have now passed and Kelly's case remains unsolved.
38 years of painful wondering for her family. Who killed Kelly Cook and why? Kelly was a good kid. She did not deserve what happened. And in one word, I want justice. I just don't want that child to be gone for nothing. And it is at this point absolutely nothing. And she would not-- if it had been one of us, she would never have let that go.
Next time on Crime Beat, why has Kelly Cook's case been so impossible to solve? We interviewed suspects right across Canada. We went to...
Quite a few of our maximum penitentiaries interviewed people there that had been convicted of murder, could potentially be involved, just to make sure. And the girl who was the original target of Kelly Cook's killer speaks out for the first time. You feel, and I know that people say, don't feel guilty, it's not your fault. Anyone would have done it. She probably would have been the same for me.
But how can you not feel guilty? Just a life changer for me. That's next time on Crime Beat. Crime Beat is written and produced by me, Nancy Hixt, with producer Dila Velasquez. Our audio producer is Rob Johnston. If you like what you heard, please tell a friend about the show and help me share these stories by rating and reviewing it on Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen.
You can reach me on Twitter at Nancy Hixt, on Facebook, Nancy Hixt Crime Beat, or email me nancy.hixt at globalnews.ca. I hope to see you next time for part two of the Kelly Cook story.