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Australian serial killer

Eric Edgar Cooke (25 February 1931 – 26 October 1964), nicknamed the Night Caller and later the Nedlands Monster, was an Australian serial killer who terrorised the city of Perth, Western Australia, from September 1958 to August 1963. Cooke committed at least 20 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths. Following a four year killing spree, Cooke was eventually arrested and made extensive admissions to his crimes, including to ones others had been wrongfully convicted of. He was convicted of wilful murder in the Supreme Court of Western Australia after a jury rejected an insanity defence. He was sentenced to death and hanged at Fremantle Prison. Cooke was the last person to be executed in Western Australia.

Eric Edgar Cooke was born on 25 February 1931 in Victoria Park, a suburb of Perth, Western Australia, and was the eldest of three children. He was born into an unhappy, violent family; his parents married solely because his mother, Christine Edgar, was pregnant with him. His alcoholic father, Vivian Cooke, beat the boy frequently, especially when the boy tried to protect his mother. Christine would sleep in the staff room at her job in the Como Hotel to avoid going home and being beaten by Vivian. Cooke was born with a cleft lip and palate, for which he had one surgical operation when he was three months old and another when he was 3 1/2. The operations were not totally successful and left him with a slight facial deformity and speech impairment. These disabilities made him the target of bullying at school. The deformity led to him being an outcast and he was mocked by others at school. The constant mistreatment caused Cooke to feel ashamed and shy, and he subsequently became emotionally unstable. Though very good at subjects that required retentive memory and manual dexterity, Cooke was expelled from Subiaco State School for stealing money from a teacher's purse at the age of six. Once he was transferred to Newcastle Street Infants' School, he was again the target of bullying. He continued to be bullied at every school he attended, including Highgate Primary School, Forrest Street Primary School, and Newcastle Street Junior Technical School. He would give his weekly wages to his mother, who could not fully support the family with the money she earned from cooking and cleaning. Many of Cooke's jobs put him in hospital due to his accident proneness. At a job in the factory of Harris, Scarfe and Sandover, he was hospitalised after being struck on the nose by a winch. At the age of 16, he worked as a hammer boy in the blacksmith section of the workshop at Midland Junction, where he always signed his lunch bag "Al Capone". At the same job he suffered second degree burns to his face from steam, jarred his right hand and injured his left thumb.

Starting at age 17, Cooke spent his nights involved in petty crimes, vandalism and arson; he would later serve eighteen months in jail for burning down a church after he was rejected in a choir audition. During his later teenage years, Cooke would sneak into houses and steal whatever he found valuable. These crimes escalated to damaging clothing and furniture in acts of vengeance. He would cut out newspaper accounts of his crimes to impress his acquaintances in an attempt to gain friends. On 12 March 1949, police finally caught up with Cooke and found evidence at his grandmother's house, where he was living. Cooke's fingerprints were matched to those found in other open cases. On 24 May 1949, Cooke was sentenced to three years in prison after being arrested for arson and vandalism; he was convicted on two charges of stealing, seven of breaking and entering and four of arson. He left many fingerprints and easy clues for detectives which would teach him to be more careful in his future crimes.

Cooke was described as "a short, slight man with dark, wavy hair and a twisted mouth". At the age of 21, Cooke joined the regular Australian Army, but was discharged three months later after it was discovered that, before enlistment, he had had a juvenile criminal record. During his training, he was quickly promoted to lance corporal and was taught to handle firearms. at the Cannington Methodist Church (demolished 1995). As the crimes were opportunistic and used varying methods, and Cooke's victims shared no obvious common traits, it was not understood that all these crimes were being perpetrated by one individual killer. In fact, two of the murders—the deaths of Jillian Brewer and Rosemary Anderson—were attributed to other men, who were wrongfully convicted of those crimes.

The police investigation included fingerprinting more than 30,000 males over the age of 12, as well as locating and test firing more than 60,000 .22 rifles. After a rifle was found hidden in a Geraldton wax bush on Rookwood Street, Mount Pleasant, in August 1963, ballistic tests proved the gun had been used in the McLeod murder. Police returned to the location and tied a similar rifle, rendered inoperable, to the bush with fishing line and constructed a hide in which they waited in case someone returned for it. Cooke was noted loitering in a car in the area several times, and was apprehended when he tried to collect the weapon just after midnight on 1 September. Cooke began confessing to his many crimes, including eight murders and fourteen attempted murders. He was convicted on a charge of murdering Sturkey, one of Cooke's five Australia Day shooting victims. In his confessions, Cooke demonstrated an exceptionally good memory for the details of his crimes irrespective of how long ago he had committed the offences. For example, he confessed to more than 250 burglaries and was able to detail exactly what he took, including the number and denominations of the coins he had stolen from each location. The book Presumed Guilty by Bret Christian includes details of Cooke's confession, made over two days in September 1963 at Fremantle Prison to his Legal Aid lawyer Desmond Heenan. "I have a great respect for the law, although my actions don't show this," Cooke said.

On 25 November 1963, Cooke stood trial in the Supreme Court of Western Australia before Justice Virtue and a jury. Cooke pleaded not guilty on the grounds of insanity. At the trial, Cooke's lawyers claimed that he had schizophrenia, but this claim was dismissed after the director of the state mental health services testified that he was sane. The state would not allow independent psychiatric specialists to examine Cooke. On 27 November 1963, Cooke was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of John Lindsay Sturkey. The death sentence having been imposed, his other charges were held in abeyance. Despite having grounds to appeal, he ordered his lawyers not to apply, claiming that he deserved to pay for what he had done. Cooke was hanged at 8 am on 26 October 1964 in Fremantle Prison, 11 months after being sentenced. Ten minutes before the sentence was carried out, Cooke swore on the Bible that he had killed Brewer and Anderson, claims which had been previously rejected because other people had already been convicted of those murders. Cooke was the last person to be hanged in the state of Western Australia.

Despite Cooke's 1963 confession, Beamish served 15 years, while Button was sentenced to 10 years and ended up serving five. In 2002, the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed Button's conviction. Button's success opened the way for an appeal by Beamish, who was acquitted in 2005. In both cases, the appeal judges found that the murders had most likely been committed by Cooke. On 2 June 2011, Beamish was granted a A$425,000 ex gratia payment by the Western Australian government. New information on Cooke and fresh evidence published in the book led to the exonerations of Button and Beamish. Another book was Presumed Guilty by Bret Christian. – later made into a three part television series – provided one author's impressions of the effect the murders had on the Perth of that era. According to Drewe, more people bought dogs for security, and locked back doors and garages that had never been secured before. Cooke, as "The Nedlands Monster", features in Tim Winton's 1991 novel Cloudstreet and the subsequent 2011 television adaptation. Cooke is also referenced in Craig Silvey's 2009 novel Jasper Jones. In March 2009, the second season of Crime Investigation Australia featured an episode about Eric Edgar Cooke. In September 2016, Felon True Crime Podcast also reviewed Cooke's crime spree in detail. In November 2020, Stan released an original four part docuseries After the Night, covering the story of Cooke's murders.