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PEOPLE MAGAZINE INVESTIGATES SURVIVING A SERIAL KILLER S01E06 - SURVIVING THE COOK BROTHERS
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00:00The Cook Brothers were a pair of serial killers who terrorized Toledo, Ohio, in the early 1980s.
00:08The crimes this year had more suffering and more torture.
00:12Together, they brutally murdered and raped victims as young as 12 years old.
00:1712-year-old Dawn Backus was found dead in an abandoned theater.
00:22They really are monsters. In this case, brothers.
00:24They stalked young couples to depraved and bloody ends.
00:30She was repeatedly stabbed with an ice pick.
00:33They were clogged with a baseball bat.
00:35These guys are definitely animals.
00:38They tried to leave no witnesses.
00:42But this is the story of one survivor who cheated death.
00:47I don't know how she survived.
00:51But she did.
00:54I don't know how to do this.
01:23This is the south end of Toledo.
01:30I'm okay till I get over on this side of town,
01:33and then I just still had bad panic attacks.
01:39But my husband, Danny, is my rock.
01:43He helps a lot.
01:45Are we getting close?
01:46Yes, we're right here.
01:48Tell us where we are, Cheryl.
01:49We are on Field Street, and down here is an alley.
01:55And I was like a half a block from home.
01:58And then it's like my life blew up in my face.
02:04Now, you listen here.
02:05You don't have to do this.
02:06You don't want to.
02:09All right.
02:19Okay.
02:26When I was growing up in Toledo and going to school at White High School,
02:31I was living the normal teenage life until I met Bud.
02:36It was kind, funny, and then he asked me out.
02:39On my 16th birthday, we went to a movie theater,
02:45and then we ate at Pizza Hut.
02:47After that, we were together, and then we found out we were pregnant.
02:52I was a little surprised that I was only 16,
02:56but then being madly in love with him,
02:59I was okay with it.
03:00Eric was born in 1979.
03:07When I first seen Eric, I couldn't believe that he was mine,
03:10and I loved him beyond what I even knew what love was.
03:15It was just awesome.
03:18For almost two years, we lived with my parents.
03:23We had a lot of good times as a family.
03:27Eric adored his father.
03:29He was a daddy's boy.
03:32And just, I would love watching them.
03:37But we had no privacy.
03:39So when I turned 18 years old, we moved out.
03:45Bud worked at a grocery store on the south end of Toledo.
03:49And because we didn't have a car,
03:52we had no choice but to live by his work.
03:55The area where they were wasn't great crime-wise,
03:58but they were thrilled to have their own place.
04:01My parents said, please don't go.
04:04They were afraid something was going to happen,
04:06because there was a lot of murders and rapes and everything going on.
04:12By January of 1981,
04:14the citizens of Toledo, Ohio are well aware of an emerging problem within the community.
04:19Two unsolved attacks on young white women
04:22have left one woman and another one's boyfriend dead.
04:26Sandra Pagorski and Tom Gordon were sitting in their car,
04:29and they were abducted at gunpoint by two black males.
04:32Tom was shot dead, put in the trunk, and Sandra was then sexually assaulted.
04:40After this horrific rape, they had her redress.
04:44At this point, she was repeatedly stabbed with an ice pick and left for dead.
04:48Although she was unable to identify the suspects,
04:52she actually survived.
04:54Connie Sue Thompson was not so lucky.
04:57Abducted near her home,
04:58she was found raped and murdered in January of 1981.
05:03Investigators recognized that although she was raped,
05:05she was dressed,
05:06and that she had been stabbed repeatedly with what seems to be an ice pick.
05:11So investigators believe that she was killed by the same men
05:14who attacked Sandra Pagorski and Thomas Gordon.
05:18It was an edgy time.
05:21Women were being careful where they went,
05:23and everybody was in a panic.
05:27I knew about what was going on,
05:29but I was 18.
05:30I had Bud, and I thought, I knew the world.
05:33I was going to be okay,
05:34and I could take care of myself.
05:38Our house was a two-bedroom on Seager Street.
05:42Bud's brother, Donnie, lived with us.
05:44To help us get on our feet.
05:47Bud was a meat cutter at the grocery store,
05:50and he worked from 2 to 12 o'clock at night.
05:53So when he would come home in the evening,
05:55Eric would be in bed,
05:56but we always made sure we had morning breakfast together with Eric.
06:01Most of the time, we had maybe $2 in our pocket,
06:04but we were happy because we had everything we needed.
06:10The house that we lived in was right here,
06:13where there's a vacant lot.
06:17I'm sad that the house is gone
06:19because we did have good times in it.
06:22It was the first apartment that Bud and I had,
06:24and then his brother moved in,
06:26and we were laughing and joking and cutting up,
06:28and it was all short-lived.
06:34Life's not fair.
06:35Bud's older brother, Donnie, proves to be a real help to Cheryl and Bud.
06:46Not only does he help with the bills,
06:48he's helpful with Eric.
06:51And on the night of January 27, 1981,
06:54he happily babysits his nephew
06:56so that Cheryl can surprise her boyfriend.
06:58That night, I told Donnie that I wanted to get dressed up and surprised,
07:04but at the grocery store when he got off at 12,
07:07so he didn't have to walk home by himself.
07:10Just to spice things up,
07:12I did my makeup,
07:14and around 11.45,
07:16I put the covers over Eric,
07:18and I kissed him on his forehead,
07:20and I told Donnie I'd see him later,
07:22and we're just joking,
07:23and I said, if I'm not back in a half hour,
07:26come looking for us.
07:28And he just chuckled and said,
07:29oh, you'll be fine.
07:32And I left the house.
07:36From where we lived on Seeger
07:37up to the grocery store that he worked at
07:40was about six blocks.
07:42I was feeling happy,
07:44thinking about our future,
07:46but when I got up to the grocery store,
07:49Bud was very, very upset with me
07:52for walking up there by myself.
07:54and I said,
07:56I just wanted to come up
07:57and surprise you
07:58and walk home with you
08:00so we could talk about the wedding
08:01and another child and Eric.
08:04Then he calmed down a little bit,
08:06and we walked home.
08:13We were a block from the house.
08:16Black man with a full beard
08:17wearing an army jacket
08:20and a ski cap came towards us.
08:22and he pulled out a gun
08:25and I lost it.
08:32I can still see him standing there.
08:34and he said,
08:37I was walking this way
08:38and we were standing about right here
08:44Ok.
08:46Ok.
08:48Buddy and I were walking this way,
08:54and we were standing about right here
08:58when he pulled the gun out.
09:01It just all happened so fast.
09:05We offered my wedding rings, his wallet.
09:14All we wanted to do was go home.
09:18And I kept looking at his face.
09:20He said, don't look at me.
09:21He pointed the gun right at my head.
09:24He handed us two ski caps.
09:27He said, put these on,
09:31and I will be behind you.
09:35And then he had us walk.
09:39We were about right here,
09:41and I started panicking,
09:42and then he took us down this alley.
09:49I have been back here.
09:51This is the first time.
09:56Oh, I can't do this.
10:05We were taken down this way.
10:12There was no light.
10:14Couldn't see in front of you.
10:16We tried to slip a couple times
10:18to try to see if we could get him.
10:22But he had the gun pointed at Buddy's head.
10:26I was pretty sure he was going to kill us.
10:35All I could think about was
10:36what was going to happen to Eric.
10:38Bud whispered, I love you.
10:40And I did back.
10:42We just held each other's hands tighter.
10:47I kept lifting my ski cap up
10:49to see where we were at.
10:51And the man kept telling me to put it down.
10:55In the process,
10:56I seen a guy on the other side of the alley
10:59coming over towards us.
11:01Couldn't see his face.
11:03But he was tall, husky built, black man.
11:06And he had a knife.
11:09I was hoping he would help us.
11:11But to my surprise,
11:13this man put the knife to my throat.
11:22And then together,
11:24they forced us into a garage.
11:32There's a garage.
11:34That's the garage.
11:36I feel like I'm going to throw up.
11:44You OK?
11:45Yeah.
11:58When we stepped inside the garage,
11:59it was stepping over things.
12:01And I was tripping.
12:02And it smelled of grease.
12:05And just a bad odor.
12:09I wanted to run as fast as I could.
12:11But they had the gun on Bud
12:12and the knife on me.
12:15Bud kept saying,
12:16nothing's going to happen to you.
12:18I'll make sure of it.
12:22And then that's when one of them grabbed me.
12:25I was so hysterical, crying and screaming.
12:32And they told me to shut up.
12:34And I heard the click of the gun go back.
12:36So I shut up.
12:39And that's when they made me get undressed.
12:44Bud was probably about three feet from me.
12:46And they took the ski cap off his hat so he could watch.
12:50And then one raped me.
12:54And then the other one raped me.
13:01I stayed silent because they had a gun at Buddy's head.
13:04And I figured if I started screaming and fighting back
13:07that they would have shot him.
13:08Or they would have jabbed the knife in my throat.
13:10I was numb.
13:18I wanted to put myself somewhere else.
13:21All I did was focus on Eric.
13:23What was going to happen with him?
13:25And would he grow up to be?
13:27And would he have more siblings?
13:33After they got done,
13:35they made me get up and get dressed.
13:37I was wobbly because of everything that happened.
13:43I felt ashamed of myself.
13:47Like it was my fault.
13:48Did I do something or did I say something?
13:50Why did you feel that way?
13:52I felt that way because it was...
13:55I'd never been with anybody else,
13:57but it was the only one I was ever with.
13:59And then here these two men took advantage of me and my body
14:02and they had no right doing that.
14:04But then I blamed myself and thought maybe I wore the wrong clothes
14:09or I did something wrong.
14:15I stood up and they told Bud to hold me
14:19because it'll be the last time he holds me.
14:21And Bud held me tight.
14:25It was so tight I couldn't even breathe.
14:29Bud told me he loved me
14:30and that he was sorry that he couldn't protect me.
14:35The next thing I knew I heard the gun go off.
14:40I started screaming real loud and they went to fire again
14:43and it was stuck.
14:45And then next thing I know they hurry up and ran out.
14:49I was raped in that garage by those two monsters.
15:02I was hoping it was tore down by now.
15:08I can't even smell it.
15:10I gotta walk.
15:11I can't take the smell.
15:12What does it smell like to you?
15:15It's a greasy, dirty garage.
15:17Pukey smell.
15:21After the two men took off, I took off the ski cap and dropped it.
15:37I had so much adrenaline going, I just wanted out of there.
15:42We just started running for our lives.
15:49We ran around the front of the house
15:52and then we lived where there's a vacant lot right there.
15:57So we were that close from here to home.
16:02I didn't realize how close we were.
16:04There was street lights on, on Seeger.
16:12All I remember is Bud pulling at me because I couldn't focus.
16:19So we stopped in our tracks and Bud told me to turn around.
16:24And when I turned around, I had a big puddle of blood on my jacket.
16:28And then I started hyperventilating because I realized I was shot.
16:32Then I started going down.
16:35I was starting to wake up and then all of a sudden I was arriving at the hospital.
16:39Bud was there and I was looking around and everybody was rushing.
16:41Then next thing I knew, my mom was by my side.
16:45She was hysterical.
16:47And I thought it was a dream.
16:49And I was begging Bud to wake me up.
16:50The damage to Cheryl's insides is devastating.
16:56After entering her body, the bullet fragmented and ricocheted, collapsing her lungs and significantly damaging her bladder and pancreas.
17:06Over the course of nine hours, surgeons frantically frantically work to save Cheryl's life.
17:07After I got out of surgery, I was in the ICU unit.
17:09It was a dream.
17:10It was a dream.
17:11And I was begging Bud to wake me up.
17:13The damage to Cheryl's insides is devastating.
17:15After entering her body, the bullet fragmented and ricocheted, collapsing her lungs and significantly damaging her bladder and pancreas.
17:23Over the course of nine hours, surgeons frantically work to save Cheryl's life.
17:27After I got out of surgery, I was in the ICU unit because they had to cut my breast line all the way down my stomach.
17:41It was bad.
17:44They thought for sure that I was not going to make it through it.
17:54I was out of it for about a week and a half.
17:57When I was finally awake, they sent in the detectives to talk to me.
18:02The detectives said they went to the garage and they didn't, there was no evidence there.
18:07And that they didn't have a lot to go on.
18:10I was confused because when they shot me and left, we both dropped the ski caps.
18:17So they must have came back and got them before the police got there.
18:22And at that point, I told them as much as possible.
18:24I told them the first attacker had a full beard, beady eyes.
18:31He was nasty.
18:33That's when they showed me the pictures.
18:36Cheryl picks out a picture of Anthony Cook, but second guesses herself.
18:45It was like everything was still fuzzy and I was nervous.
18:49Then when Bud looks at the pictures, he picks out another person.
18:55So they don't know what to think.
18:58The detectives asked if I could identify the second attacker, but I wasn't certain about the second attacker because I didn't see his face.
19:06This is really frustrating, but police realized that the people who attacked Bud and Cheryl could be the killers they're seeking because the M.O. is very similar.
19:19In the previous attacks, after the suspects raped the victims, they would make them get dressed before they would actually kill them.
19:27So we got Cheryl's clothing for processing for physical evidence, even though there was nothing you could do with semen if it was found other than type their blood back in the 80s.
19:37They took all my clothes and they did the rape kit.
19:42And then they said, OK, thank you. And then they walked out.
19:46I was in the hospital for three and a half weeks.
19:50During that time, Eric was staying between Bud's sister Kathy's house and my parents.
19:56Because after the attack, doctors had to sedate Bud because he lost his mind over it.
20:02To know that I couldn't go home, it was really hard because all I want to do is pick up my son and hold him.
20:13Unfortunately, while she's still in the hospital, Cheryl's attackers strike again.
20:18Twelve-year-old Dawn Backus was found dead in an abandoned theater.
20:22On February 21st, 1981, Dawn Renee Backus was abducted.
20:27Three days later, someone unfortunately found the remains of this little girl and she had been struck in the head with a cinder block.
20:37That's evil.
20:39How could someone do that to a child?
20:42It was a very brutal scene.
20:44She had been raped and redressed before she was murdered.
20:48At that point, the general consensus among law enforcement was that we had serial killers loose somewhere in Toledo, Ohio.
21:03The day I left the hospital, I went back to my parents.
21:07I didn't want to stay at the apartment.
21:10It was slit all the way down with staples in my stomach.
21:14Thank God for my parents because they helped take care of Eric.
21:18Bud was there every once in a while, but Bud didn't want to cope with what happened.
21:23And knowing that he was right there and he couldn't defend me, he said he felt so worthless as a man.
21:30And Bud left Eric and I in March of 81.
21:33I felt worthless. I felt, I didn't ask for this, it's not my fault, but he's taking out on me and he's taking out on Eric by leaving us.
21:47And my life was turned upside down.
21:50After that, when the police would come to the house and give updates, I would tell them to tell my parents.
21:56I wanted them caught, but I didn't want to see no more pictures. I just wanted it to go away.
22:04As Cheryl tries to move on, the detectives on her case cannot, when these two killers strike again.
22:11Denise Sitkowski and Scott Moulton were another young couple found in the trunk of their car.
22:19Miss Sitkowski was raped multiple times and they were both killed execution style.
22:26In rapid succession, yet another couple, Daryl Cole and Stacey Belanick, are found beaten to death in the trunk of a car.
22:36There was a baseball bat in there too and it was the weapon that was used.
22:41It was very brutal, animalistic.
22:43An autopsy determined that she had been raped, but she had her pants on.
22:48So she was made to get dressed before they clubbed her to death.
22:52Police report the crimes this year have been of a more heinous nature, more suffering and more torture.
23:02Detectives are dreading the next attack.
23:05But in September of 1981, at least one of their killers makes a fatal mistake.
23:12Leslie Sawicki and Todd Sable were seated in their van when they were accosted by an unknown assailant.
23:22The attacker was a single black male armed with a pistol and he tied up Sable and began to sexually assault her.
23:30But Todd escapes and he's able to take the gun away from the suspect.
23:36Away from the suspect, Leslie runs for help and calls her dad and then the police.
23:44Her father, Peter Sawicki, arrived before any police arrived at the scene.
23:49Somehow the suspect recovers the firearm and fires on Peter Sawicki and Todd Sable.
23:56And then the police...
23:58Todd was shot, but he survived. But unfortunately, Mr. Sawicki did not survive.
24:02Unlike Cheryl's attack, Todd and Leslie were never forced to cover their faces, so both were able to get a sustained view of their attacker.
24:15From the descriptions from Mr. Sable and Ms. Sawicki, we were able to get a sketch.
24:21This is one of the first big breaks they've gotten.
24:27And they broadcast it to the community in hopes that somebody would recognize the attacker.
24:34Good afternoon. Toledo police are intensifying their search for the slayer of an Ottawa Hills man.
24:40Here's the way the story went.
24:41I remember my dad was watching the news and I just happened to come in the room when they said there was another white couple that was attacked.
24:51They were accosted by an armed man.
24:54And then they started showing a sketch asking anybody to identify him.
24:59And in that moment, everything come flooding back.
25:03I told my dad, that's him. That's one of my attackers.
25:06The assailant is still at large.
25:07When I seen a sketch on TV, I felt sick. I had to go in the bathroom and throw up.
25:25And then I called the police department and then they sent a detective out.
25:29When the detective came in, they brought a photo album and he said, can you point them out? And I said, right there.
25:37And I pointed to the same man I had picked out at the hospital.
25:43There was no question. I knew for sure then.
25:48Cheryl isn't the only one who recognizes the sketch.
25:52Someone who says he knows the killer personally says he overheard the man talking about shooting Sawicki.
25:59What's more, he says he saw the man handing a gun to his neighbor.
26:03And this leads detectives directly to a .22 caliber revolver and 32-year-old Anthony Cook.
26:09Anthony Cook was a convicted felon. He was employed and married and apparently during the course of his incarceration developed an issue with white people.
26:23Anthony Cook had served seven years for armed robbery.
26:27He alleged that while he was in prison, he was mistreated by white prison guards, which fostered his hate for white people.
26:34When he's released in 1979, he returns to Toledo, Ohio, where his family lives, seeking revenge for what he endured in prison.
26:45It was also found out that he had a brother that he was very close with, Nathaniel Cook.
26:53And apparently they were always together. Nathaniel was over six foot and a very large person.
27:00And if he looked at them as a pair, they fit the physical description of multiple cases.
27:07And so Nathaniel came on the radar.
27:11Aside from appearance, there's nothing else that ties Nathaniel to a crime.
27:16But ballistics tests do confirm that the bullets removed from Peter Sawicki and Todd Sabo were fired from Anthony Cook's .22 caliber revolver.
27:26Anthony was arrested and charged with aggravated murder, attempted murder, attempted rape, aggravated robbery, a number of very serious felony charges.
27:37Unfortunately, in the case of Cheryl Bartlett in 1981, there was no test to see if his DNA could be recovered from the rape kit and no fluids or blood were recovered from Miss Bartlett's clothing.
27:52And because the .22 caliber bullet that entered Cheryl's body exploded on impact, the fragments can't be tested to determine if it was fired from Anthony Cook's revolver.
28:03This lack of physical evidence prevents the possibility of any charges being filed in Cheryl's case.
28:09In fact, no charges are filed for either of the Cook brothers and several other suspected attacks because those cases also lack physical evidence.
28:18When I first found out that Anthony was captured, I was happy that they had found one of my attackers.
28:26But when they told me they couldn't take Anthony on my case, I was furious with them.
28:32They said they didn't have enough evidence, which I understood that, but I just wanted to be heard saying this is what he did to me.
28:43I felt like I was just shoved to the side.
28:46On March 13, 1982, Anthony Cook is convicted of murder, robbery, and attempted rape and murder.
28:56He is sentenced to 15 years to life in prison with a possibility of parole.
29:03This is because back in 1982, the state of Ohio didn't offer a life term in prison without the possibility of parole.
29:11Nor did they offer the death penalty.
29:15Cheryl knows that he is one of her attackers and is glad to see him locked up.
29:20But there's not much relief knowing that her second attacker is still walking the streets of Toledo.
29:25I was afraid that he would find me and kill me.
29:30I was in the house all the time.
29:32And I definitely didn't go out at night.
29:35I was in a lot of pain reliving the attack every day.
29:40I was drinking really heavy.
29:42I was smoking weed.
29:44I was doing some drugs.
29:47And I wasn't caring about life.
29:50The turning point came when I went to visit my friend in Nashville.
29:57And I loved it there.
29:59I felt safe.
30:00And I decided it was time to move there and stop the downhill spiring of my life.
30:06When I met my wife, Cheryl, she had just come to Tennessee and she got her an apartment and I lived in the same building.
30:16And me and her started dating and one thing led to another and we decided to move in together.
30:25Danny, tell me about what happened with Cheryl today. How was she feeling?
30:28Okay, she woke up. We woke up this morning and she said that the trip down the alley was really hard on her.
30:35There's a garage.
30:39I was raped and shot in that garage by those two monsters.
30:45She said, I don't want to go if it's okay with you. I said, you don't have to go. I can go.
30:51Let's talk a little bit more about your relationship with Cheryl.
30:54Okay.
30:55After Cheryl and I started living together, I learned about what happened to her.
31:01Of course, you know, you can't understand something like that, but I still tried my best.
31:07And on November 26, 1988, that's when me and Cheryl was married.
31:12Life in Tennessee suits Cheryl.
31:16She often joins Danny on his trucking jobs and together they raise four sons.
31:20And for nearly 10 years, the events of January 27, 1981, take a backseat to her newfound happiness.
31:29That all changes in 1997.
31:34The Toledo Police Department cold case unit began in the late 90s to look at all of the cases connected to this serial killing crime spree that happened in 1980 and 81.
31:46Although we had long suspected Anthony Cook and his brother Nathaniel as a potential suspect, there was no physical evidence that could link the two of them to all of these other cases.
32:00And so we pulled all of the physical evidence in all of these cases and examined them for potential DNA evidence to attempt to link these two suspects to these victims.
32:14Of all the evidence examined, one piece of clothing seems promising.
32:20After her boyfriend, Thomas Gordon, was murdered, Sandra Podorski was raped by two black male suspects that had made her get dressed afterwards.
32:29And the semen went down into her pant leg and that's where we found it.
32:36At that point, the cold case unit collected that evidence and sent it to the Bureau of Criminal Identification.
32:43And there was a hit.
32:44When the DNA results came back on Podorski's pants, we had a positive match to Anthony Cook.
33:01The results also reveal a second profile.
33:06Turns out, it's someone closely related to Anthony.
33:10At that point, we got a warrant to collect DNA samples from Nathaniel Cook.
33:16After 17 years, it takes less than one week to determine that Nathaniel Cook's DNA is a match to semen found inside Sandra Podorski's pants.
33:25Nathaniel Cook had been scot-free for all these years, but the gig was up and he was going down with his brother.
33:35When I found out that they had my second attacker, Nathaniel Cook, in custody, I was static.
33:42And I thought, finally, I can breathe a little bit because now I don't have to worry so much about him trying to find me.
33:48I wanted to face them in the courtroom and tell them what they'd done to me, what they'd done to my life, what they took from me.
33:57Unfortunately, Cheryl finds out that her case will not be part of the trial because they don't recover any DNA evidence to link the Cook brothers to her case.
34:10This is like history repeating itself.
34:13I couldn't believe it.
34:16And I was furious.
34:18I was crying.
34:19I couldn't stop.
34:22Back in 81, they performed a rape kit.
34:24They took all my clothes.
34:26So I don't understand why they couldn't get any DNA.
34:29I felt like they had enough to prosecute them on my case.
34:34And I just wanted to be heard and have them admit what they did to me.
34:38Many of the victims' family members feel the same way, with their loved ones' rapes and murders being excluded from the new indictment.
34:47But then a potential solution for closure arises.
34:51The defense asks for a plea deal.
34:52In exchange for confessing to all the crimes they committed, including Cheryl's, Nathaniel will only serve 20 years and become eligible for parole in 2018 at the age of 59.
35:07I told the prosecution, I don't agree on the plea agreement, because I know 20 years would have been done and passed real fast.
35:16And they said the majority of the families agreed on it and we have to go with that.
35:20While it was a deal with the devil and it was made, it was definitive.
35:27In total, Anthony Cook confessed to nine murders and multiple rapes.
35:34Nathaniel Cook confessed to three murders and multiple rapes.
35:38Doing this cleared all these cases up from the 80s.
35:43There was actually one from back in 73 that we didn't even know.
35:48And through their confessions, the prosecution believed that the older brother, Anthony, was leading the younger brother, Nathaniel, during these crimes.
35:57In fact, when Anthony was arrested in the Swicky case, Nathaniel never got in any more trouble after that.
36:05So there's no doubt that Nathaniel was influenced by Anthony.
36:11He was a follower, but just as guilty.
36:15There are monsters. There really are monsters.
36:18And in this case, brothers, because they didn't just kill people.
36:24These were crimes of opportunity where they could select victims without fear that they would be discovered.
36:32So they could take pleasure in the torture of young white people.
36:39I was glad that they confessed.
36:41But when I heard how they attacked everybody that they attacked and killed, I felt bad.
36:47And then I would sit and think, how would their life been if they would have lived?
36:52And then you start feeling guilty because you lived and they didn't get the chance.
36:59And Dawn, she was 12 years old and never got a chance to go to a prom or have a boyfriend or know what life was about.
37:0820 years ain't enough.
37:10Was justice served? Not to me. These serial killers should have been taken off the earth. I mean, they were evil. But that was not my decision. And these victims and their loved ones needed closure.
37:23For Cheryl, the fact that she no longer has to look over her shoulder means she can live for a while in peace.
37:31But as predicted, 20 years fly by.
37:34I was notified that Nathaniel Cook was going up for parole. And so I finally went to court and faced him in 2018. And he just looked at us with a smirk on his face like, I'm getting out and there's nothing you can do.
37:49I was crying. I couldn't stop. I'm angry because I feel like I was failed. I never got to speak at either one of the trials. I never got to speak when he was released. I wanted to get up there and I couldn't do it.
38:08When Nathaniel Cook was got out, somebody went to his door and he said, oh, that's in the past. I want to forget about it.
38:17I probably had about 15 to 20 surgeries over different things that's happening inside.
38:24I live with a scar for the rest of my life since I've been 18, but he wants to walk around and forget about it.
38:31Is that why you wanted to tell your story today?
38:33I want to tell my story because I want people to know how these people are and what they've done and how they've affected many lives.
38:46And one's walking around now and the other one goes up for parole in 2024.
38:53People need to be aware of the Cook brothers being on the loose in Toledo.
38:57They're not going to change. It's just a matter of time before they go back to it.
39:17Buddy and I would bring Eric here and take long walks.
39:22Really great memories.
39:25After 40 years, I'm starting to live life.
39:30I have four boys. I have 14 grandchildren, five great-grandchildren.
39:35I have a husband that I love tremendously at 35 years.
39:39I'm grateful to be alive.
39:41Gerald to me is nothing but muscle, strong.
39:46She don't back down from nothing and that's a fact.
39:49A lot of people say I'm a victim but I think I'm a survivor because I went through it.
39:57I ordealed with it and I'm still living.
40:01Just going back to where I was attacked was hard.
40:05I went through heckin' high waters for a couple days of crying and I was not in a good place.
40:11And I started now seeing a therapist.
40:16I think when you've been through what I've been through, getting help is the best thing for you.
40:23Waiting as long as I did over 40 years doesn't do you no good to hide it.
40:31You need therapy right after it and I wish I would have done it now.
40:37How are you feeling today? Just in general?
40:41I feel good because I'm with you.
40:43Well, that's good.
40:45Yeah, it's nice to remember the old memories but it's even better that I'm with you.
40:49That's right.
40:51Thank you.
40:53I love you.
40:54I love you too.
40:56Maybe we can get us a camper and just live like this.
41:00Yeah.
41:02That would be nice.
41:03That would be nice.
41:33tonight.
41:34That's lovely.
41:36That's perfect.
41:38It's nice to you, sweetheart.
41:47The roof is up.
41:57This one that can do because you don't want to light it.
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