CRIME BEAT: MURDER & MAYHEM IN OHIO

Anthony Cook - Hell's chef!

This episode of Crime Beat will focus on a remarkably violent individual whose career in crime was “topped off” with one of the worst series of “hate crimes” ever ignored by the major media. However, at Crime Beat this is the very heart of our focus. Based as we are on the old “crime magazine” format, we look for instructive cases which have happened in America, so that we may make our people wiser and less imperiled. “A word to the wise,” ’tis said, may save many from suffering what the victims of our story today suffered.

A caveat: the story herein related is factual. It isn’t fiction. It is as real as the official records of the police departments. This is the promise we make to our readers. No hype! We present the facts.

Consider the damage that a dysfunctional member of society can inflict.

It all began in 1968. Anthony Cook used a pistol to rob a man of $100. Eight days later he beat a 61-year-old woman and stole $250 from her purse. He was arrested and sentenced from 10 to 25 years in prison.

In 1973 Anthony Cook was paroled. He soon robbed two more people at gun point and was again sentenced from 10 to 25 years.

In 1979 Cook was paroled again. His sister, Cecilia Cook, says that he complained that White prison guards had mistreated him and told her: “The black man deserves what he can get from the White man because he is the f_ _  _ enemy.”

Over the next three years Anthony would murder nine Whites and rape seven White women – sometimes enlisting his younger brother Nathaniel.

May 14, 1980, Tom Gordon and Sandy Podgorski were sitting in his car parked in front of her home.  Suddenly, the window on the passenger side was smashed with the barrel of a gun. Anthony and Nathaniel ordered the young couple into the back seat.

They stopped along Raab Rd. and ordered [Gordon] out. Sandy heard a shot and Tom cried out, “Oh, God.”

Here are Sandy’s words: “The brothers took turns raping me. Then Anthony said, ‘What are we going to do with this White bitch?’ I didn’t look at them. I just shut my eyes. He then began stabbing me.”

Anthony stabbed her seven times with a carpenter’s awl. She pretended to be dead. The brothers abandoned the car in North Toledo and fled into the night. She crawled out and screamed for help.

December 20, 1980. Just five days before Christmas Vicky Small’s car stalled. Anthony pulled up and offered to drive her home. Instead, he drove to Ottawa Park where he raped her. He let her redress and then blindfolded her with a scarf. He then callously shot her in her chest and head.

Jan. 17, 1981. Connie Sue Thompson’s frozen body was found in a ditch off Langenderfer Rd. The brothers had raped, beat, choked and then stabbed her 43 times.

Feb. 21, 1981. Little Dawn Renee Backes, age 12, a seventh grader at Gesu School vanished. The Cook brothers raped, beat and crushed her skull with a cinder block in the basement of the State Theater.

March 27, 1981. Just one month later, Denise Siotkowski, 21, and Scott Moulton, 21, were sitting in a car outside her apartment. Anthony Cook, acting alone, pulled a gun on the two grocery store employees. He forced them to drive to a secluded area and bound Moulton with his own belt. After forcing him into the trunk of the car, he raped Denise.

Anthony then crammed her into the trunk and emptied his gun into the pair. He locked the trunk and walked away. The police discovered the bodies a week later.

August 2, 1981. Daryle Cole and Stacy Balonek, both 21, were engaged. Anthony Cook spotted them sitting in a car. At gunpoint he forced them to drive to the railroad tracks at the Central Ave. overpass. There he bound Cole and raped Stacy.

To throw the police off his trail he changed his method of murder. Both were brutally beaten with a baseball bat.

Sept. 18, 1981. Leslie Sawicki and her boyfriend, Todd Sabo, were sitting in his car outside her home. Anthony Cook walked up and pointed a gun at them. Sabo got out and fought with him while Leslie began screaming for help. Her father, Peter Sawicki, 43, ran out and was fatally shot in the neck. Sabo was also shot in the neck and shoulder. The couple was able to identify Anthony from police photos and he was arrested and sentenced to 15 years to life.

For years afterwards the police suspected Anthony Cook in the other murders. Seventeen years later, on Feb. 11, 1998 they were able to make a DNA connection. On Feb. 11, 1998 they visited Miss Podgorski and she identified Nathaniel Cook. The brothers were charged with the murder of Tom Gordon.

Due to the age of the case a deal was cut with the cold-blooded killers. They would agree to confess and tell what they knew about each murder. In turn, Anthony accepted life in prison without parole with his brother Nathaniel being paroled on Feb. 13, 2018.

Detective Tom Ross said that the confessions were cold and shocking. He said that Anthony was proud of the way in which he stalked his victims. Ross added:

“Anthony was filled with hatred and violence. He laughed when describing how one girl was worried about what they would do with her car. He said: ‘What difference did it make when she was going to die anyway?’”

That these  were “hate crimes” goes without argument, it would seem. Responsible voices in the media are very few, so that murders and rapes of white people aren’t usually framed as “hate crimes.” Had Anthony Cook not been so filled with hatred of white people, he might not have even gotten into a serious criminal lifestyle. Sadly – and foolishly – many people will blame white people for “making” Anthony Cook hate them.

Crime Beat must state a strong objection to the release of prisoners who are known to harbor such deep hatred of another race. In such cases “prisoners of hate,” when released from prison, are still incarcerated by their own hatreds. They judge individuals not according to character and deeds but according to a complex of racial features that, in total, comes to mean enemy. All too often, their wrong-headed views make them “hanging judges” toward people whose chief offense is being born into another race. Prison institutions have socially and psychologically-trained employees who are paid to perceive and help those in need. Why can’t they do it?

If a sentence has run its course, then must a dangerous individual be released? Why can’t Anthony Cook-types be transferred to a mental institution at the end of their sentences, and be restrained in such institution until their mental aberrations are favorably resolved?

Sadly, the chief argument against such “extra mile” rehabilitation efforts is that it would be used against political opponents.

Downnlaced, 2009.