A Fictional and a Real Life Mass Murder of a Family

Jane Harper

While reading The Dry by Jane Harper, which I reviewed in my last post, I thought about the real life mass murder of a family in Alberta for which Robert Raymond Cook was convicted and hung. Late last year I wrote a series of posts about the murders and trials and execution of Cook. In both book and real life I found some intriguing similarities.

(This post does not contain spoilers which solve the mystery in The Dry but there is more information than some readers would want before reading the book.)

In each case there is overwhelming evidence the murders were committed by a family member. In The Dry Luke Hadler is believed to have gone insane and killed his wife and son and then himself. In the Cook murders Robert Raymond Cook was convicted of murdering his father, step-mother and five half-brothers and half-sisters.

In both cases a shotgun was used. In The Dry all the victims were killed by the shotgun. In the Cook killings the parents were shot and the children bludgeoned with the shotgun.

In both cases the proffered motive was money. In The Dry the Hadlers are facing financial disaster because of prolonged and it is thought Luke cannot bear the loss of the family farm. Cook takes the family station wagon the night of the murders and trades it on a flashy convertible the next day.

Robert Raymond Cook

Yet the motives are challenged. Luke was not showing signs of depression. His parents, in particular, cannot believe he would have killed his wife and then hunted down and killed his 6 year old son because of financial problems. Cook returns to the town of Stettler the day after the murders and shows no sign of mental imbalance. Within the correctional system guards, accustomed to the manipulations of inmates, cannot see him as a ruthless killer.

For the murders in each case not to have been committed by Luke or Cook there is the challenge of determining another suspect. There is no immediate alternative in either case.

In the book and real life the murders took place in small rural communities. With everyone in the respective towns knowing each other there is a larger group of potential suspects than most big city murders. At the same time the isolation means the killer is most likely from the community.

In both cases there is no evidence of any family member or friend being in the family home at the time the killings took place.

In the Cook case there was an effort to find enough clues to implicate an unknown stranger. In the end there were the inevitable discrepancies of a major case but not enough to be convincing to a jury that there was a mysterious stranger.

In The Dry there is no thought of a mysterious stranger being the alternative to Luke as killer. The investigation focuses on the members of the community who would have had the opportunity to commit the murders.

In the real life Saskatchewan case of David Milgaard, wrongfully convicted of murdering a nurse, the actual killer, a known rapist at the time of the murders, was residing near the location of the murder.

As usual in cases where the evidence is convincing the police investigation in The Dry and the Cook murders was not rigorous. There was little reason to think each piece of evidence must be carefully assessed.

Modern technology offered some evidence in The Dry. There is a camera mounted on the barn that provided video of the family truck being driven into the yard and the sounds of the killing shotgun blasts and then leaving the yard. The video was also limited as it did not show the driver.

In the Cook case there were uninvestigated fingerprints but, taking place in 1960, the murders were long before DNA evidence. One of the reasons Milgaard was ultimately freed was the identification of Larry Fisher’s DNA on the clothing of the murder victim.

The most striking commonality between fiction and real life is a major issue with regard to shotgun. The shotgun shells used in The Dry were not the shells normally used by Luke. In The Dry the investigators spend a lot of effort on working out whether the different shells mean Luke did not commit the murders. In the Cook case neither the police nor Cook’s legal counsel could solve the mystery of whether the shotgun was owned by Cook’s father before the night of the murders or whether it was brought to the house by the killer. The unidentified ownership of the shotgun was one of the discrepancies that did not bother the jury.

There was tunnel vision involving the police in both cases. In The Dry the original investigating officers do a comprehensive but superficial examination of the evidence for they do not see contradictory evidence requiring a more thorough investigation. The RCMP are completely focused on Cook. What might have happened in the Cook case had there been a pair of officers such as Aaron Falk and Sgt. Greg Raco from The Dry who examined the evidence without assuming guilt before they started considering the evidence? I doubt they would have found a different killer. There was too much evidence pointing to Cook’s guilt.

One of the chilling but fascinating sections of The Dry was the killer’s justification of mass murderer. Harper provides an all too credible rationalization. As Cook went to the gallows protesting innocence we cannot know his reasons for murdering his family. Some in Alberta have always believed he did not kill them.

Thoughts on the Humboldt Broncos Tragedy

As with everyone in Saskatchewan and many beyond our borders I have been thinking about the bus crash involving the Humboldt Broncos hockey team. Tragedy comes in different ways to all of us. 

Sometimes it is sudden. I have received a call from the RCMP in the night of a loved one being badly injured in an accident.

Other times it can come slowly. In 1991 I started representing hemophiliacs infected with AIDS. At that time there was no treatment and all were dying. Over the next 5 years 8 of my first 11 clients died.

Whether sudden or slow the emotional loss was intense. How to move forward after tragedy is a personal decision. My Catholic faith has helped sustain me.

I do the best I can to appreciate each day knowing it may be too late tomorrow.

Now the living Broncos, their families and the community of Humboldt face a loss that challenges description.

Sharon grew up near Humboldt. I went to high school at St. Peter’s College in Muenster. We know many people who will be in grief in Humboldt.

I have prayed and will pray again for the lost and those still alive.

Reviewing The Dry Through Bernadette's Review

Just over a month ago Bernadette, a good blogging friend, died in Adelaide, Australia. I never knew Bernadette except in the virtual world of blogging. I never knew her last name was Bean until her passing. She was a fine blogger. No one was more candid in their assessments of books than Bernadette. She had some epic ranks about what she disliked though she was never personal in her thoughts. When she did like a book I took notice. The Dry by Jane Harper was a book she admired. As my personal form of tribute to Bernadette I am putting up her post below and adding my comments on the book and review in brackets.

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Jane Harper’s THE DRY is well named. The drought-ridden, stiffingly-hot town of Kiewarra and its surrounding farmland dominate the book. Remote. A small population; always someone you know nearby which can be a blessing and a curse. And the weather. Always the weather. Refusing, almost with intent, to give even a hint of relief from the heat and dryness and failing to provide the sustenance needed for the farming everyone relies on for their livelihoods. Their lives.

(Australians know heat. While we experience heat in Western Canada it can never compare to Australian heat. What I can relate to such heat is the equivalent pressure from the cold we live with in winter. Cruel winters with -40 sap energy and drive people inside but farmers with livestock must still work outdoors. Unless you have lived in rural country where heat or cold test residents it is hard to understand the stress of prolonged extreme temperatures. Harper vividly explores the consequences of devastating heat and drought.)

The story opens with an all-too imaginable scene of an apparent murder-suicide of a farming family in this inhospitable place. All dead except for baby Charlotte.

First on the scene, the flies swarmed contentedly in the heat as the blood pooled black over tiles and carpet. Outside, washing hung still on the rotary line, bone dry and stiff from the sun. A child’s scooter lay abandoned on the stepping stone path. Just one human heart beat within a kilometer radius of the farm.

(I found the imagery powerful. It is not often I shiver reading a passage but reading of the deaths of the family deeply affected me.)

We are drawn into the story of this place via Aaron Falk. Kiewarra has dominated his life too. He was born there but left as a teenager. Forced out. Literally. After one of his friends had died.

Officially she committed suicide but many locals think Aaron played a role in her death. Only something as dramatic as his best friend Luke Hadler’s funeral brings him back 20 years later, after he’s made a life for himself as a Federal police officer in Melbourne. Well that and a veiled threat.

(It is hard to create a realistic combination of past and present violent death that has a plausible connection. Harper does it very well. I was driven to read how the mysteries could be solved while maintaining the connection.)

Still Aaron plans to be in an out of town pretty quickly but Luke’s parents have other ideas. They don’t believe their son killed his wife, their son and himself. They want Aaron to prove it. Need him to prove it.

(It is clear that Aaron is motivated by guilt but what did he do 20 years ago for which he still feels guilt. Could it be that this honourable man has been a killer despite his protestations?)

A lot of crime novels relay on abnormalities to keep readers’ attention. Serial killers with macabre fantasies. Impossibly convoluted crimes. Implausibly brilliant and/or quirky detectives. THE DRY has none of that. Even that horrendous weather is par for the course in the driest continent on the planet. Yet even without gimmicks and quirks. The story is completely gripping. There is such a palpable sense of the hidden here. Some people’s secrets are innocuous – merely an attempt to wrestle some privacy from life in the fish bowl that small

town living can be. Others are embarrassing. Others are truly awful. Criminal. Harper does a brilliant job of keeping us guessing about which is which right through the novel.

(Bernadette says far better than I can that secrets of the past and of the present are at the core of the book. All are real. What was most impressive to me was Harper’s ability to establish secrets for characters as teenagers and as mature adults 20 years later.)

THE DRY is a very modern tale of Australian life that happens to have a crime or two in it. There’s no criminal mastermind at work. Just ordinary people reacting to what they experience. What they think they know.

(Bernadette aptly comments on the impact of what characters “think they know”. Assumption, whether based on fact or prejudice, is dangerous but is especially prevalent in small towns where residents know family histories for generations.)

Aaron feeling unable to walk away, wanting to know the truth about his old friend Luke. Once and for all. Luke’s parents wanting to feel like they can look people they’ve known all their lives in the eye again. The local policeman wondering if the murder suicide is really staged or does he just want it to be something unusual. Random locals believing the version of that long ago death that has become folklore.

(In some mysteries the lives of “average” people are simplistic, even dull. Harper’s folk are well rounded interesting people with strong, even obsessive, emotions.)

Amidst the powerful backdrop of place that these people’s stories could get swamped but Harper brings them all vividly and realistically to life and makes the reader desperate to know what has brought each of them to the point at which we’ve met them.

(It is a story that has some universal themes but Harper with “powerful backdrop of place”makes it a book that could only happen in rural Australia. I was equally desperate to find out what happened and read well into the night to finish the book.)

It would be more remarkable that this is a debut novel – because it is about as flawless as they come – except that Harper is a long-time journalist. So storytelling is clearly not new for her. Even so, whatever she produces next will have a lot to live up to. I for one can’t wait.

(While Bernadette would likely hate a reference to a blurb, on my paperback copy the author, David Baldacci, echoes Bernadette’s conclusion:

            “Every word is near perfect. Read it!”)

My experience of this truly excellent book was further enhanced via a fabulous narration of the audio version by local voice artist Steve Shanahan. His voice changes for different characters are perfect, his cadence and pacing are natural and he seems to be enjoying the story himself (this is not always the case.)

(I lament Bernadette’s passing but am grateful to have known her. I hope there can be some form of remembrance of her concerning Australian crime fiction as her nation has lost a passionate, even fierce advocate, for its crime fiction, especially the works of woman writers. As I look for books to read I will go back to her blog for recommendations for and against books.)

A Dislike of Cynical Lawyers

I closed my last post, a review of All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards, by stating the solicitor as sleuth, Harry Devlin, frustrated me.

Harry is a lawyer I found hard to like as a character. I start with a predisposition to liking lawyer characters since I have practiced law for 43 years.

I can appreciate a lawyer who chooses to handle the cases, mainly criminal, of those struggling through life, especially economically. I have represented many people in such circumstances.

What frustrates me is that Harry manifests a cynicism that stereotypes his practice. For most accused there is little more to be done than to seek a just sentence yet every defence lawyer has represented accused who were guilty but are found not guilty in a trial. It is Harry’s responsibility, having chosen criminal defence practice, to represent the clearly guilty and unrepentant.

By contrast is a fictional English lawyer of a generation earlier, Rumpole in the fiction of Robert Mortimer. The blustering barrister is an acknowledged Old Bailey hack but still an optimist. He recognizes the Timson family business is the commission of modest crimes. They have carried on that business for multiple generations. Yet Rumpole is not cynical in his assessment of the Timson’s but represents them with all the skill and guile he can muster from his decades in the courts.

I am sure Harry represents his clients well. He appears conscientious in the book. Yet he does not really see them as individuals. They are an assembly line to be processed as efficiently as he can through the legal system.

Rumpole sees every client as an individual. Each accused is not a file number for him but a person deserving of specific attention.

It will not be a surprise that I strive to see the accused who retain me as individuals. I try hard not to stereotype them.

In Canadian legal fiction I see Robert Rotenberg’s lawyers in his books set in the Toronto legal community creating Crown prosecutors and defence counsel who represent people not file numbers.

Nancy Parrish could not spend the long hours needed for a major trial were her clients almost anonymous to her.

It is harder to maintain focus on the individual in Harry’s practice where there is a daily stream of accused in contrast to books where the lawyer is dealing with a single prominent trial.

Mickey Haller, especially in the earliest books of the series by Michael Connelly where he is constantly moving from court to court in his Lincoln to deal with multiple accused every day, does not succumb to cynicism. Each of his clients stays an individual and Haller continues to be an optimist.

Edwards can certainly shape his solicitor as best fits the story he is writing but I will never like a cynical lawyer.  They exist in life but there are fewer in real life than in fiction.

I hope in future books of the series Harry is less of a cynic.

I expect it is easier, even expected, in crime noir fiction that cynicism is prevalent among the characters. I hope, but doubt, future authors of legal fiction will write about criminal defence lawyers who look forward to each day in the criminal courts for they are working hard to achieve justice. Those readers who react cynically to that comment should consider whether they have lost respect for the person accused of crime in criminal fiction.

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Edwards, Martin - (2018) - All the Lonely People

All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards

All the Lonely People by Martin Edwards (1991) – Harry Devlin is a depressed solicitor in a depressed Liverpool. Life and work has been grinding on since his wife, Liz, left him two years ago for Mick Coghlan, a hard man with money.

Love is hard to explain. Why Harry still loves Liz has no logic to the love. Mercurial in nature, impulsive to the core and completely self-absorbed Liz is enchanting but she casually breaks the hearts of man after man.

Harry finds her in his apartment one night after work. She has rightly assumed he will be glad to take her in for whatever time she will deign to spend with him.

His brief dream of reconciliation is dashed by her announcement that while she has left Coghlan there is a new well-to-do man with whom she will be living.

While Harry is dealing with his battered emotions Liz goes out for the evening and is brutally murdered.

Liz’s hold on Harry’s emotions is as strong after death as it was in life. He must find out who has killed her. Neither friends nor co-workers nor the police can sway him from his quest to solve the murder.

When he applies his lawyerly mind to his actions Harry sees there is no sense to his quest but sober analysis is outweighed by emotion. 

The police see him as a primary suspect. What reasonable person would not be driven to anger by Liz’s easy disregard for Harry’s emotions and confident expectation he will readily serve her needs. They find his explanations of continuing love unconvincing.

As Harry delves into Liz’s life he finds assignations and dalliances that provide multiple suspects.

Yet Harry is fixated on Coghlan being the murderer or financing the murder. Contrary to all his legal experience he loses objectivity in assessing the evidence. His tunnel vision draws him towards Coghlan as directly as the police tunnel is focused on him. Both Harry and the police are caught up in proving suspicion rather than determining facts. 

While Harry is an interesting character and Liz a compelling victim I found myself depressed reading the book. I could not find a character who is looking ahead in their life. All are caught up in past and current despair. 

The Liverpool of All the Lonely People is a decaying, even decrepit, city with no apparent future. It is grim in appearance and long past the days of its glory as a leading port for England.

All the Lonely People is fine noir but I realize I am not fond of noir. The book is well written and I appreciate its characterization by the publisher as a crime classic. I may read another to see if Harry can raise himself from depression. He is a good man. He does frustrate me as a lawyer.

The Inspiration for Body on Baker Street

My last post was a review of Body in Baker Street by Vicki Delany. I enjoyed the book as I have enjoyed all of the books I have read that were written by Vicki.

After completing the book I wondered if the inspiration for the murder could have come from the book of another Canadian mystery writer. 

I emailed Vicki and she promptly and candidly responded. I appreciate her willingness to reply to my questions. Our exchange is below

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Vicki

I enjoyed reading Body on Baker Street and will have a review posted shortly.

In reading the book I was struck by the use of a bottle of poisoned water as the method of murder. I thought of Deadly Appearances, the first book in the Joanne Kilbourn series by Gail Bowen. In that book the fictional Premier of Saskatchewan, Andy Boychuk, is speaking at a political picnic. A carafe of water is sitting upon the trailer bed from which he is addressing the crowd. He dies after drinking the water which has been poisoned.

I was wondering if you might have been inspired by Deadly Appearanecs in your choice of death for Renalta Van Markoff. If not I would be interested knowing what led you to the poisoned water.

I admired your creation of a fictional series with a specific plot in a Body on Baker Street. I was reminded of Another Margaret in the Randy Craig series by Janice Macdonald. In that book Macdonald also created a fictional author and series. Considering your very varied sleuths might you have been tempted to actually write a series featuring the Desdemona Hudson you created within Body on Baker Street?

If you are able to reply and are willing, I would put up this email and your response, as a post.

All the best.

Bill Selnes

Hi, Bill. Always happy to talk books.

I have read Deadly Appearances, as I have most of the Kilbourn series, but that was a very very long time ago.  Probably when the book first came out.  So I don’t remember any details.  In my case, the setting came first – the book signing – meaning I wanted the author to drop dead in front of the room full of people. I then had to think about how to accomplish that. Poison was the obvious way of doing that , short of having someone stand up with a gun and shoot her – not much mystery there.  But it had to be obvious that the poison was taken within the last few minutes, so that the people in the room, and no others, would be the suspects.   It also needed to be fairly obvious that it might not have been intended for someone else, as would have been the case if she’d had tea in the tea room earlier.

One of the problems with writing several cozy series is trying to come up with new and original ways of bumping people off, but keeping it polite.

Come to think of it, I have written something similar to the Desdemona Hudson series.  Have you read any of my Klondike Gold Rush mysteries? Published by Dundurn from 2008 – 2013. I never thought of it before but Fiona McGillivray in that series is somewhat similar.

Best

Vicki

Body on Baker Street by Vicki Delany

(8. – 938.) Body on Baker Street by Vicki Delany – Gemma Doyle is back in fine form as the brilliantly deductive, though a touch condescending to the less quick of mind, owner of the Sherlock Holmes Bookstore and Emporium. It is summer on the coast of Massachusetts and the town is overflowing with tourists. A fair share of the visitors stop by the store and Gemma is well stocked with mysteries.

A regular, if busy week, is upended by the visit of Linda Markle, a rather plain young woman, who asks Gemma if the store would host an author event for Renalta Van Markoff, the author of the wildly successful Desdemona Hudson mystery series. Van Markoff has added to the trove of Sherlockia by making the estimable Mrs. Hudson into a detective, brighter than Sherlock, who actually solves the mysteries. This Mrs. Hudson is a member of the aristocracy and bears but a slight resemblance to the Mrs. Hudson of Conan Doyle’s books which becomes even slighter with the revelation Mrs. Hudson and Sherlock are lovers.

Gemma instantly agrees to the author event for best selling authors rarely come to her store and, wth the newest book, Hudson House, just published and already atop bestseller lists readers will flock to the store.

That afternoon Ms. Van Markoff deigns to drop by the store. She makes a grand entrance:

The older woman paused for a moment, one perfectly manicured hand resting on the car door. She stood there smiling while camera and smartphones clicked. It was a hot summer afternoon, but she was draped in a black ankle-length cape with a scarlet satin lining hat shimmered as she moved. Her ruby-red shoes had four-inch heels. Her black hair was gathered behind her head in a tumbled mass, and her ruby earrings gathered the light of the sun and threw it at us ….. She extended her hand toward me, and I was enveloped in a cloud of Chanel No. 5. Expensive and classic. For a moment, I wondered if I was expected to kiss the ruby ring.

Gemma is bemused by the author as diva but appreciative of the public flair. Her mere appearance instantly draws readers to the store and a flurry of sales take place. On departure Gemma advises her sole employee, Ashleigh, that there were 27 copies of Hudson House sold. When Ashleigh asks how she knows without checking the computer Gemma says she observes what is going on the store. She is momentarily flummoxed when Ashleigh says the records show 28 sold. Observing the store more closely Gemma determines a book has been sold from the window display.

Holmesian purists, represented by local retired lawyer Donald Morris, disdain the series for, in their vision, distorting and contorting the traditional characters. Gemma, though not fond of the overblown dramatics of the series, is happy at the prospect of selling piles of books.

Gemma re-arranges the store to accommodate over 100 visitors and works out overflow with Jayne, co-owner of Mrs. Hudson’s Tea Room, which adjoins the bookstore.

Early Saturday afternoon Ms. Van Markoff and entourage – publicist Kevin Reynolds and personal assistant Ms. Markle and publisher Robert McNamara - sweep into the store.

Gemma is surprised to observe that the great author appears nervous about addressing her fans. Yet in the spirit of the show must go on Van Markoff is giving an excellent performance until, in the grand tradition of Victoria melodrama, she collapses and expires.

With suspects all around Gemma feels compelled to assist the police in their inquiries.

Her handsome ex-fiance, Ryan Ashburton, is leading the investigation with her nemesis, detective Louise Estrada, from the first series working with him.

Gemma does not rely only upon observation. She casts about on the worldwide web for information about the suspects.

The strength of this series is in the intrepid Gemma and the fascinating characters. The clever Emma cannot comprehend the inability of those around her not to observe the details that are instantly absorbed by her.

The Sherlock Holmes Bookshop mysteries are fun and I think Delany uses them to prick, not skewer, the pretentious. In this book the egos of inflated authors are exposed. I wonder upon which prideful group Ms. Delany will focus her attention in the next book of the series.

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Delany, Vicki -

     1.) Const. Molly Smith - (2013) - A Cold White Sun

     2.) Fiona MacGillivray - (2014) - Gold Web

     3.) Writing as Eva Gates the Lighthouse Library Series 
     with Lucy Richardson - (2014) -  By Book or by
     Crook and Bodie Island Lighthouse; (2015) - Women v. Men in
     Clothing Descriptions

     4.) The Sherlock Holmes Bookshop Mysteries with Gemma
     Doyle - (2017) - Elementary, She Read and Fictional and Real
     Life Bookshops and Sherlock and Where is "Gemma" From?