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| '''Eric Edgar Cooke''' (25 February 1931–26 October 1964) was the last person to be hanged in Western Australia. In 1963 he indiscriminately attacked 20 people and killed eight. [http://www.postnewspapers.com.au/20030201/news/002.shtml] He was convicted of murder and sentenced to death on 28 November 1963, by the Perth Supreme Court. He was executed at Fremantle Prison on 26 October 1964.
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| Cooke had a cleft lip and was bullied as a child. As an adult, he married and had seven children, and was described as outwardly amenable.
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| He killed at random, running people over in the street or knocking on doors and shooting strangers. He was caught when the gun used to murder one of his victims, John Lindsay Sturkey, was found, and police waited for Cooke to collect it. Cooke was convicted on the specimen charge of murdering Sturkey.
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| Two other Australians were convicted of crimes later attributed to Cooke:
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| *Darryl Beamish, a deaf mute convicted in 1959 for the murder of a wealthy woman from Melbourne. He served 15 years despite Cooke's 1963 confession to the crime.
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| * John Button, who was jailed for 10 years for manslaughterin the death of his girlfriend, a conviction that was quashed in 2002 after evidence proved Cooke was the killer.
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| Cooke was nicknamed "the Nedlands Monster", after the Perth suburb in which he murdered Sturkey. He was also referred to as "The Night Caller".
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| A memoir — ''The Shark Net'' by Robert Drewe, which was later made into a movie — provide one author's impressions the effect the murders had on the Perth in that era. According to the book, more people bought dogs for security and locked back doors and garages that had never been secured before.
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| "The Nedlands Monster" also features in Tim Winton's 1991 novel ''Cloudstreet''.
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| Cooke is buried at Fremantle Cemetery, on top of the remains of child killer Martha Rendell
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| ==Further reading==
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| * [http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Lives-Estelle-Blackburn/dp/0646361732/ref=sr_1_1/002-5638738-9128856?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1175521858&sr=8-1 Estelle Blackburn, Broken Lives]
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| ==External links==
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| * [http://www.fremantleprison.com.au/education/education8.pdf Cooke's hanging & its legal significance]
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| * [http://www.karisable.com/skaz.htm Serial killers (has one paragraph on Cooke)]
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| * [http://www.unsolvedmysteries.com/usm348226.html The lasting effect Cooke's crimes have had on Perth]
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| ==See also==
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| *[[List of serial killers]]
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| *[[Murder]]
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| *[[Serial killer]]
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| {{wikipedia}}
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| [[Category:Serial killers]] [[Category:Homicidal maniacs]]
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