Rachel Louise Cooke was 19 years old when she disappeared on Thursday, January 10th, 2002. She had traveled from San Deigo to visit her parents in her hometown of Georgetown, Texas. She was last seen going for a jog in her parents' neighborhood.
Rachel was born on May 10, 1982, in Dallas, Texas, to Robert, a software engineer and Janet, an art teacher. When she was very young, she moved with her family to Georgetown, Texas.
She started running in elementary school and was faster than most of the other runners. She joined the long-distance and the cross-county teams.
When Rachel was 18, she competed in the Miss Georgetown contest.
On January 10th, 2002, 19-year-old Rachel was on winter vacation from her school at San Diego Mesa College in San Diego, California and visiting her parents in the Northlake subdivision of Georgetown, Texas. She had extended her vacation to attend her cousin's wedding and been driving her parents and little sister JoAnn crazy asking them which outfit she should wear. Her boyfriend Graig had traveled with her, but by New Year's had already traveled back to California.
According to Rachel's family, Graig seemed really nice and attentive, and the pair seemed really in love. Rachel had planned to move in with him and had said that "he was the one." She also wanted to enroll in a fashion design school once she returned from her vacation.
That morning when Robert left for work, he was the first leave the house followed by Janet and JoAnn who told Rachel goodbye as she lay half asleep on the couch and then went off to school around 8 a.m.
It was about 9:15 a.m. when Rachel received a call from her Graig. Rachel told him that she misses him and that she would call him back after she went for her morning run. Sadly, she would never make that call.
Shortly after she got off the phone with her boyfriend, she put on her green sports bra that showed of her two heart-shaped cherries tattooed on her left shoulder. She also put on either gray shorts or sweatpants then grabbed her gray shirt that she tied around her waist. She then grabbed her bright yellow Sony Walkman portable radio/cassette player with headphones and set out for her daily 4–5-mile run on the same route that she had always ran. She was last seen running in the direction of her parent's house between 11:00 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. near Neches Trail, which is just 100 to 200 yards from her family's residence.
At 3:00 p.m. Robert returned home to take Rachel shopping, but he couldn't find her. The way things were left in the house it appeared that she had never returned home from her run. Rachel had left her cellphone and purse at the house. It was said that anyone who knew Rachel new that she'd never go anywhere without her makeup. A worry Robert called Rachel's childhood friend Shannon Leech and asked her if she'd talked to Rachel. Shannon said that she hadn't talked to Rachel, but they had plans later to go out. Robert told Shannon that Rachel had left all her belongings behind, and Shannon began to worry.
Janet called the restaurant "Wildfire" where Rachel would work when she'd come to town. That said that they hadn't seen her, but she was to work that night. Her family thought that maybe she had gotten a ride to work from someone and had just forgotten her purse and phone. In the morning when Rachel hadn't returned, her family called the restaurant again. They learned that there was a mix-up and that it was a different Rachel that had worked the previous night.
Rachel's family went through all her clothes and finds out that only her running clothes are missing which further solidified their fears that Rachel had never returned from her run.
Robert decided to go drive the route that she'd always run while Janet went and checked the hospital but there was no sign of Rachel, so they went to the Sheriff's office to report her missing. Rachel's family said that they were told that Rachel probably had went to Mexico with her boyfriend and didn't tell anybody.
Since it seemed like the authorities weren't going to do anything, Rachel's friends and family organized a search for her for that Saturday, which was interrupted and stopped by an investigator. The Sheriff's office had contacted Texas Ranger Mathew Lindemann and on January 13th he was on the case. Lindemann told Rachel's dad Robert that he didn't think that Rachel had left on her own and an official search for her began that day. There were ATVs, Helicopters and EquuSearch helped look for any sign of Rachel to no avail. After several days authorities stop their search for Rachel while family and friends continue the search for her for a few more weeks.
Several witnesses told authorities that two young males in a while Camero was circling the neighborhood the day Rachel disappeared. One of the reports was of a female jogger in Rachel's age range near the Camero while another report depicted of a woman struggling in the car. Several while Camero's were located and examined but there was no evidence that Rachel had been in any of them. Two young men also came forward and admitted that they had ditched school that day and were driving around the neighborhood. They were also investigated and there was no evidence found that tied them to Rachel's disappearance.
There were also reports of cars that had been plunged into Lake Georgetown. All the cars were excavated from the waters, and they were determined to have been stolen before Rachel went missing and had nothing to do with her.
Rachel's boyfriend had come back to help search for Rachel. He was ruled out early on as a suspect and also took and passed a lie detector test. Rachel's parents also volunteered to take a lie detector test. Janet passes but Robert failed one question on his test. The question was if he knew where Rachel was. Robert said that he thinks it is because he thinks she is in heaven.
Rachel's sister JoAnn was suspicious of Rachel's ex-boyfriend. She said that two days before Rachel disappeared, Rachel had told her that she saw the ex-boyfriend and that he had made a scene and had told Rachel that he couldn't live without her. Rachel's family and friends said that her past relationship with her ex had been volatile and that the ex had been very upset when she broke off the relationship. After they had broken up, he had been drunk and came over pounding on the door. Rachel's mom Janet had threatened to call the Sheriff's department to get him to leave. The boyfriend denied any involvement in Rachel's disappearance and there was no proof either.
Two years later there was a new Sheriff, and he organized a Rachel Cooke taskforce but didn't come up with much of anything. Fastforward to August of 2006 the taskforce had been disbanded, and Larry Hawkins was now in charge of Rachel's case. Convicted murderer Michael Keith Moore contacted investigators and said that he had murdered Rachel.
Moore had spent nearly all of his adult life in prison. His father stated he began to get into trouble with the law at the age of 13, and many of his known offenses involve sexual misconduct and/or violence. At the time of his confession to murdering Rachel he was serving 4 life sentences for the robbery and murder of a pregnant woman and her unborn child in a neighboring town.
Hawkins and Lindermann both interviewed Moore. Moore told them that he had attacked Rachel while she had been jogging, knocked her unconscious, drove her somewhere and raped her. He then murdered her with a hammer and wrapped her body in a tarp, weighted it with rocks and threw her into Matagorda Bay.
Moore was out of prison at the time of Rachel's disappearance and lived not far from her parent's house. He also was said to have had driven a white truck that had been seen in the area when Rachel disappeared.
Divers searched Matagorda Bay and came up with nothing.
In November of 2006 Moore agreed to plead guilty to Rachel's murder in exchange for a sentence of life in prison, but in court Moore reneged and pleaded not guilty. He told the media he had been toying with authorities when he confessed to killing Rachel, and that he got special treatment in prison in exchange for his cooperation. He stated he had nothing to do with her disappearance.
Rachel's father Robert passed away on November 5th, 2014. All Rachel's mother Janet wants is that before she dies to know what happened to her daughter and if she was killed to give her daughter a proper funeral. Rachel's sister JoAnn is a social worker.
Rachel's disappearance remains unsolved.
If you have any information in Rachel's disappearance, please contact Williamson County Sheriff's Department at 512-943-1300.
At the time of her disappearance Rachel was a 19-year-old Caucasian female with blonde hair with auburn streaks. She had hazel eyes. She was 5'2 and 110 - 120 pounds. She had two heart-shaped cherries tattooed on her left shoulder and a black star tattooed on her left foot near her pinky toe. Her ears were pierced multiple times with one piercing in the upper cartilage, and her navel was also pierced. It is alleged she was last seen wearing a green sports bra, a gray shirt tied around her waist, gray shorts or sweatpants, and white Asics or Adidas sneakers. Carrying a bright yellow Sony Walkman portable radio/cassette player with headphones.
No comments:
Post a Comment