Bill Cook has long been forgotten by the good people living over in Stonewall. But not by me. Who was this Bill Cook? Bill Cook was a famous criminal back about the time I graduated from Stonewall High School in 1952.

Bill was born in 1928 in Joplin, Missouri. He had 10 siblings but when he was about 5 his mama died of a severe head wound. Little Bill and his siblings were placed in foster care by the state. I am not sure where his dad was. Probably being “hounded” by the cops about how Ms. Cook got her headwound. But 5-year-old Bill did not make it in foster care. He was belligerent, had a nasty disposition and a deformed eye. He eventually acquired the nickname “Cockeyed Bill Cook.”

The State finally paid a woman to try to raise this little boy and she kept him ‘till he turned 12. But she then delivered the ill-tempered Bill to a reformatory. Again, little Bill couldn’t cut the grade. His behavior was too bad even for the reform school, so Billy (at age 17) was put in the Missouri State Penitentiary where his record was distinguished by his nearly killing a guard with a baseball bat. Even at that, Bill Cook was eventually released into society. Destiny awaited him and sure enough, Missouri did not have to wait long to find out what it was. Bill had said, upon his release, “I’ll live by the gun and roam.” And he did just that.

It was not long before Bill had kidnapped a man. An auto mechanic. The hapless victim was locked in a car trunk but foiled Bill by breaking out and escaping. But Cockeyed Bill was on his way to fame anyway.

There was a family (the Mosser family) traveling to New Mexico (from Illinois) about that time in search of work. “Cockeyed Bill” looked okay to them as Bill was hitchhiking across Oklahoma. Bill repaid them for their kindness by kidnapping them all. Mr. Mosser, 27, Thelma, 24, Ron, 7, Gary, 5, Pamela Sue 3. He took them, subjected them to total terror for three days and when they got near Joplin, Missouri he killed them all. Bill remembered there were lot of old mines near Joplin. He found one and that is where he dumped their bodies. A cold dark water-filled pit. The ultimate nightmare for people—especially children.

Sometime in that time frame Bill Cook was discovered by the News. Bill’s picture made front page of the Daily Oklahoman and soon the paper was passed around the Bullard’s breakfast table—for all of us to see. My little sister Sue, a forever and dedicated pessimist, was fairly sure Bill Cook would somehow find, kidnap, and haul every one of us all off before he killed us with an axe. More especially her. We did not have a TV back then. Channel 4 was our only hope for TV and their signal was weak. But many in Stonewall had erected tall towers and antennae and could see the WKY-TV channel on their small black and white TVs. And I saw Bill Cook again that morning on a TV before proceeding to the Main Café to meet up with my friend, Bobby Dale Newport.

Everyone was acting sort of strange. I took a seat at the counter and looked around the place and did not see Bob, but everyone was looking at me. I wondered if I was zipped up and okay as I decided to wait some more. I finally finished my coffee and went outside.

“You sure don’t care who you sit by, do you?” A patron who had just exited the town’s most prominent eatery asked, “you just come in and sat down by the meanest most famous killer in the world.” Who? I asked? And the guy pointed at the guy who had just rose up to pay his ticket. It was the easily recognizable “Cockeyed” Bill Cook. It made a chill run through me as he walked by me and then drove away. I felt like the Devil himself had just passed by me.

Bill drove safely out of our town and was next heard from in California, where he kidnapped another man. But this next guy, a salesman named Robert Downey, was to just be one more victim. He was killed and dumped into a roadside ditch. Meanwhile the Bullard’s, like a lot of families in Stonewall, were still waiting for Bill to come and get us. But he never came. Soon word came that Bill had kidnapped two hunters in California and took them to Rosalee, Mexico. But Bill goofed up and was arrested by a Mexican cop. He was extradited back to Oklahoma, tried, and convicted for the Mosser Family Spree. Given 300 years in The Pen down at McAlester.

But California wanted Bill. They wanted him dead. So, they extradited Bill back to California, and he was found guilty on the Robert Downey murder. “Cockeyed Bill” was executed finally. Bill’s last words. “I hate everybody’s guts, and everybody hates mine.”

Movie goers were soon treated to the movie “Hitchhiker” in 1953 at the Main Theatre in Stonewall. Bill’s life story. Less than a block from where I had first spotted this deadly creature not too long before. And to my sister’s wonderment, not any of us were killed, maimed, murdered, or ever too bothered by Cook.

And thanks to my readers reminding me, let me now say this: Be sure and go to church Sunday. No masks. Just enjoy. And one more reminder to those who would like to see this Movie, “Hitchhiker” let me just say, the Main Theatre in Stonewall is closed. Sorry.

Wayne Bullard, DPh

cwaynebullard@gmail.com