Eric Edgar Cooke
| Eric Edgar Cooke | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
Eric Edgar Cooke 25 February 1931 Perth, Western Australia |
| Died | 26 October 1964 (aged 33) Fremantle Prison in Fremantle, Western Australia |
| Cause of death | Hanging |
| Other names | The Night Caller |
| Criminal penalty | Death |
| Killings | |
| Victims | 8 murders and 14 attempted murders |
|
Span of killings
|
1959–1963 |
| Country | Australia |
| State(s) | Western Australia |
|
Date apprehended
|
1 September 1963 |
Eric Edgar Cooke (25 February 1931 – 26 October 1964), nicknamed the "Night Caller", was an Australian serial killer. From 1959 to 1963, he terrorised the city of Perth, Western Australia, by committing 22 violent crimes, eight of which resulted in deaths.
Eric Cooke was born on 25 February 1931 in Victoria Park, a suburb of Perth, and was the eldest of three children.
Cooke was born into an unhappy, violent family; his parents married solely because his mother, Christine, was pregnant with him, and his alcoholic father, Vivian, beat him frequently, especially when the boy tried to protect his mother from the elder Cooke's drunken rages. Christine Cooke would sleep in the staff room at her job in the Como Hotel to avoid beatings. Much like his mother, Cooke would hide underneath the house or roam neighbouring streets just to escape a night of his father's violence. Cooke was also placed in orphanages or foster homes on occasion.
Cooke was frequently hospitalised for head injuries and had suspected brain damage because of his accident-proneness. Later it was questioned whether this was due to repressed suicidal tendencies. He also suffered from recurrent headaches and was once admitted to an asylum. His reported blackouts later stopped after an operation in 1949.
Cooke was born with a hare lip and a cleft palate, for which he had one operation when he was three months old and another when he was 3½. Surgical operations to repair the deformities were not totally successful, and left him with a slight facial deformity, and he spoke in a mumble; these handicaps made him the target of bullying at school. In her book, Broken Lives, journalist Estelle Blackburn's telling of the murders, he is described as "a short, slight man with dark, wavy hair and a twisted mouth..." Cooke's disfigurements made him ashamed, shy, and emotionally unstable at a young age due to the beatings and bullying that came with it.
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