The Unsolved Abduction & Murder of Kelly Cook S01E10

08/06/17 • 22 min

The village of Standard, Alberta is home to about 353 residents living a peaceful country lifestyle just 80 km from Alberta's largest city, Calgary. On April 22, 1981, however, big city crime, shocked the tiny village to the core. Standard would never be the same, and Alberta would be on edge.

15 year old Kelly Cook was abducted and later found murdered. Alberta would be on gaurd for years to come as the case bled into the psyche of every parent. To this day, the abduction and murder of Kelly Cook remains unsolved.

Investigators have worked tirelessly on the case for decades and there is a special room dedicated to the files for the Cook homicide which is filled to the roof with boxes and boxes of evidence. More than 2200 possible suspects have been looked at, and police confirm the case is still active.

RCMP believe this was a well planned crime. But let us delve into this further to see if there is another possibility.

Reports indicate that Kelly Cook received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Bill Christensen who asked her to babysit for him that evening. He explained he would pick her up at her residence. Kelly routinely babysat and although she did not recognize the name, the surname was a common one in that area. Crime was virtually none existent and residents would often leave doors unlocked. Kelly's friend Cindy Krabsen, who also babysat regularily, recalls Kelly was uneasy and asked if Cindy knew this Bill Christinsen person, but then Kelly reassured herself because she indicated to Cindy that when she asked if the man knew where she lived, he reassured her by providing the names of her next door neighbors.

At 8:30 PM a car pulled up in front of the Cook house and beeped his horn. The driver did not leave his care and Kelly walked out of her house and climbed into the automobile's front passenger seat and then the care simply drove off. Kelly Cook's younger sister Marnie, aged 12 at the time, watched this unfold from the basement window.

Later that night, concerned that Kelly had not called in to report where she was and that she had not returned home, they called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. A quick local search yielded no results and as a result a massive local search was launched, but again yielded no results or even clues.

Police knew they were dealing with a dangerous person and had hopes that Kelly Cook would be found alive and immediately started pressing into the evidence they could gather. They traced the original call from the man identifying himself as Bill Christensen to a local gas station owned by Lee Abbott, which was several miles outside of Standard on Hwy 561 and The Trans Canada Highway. Police learned that Kelly Cook may not have been the intended victim as a witness came forward and identified herself as Kelly's friend. She had received a call from Bill Christensen on April 18th who phoned from The Standard Hotel Bar and who asked to have her babysit, however, she was not feeling well and was busy, so she passed along Kelly Cook's phone number as a back up.

Bar staff identify the man as having a rough attitude. He walked directly up to the bar and almost demands to use the telephone. He makes the call to Kelly's friend, buys a case of beer and gets annoyed about his change and leaves without evening saying thank you. They include a vague description of a tanned, heavy set man.

However, there are reports that a man who entered a local restaurant asking the waitress if she did babysitting and if she could help him out. The waitress gave Kelly Cook's friend's number, and she in turn gave the number of Kelly Cook.

A composite describes of the the man from all witnesses indicated the perpetrator as being about 30-40 years old, 5 10, 160 pounds medium to heavy build with a round face and swarthy complication. His hands and face were weather beaten but with short dark hair and clean shaven. He had a blue windbreaker with a possible logo on it. The car he was driving is reported as being a 1978 full sized Chrysler or GMC, light colour with possible Alberta plates.

If we are to believe these reports, then the perpetrator had not planned on a specific victim. He was most likely fishing for a young girl, any girl. But the question remains, why do this in such a small village where the relative amount of young girls is low and the chance of being identified high?

There are reports that the school at which Kelly Cook was attending received a telephone call just prior to the abduction. In March 1981, a photo ran in a local paper of a girl from a figure skating club. The Principle of the school recalls that a man indicated he saw the girl in the photo and wanted to know more about her. The Principle indicated it was not policy to reveal the girls name, address or phone number. The caller hung up. It seemed as if the perpetrator was looking for a sp...

RCMP believe this was a well planned crime. But let us delve into this further to see if there is another possibility.

Previous Episode

Mysterious Sounds S01E09

Wherever you are listening to this podcast, be it in your car or tucked into bed, turn up the volume as we explore some of the most mysterious sounds ever recorded.

We have microphones everywhere, I bet there is one within arms reach of you right now. There is also a microphone some 17,922,521,702 km away. It isn't a microphone really. It is an instrument that enables us to hear some physical processes occurring in the interplanetary media as well as in the magnetospheres of the giant planets.

This listening device is aboard Voyager 1 and 2, exploratory spacecraft sent to explore the outer planets and our solar system.

Here are some sound recordings courtesy of Voyager 1 and 2.

Now what you may find interesting is that we included sound on the spacecraft as well. The idea was, if the craft were detected by extra terrestrials, they would be able to listen to us. Aboard each spacecraft is a golden record, a collection of sights, sounds and greetings from Earth. There are 117 images and greetings in 54 languages, with a variety of natural and human-made sounds like storms, volcanoes, rocket launches, airplanes and animals. There is even a recording of Chuck Berry's Johnnny B Goode to entertain the aliens.

And then there are the brain sounds.

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The Girl Scout Murders S01E12

This is Unsolved Mysteries of the World Season One Episode Twelve, The Girl Scout Murders

Under starry skies, roasting marshmellows, laughing, singing, and telling tales of unspeakable horrors in the dark – its all part of the camp experience.

But only one night into camp at Camp Scott in Locust Grove Oklahoma, the nightmares of the dark turned into reality.

On the hot, sticky morning of June 13, 1977, campers were awakened by the horrified screams of a counselor who discovered the bloodied bodies of three children. The girls — Lori Lee Farmer, 8, of Tulsa; Michelle Guse, 9, of Broken Arrow; and Doris Denise Milner, 10, of Tulsa — had been abducted from their tents in the night and murdered. Their small bodies were found bloodied, bound and stuffed inside their sleeping bags 140 yards from their tent on the western edge of the camp.

The horrific scene would later inspire movies like 1980s Friday the 13th and Sleepaway Camp and continually haunt the community.

The camp closed the next day and never reopened. Its ghostly shells of cabins, washrooms, and play structures still remain, whispering the haunting memory of a horrific past.

Camp across America would forever be changed as no one was everq convicted of the crimes.

The story begins three months before the fateful start to summer camp with an ominous note that suggests the crimes were planned and premeditated.

Michelle Hoffman, who was an aide at the June 1977 camp session, was at Camp Scott for a special Girl Scout cadet weekend in April. While there someone got into her tent when they were away on a training session.

"Our bags had been scattered all over the tent and some outside," she says. A box of donuts Michelle had brought from home had been emptied and among the donut crumbs she found a note on a small steno notepad. The first couple of pages were written Kill, Kill, Kill over and over again. Then on one page “We're on a mission to kill three girls”

The note was disregarded as a prank by other girls at the camp and dismissed.

On the first day of Camp in June, the skies turned violent and raging thunderstorm echoed above. Campers huddled in their tents. The tents provided adequate shelter and were about 12-by-14 feet, with canvas sides that could be rolled up, sat on wooden platforms and held four cots for sleeping.

Sharing tent #8 in the Kiowa section of girl scout campers were Lori Lee Farmer, 8, Doris Denise Milner, 10, and Michelle Heather Guse, 9.

Sometime during the night, all three were sexually assaulted, bludgeoned and strangled to death, then stuffed into their sleeping bags and dumped only 140 metres away on a trail near the camp's showers.

The gruesome discovery was made by Camp Councillor Carla Wilhite at 6am as she made her way to the showers. Her discovery promptly caused much chaos and the entire Camp was in a state of shock. Children were not told of the incident, and were quickly hushed, as chartered buses took them home only after one night at Summer Camp. Not chancing any other incidents, the entire camp was evacuated at 10am as police searched for evidence and a suspect.

After nearly 50 years of hosting Girl Scout's, the camp closed and never reopened.

Two of the girls were discovered inside their sleeping bags, while a third was laid over top of the others. She was so badly beaten, that she was nearly unrecognizable.

The crime had occurred inside tent #8 just feet away from other tents, including the camp councillor's very own. No one was awoken and no one reported anything out of the ordinary.

On June 14th, the entire wooded platform of the tent was airlifted to a crime lab. The entire floor was covered in blood. The perpetrators tried to wipe up the blood using towels and matresses and in doing so left a shoe print inside the tent on the floor. Outside of the tent, law enforcement discover a totally different shoe print suggesting that perhaps two or more people may have been involved.

The evidence somehow finds its way to the press outraging those in charge of the investigation. A large manhunt begins and a man of no fixed address is found sleeping in his car just seven miles north of the camp. Police arrest him, take him in for questioning, but later release him as they believe he had nothing to do with the incident.

A red flashlight with a piece of newspaper inside it, a roll of duct tape, and a nylon rope were then found close to the bodies and considered the property of whomever did this horrible deed. They were catalogued and stored as evidence. Finger prints are also lifted from the small bodies along with a single hair, that was determined to be from a Native American. Along side the tent were a pair of women's glasses and glass case that belonged to one of the campers. Authorities believed they were part of...