Anthony and Nathaniel Cook

Little is known about the brothers' childhood. What is known is that they were born in Mobile, Alabama, in a financially strained family with seven other children. After the family moved to Ohio, the father abandoned them. In Toledo, the family was forced to live in an urban area populated mainly by other African-Americans with low social status and education level, thanks to which the two brothers grew up in an impoverished and racially segregated environment.

After one of their older brothers, Hayes Cook, was convicted in the mid-1960s for rape, Anthony dropped out of school and began spending more time on the streets among petty criminals. In 1974, he was arrested and convicted for robbery, spending the next several years in prison. After his release, Anthony stated that he was subjected to strong physical and psychological abuse by the prison guards and fellow inmates, most of whom were white, after which he began to show signs of racial hatred towards the white populus of the city.

On the other hand, Nathaniel had no problems with the law, did not abuse alcohol or drugs, and worked as a driver, earning a high salary. After his brother's release from prison 1979, Anthony returned to Toledo and began spending more time with Nathaniel. As a result, the younger Cook was negatively influenced by his elder sibling, and soon after, a series of murders was unleashed upon the city.[2]

The killings began in May 1980, when the brothers attacked 24-year-old Thomas Gordon and his 18-year-old girlfriend in northern Toledo. They threatened them with guns, seized control of their car and held them hostage. The Cooks drove the couple to the woodlands in Lucas County, where they shot Gordon and raped his girlfriend, after which they stabbed her and fled the crime scene. The girlfriend survived, but Gordon didn't. On January 3, 1981, Anthony and Nathaniel picked up a 19-year-old hitchhiker and Michigan native named Connie Sue Thompson, driving her out to Lucas County, where they raped and subsequently killed her. The criminals then threw the victim's body off a bridge into a stream where it was discovered on January 17.

In February of that year, Anthony, while returning from work, lured 12-year-old Dawn Rene Backes into his car. Soon, Nathaniel joined them, after which the two men took the victim to an abandoned theater, where they raped and tortured the young girl for the next several hours, much to their sadistic amusement, before finally hitting her several times on the head with a brick block, killing Dawn on the spot.[3][4] On March 27, Anthony attacked Scott Moulton and Denise Siotkowski, both 21, near a supermarket located in the city center. He took them outside the city to Oregon suburb, where he shot both after raping Siotkowski. In this instance, he acted without help from his younger brother.[5]

On August 21, Anthony, again acting alone, attacked Daryl Cole and Stacy Balonek, both 21. After raping the girl, Cook beat Cole with a baseball bat he found in the latter's car interior, causing him fatal brain injuries. After repeating the act with Balonek, he hid both bodies in the trunk of the car.[6] In September of that year, Anthony committed a crime in the rich part of the city, just two blocks away from the police station. Early in the morning, Cook threatened to rob the passengers of a parked van, who were 21-year-old Todd Sabo and 20-year-old Leslie Sawicki, after which he tied them up and tried to rape the woman. During the attempted rape, Sabo managed to free himself and fight off their attacker, who lost grip of his weapon. Sawicki then called the police and her father, Peter, a well-known businessman in Toledo, for help. While waiting for the arrival of law enforcement officers, Sabo and Sawicki tried to lynch Cook, but he resisted fiercely, managing to get a hold of his gun. He then shot Peter Sawicki and seriously wounded Todd Sabo, before disappearing.[7]

Cook's fingerprints were found at the crime scene by police, and examined. Since the killer apparently didn't pay attention to concealing his tracks, street informants told about him, and soon after, authorities found and arrested Anthony on October 14, 1981.[8]

No evidence was found that could incriminate Anthony Cook in other murders, and so, in 1982, he was found guilty of killing Peter Sawicki and sentenced to life imprisonment. After his brother's conviction, Nathaniel decided to cease his criminal lifestyle, and in the following years was arrested only for minor offences. In the mid-1990s, during one of these arrests, a blood sample was taken from him. Since both brothers left biological traces while committing the crimes, in 1998, DNA testing of the samples was carried out, which showed correspondence between the killers' profiles and that of the brothers.[9] On February 13, 1998, Nathaniel was arrested and charged with the murder of Thomas Gordon and the attempted murder of his girlfriend.[10]

In 2000, the brothers accepted a plea bargain, pleading guilty to the murder of Gordon and describing in detail the other murders, in exchange that they wouldn't be charged with them. Ultimately, Nathaniel plead guilty to killing Thomas Gordon and to being complicit in the murders of Dawn Backes and Connie Thompson. Anthony plead guilty to 8 murders, in addition to confessing to the murder of 22-year-old Vickie Lynn Small, committed on December 20, 1973, which was never connected to the Toledo series.[11] As was the deal, Anthony received a second life imprisonment term in April 2000, while his brother Nathaniel received a sentence of 75 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after 20 years.[12][13]

After spending 34 years behind bars, Anthony Cook filed a motion for parole in 2015,[14] but was denied and forbidden to file another one until 2025.[15] Nathaniel, having served 20 years, also filed a parole application in 2018.[16] Despite protests from the victims' relatives, the court, given the terms of agreement and the deal with the judge made in 2000, found no legal basis to prevent his release and granted the request.[17]

Nathaniel Cook was released on August 10, 2018, but his freedom is extremely limited: he's obliged to participate in rehabilitation programs for sex offenders,[18][19][20] to wear a GPS bracelet, and is forbidden to approach places crowded by children. In 2019, information surfaced that he was living 200 meters from a school in Toledo, but after an investigation by police, it was found that Cook hadn't violated the rules and regulations, and was let off.[21]

• List of serial killers in the United States