Robert Raymond Cook
Canadian Badlands History
Robert Raymond Cook - last person to be hung in Alberta. Robert
Cook, born in 1937 in Hanna, Alberta, was a Canadian murderer.
Convicted of the slayings of his father, Raymond, stepmother,
Daisy, and the couple's five children, he was the last man to be
hanged by Alberta. On 28 June 1959, police discovered the Cooks and
their children shot and bludgeoned to death in the garage of their
Stettler, Alberta home. Cook, Raymond Cook's son by his first wife,
had been arrested in Edmonton a day earlier, and charged with
obtaining goods under false pretenses after he had traded the
family's station wagon for an Impala convertible. He escaped from
the Ponoka Mental Institution after he was denied permission to
attend the family's funerals. He was found several days later
hiding at a pig farm near Bashaw, Alberta. It took 18 months and
two trials for Cook to be convicted; he maintained his innocence up
until his execution.
This cache is part of the Legacy Trail produced by the Canadian
Badlands Geocaching Association for the Best of the Bad Mega
Event.
The Legacy Trail
The Legacy Trail is a collection of geocaches that circles its
way over 100 miles on country roads traversing some of the most
scenic and spectacular landscape in this part of the Canadian
Badlands. A large number of caches in a variety of types, sizes and
difficulty are placed on the Trail. Every town, village and hamlet
in the Canadian Badlands has its own cache. Some caches were named
after local historic events and people, as well as celebrities who
grew up in this area. Some caches were sponsored by geocachers who
attended the Best of the Bad Mega Event. The Legacy Trail was
produced by the Canadian Badlands Geocaching Association for the
Best of the Bad Mega Event.
The Canadian Badlands
The Canadian Badlands in Alberta are like no other place on
earth, home to the world's most extensive dinosaur bonebeds,
badlands and hoodoos, and a world-class museum that shelters a 75
million-year-old legacy. The region is rich in culturally and
historically significant sites that tell the story of the First
Nations people and early settlers, and of a complex and diverse
modern society that is still deeply rooted in the spirit of the
frontier.
