RACHEL COOKE GEORGETOWN TEXAS

[texasx]

The purpose of this webpage and all other continuing efforts is to bring Rachel Cooke home to her family.
January 10, 2002
Rachel, an accomplished cross-country runner, left her home in the Northlake development on FM 3405 northwest of Georgetown, Texas (north of Austin) on the morning of Thursday, January 10, 2002, to go on her usual 3-4 mile morning jog around the neighborhood. Sometime around 11 AM, near the end of her run and possibly within 200 yards of home, she disappeared.
$50,000 REWARD

Please contact the Williamson County Sheriff's Office 512-943-1300, Crime Stoppers 1-800-253-STOP, or email us with any information to help find Rachel. What's New Event calendar.
Investigating Missing Persons Conference.
Missing Persons National Round Table Conference.
Convicted killer Michael Keith Moore may be involved in Rachel Cooke's disappearance. Read more.
Free M.U.S.T. Women/Teen self-defense seminar. Sunday, June 24, 2007. Read more.
Robert Cooke joins the Natalee Holloway Search. Read more.
Please visit the Rachel Alert Network.
Law enforcement training on missing person cases from the National Center for Missing Adults and Fox Valley Technical College. Read more
Read the LONDON OBSERVER article on Rachel.
Rachel Alert Network fundraiser cookbook. Read more
The 2004 Run/Walk for Rachel was held on May 15, 2004. Read more
Gratitude and Remembrance Vigil on January 10, 2004. Read more.
View slideshow of Rachel's pictures.
Robert Cooke and John Bish attend National DNA Initiative Meeting.
Read the Search for Rachel Journal
A new guest book has been added. See the bottom of this page.
New media links page created. Read more
The Cookes attended The TEXAS LEGISLATIVE CAUCUS FOR MISSING AND EXPLOITED CHILDREN. Read more
The Cookes are members of a special club. A club that no one wants to join. Read more
Rachel's family appeared on THE JOHN WALSH SHOW Friday, October 25, 2002. Read more
The Cookes attended the first White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and Runaway Children in Washington D.C. Read more

</DIV>

[Starless]

http://www.news8austin.com/content/h...228760&SecID=2

Finding closure in a tragedy is an unimaginable task to cope with and it's even more difficult to move on in life when there are looming unanswered questions.

The Cooke family has lived in that void for seven years.
"I've had people tell me to just get over it. What they don't understand is she's a piece of my heart. When you take it out, you never get over it," Rachel Cooke's mother, Janet said.

Rachel Cooke was 19-years-old when she went on a morning jog and never returned home.
"She'd probably have her own boutique or line of fashion wear," Janet said.
Many questions remain but both parents are certain that someone is still at large.
"Someone's still out there. Someone took her and they need to find him and bring him to justice," Robert Cooke said. "We'd also like to bring her home."
That need has driven the Cooke family to undertake endless walks, ceremonies and other public events for Rachel.

The family's most recent effort in finding answers is through a billboard. It contains the same information they've been giving for the last seven years. It advertises a $50,000 reward and a description of Rachel Cooke on the day she disappeared.
"I can't even imagine how anybody could hurt somebody with such a good heart. It just doesn't make sense," Janet Cooke said.
But the Cooke's aren't giving up just yet.
"It's not over. We don't know. Until I know, I'm going to keep going," she said.
Convicted murderer Michael Keith Moore confessed in 2006 to killing Rachel Cooke. But prosecutors dropped the murder charge after Moore pleaded not guilty during the trial. Cooke's family said right now the police have no promising leads.
They ask that if you have information about Rachel Cooke's disappearance, please call the Williamson County Sheriff's Office at (512) 943-1312.

[Starless]

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/local/w...w-10-years-old

GEORGETOWN, Texas (KXAN) - In the nearly 10 years since a Georgetown teenager vanished after going on a routine jog around the neighborhood, clues to her whereabouts are few and any hope that the mystery of her disappearance will be solved grows dimmer.

Rachel Cooke was home from college on Christmas break when she set out on what was supposed to be a three- or four-mile run on the morning of Jan. 10, 2002.

Her parents, Janet and Robert Cooke, were at work. At 11 a.m., a neighbor reported seeing Rachel cooling off from her run. She was about 200 yards from her home in the Northlake subdivision.

And that was the last time she was ever seen.

“The odds are that she (was) fairly close," Robert Cooke said said in a recent interview. "But we searched and we searched and tried for months. And after a while we couldn't go out any further. The circle kept getting bigger and bigger and bigger.”

Reward offers bring no answers

The Cookes would soon offer a $10,000 reward for information that might bring Rachel home. It would grow to $15,000, and then to $50,000. Searches by foot, horseback and helicopter turned up nothing .

One of the nation's leading missing-persons organizations, Equusearch , was brought in to assist state and local law-enforcement agencies.

Again nothing.

Now, Equusearch founder Tim Miller is laying the blame at the feet of then-Williamson County Sheriff John Maspero, who he said botched the most notorious missing person's case out of Williamson county.

"I think Maspero from the very beginning dropped the ball," Miller said, suggesting that the sheriff was too quick to dismiss Rachel as a runaway or a college girl who was looking to party.

"I think some mistakes were made early on with law enforcement without taking a missing person's report as early as they did" Miller said. "The sheriff made a huge, huge mistake.

"When the real search started, it was almost a cold case. Unfortunately it was almost a cold case."

Maspero, who is no longer in office and has left Williamson County, said in a telephone interview that Miller's assertions are unfounded.

“I brought in the finest people I could think of -- the Rangers, FBI, APD," Maspero said. "We went beyond the scope of what was called for, and I'm disappointed Rachel’s case is still unsolved.”

The closest anyone has come to solving the case was when a man convicted of murdering another Williamson County woman confessed to killing Rachel. He later recanted, saying he made up the story to curry favor with authorities.

Never-reported details

Through the years, investigators have questioned hundreds of people including Robert Cooke.

KXAN News recently learned that Robert Cooke was interrogated by investigators for five to six hours and failed a polygraph test.

He said an investigator asked the question: “Do you know where Rachel is?”

Cooke answered no, and failed the polygraph.

He blamed his religious beliefs, saying he believed Rachel was in heaven.

Cooke said he was frustrated with law enforcement from the beginning, claiming some investigators thought Rachel wasn’t really missing but perhaps just a college student partying on her Christmas break.

As the years pass, solving the case appears more difficult than ever. There's a new sheriff on the job and investigators continue to follow up on tips. But there are no suspects, no hard leads, and the case remains as cold as the winter day Rachel disappeared.

"Do I think they'll ever solve it? I don't know. Older ones have been solved," said Miller, whose organization was called in on such high-profile searches like missing Alabama student Natalie Holloway and, most recently, Florida toddler Caylee Anthony.

"Do I think her body will ever be found? It's going to be a tough one, it's going to be a tough one."

Tough, too, for Rachel's father, who also wonders if his daughter's disappearance will ever be solved.

"They found some place they were doing some digging but they don't think they found anything," Robert Cooke said, adding that "Holidays are especially difficult. Christmas is probably the worst. ...

"No parent wants to outlive their child."

The case remains open. Anyone with information should call 512-943-1300.

[Jace]

Help Find Rachel Cooke:

http://www.rachelcookesearch.org/






Name: Rachel Louise Cooke
Missing Since: January 10, 2002 at 11:00 a.m.
Age: 20
Missing From: Home in North Lake Area, Georgetown, Texas
Sex: female
Height: 5 ft 2 in
Weight: 120 lbs
Eye Color: hazel
Hair Color: blonde with auburn streaks
Race: white
Complexion: fair
Birth Date: May 10, 1982

Distinguishing Marks: Rachel Cooke has pierced ears and a pierced navel. Both ears have multiple piercings, one ear having an upper piercing. She has tattoos of two heart shaped cherries on her left shoulder and a black star on her left foot.
Clothing Description: Green sports top, grey shorts, Asics shoes, and carrying a yellow Walkman

[Starless]

http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/ne...ed-2450815.php

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Tuesday will mark the 10th year since 19-year-old Rachel Cooke went for a run near her Georgetown home and never returned.
Her parents' hearts still pound when the phone rings.
When their daughter, who ran cross country and hoped to someday start her own fashion line, first disappeared, that ringing phone kindled hope. Now, it provokes dread.
"The psychics keep calling," Robert Cooke, 57, said in a phone call from his home near Albany, N.Y., where he now works as a software engineer. "They're convinced they know this or that."
"Everybody has their own feelings about what happened, like it was near water or something. Unless they have specific information, I'm not interested," said Janet Cooke, 55, who still lives in Georgetown, though not in the home the Cookes had when Rachel was with them. The Cookes divorced and sold that house a few years after Rachel vanished.
It's not just psychics who call the Cookes. Anytime bones are found in Williamson County, their phones ring. Many of the unsettling calls come from the media.
"Somebody called me when they found that skull at the lake," Janet Cooke said, referring to a skull found in Lake Georgetown in October that was quickly determined to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. "It really caught me off guard."
The Williamson County sheriff's office still gets calls, too, but no good leads.
"We still get tips, and all those tips are followed up on," Sgt. John Foster said. "We don't have any solid good leads about her disappearance. All of our leads have been exhausted. We've had hundreds who've worked on the case, assisted on the case or helped search for Rachel."
Cooke family members want desperately to know what happened. In the beginning, when searches with dogs, a helicopter and people on horseback turned up nothing, the family did talk to psychics — they'd grasp at any straw — but the tips led nowhere, and they're tired of hearing vague clues. The person they want on the other end of that phone is someone who really knows something, and they're convinced such a person exists. So is Foster.
"We firmly believe somebody out there does know what happened to her," he said. "I wish the day would come that I could announce: 'We've found her, and we've made an arrest in her disappearance.'"
Elaine Cooke Hettenhausen and Diane Cooke, Robert Cooke's sisters, have a fat notebook filled with fliers from the various events publicizing Rachel's disappearance. Most feature a photo of a smiling Rachel that was cropped out of a larger photo taken with her cousins sitting on the couch in her home on Christmas Day 2001.
The fliers advertise a $50,000 reward that's still on the table. Still hoping for information, the sisters, who live in Austin, take every opportunity to talk about their missing niece. They've printed posters and T-shirts. The family also maintains a website: rachelcookesearch.org
"Somewhere, somebody knows something," Janet Cooke said. "We need to keep vigilant. You don't give up. A lot of people say, 'Go on with your life.' And I am, but that doesn't make it go away."
The sheriff's Victim Assistance Program is holding an event Sunday at the Georgetown Community Center so the family can thank those who have helped in the search over the years. The gathering also will put Rachel's name back on people's radar.
Family members struggle when they talk about that event. Do they call it a ceremony? A memorial?
"Do we say, 'Rachel is' or 'Rachel was'?" Diane Cooke mused, looking away as tears filled her eyes.
"I believe she's been dead from about the time she disappeared," Hettenhausen said. Both of Rachel Cooke's parents agree, but they haven't dismissed hope.
"Stranger things have happened," Janet Cooke said, "but I need to keep perspective. It's been 10 years."
As other long-lost young women have turned up alive in the past few years — Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard — the Cooke family has had no news, good or bad.
"We don't really know any more than we knew 10 years ago," Robert Cooke said.
In 2006, convicted murderer Michael Moore told authorities he killed Rachel Cooke, but he recanted and backed out of a plea agreement. The family now doesn't think Moore killed her, Hettenhausen said. They think someone who knew her might have been the culprit.
The sheriff's department still considers the case open, Hettenhausen said, but the family is frustrated that many people think the case is solved and don't give any thought to Rachel anymore.
Not a day goes by that the Cooke family doesn't remember the energetic teenager.
"There were never enough hours in the day for her," her father said, as he's said many times.
In the years since the disappearance, family members have dealt with the loss in different ways.
Rachel's younger sister, JoAnn, "threw herself into school," Diane Cooke said. JoAnn Cooke earned both a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Texas in social work and recently moved to New Mexico. Robert Cooke has kept a journal and made occasional appearances on TV shows to keep Rachel's name out. Janet Cooke taught school until this year, when she retired, saying the emotional strain of dealing with her daughter's long disappearance had worn her down.
"It has changed our family," Hettenhausen said. "Every time one of them gets married or has a baby, it's a wonderful event, but Robert and Janet have been robbed of this. We need to lay her to rest. We know her soul is at rest, but we need to physically lay her to rest."
"People with missing children don't want to hear the word 'closure,'" Robert Cooke said. "You never really have that. But having an answer will help."
"What it would do," Diane Cooke said, "is when the phone rings, Robert and Janet can finally stop jumping."


Read more: http://www.beaumontenterprise.com/ne...#ixzz1j27IF0QM

[Jace]

Ten years after teen's disappearance, ringing phone punctuates family's frustration


Published: 7:37 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012

Tuesday will mark the 10th year since 19-year-old Rachel Cooke went for a run near her Georgetown home and never returned. Her parents' hearts still pound when the phone rings.

When their daughter, who ran cross country and hoped to someday start her own fashion line, first disappeared, that ringing phone kindled hope. Now, it provokes dread.

"The psychics keep calling," Robert Cooke, 57, said in a phone call from his home near Albany, N.Y., where he now works as a software engineer. "They're convinced they know this or that."

"Everybody has their own feelings about what happened, like it was near water or something. Unless they have specific information, I'm not interested," said Janet Cooke, 55, who still lives in Georgetown, though not in the home the Cookes had when Rachel was with them. The Cookes divorced and sold that house a few years after Rachel vanished.

It's not just psychics who call the Cookes. Anytime bones are found in Williamson County, their phones ring. Many of the unsettling calls come from the media.

"Somebody called me when they found that skull at the lake," Janet Cooke said, referring to a skull found in Lake Georgetown in October that was quickly determined to be hundreds, if not thousands, of years old. "It really caught me off guard."

The Williamson County sheriff's office still gets calls, too, but no good leads.

"We still get tips, and all those tips are followed up on," Sgt. John Foster said. "We don't have any solid good leads about her disappearance. All of our leads have been exhausted. We've had hundreds who've worked on the case, assisted on the case or helped search for Rachel."

Cooke family members want desperately to know what happened. In the beginning, when searches with dogs, a helicopter and people on horseback turned up nothing, the family did talk to psychics — they'd grasp at any straw — but the tips led nowhere, and they're tired of hearing vague clues. The person they want on the other end of that phone is someone who really knows something, and they're convinced such a person exists. So is Foster.

"We firmly believe somebody out there does know what happened to her," he said. "I wish the day would come that I could announce: 'We've found her, and we've made an arrest in her disappearance.'"

Elaine Cooke Hettenhausen and Diane Cooke, Robert Cooke's sisters, have a fat notebook filled with fliers from the various events publicizing Rachel's disappearance. Most feature a photo of a smiling Rachel that was cropped out of a larger photo taken with her cousins sitting on the couch in her home on Christmas Day 2001.

The fliers advertise a $50,000 reward that's still on the table. Still hoping for information, the sisters, who live in Austin, take every opportunity to talk about their missing niece. They've printed posters and T-shirts. The family also maintains a website, rachelcookesearch.org.

"Somewhere, somebody knows something," Janet Cooke said. "We need to keep vigilant. You don't give up. A lot of people say, 'Go on with your life.' And I am, but that doesn't make it go away."

The sheriff's Victim Assistance Program is holding an event Sunday at the Georgetown Community Center so the family can thank those who have helped in the search over the years. The gathering also will put Rachel's name back on people's radar.

Family members struggle when they talk about that event. Do they call it a ceremony? A memorial?

"Do we say, 'Rachel is' or 'Rachel was'?" Diane Cooke mused, looking away as tears filled her eyes.

"I believe she's been dead from about the time she disappeared," Hettenhausen said. Both of Rachel Cooke's parents agree, but they haven't dismissed hope.

"Stranger things have happened," Janet Cooke said, "but I need to keep perspective. It's been 10 years."

As other long-lost young women have turned up alive in the past few years — Elizabeth Smart, Jaycee Dugard — the Cooke family has had no news, good or bad.

"We don't really know anymore than we knew 10 years ago," Robert Cooke said.

In 2006, convicted murderer Michael Moore told authorities he killed Rachel Cooke, but he recanted and backed out of a plea agreement. The family now doesn't think Moore killed her, Hettenhausen said. They think someone who knew her might have been the culprit.

The sheriff's department still considers the case open, Hettenhausen said, but the family is frustrated that many people think the case is solved and don't give any thought to Rachel anymore.

Not a day goes by that the Cooke family doesn't remember the energetic teenager.

"There were never enough hours in the day for her," her father said, as he's said many times.

In the years since the disappearance, family members have dealt with the loss in different ways. Rachel's younger sister, JoAnn, "threw herself into school," Diane Cooke said. JoAnn Cooke earned both a bachelor's and master's degree from the University of Texas in social work and recently moved to New Mexico. Robert Cooke has kept a journal and made occasional appearances on TV shows to keep Rachel's name out. Janet Cooke taught school until this year, when she retired, saying the emotional strain of dealing with her daughter's long disappearance had worn her down.

"It has changed our family," Hettenhausen said. "Every time one of them gets married or has a baby, it's a wonderful event, but Robert and Janet have been robbed of this. We need to lay her to rest. We know her soul is at rest, but we need to physically lay her to rest."

"People with missing children don't want to hear the word 'closure,'" Robert Cooke said. "You never really have that. But having an answer will help."

"What it would do," Diane Cooke said, "is when the phone rings, Robert and Janet can finally stop jumping."

handers@statesman.com; 912-2590

http://www.statesman.com/news/willia...05.html?page=2


Rachel Cooke ceremony of appreciation

The family and the Williamson County sheriff's office will thank everyone who has helped search for Rachel Cooke, missing since Jan. 10, 2002. The event is at 2 p.m. Sunday at the Georgetown Community Center, San Gabriel Park, 445 E. Morrow St.

[Jace]

Rachel Cooke missing for 13 years.

Saturday marked 13 years since Rachel Cooke of Georgetown went missing. The college student was home for the holidays, went on a morning run and never returned.

Saturday evening, friends and family gathered outside Georgetown High School at tree dedicated in Rachel’s honor in 2003. No matter how many years pass, they'll never stop looking for answers.
"She was a beautiful, beautiful young lady, and she had a future ahead of her and it was stolen,” said Janet Cooke, Rachel’s mother.

With her hands shaking from the cold, Janet, read a short story Rachel wrote about a family trip to her aunt and uncle’s farm in 1995.
"I laughed so hard that my face turned red, and my legs were barely holding me up," Janet read.
On January 10, 2002, 19-year-old Cooke went for a jog in Georgetown and never came home.
"The day that it happened... I'll never forget the way I felt, and it has never left me," said Michael Wright, who has known Rachel since 6th grade.
"This year, in particular, has been especially rough on me, but like Rachel I'm a fighter," Janet said.
In November, Rachel's father, Robert, passed away.
"He has answers now, but I want everybody to have the answer," Janet told friends.
Friends and family laid pink carnations at the foot of the tree they dedicated to Rachel more than a decade ago.
"I love you, baby girl," said Janet, as she kissed her hand and touched the stone placed at the foot of the tree. On the stone is a plaque inscribed with the words, "Rachel Lousie Cooke. Missing since January 10, 2002. Class of 2000."


Rachel’s friends and family know someone has the answers they're looking for, and they won't stop searching until they know what happened.
"I appreciate each and every one of you guys being here with me. We are going to keep on keeping on," Janet said.
"I know, no matter what… I'm still going to have hope and I'm still going to keep looking for answers until I'm no longer around," said Wright.


The Georgetown Sheriff's Office says the Rachel Cooke case is still an active investigation. Her family hopes anyone who has just the smallest bit of information about Rachel's disappearance will speak up.


http://www.keyetv.com/news/features/...rs-23429.shtml

[Starless]

Possible blood found in car linked to Rachel Cooke’s disappearance

https://www.statesman.com/news/local...s58YJGLMmxaOJ/


FBI investigators have found the possible presence of blood in a car linked to the case of Rachel Cooke, who has been missing from Williamson County since January 2002, according to a sheriff’s news release.
An item on the passenger floorboard of a white 1998 Pontiac Trans Am and an item on the passenger door molding of the car both tested positive in preliminary tests for the possible presence of blood, the Williamson County sheriff’s release said.
The car was found in the Dallas area in the spring after authorities received a tip about the case. It was taken back to Williamson County, where FBI forensic analysts spent hours collecting possible evidence that was then sent to the FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Va.

Further testing is being conducted but the full details of the results will not be released to protect the integrity of the investigation, the release said.


No arrests have been made in the Cooke case. The then-19-year-old disappeared after she went jogging alone near her parents’ Georgetown home on Jan. 10, 2002. The California college student was home for Christmas break.
Anyone with information about Cooke is asked to call 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324) or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov or contact your local FBI office or the nearest American Embassy or consulate.
A $100,000 reward is being offered for information leading to her location.