Carl and Thelma Mosser and their three children left their Atwood, Illinois, home on Friday afternoon, December 29, 1950, headed for New Mexico, to visit relatives. A few days later, family members in Illinois received postcards from the Mossers postmarked Claremore and Tulsa, Oklahoma. However, the Mossers still had not reached their destination in New Mexico, and relatives began to worry.
About noon on January 3, 1951, the Mossers’ bullet-ridden and blood-spattered 1949 Chevy was found abandoned in a ditch on the northwest edge of Tulsa. The mother and father's drivers' licenses and other identifying items were found in the car, but there was no trace of the Mossers themselves. Investigators had little doubt that they were looking at a case of mass murder, but where the bodies were and who the killer was remained mysteries.
On January 4, the search for the Mossers switched to Claremore, where it was learned the family had spent the previous Friday night and had eaten breakfast the next morning. They had not been seen since. Later that day, law officers again shifted their focus, this time to the Oklahoma City area. A Texas man named Archer told investigators he had been robbed and had his car stolen near Luther, Oklahoma, on Saturday by a hitchhiker he’d picked up in Texas. A farmer named Mackey living in the Luther area, reported that he’d seen a man abandon Archer’s car, wave down a vehicle with an Illinois license, and climb into the latter vehicle, which was carrying a man, a woman, and several kids. Taken to Tulsa, Mackey tentatively identified the bullet-ridden Chevy as the car he’d seen the hitchhiker climb into. In addition, Archer’s description of the hijacker generally matched the description of a man whom a Tulsa resident had seen near the abandoned vehicle northwest of Tulsa.
A search of Archer’s automobile turned up an even stronger lead in the case. Found in the vehicle was a sales slip for a .32 caliber revolver purchased in El Paso, Texas. It was the same type of weapon believed used in the Mosser crime, and the slip showed the gun was purchased by W. E. Cook, Jr.
Authorities were on the right track in identifying the hijacker. William E. “Bill” Cook, Jr. was indeed the villain who had waylaid the Mosser family. Growing up in Joplin, Missouri, Cook was left adrift as a small child and started getting into trouble before he was even a teenager. He ended up in the reformatory and later the Missouri State Prison.
Cook or “Cookie,” as he was sometimes called, was released from prison in the summer of 1950. He returned briefly to Joplin but soon set out for California. On Christmas Day of 1950, Cook got drunk and hitchhiked from Blythe, California, to Mexico. After trying unsuccessfully to get a girl to come with him, he hitchhiked back to the United States. Near Lubbock, Texas, he abducted Archer and forced him to drive to the Oklahoma City area, where he robbed Archer, abandoned Archer’s car, and flagged down the Mossers.
After waylaying the Mosser family, Cook forced Carl Mosser to drive west through Oklahoma into Texas. At Wichita Falls, Cook and Mosser went into a store, where Mosser started yelling for help, but the storekeeper thought the two men were playacting. Cook pulled his gun and forced Mosser back into the car. The pell-mell journey continued back and forth across the country until Cook and his captives ended up back in his hometown of Joplin in the wee hours of January 2, 1951. Cook was stopped at the side of a street in the southwest part of town when a Joplin police car came by and flashed its spotlight on the Mosser car. Cook later claimed he was getting ready to release his hostages, but, when the police came by, Mrs. Mosser and her kids started screaming and Cook started shooting after the police car drove on past. After killing all five members of the family, Cook took the wheel and drove around Joplin an hour or so before dumping the bodies in an abandoned mine shaft in the neighborhood where he grew up.
He then drove to Tulsa and abandoned the Mosser vehicle later that day. He got a lift into Tulsa and from there made his way to California riding buses and hitchhiking. Meanwhile, the search for the Mossers expanded from the Tulsa and Oklahoma City area to all of Oklahoma and into surrounding states.
On Saturday, January 6, Cook waylaid and killed a motorist named Dewey in southern California. On January 15, Cook was captured in Mexico and quickly brought back to the United States. The same day authorities found the bodies of the Mossers at the bottom of the abandoned mine shaft on the west side of Joplin. Cook soon gave a full confession to having killed not only the Mossers but also Mr. Dewey.
The confessed killer was brought back to Oklahoma City, where he pleaded guilty to kidnapping and killing the Mossers. The judge sentenced him to 300 years in federal prison.
Cook was released to California authorities to stand trial on state charges of murdering Robert Dewey. At his trial in November 1951 at El Centro, he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. He was executed in the gas chamber at San Quentin on December 12, 1952.
This is a condensed version of the chapter in my book.
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