Robert Raymond Cook

After officials declined to issue a reprieve, Robert was hanged in 1960. He was the last person to be executed by the province of Alberta.

After officials declined to grant a reprieve, Robert was hanged at the Fort Saskatchewan Provincial Gaol just after midnight on November 15, 1960. He was pronounced dead at 12:19 AM. The case has been the subject of several books and two plays.

On June 28, 1959, police discovered Raymond Cook, 53, his wife, 37-year-old Daisy Cook, and their five children: Gerald, 9, Patrick William, 8, Christopher Fred, 7, Kathy, 5, and Linda Mae, 3, dead. The adults had been shot with a double-barrelled shotgun. The children had been bludgeoned to death with the rifle butt. The bodies were found in the grease pit of their garage in Stettler, Alberta. The victims were in their nightwear and blood was found on the mattresses, indicating that the massacre happened as the family was sleeping. The massacre had been committed three days earlier.

Just after midnight on July 11, 1959, Robert escaped from the Ponoka Mental Institution he was detained in, for a psychiatric assessment, after he had been denied permission to attend the funerals of his family. Robert's escape sparked one of the biggest manhunts in Alberta history. Officials had 100 members of the RCMP, police dogs, 50 soldiers from the local militia, and aircraft search for Robert. Several days later, he was found hiding in a pig farm near Bashaw, Alberta.

In December 1959, Robert was found guilty of murder and received a mandatory death sentence. He won a retrial on appeal, but was found guilty of murder once more in June 1960. The jury did not make a recommendation of mercy either time. The prosecutor, John Wallace Anderson, said Robert was one of the quickest thinking defendants he'd ever met.

Robert had been arrested in Stettler the day before and charged with obtaining goods under false pretences, after he had traded the family's 1958 Chevrolet station wagon for a 1959 Impala convertible. Inside the trunk, the police found birth certificates, insurance policies, Raymond Cook's marriage certificate, and the report cards of the children. Robert also had a suitcase with four sets of children's pyjamas, new bed sheets, and a photo album with pictures of his mother. When the officers asked Robert where his parents were, he repeatedly changed his story. At one point, he claimed his father gave him $4100, and that the family had moved to British Columbia. However, the best friend of Raymond Cook said he knew nothing about this plan.

Robert Raymond Cook (July 15, 1937 – November 15, 1960) was a Canadian mass murderer who was convicted of killing his father, Raymond Cook, in Stettler, Alberta, on June 25, 1959. It is alleged that Cook massacred his entire family at their home in Stettler, but was only charged with killing his father. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death.