Billy's Last Words

SEQUELS Billy's Last Words

When he was a five-year-old boy in Joplin, Mo., William Edward Cook was pushed out into the world on his own; his ne'er-do-well father abandoned him in a deserted mine cave. Because he had a deformed right eyelid nobody wanted to adopt him. By the time Billy was 21 he had served time in both Missouri reform schools and the state penitentiary, had the words H-A-R-D L-U-C-K tattooed on the fingers of his left hand and had resolved to "live by the gun." During a murderous, 22-day rampage Billy vented his rage at society (TIME, Jan. 22, 1951).

Coursing around the country in stolen cars, he kidnaped nine people, killed six of them. He threw five of his victims--Carl Mosser of Atwood, Ill., his wife and three children--down a well in Joplin. He shot the sixth. Seattle Salesman Robert Dewey, on the Southern California desert. He was caught in Mexico, returned to Oklahoma City to answer for the Mosser killings, and sentenced to 300 years in prison. But last year a California jury sentenced him to death for killing Salesman Dewey. Last week Billy Cook walked into the gas chamber at San Quentin, breathed cyanide fumes and paid the penalty for murder. "I hate everybody's guts." he said at the time of his arrest, "and everybody hates mine."

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