William "Billy Boy" Cook - a picture from the past

The story of William Edward Cook's formative years is truly a hard luck story; after his mother died when he was five-years-old, his alcoholic father abandoned his eight children in a disused mineshaft. While Cook's siblings were all taken into foster care, he was rejected due to his deformed eye. He eventually became a ward of court, after a period in reform school in his adolescent years, he ended up in state prison for robbery and was released at the age of 21. Returning to his hometown of Joplin, Missouri to meet his father, he expressed an ambition to "live by the gun and roam", he drifted across the south western United States, picking up a gun along the way. After botched attempts at robbery and carjacking led to the murder of six people, he went on the run and was eventually arrested in Mexico, sent back to US and executed in San Quentin prison.
Illustration: Photograph: Allan Grant/ Time & Life Pictures/ Getty Images