Nathaniel Cook has never been convicted of murder. In April 2000, before he and his older brother Anthony were to stand trial in Toledo, Ohio, the two men agreed to confess to the killings they had committed in Lucas County. Under that agreement Nathaniel admitted taking part in three killings with his brother in 1980 and 1981: those of Tom Gordon, Connie Sue Thompson and Dawn Rene Backes, who was 12. His own convictions are narrower. He pleaded guilty to kidnapping and attempted murder in the May 1980 abduction in which Gordon died, the Associated Press and WNWO NBC24 reported, and he was sentenced to 21 to 75 years, with the promise that he would be freed after 20.
That promise was kept. On August 9, 2018, a Lucas County judge ruled that she had found no legal basis to block the release, and Nathaniel Cook left prison under court supervision and a duty to register as a sexual predator. His brother Anthony, convicted in 1982 of murdering Peter Sawicki of Ottawa Hills and later convicted in the Gordon killing, was still in prison in December 2024, when a parole hearing for him was postponed.
Anthony and Nathaniel Cook both worked as long-haul truck drivers, the Associated Press and WTOL reported. Anthony was the older of the two. He later confessed that his first killing came years before his brother was involved: the abduction and killing of Vicki Small in Toledo on December 20, 1973, a case that stayed unsolved until his confession in 2000.
Nathaniel was reported as 56 in February 2015 and 59 in 2018. Little has been made public about his early life.
By the brothers' own account, as summarized by the Associated Press, Nathaniel took part in the first three killings of the series that began in 1980 and then stopped. He told investigators the killing of Dawn Backes was his last. WTOL reported that by late 1981 he no longer wanted to take part, though the reasons were not clear, and that he had no known contact with the police from then until his arrest in 1998. Anthony went on until his arrest in the fall of 1981.
The killings that the brothers later confessed to began on May 14, 1980, WTOL reported. Tom Gordon and a young woman who was with him were abducted in Toledo. Gordon was shot dead. The young woman survived, and the evidence kept from that night would, 18 years later, provide the case that brought both brothers to court.
In his confession Nathaniel admitted that he was the one who shot Gordon, according to the Associated Press and WTOL. One WTOL report dates the abduction to May 13; other WTOL reports give May 14.
Gordon's family stayed with the case for decades. In 2018 his sister told the court on the day of Nathaniel Cook's release that he and his brother had admitted killing her brother, that she believed Nathaniel had been involved in more than he admitted, and that she saw "no remorse in him whatsoever."
Connie Sue Thompson was 18, according to WTOL. She was strangled. Her death came about eight months after the Gordon attack, the station reported. Detective Frank Stiles connected her killing to the Gordon case early on because of the similarities between the two attacks, WTOL reported, years before anyone could prove who was responsible.
Nathaniel confessed to taking part in her killing with his brother. In the Associated Press account, he admitted strangling a woman the brothers had abducted. Her relatives remained part of the case into 2018. Her sister-in-law told WTVG 13abc that year that "evil is not a strong enough word to describe him," and a friend said she hoped he would stay in prison.
Dawn Rene Backes was 12 years old and a student at Gesu in Toledo. She was abducted in Toledo in February 1981 and beaten to death. She was the youngest victim in the series.
Her mother described her to WTOL as a kind child who said her prayers every night. A classmate told the station years later that the killing ended the childhood innocence of the children at Gesu, and another classmate wrote a poem in her memory.
Nathaniel confessed that he took part in Dawn's killing with Anthony. According to the Associated Press, he told investigators it was the last killing he took part in. For the families, the girl's death became the hardest part of the 2000 bargain. In 2018 her mother told the Associated Press that there was no reason to free a man who had admitted a part in her daughter's death, and that Dawn had been used as a bargaining tool. Speaking to WTOL before a parole hearing for Anthony, she said the loss had never eased.
According to the brothers' confessions, as reported by the Associated Press, Nathaniel had no part in the killings that came after Dawn's. Anthony Cook, by his own later account, killed five more people before his arrest. Scott Moulton and Denise Siotkowski were killed in 1981. Stacey Balonek, 21, and her boyfriend, Daryle Cole, were beaten to death later that year; her family did not learn who was responsible until Anthony confessed, the Associated Press reported. On September 18, 1981, Peter Sawicki of Ottawa Hills was shot dead when he came to the aid of two young people attacked by Anthony.
Weeks later an informant turned on Anthony Cook, WTOL reported, and he was arrested after a stakeout by a team that included John Tharp, named in the report as Lucas County sheriff; Cook surrendered without a fight. A jury convicted him in March 1982 of murdering Sawicki, and he was sentenced to life in prison. The attacks stopped after his arrest.
Ohio's current death penalty law took effect on October 19, 1981, a month after Sawicki's death, WTOL noted, and Anthony was sentenced under the earlier law. Ohio also had no sentence of life without parole at the time, the Associated Press reported.
Investigators suspected the brothers for years but did not have the evidence to charge them, the Associated Press reported. The Gordon, Thompson and Backes cases and the later 1981 killings stayed open through the 1980s and most of the 1990s.
In October 1997, according to WTOL, Lucas County Prosecutor Julia Bates proposed testing biological evidence that had been kept from the old cases. The tests matched both brothers to the May 1980 attack. Blood samples and DNA linked them to one shooting death and to the attack on the survivor, the Associated Press reported, but not to the other killings. Nathaniel was arrested in early 1998, WTOL reported, and his sentence was counted from that year. Both brothers were charged in the Gordon case.
Before the trial, the brothers' lawyers asked Bates whether she would consider a deal, WTVG 13abc reported. Bates put the question to the victims' families, and they agreed. Under the agreement both brothers would confess fully to their crimes in Lucas County and pass polygraph examinations confirming their accounts, WTOL reported. In return Nathaniel would be released after 20 years. If it turned out that they had lied, WTOL reported, the deal would be withdrawn and neither brother would ever be released. The brothers offered their confessions in exchange for the chance of release for Nathaniel, the Associated Press reported, and the families accepted because the deal guaranteed both men prison time and gave them answers about who had killed their relatives.
Investigators and families saw the evidence in the older cases as uncertain, the Associated Press reported, and with no death penalty or life without parole available for crimes of that period, a conviction at trial would not necessarily have kept either brother in prison for life.
Nathaniel pleaded guilty to kidnapping and attempted murder in the May 1980 case. WNWO NBC24 later reported his sentence as 21 to 75 years. In the words the Associated Press quoted from the agreement, he was to be "freed after he's finished serving 20 years." Bates agreed not to oppose that release, the Associated Press reported. Anthony was convicted in the Gordon killing and is serving two life sentences.
The brothers' confessions were recorded on videotape on April 3, 2000, WTOL reported. In close to three hours of interviews they told detectives about nine killings: the eight in Lucas County from 1980 and 1981 and the 1973 killing of Vicki Small, to which Anthony confessed. Nathaniel admitted taking part in three: Tom Gordon, Connie Sue Thompson and Dawn Backes. Anthony also described further attacks and attempted abductions.
The Lucas County prosecutor's office kept the tapes out of circulation, out of concern that repeated airing would hurt the victims and families again. When WTOL later obtained them, the station released only parts and left out any passage in which a killing or an assault was described. WTOL reported that Anthony showed no remorse on the tapes and described the crimes calmly, and Stiles said the same.
In 2018 Nathaniel said that he and his brother never talked about the other killings and that he had tried to put them out of his mind, the Associated Press reported.
When Anthony was denied parole in February 2015, WNWO NBC24 reported that Nathaniel, then 56, was serving 21 to 75 years and was due for release in 2018.
Detectives, working with the FBI, spent part of those two decades trying to tie the brothers to other unsolved killings, the Associated Press reported in 2018. They pursued about six strong leads, hoping to convict Nathaniel in another case so that he would never be paroled. "We always thought within 20 years we could come up with something," Stiles told the Associated Press. They did not.
By 2018 the case was before Judge Linda Jennings of the Lucas County Court of Common Pleas. In February, as the 20 years ran out, Nathaniel's attorney, Peter Rost, filed a motion for judicial release based on the plea agreement, WTVG 13abc reported. His lawyers argued that the agreement required the court to release him and cited a ruling of the Supreme Court of Ohio that generally applies the principles of contract law to plea agreements, the Associated Press reported.
Bates said she had expected the motion. She told the Associated Press she could not undo the deal: a prosecutor who broke her word, she argued, would damage trust in every prosecutor who came after. She stressed that she had agreed only not to oppose Nathaniel's release, not to support or recommend it, and said she did not regret the decision, recalling how relatives had reacted at the sentencing. About a month before the first hearing she met with the victims' families, with a therapy dog in the room, so that they would not be caught off guard. Her office sought restrictions if he were freed, including classification as a sexual predator, electronic monitoring and mental health counseling, WTVG 13abc reported.
The families wrote letters asking the judge to keep him in prison or, if she could not, to place strict limits on him. At the March hearing, the brother of Scott Moulton said he felt he was his brother's voice. The brother of Stacey Balonek told the Associated Press that Nathaniel did not deserve freedom and should have spoken up once he knew what his brother was doing. Scott Moulton's sister said the families had dreaded the day: "We've dreaded it, but we agreed to it."
On March 8, 2018, Nathaniel Cook appeared in court, shackled and in an orange jail jumpsuit, for the first time since the plea nearly two decades earlier. Judge Jennings ordered an evaluation first, to help decide whether he would have to register as a sex offender, which would require him to report his address every 90 days if freed. She set the next hearing for April 19.
On August 9, 2018, Judge Jennings granted the release. "Frankly, Mr. Cook, I was trying to find a legal basis to prevent your release," she told him. "Unfortunately, I found none." She said she was forced to comply with the agreement reached 18 years earlier. Cook showed no visible reaction, the Associated Press reported.
The judge placed him on five years of community control. He was to spend the first six months in a work-release program, living in a dormitory, and wear an electronic monitor for a year. As a sexual predator he must register his address every 90 days, in person, with the sheriff of each Ohio county where he lives, WTOL and the Associated Press reported. The judge warned that any violation would send him straight back to prison, WNWO NBC24 reported.
Bates, who had been involved with the case for nearly 40 years, said her office had tried to give the families "a modicum, a scintilla of justice." She told WTOL the process could not undo what the families had suffered.
Tom Gordon's sister spoke against the ruling, and the woman who survived the 1980 attack also addressed the court and said she feared for other people. Tom Luettke of the county's criminal justice coordinating council acknowledged the community's worry: most prisoners come home eventually, he said, and support services can help a person change, but "there's always that concern." Nathaniel planned to live with one of his two sisters in Toledo and to get a driver's license, and a job at Goodwill Industries was a possibility.
Nathaniel Cook has stayed in Toledo since his release. A WTOL investigation published around the 40th anniversary of the killings reported that he was listed on Ohio's sex offender registry, that several employers had let him go after victims' relatives told them who he was, and that police said there had been no complaints about him since his release. His mandatory drug testing had ended. He refused to apologize or express regret. In a short conversation at his door, his first interview in 20 years by his own account, he told the station, "I did my time," said he wanted to get on with his life, and said he had always had religion. A man who said he was a member of the Cook family later told the station that relatives had received death threats and asked the public not to target family members who had done nothing.
Some families told WTOL they had come to regret the agreement and had not expected Nathaniel to be freed, and others said they never had their day in court. When WTOL later released parts of the confession tapes, ahead of a parole hearing for Anthony, it reported that Nathaniel had lived without incident in Toledo since 2018.
Because Anthony Cook was sentenced under the law that came before Ohio's death penalty statute and before life without parole, his life sentences carry parole eligibility, WTOL reported. The Ohio Parole Board denied him parole in February 2015 and set his next review for 2025, WNWO NBC24 reported. A hearing set for December 5, 2024, was moved to March 2025, WTVG 13abc reported, and WTOL reported that he had refused to meet the board. Before the hearing Bates said she had not, in 48 years at her job, seen anyone worse, and she said she was fairly confident he would not be released. Stiles, who called Anthony the worst person he had investigated in a career of thousands of arrests, said that if Anthony were freed he would kill again.
Before one of Anthony's parole hearings, relatives and friends gathered for a mass at Gesu Catholic Church in Toledo, where Dawn had been a student, around a photograph of the nine victims surrounded by nine flowers and nine candles. Scott Moulton's sister said there that it would start again if Anthony were released. Stiles, the retired Toledo detective who led the investigation, called the killings the most unbelievable in the city's history.
Stiles, who became chief investigator for the Lucas County prosecutor's office, told the story in a book, Evil Brothers. He spoke about it at the Toledo library in February 2009 in a talk recorded by WGTE's Knowledge Stream service.
Nathaniel's sentence is reported in different ways. WNWO NBC24 gave it as 21 to 75 years; WTVG 13abc said he was ordered to serve 20 years; and the Associated Press described an additional 18-year sentence.
Some reports overstate his convictions. A WTVG 13abc report in 2024 said Nathaniel had been convicted of one killing, and a Toledo News Now report said both brothers pleaded guilty to all nine killings. The Associated Press and WNWO NBC24 give his pleas as kidnapping and attempted murder in the 1980 case.
Dates differ in places. WTOL reports give both May 13 and May 14, 1980, for the Gordon killing, and both February 21 and February 22, 1981, for Dawn's.
Police tallies run higher than the confessions. WTOL reported that police believed Anthony killed at least 10 people and that investigators' later accounting tied Nathaniel to four killings, one more than he confessed to. Police believed there might be other victims elsewhere in the country, WTOL reported, and the station listed several other unsolved cases from the period that investigators had attributed to the brothers; the brothers denied involvement in some of them and did not confess to the others. No charge has been brought against Nathaniel Cook in any of those cases. Investigators also attributed to both brothers a nonfatal attack in January 1981, WTOL reported; it was not charged against Nathaniel.
The count of killings in the agreement is given as eight Lucas County homicides from 1980 and 1981, plus the 1973 killing of Vicki Small, for nine in all. The Associated Press divided them as three in which Nathaniel took part and five others by Anthony, with Anthony already convicted of a further killing, the Sawicki murder. WTVG 13abc reported in 2024 that Anthony was convicted of two murders in 2000 and confessed to seven others.
December 20, 1973: Vicki Small is abducted and killed in Toledo; Anthony Cook confesses to her killing in 2000.
May 14, 1980: Tom Gordon is abducted with a young woman in Toledo and shot dead; she survives. Nathaniel later confesses that he shot Gordon.
1980 to 1981: Connie Sue Thompson is killed. Nathaniel later confesses to taking part.
February 1981: Dawn Rene Backes, 12, a Gesu student, is killed in Toledo. Nathaniel later confesses to taking part and says it was his last killing.
1981: Scott Moulton and Denise Siotkowski, then Stacey Balonek and Daryle Cole, are killed; Anthony later confesses to these killings without his brother.
September 18, 1981: Peter Sawicki is shot dead in Ottawa Hills.
Fall 1981: Anthony Cook is arrested after an informant comes forward.
October 19, 1981: Ohio's current death penalty law takes effect.
March 1982: Anthony is convicted of murdering Peter Sawicki and sentenced to life.
October 1997: Prosecutor Julia Bates proposes DNA testing of evidence from the old cases.
Early 1998: Nathaniel Cook is arrested after DNA links both brothers to the May 1980 attack.
April 3, 2000: The brothers' videotaped confessions are recorded.
2000: Nathaniel pleads guilty to kidnapping and attempted murder and is sentenced to 21 to 75 years, with release promised after 20; Anthony is convicted in the Gordon killing.
February 2009: Stiles speaks about his book Evil Brothers at the Toledo library.
February 2015: Anthony is denied parole; next review set for 2025.
February 2018: Nathaniel's lawyer files for judicial release.
March 8, 2018: First court appearance since 2000; an evaluation is ordered.
August 9, 2018: Judge Linda Jennings grants release; five years of community control; classified a sexual predator.
December 5, 2024: Anthony's parole hearing is postponed to March 2025.