Partners in Crime: The Violent and Bloody Legacy of the Cook Brothers
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, two brothers embarked on a bloody reign of terror in Toledo, Ohio. Nearly two decades later, DNA evidence would help to seal their fate
Background
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, a disturbing series of abductions, assaults, rapes, and murders plagued the city of Toledo, Ohio, and the surrounding areas. The perpetrators would turn out to be a pair of brothers, one of whom had a long and troubled criminal history, while the other one had nothing more than traffic violations on his record. Before it was all said and done, Anthony and Nathaniel Cook would claim nine innocent lives and terrorize many more. This is the violent and bloody tale of the Cook brothers.
A Troubled Start
Born in Mobile, Alabama, in March 1949, Anthony Cook was the third child of Hayes and Marjorie Cook. When Anthony was very young, his family relocated to Ohio. The Cooks would go on to have six more children, including a younger brother named Nathaniel, born nine years after Anthony, before divorcing in 1959. Their mother did her best to make ends meet, but with so many children to care for, the older siblings had to take on part-time jobs to help support the family.
The family took another blow in 1965 when one of the eldest children, Hayes III, was arrested and convicted on charges of rape and sentenced to 7 to 25 years in prison. Anthony, a teenager at the time, was already following a similar path as his older brother.
By his teenage years, Anthony had already earned a less-than-savory reputation for purse-snatching, inappropriately touching a neighborhood girl, and performing poorly in school. A few years after Hayes was arrested, Anthony was arrested for robbing an innocent passerby.
Likely in part due to his age, Anthony was sent to a mental facility rather than incarcerated. While there, Anthony was diagnosed with early-onset schizophrenia. Around a week after his release, Anthony was in custody again after he assaulted and robbed a 61-year-old woman. The judge was much less forgiving this time around, and Anthony was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison.
Escelating Violence
In 1973, Anthony was paroled just a few years into his sentence. He was able to stay out of trouble for a few months, but there was something much darker brewing. On December 20th, the city of Toledo, Ohio, was being blitzed by a snowstorm. Anthony went out for a late-night drive, and he had one mission: to seek an even bigger thrill.
Just before 2 a.m., Anthony came across 21-year-old Vicki Lynn Small, caught out in the snow and trying to make her way home. Anthony offered her a ride to her apartment, and Vicki accepted. Instead, Anthony drove her to a park in central Toledo. Once there, he physically and sexually assaulted Vicki. When he was finished, he shot her six times and dumped her body behind a nearby golf club.
Her body was found only four hours later, but with no physical evidence aside from bullets recovered at the scene and mismanagement of the case by police, the trail quickly turned as cold as the weather.
The following year, Anthony was arrested once more for robbing two people at gunpoint. He was sentenced to five years in prison and was released on parole in 1979. Surprisingly, he did not immediately return to his old ways. Instead, he got a job, and he even got married to a local teacher. It seemed like things were turning around for him, but in reality, Anthony was about to turn things around for someone else in the worst way possible.
Corrupting Influence
Being nearly 10 years apart, Nathaniel and Anthony didn’t have much in common growing up. After their parents separated and the older siblings were forced to take on part-time jobs, Anthony and Nathaniel saw even less of each other.
The distance widened further when the younger children temporarily relocated to California for a few years in the early 1970s, a time during which Anthony was in and out of jail. Without the influence of his troublemaking older brothers, Nathaniel grew into a quiet but well-behaved kid.
He had no disciplinary issues, but he did struggle to make friends. Nathaniel dropped out of high school, and though he planned to join the military, he never actually enlisted. Despite his social struggles, Nathaniel had maintained a clean record and kept himself out of trouble. As an adult, he’d only ever been cited for traffic violations, and he had no history of violent behavior whatsoever.
After Anthony was paroled in 1979, he decided to reach out and reconnect with Nathaniel. Having struggled to make friends, Nathaniel accepted his brother’s bid for a connection, and the two began spending time together often. Nathaniel may have thought of this as an opportunity to escape his loneliness; however, for Anthony, this was an opportunity to turn his kid brother into his partner-in-crime.
Partners in Crime
In May of 1980, the Cook brothers would perpetrate their first shared attack on a couple in North Toledo. Thomas Gordon, 24, and his 18-year-old girlfriend were carjacked at gunpoint. They drove the couple to the outskirts of the county and into a wooded area.
There, they shot and killed Thomas before taking turns raping his girlfriend. The brothers then stabbed her before fleeing. Remarkably, she survived the ordeal- one of the first victims of the Cook brothers, and one of the few survivors. Gordon’s body was found in the trunk of a car in Western Lucas County.
The thrill of their first attack kept the brothers satiated for a while, but when the new year rolled around, they were ready to strike again. On January 3rd, 1981, 19-year-old Connie Sue Thompson was hitchhiking near Toledo and accepted a ride from the Cook brothers.
Once again, they drove their victim to the outskirts of the county and raped her. This time, they took it a step further- they murdered Connie and threw her body off a bridge, discarding the young woman like trash.
Crime Spree
On January 27th, the Cook brothers struck again. As 18-year-old Cheryl Bartlett Fann and her 22-year-old fiancé, Bud Coates, were walking home, Anthony approached them on the street and produced a gun. Bud tried to keep Cheryl calm, but she knew they were in grave danger.
They offered Anthony their valuables, but he wanted more. He forced the couple to cover their faces with ski masks and led them down an alley to a garage. Nathaniel emerged from the shadows, and after restraining Bud, they raped Cheryl repeatedly while her fiancé looked on in terror. When they were finished, they forced Bud to hold Cheryl still and then shot her in the back.
After the gun ran out of bullets, Anthony and Nathaniel fled, leaving Cheryl severely injured and both she and Bud traumatized, but alive. The spree continued into February, when Anthony coerced Dawn Rene Backes, only 12 years old, into his car. Nathaniel arrived after the abduction, and they drove Dawn to an abandoned theater nearby.
They spent hours torturing and sexually assaulting Dawn, then they brutally crushed her skull with a brick and left her body abandoned. This was an escalation in violence, even with the already horrifically violent crimes behind them. Perhaps the murder of Dawn Rene Backes took a toll on Nathaniel, who, prior to his crime spree with Anthony, had no history of violence. The next two crimes, both attacks on couples, were perpetuated by Anthony alone.
On March 27th, he abducted a 21-year-old couple, Scott Moulton and Denise Siotkowski. After raping Denise, he shot and killed both of them. A few months passed, and in the early morning hours of August 2nd, Anthony ambushed another 21-year-old couple. Stacy Lynn Balonek and Daryl Cole were coming back from a night out with family.
True to his M.O., Anthony raped Stacy, but rather than shooting them, Anthony used a baseball bat from Stacy’s car to bludgeon both to death. He then tossed both their bodies in the trunk of Stacy’s car.
In September of 1981, Anthony attacked a couple sitting in a parked van. 20-year-old Leslie Sawicki and 21-year-old Todd Sabo were ambushed, and while Anthony attempted to rape Leslie, she managed to escape and call the police. She also called her father, Peter Sawicki, who arrived before the police. Immediately upon arriving, Peter was shot and killed by Anthony, who then fled the scene.
Arrests and Convictions
The murder of Peter Sawicki was high-profile as he was a successful and well-known businessman in the area. This time, Anthony had been sloppy- he left fingerprints at the scene, which police were able to recover. About a month later, on October 14th, police located and arrested Anthony. With a lack of physical evidence in the other cases, authorities were only able to try Anthony for the murder of Peter Sawicki. For this, Anthony was sentenced to life in prison in 1982.
After 1981, Nathaniel had turned away from any sort of violent crime altogether and had been attempting to get his life back on track. He was arrested for some minor, non-violent offenses, and because of one of these arrests in the 1990s, a DNA sample was obtained from Nathaniel.
The late 90s brought substantial advancements in DNA technology, and in 1998, Nathaniel’s DNA returned a match to biological samples collected from previous crime scenes. On February 13th, 1998, Nathaniel was arrested for the brothers’ first attack in May of 1980.
In 2000, both brothers agreed to a plea deal. This arrangement required that they admit to the murder of Thomas Gordon and confess to their other murders, and in exchange, they would not be charged for the other murders they confessed to.
Nathaniel admitted to murdering Thomas Gordon, and he also admitted that he was an accomplice in the murders of Connie Thompson and Dawn Backes. Anthony, on the other hand, pled guilty to eight additional murders, including the 1973 murder of Vicki Lynn Small, which had never been connected to him until his confession.
Anthony was given an additional life sentence, and Nathaniel was sentenced to 75 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 20 years.
Attempted Appeals
Anthony attempted to file a motion for parole in 2015 at the age of 65, which was promptly denied by Ohio’s parole board. He was forbidden from attempting to file another motion for another 10 years. In 2025, Anthony again filed for parole. Families of victims spoke out, and once again, Anthony’s parole request was denied.
Toledo Police Department Detective Frank Stiles strongly supported keeping Anthony behind bars, citing his belief that Anthony would immediately kill again. Stiles, who helped hunt Anthony and who interviewed him immediately following his arrest, said, “He is the worst human being I’ve ever seen, talked to, known, or investigated. He’s the worst.” With his second failed attempt at parole, Anthony will not be able to apply again until 2034.
Release of Nathaniel Cook
On the other hand, Nathaniel applied for parole in 2018. Though Judge Linda Jennings was personally against releasing Nathaniel, he had fulfilled his end of the plea deal, and there was no legal basis to keep him imprisoned.
On August 10th, 2018, at the age of 59, Nathaniel Cook was released on parole. The judge was very strict with the provisions of his parole, requiring that Nathaniel remain permanently on the sex offender registry, wear a monitor with GPS tracking, and register his address every 90 days to prevent him from living too close to areas where children frequent.
His release sparked outrage, and he was the first serial killer in Ohio’s history to ever be granted parole.
Closing Thoughts
Anthony Cook is a deeply disturbed and evil man with a violent heart who drew his younger brother into his depraved and sadistic actions. Were the seeds of violence already within Nathaniel, or was Anthony’s coercion strong enough to convince him to do things he would otherwise never consider?
We may never have the answers, but the story of Anthony and Nathaniel Cook remains as one of the most harrowing serial killer cases in Ohio’s history. For now, Nathaniel is “free” but severely restricted, while Anthony remains behind bars.
Though he’ll be eligible to reapply for parole at the age of 85, as time passes, it grows increasingly more likely that Anthony Cook will never be released- a small comfort to the families of his victims, who continue to suffer from such tragic, cruel, and senseless losses of their loved ones.
Sources:
Baker, KC. “How a Woman Escaped Near-Certain Death After Encounter With Cook Brothers Serial Killers.” People.com, 9 June 2024, https://people.com/cook-brothers-serial-killers-how-woman-escaped-near-certain-death-8657781
Baker, KC. “Surviving the Cook Brothers: Woman Details Violent Encounter With Pair of Serial Killer Siblings.” People.com, 8 June 2024, https://people.com/cook-brothers-people-magazine-investigates-surviving-serial-killer-woman-recounts-horror-8658343
Dugger, Brian. “Toledo Serial Killer Denied Parole, Won’t Be Eligible Again Until 2034.” wtol.com, 17 Mar. 2025, https://www.wtol.com/article/news/crime/toledo-serial-killer-anthony-cook-denied-parole/512-31a4cf1d-711f-479e-a9db-650298f1650a
Seewer, John. “Judge Allows Release of Man Who Confessed to 3 Killings | AP News.” AP News, 9 Aug. 2018, https://apnews.com/general-newef38d7007bb8416ebb43c1e143c36f5b
Dugger, Brian. “Toledo’s Most Prolific Serial Killer Faces Parole: Families of Victims, Prosecutor Speak Out.” wtol.com, https://www.wtol.com/article/news/investigations/11-investigates/most-prolific-serial-killer-in-toledo-history-makes-a-bid-for-freedom-cook-brothers-toledo-serial-killer-parole-hearing-2024/512-8887dce9-b91c-4bd6-8b60-ba64061f0902
Ironic how the legal system allows Nathaniel to be released.