Cornel Cooks was executed by the State of Oklahoma for the murder of Jennie Ridling
According to court documents Cornel Cooks and a accomplice would break into the home of his neighbor Jennie Ridling, 87, who would be sexually assaulted and murdered before her home was robbed
Cornell Cooks would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Cornell Cooks would be executed by lethal injection on December 2 1999
Cornel Cooks Photos
Cornel Cooks Case
A man who gagged, raped and then suffocated his 87-year-old neighbor was executed this morning.
Cornel Cooks, 43, was pronounced dead at 12:18 a.m. at the Oklahoma State Penitentiary. He received a lethal dose of drugs for the October 1982 murder of Jennie Ridling during a burglary at her Lawton home.
Cooks was the 101st inmate executed by the state, and the 18th Oklahoma prisoner executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
Cooks spent his final hours Wednesday visiting with friends and family while the U.S. Supreme Court rejected two last-minute appeals
The victim’s granddaughter Patricia Smith planned to witness the execution with her two daughters, Stephanie Anderson of Fort Worth, Texas, and Margaret Wolfe of Cleburne, Texas, and Wolfe’s husband, Mike.
“We would like this day not only to be about Cornel Cooks, but also about the victim, Jennie Ridling, who lost her life in a violent manner,” the victim’s family said in a statement
Cooks requested seven witnesses including his brother, a friend, spiritual advisers and attorneys.
The state Pardon and Parole Board denied his request for clemency last month despite arguments that Cooks grew up in a dysfunctional family and was a drug addict.
He was convicted of gagging, beating and raping Ridling during a burglary. The disabled woman died two hours after a piece of her window curtain was wrapped around her mouth
Cooks used to mow Ridling’s lawn, said Smith of Burleson, Texas.
“It has been a long time coming for justice,” Smith said. “He already had more than enough clemency by having 16 years of added life – more than my grandmother.”
“If I don’t go then it would be like grandmother died for absolutely nothing,” Smith said. “We are going to represent her.”
With just hours to go before midnight, about a dozen death penalty supporters and protesters gathered outside the prison’s gate.
“My presence out here tonight is to support for the victims,” said Ann Scott of Tulsa. She wore a picture of her 21-year-old daughter who was murdered eight years ago.
“I’m not going to be jumping up and down when it happens,” she said. “But I will have the knowledge that Cornel Cooks will never do it again.”
A few feet away Jan Skaggs of Tulsa held a sign that read “Executions Create More Victims.”
“Executions cause more people to hurt, more people to grief,” she said. “It’s devastating.”
https://www.oklahoman.com/story/news/1999/12/02/state-executes-convicted-killer/62219221007/