Returning: Crime Investigation Australia

The story of Perth being terrorised by murderer and rapist Eric Edgar Cooke formed the backdrop of the ABC’s mini-series Shark Net (pictured) in 2003. Now it is the subject of the next installment of Foxtel’s excellent true crime series, Crime Investigation Australia.

Cooke’s strange killing spree involved a series of stabbings, stranglings and shootings which had Perth completely terrorised. This was an unusual serial killer who’s methods seem as random as his choice of victims.

Although he was only convicted of one murder, Cooke was reported to have committed several more. He was the last man to be hanged in WA.

Press Release:

FOXTEL’s locally-produced hit series CRIME INVESTIGATION AUSTRALIA will revisit Perth’s notorious Night Caller murders on Thursday, April 24 at 7.30pm EST on Crime & Investigation Network.

CIA: THE NIGHT CALLER – ERIC EDGAR COOKE explores the random attacks and brutal rape and murders by just one man during the 1950s and 60s.

Hosted by Steve Liebmann, CIA: THE NIGHT CALLER – ERIC EDGAR COOKE features detailed re-enactments and interviews with key figures from the case including the investigating police and victim’s family members. The program also speaks with two women who survived separate attacks by Cooke.

During the 1950s, Perth was more like a big country town than a bustling metropolis. Its townspeople felt safe enough to leave their doors unlocked and their windows open. They had no concept for the need for the security. That was until 1959 when the first of a strange series of violent incidents began to occur.

Perth suddenly began to see a sharp rise in home invasions, car theft, hit and runs as well as peeping-Tom incidents. It wasn’t until the Australia Day weekend of 1959 that these events escalated into a bloody crime spree that saw, in the space of one evening, two women murdered and three people wounded.

Thinking they suddenly had an influx of murderers, car thieves, burglars and perverts living in their town, police had no way of knowing that it was all the work of the one man, Eric Edgar Cooke, an outwardly mild-mannered truck driver and father of seven children.

By early 1963 Cooke’s crime wave had escalated to serial murder but still no one suspected him. It now seemed as though a phantom, who didn’t care who he murdered or how he murdered them, was in their midst – a psychopath who seemingly picked his victims at random as the urge to kill came upon him. No one was safe.

Through a series of events Cooke, having terrorised the city of Perth for over four years, was finally hunted down, charged and convicted. He went to the gallows at Fremantle Prison and infamously became the last man to be hanged in Western Australia, but not before confessing shortly before his death, to a further two murders.

FOXTEL’s world premiere of CRIME INVESTIGATION AUSTRALIA: THE NIGHT CALLER – ERIC EDGAR COOKE revisits the vicious crime spree of Perth’s most prolific serial killer on Crime & Investigation Network on Thursday, April 24, at 7:30pm EST.