FRIENDSHIPS BETRAYED FREED...TO KILL AGAIN
Two innocent people cared for him – he repaid them by killing them
BERYL Maynard was one of life’s good people.
A committed Christian and Sunday School teacher, she truly believed in the teachings of Jesus.
First and foremost, she believed in the forgiveness of sins.
The 37-year-old put this belief into practise, volunteering as a visitor at Reading Prison and writing to locked-up criminals who she contacted via the letters pages of a Christian magazine called Buzz. One of the residents of Reading Prison – and one of the readers of Buzz – was David Cook.
Robberies
He was, to put it mildly, NOT one of life’s good people.
Cook, a former weightlifter who had worked at Alfred’s Head Gym in Reading, was locked up for a string of aggravated robberies committed in the 1980s.
During the robberies, he tied up his victims using tape, wire and cord.
Cook answered Beryl’s ad and the two started communicating by letter.
And they got on so well that, on his release, Cook was invited for a meal at Beryl’s house.
Cook repaid that Christian kindness by killing her.
Months after the dinner, Cook returned to Beryl’s house, only this time he wasn’t after food – he was after her money.
Beryl’s husband, Roger, a postman, discovered his wife’s body at their home on November 17, 1987. She had been strangled with the cord of her son’s dressing gown.
More than 300 people attended her memorial service at Wycliffe Baptist Church. Minister Bob Archer called her “a saint and a martyr”.
Cook was arrested, charged and, after a trial at Reading Crown Court, sentenced to life behind bars.
The world heard no more of David Cook until 2006.
By that time, he’d moved through the system and was being held at HMP Prescoed open prison in Usk, south Wales.
In common with most ‘lifers’ nearing the end of their sentence, he’d been let out on temporary licence in a bid to re-establish himself in the outside world.
But Cook took the opportunity to do a runner, failing to return to prison to see out the remainder of his term.
Caught
Gwent Police said he was “considered to be a risk” and appealed to members of the public not to approach him.
He was caught after a week on the run.
But, despite absconding from custody, just three
NEIGHBOUR: Leonard Hill was strangled to death by the fiend next door years later he was once again released back into the community in 2009 on ‘life licence’ by the probation service.
Cook then moved to Rhymney, south Wales, where he befriended 64-year-old next-door neighbour Leonard Hill.
Prison hadn’t changed Cook and, after running up £5,800 of debt, he quickly went back to his old ways.
And the most obvious target was his mildmannered neighbour.
During a desperate search for cash in Leonard’s house, Cook battered him senseless. He then wound a TV
cable around his neck and strangled him to death.
Cook proceeded to ransack his neighbour’s bungalow, then went to the village pub to buy drinks with the money he stole.
During the following days, Leonard’s friends reported him missing. He had failed to turn up at a day centre that he regularly attended.
Cook, who had gone to stay at a B&B in Cardiff, was contacted by police on his mobile phone to ask if he knew anything about his neighbour’s disappearance.
Message
On June 26, 2011, 12 days after the killing, Cook informed his parole officer, Nicholas Hopkins, what he had done, leaving a message on his phone.
On the message, Cook says: “Hi Nick, it’s David here. Could you give me a ring?
“I’ve done something terrible. I’ve killed my neighbour.”
He then handed himself in to police at Swansea railway station.
For the second time in his life, Cook was arrested for murder He went on trial in May the following year.
At Newport Crown Court, prosecutor David Aubrey QC said: “This was a brutal, determined and merciless killing.
“When David Cook killed Leonard Hill he had been released from prison on life licence, having previously been convicted of the murder of a woman in Reading.”
Mr Aubrey said nobody but the defendant knew for certain exactly what had occurred on the day of the killing in June 2011.
“What is clear is that he beat Leonard Hill unconscious or semiconscious,” he said.
“He then bound and gagged him using a pillow case and throttled him until he was dead.
“He concealed Mr Hill’s body in his own bungalow and went on to build a barricade around it using various pieces of furniture.”
The court heard that, two days after the murder, Cook received a home visit from members of the team overseeing him in the community.
They later told police that Cook had acted “perfectly normally”, making them coffee and chatting.
“All the while, the concealed corpse of Leonard Hill lay in the bedroom of the house next door,” Mr Aubrey said.
Cook admitted killing Leonard but he denied murder. He claimed he had lost control and killed him after his neighbour had made a sexual pass at him by touching his genitals.
Testicles
Cook told the jury: “He sort of smiled at me and grabbed my testicles.
“It was like a cupping movement with his hands. It was quite an aggressive movement.
“The rage came and that was it.
“I remember punching him with my fist on his jaw and he went down and got back up again.
“Then, to be honest, I can’t remember much. I was in such a rage.
“I remember tying him up, gagging him and then killing him.”
But it was all a lie. Leonard Hill was not gay.
When police searched the dead man’s home they found numerous newspaper cuttings of topless models along with 200 magazines containing pictures of naked women.
The jury took less than an hour to find Cook guilty of murder.
Telling him that, this time, life would mean life, Judge John Griffith Williams QC said: “This is the second murder you have committed.
“The seriousness of this offence is extremely high and I have to impose on you a whole life order.
“That means you will never be considered for release.”
The judge added: “You are a pathological liar who will say anything to further your self-interest.
“You lied after murdering Beryl Maynard and you lied after murdering Leonard Hill.
“Leonard was an anxious, private, heterosexual man whose alleged behaviour was the very antithesis of his true nature.
“He described you as a good person – just like Beryl Maynard did, who befriended you while you were in prison.
“You murdered her for small gain and you took the same advantage of Leonard Hill when you needed some money.”
Leonard’s sister-in-law, Carol Hill, said that she was “disgusted” at how such a violent criminal was able to simply move in next door to him.
Failings
She said: “The failings lie firstly with whoever did the risk assessment when David Cook was let out of prison, because when he escaped from an open prison earlier he was deemed to be dangerous.
“I need to know whether the probation services knew he had all this debt.
“Actually, I need lots of answers.”
Sadly, any answers will come too late for the families and friends of Beryl Maynard and Leonard Hill.