Car possibly linked to Cooke case
Discovery of automobile in Dallas area is case’s most significant development in years, sources say.
More than 16 years after Rachel Cooke vanished in Williamson County, authorities think they have located a sports car that could be the same one that raised the suspicions of witnesses in her neighborhood around the time of her disappearance, law enforcement sources told the American-Statesman and KVUE-TV.
The car was located in recent days in the Dallas area, the sources said Thursday, and is being brought back to Williamson County so forensics analysts from the FBI can scour it for possible evidence. It is possible that multiple persons of interest might be linked to the vehicle, the sources said.
Investigators involved in the case consider the car’s discovery the most significant development in years. The revelation brought new hope to an investigation that has long frustrated detectives and remains one of the region’s most mysterious unsolved cases.
Detectives hope that, even with the passage of a significant amount of time, the car will contain clues that could help lead them to the person or persons behind Cooke’s disappearance.
Williamson County Sheriff Robert Chody and other officials are planning a news conference Friday at an impound facility in Georgetown.
The elusive white car was one of the first clues to emerge in the investigation of Cooke’s disappearance in January 2002. But until now, authorities have been unable to locate it. Other details, including how authorities finally were able to find the car and why they think the vehicle they recovered is the same one witnesses reported seeing, were not immediately clear Thursday.
For years, investigators have been trying to find what witnesses described as a white sports car — possibly a Pontiac Trans Am or Chevrolet Camaro — that was seen in the area where Cooke was jogging on the morning of Jan. 10, 2002.
They identified the car as being an older model with a wide black stripe across its lower portion, according to published reports. Witnesses also claim to have seen two men who appeared to be between 17 and 21 in the car.
Cooke, a 19-year-old student at Mesa Junior College in Southern California, was home on winter break when she went jogging alone in her parents’ neighborhood in the North Lake subdivision northwest of Georgetown.
Witnesses reported seeing the car traveling on Navajo Trail and turning south on Neches Trail that day, about 100 yards from Cooke’s home.
The last person to see Cooke was a neighbor who saw her walking on Neches Trail to cool down at the end of her run.
Over the years, the case has received national attention, but no solid clues have surfaced about what happened to her, torturing her mother, Janet Cooke, in the years since.
Janet Cooke has remained an outspoken advocate for her daughter and is likely to attend Friday’s news conference — as she has done through the years. Rachel Cooke’s father, Robert Cooke, died in 2014.
Last year after taking office, Chody created a new cold case unit to investigate Cooke’s case and about 10 unsolved killings dating back to 1979.
Cooke’s case has been among the highest profile ones.
In June, sheriff ’s officials and FBI agents spent several hours digging near the San Gabriel River after authorities received a tip that human remains might be found there. They called off the search hours later after they couldn’t find anything.
Chody said at the time that Cooke’s name was brought up by the tipster.
Lawrence Presley, a former chief of the FBI laboratory’s DNA analysis unit, said Thursday that it would be possible to recover DNA from a car involved in a kidnapping/murder crime 16 years ago. If the victim was placed in the trunk of the car, the possibility of finding DNA is “very real,” he said.
A trunk tends to be less contaminated by other sources of DNA than a car’s interior, said Presley. It’s very hard to get rid of blood and other body fluids left in a trunk, he said. A person could rip up the carpet in the trunk but would still have to clean all the metalwork and cracks underneath it, which is very difficult, he said.
He also said the chances of recovering DNA from the car would be better if the vehicle had been abandoned for a long period of time rather than used for the last 16 years, which would introduce multiple sources of contamination. Other factors also come into play when trying to recover DNA from a car 16 years after a crime, Presley said.
The quality of the DNA is better if it is preserved in a dry environment at room temperature away from the sun, because ultraviolet light can degrade DNA, he said.
Presley also said it would be very hard to get rid of all the DNA evidence inside a car unless someone went through extensive measures, including replacing seats and carpeting.
Bill Tobin, a retired 27-year FBI agent and forensics expert, said it is very common to find traces of body fluids in cases in which people had cleaned vehicles to get rid of it. “The bad guys just think they are smarter,” said Tobin, who owns Forensic Engineering International in Virginia and has testified as a forensics expert at 275 trials across the country.
“It turns out they underestimate the diligence of a forensics examiner and the processes and techniques used,” he said.