Stabbed woman beat ulcer this year

A ruptured ulcer nearly killed Rosie Cook in February and left her hospitalized for a month.

The 80-year-old great-grandmother vowed to survive and to return to her Brays Oaks home of nearly half a century, her family said Sunday.

“She made it,” said Dawn Cook, the woman’s daughter-in-law. “She said, ‘I was not ready to die.’ ”

On Saturday morning, Rosie Cook’s son received a phone call from a Houston police detective revealing that his mother had been fatally stabbed after picking up a prescription in the Walgreens in the 8600 block of South Braeswood. The detective wanted to make sure he knew before he saw news coverage of the incident, she said. Her assailant attacked her, rifled through her belongings and tried stealing her car, as witnesses rushed to save her.

A police officer who stopped at the pharmacy to use the bathroom confronted the man, believed to be in his 30s. The officer opened fire on the suspect, killing

him when he allegedly stepped toward the officer with a 6-inch blade. The fatal shooting is the fifth since April 21 involving a Houston police officer.

The suspect is believed to be the same knife-wielding man who was scaring customers at the nearby Fiesta Mart. Without identifying him, Houston Police Officers’

Union officials said he was released from the Harris County Jail on bond earlier this month for a felony charge. As of Sunday afternoon, authorities were still looking for his family in order to publicly reveal who he was.

Police Chief Art Acevedo said that after reviewing footage from the officer’s body camera and surveillance video, he believes the officer was justified. The officer will be placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation.

“A woman has lost her life because some guy decided he wanted whatever she had on her, and to think a guy stabbed a little old lady,” Acevedo told reporters on Saturday. “I can’t tell you the emotions I’m feeling right now.”

The circumstances behind Cook’s death have rattled her family.

“I (didn’t) want her to be scared or hurt or alone,” said the daughter-in-law, who grew up on the same street as the Cook family.

“She was all by herself.”

She would like to remember Cook — a Sears department store retiree — as her blunt, but funny, mother-in-law who was willing to feed everyone.

“She’d just add one more potato to the pot,” she said.

Cook is survived by three children, six grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Her husband died in 2015.