Epilogue
The grass has grown lush and green over the single grave where Timothy Blister Cook and his baby T.J. are buried.
Their grave site, on a windswept hillside overlooking the Kentucky River, is the epitome of the age-old epitaph: Gone but not forgotten. Toy cars adorn the tombstone alongside flowers and an angel statuette. An archway stands over the foot of the grave as an American flag flutters beside the veterans stone that recognizes Timothy Cooks service in the army.
The black granite headstone bears an almost photo-quality likeness of Timothy Cook, holding his son in overalls in his arm. In the background are engravings of a black Ford Mustang and a weed trimmer lying in the freshly cut grass.
It is summertime in the engraving; the trees are covered with leaves. It recalls a happier timenot the cold, breezy day in February 2002 when death strolled into their home.
It is summertime, too, in Letcher County as the prosecutor awaits word of whether Judge Sam Wright will step down from hearing the murderers appeal, or whether he will smack down Jerome Boggss attempt to subvert the agreement he made to accept a life behind bars.
Timothy and T.J. Cook are gone, but they are not forgotten.
At Mountain Montessori School, the fire department certificate recognizing T.J. still hangs in the vestibule, and bags of his Hot Wheels cars still sit in a cabinet in the directors office. Come October 5, students who never knew him will celebrate T.J.s birthday, as students there do every year.
The mobile home where the murders were committed is just a memory, too. It was pulled away before April Banks Boggs ever came to trial and was replaced with another. A family member still lives there.
Evidence of the crimes still sits locked up in a steel cabinet in the Letcher Circuit Clerks Office and in the basement of Whitesburg City Hall. Family members had requested that some of the items that were confiscated be returned early in 2006, but Commonwealths Attorney Edison Banks denied the request after Jerome Boggs filed his appeal.
As unlikely as a new trial is, it is still a possibility. Until Boggs exhausts the appeals that he promised he would not file, the evidence will remain locked in bankers boxes inside a steel cage. The paperwork related to the case could remain there forever, since state law excludes anything in the possession of commonwealths attorneys from its definition of open records.
As far as the Kentucky State Police are concerned, the case is closed for good. Records have been transferred from Post 13 to the archives in Frankfort to make room for the steadily increasing case load in the southeastern mountains. The evidence left over, which was not used in the trial, was handed over to the commonwealths attorneys office.
Banks worried that dragging the case on could lead to a loss of evidence and witnesses, and his fears are partially founded in fact. While the evidence is locked away and safe in the stone basement of city hall, and in the steel cabinets of the circuit clerks office, witnesses and memories gradually fade away.
Most of the police officers involved in the investigation have been transferred to other parts of the state or have retired. Bledsoe still lives in the area, but is no longer assigned to Post 13. Detective John Pratt has been transferred to the governors mansion in Frankfort as part of the executive security detail. Detective Ken Duff was promoted and transferred to Western Kentucky. Whitesburg Police Chief Paul Miles has given up his position as chief to take a job investigating doctor shoppers at the same regional drug task force to which Sergeant Sean Blair is attached.
Donnie Baker, the man who first told police that Jerome Boggs had been in the trailer just before the murders, is in prison himself. He is serving a five-year sentence for a reckless homicide charge from Perry County involving a fatal automobile accident. He is also serving five years for facilitation to robbery in Letcher County.
As the years go by, the chance of witnesses dying or moving away becomes even greater, and the appeal filed by Jerome Boggs seemed designed to drag out the appeals process. It would take time for Wright to determine whether he should step down. If he did, the chief regional judge would have to appoint a replacement who would then have to familiarize himself with the case and make a decision.
As the months and years pass, memories could become less sure. Important details could be forgotten.
While Timothy and T.J., Jerome and April, are not yet forgotten, the case is in some ways like that of Floyd Fraziers, the only man ever legally hanged in Letcher County. Some descendants of Fraziers are still touchy about the subject, nearly one hundred years after the trapdoor dropped and Frazier was hanged by the neck until dead.
Everyone knows about the case, but few are willing to talk about it. It is a situation that family members of those involved would as soon not bring up.
The same is true of the Cook murders. Community members wont talk about the case for fear of offending the Cook family. The Cooks say they are not emotionally able to talk about it themselves.
For now, neighbors will remember Blister and T.J. Cook through the certificate in the Mountain Montessori School, the annual birthday parties held there for T.J., and the advertisements still placed by their family in the local newspaper.
February 17, 2002, was a painful day in Whitesburg. The town lost two of its own that day, one of them a four-year-old as friendly as the welcome sign at the edge of town. But January 9, 2006, was a painful day as well. It was the day that Jerome Boggs filed the appeal that was never supposed to be.
That thick file folder in the circuit clerks office is what the community has to remember Jerome Boggs by.
Most would have preferred a thick hemp rope, tied in a noose and preserved under glass.
Chapter 1
February 17, 2002, was a painful day in Whitesburg. The groundhog had predicted six more weeks of winter, and it was looking as though he had been right.
The temperature hovered in the mid-30s and a cold, damp breeze blew in from the north, following the ridge of Pine Mountain and bringing the wind chill into the 20s. There was no snow, but the wind cut through clothing like a ripsaw and made cheeks and ears sting as though they had been slapped. The sun never broke through the clouds to counter the stiff breeze and the air was sharp with the smells of dry leaves and coal smoke from chimneys.
Though the temperature was far from a record low, police officers remember it as the coldest day they have ever seen. Maybe it was that chill north wind, or the 14-degree drop in temperature that occurred in the past twenty-four hours. Or maybe it was the task that brought them outside that Sunday afternoon.
Whatever the reason, February 17, 2002, was a day when most people preferred to stay indoors. Kentucky State Police Detective Chuck Bledsoe was doing paperwork in a lounge/squad room in the Whitesburg Police Department (WPD). It had been a quiet day and the fourteen-year veteran police officer was looking forward to clocking out at three oclock and driving back across Pine Mountain to his wife and daughters, at home near the Harlan County line.
He had spent his shift sitting at a tiny table shoved up against the plaster wall, finishing reports and making phone calls while the nineteen-inch color television on the counter under the sliding window into the hallway blared out background noise from COPS and The Andy Griffith Show. He had not received a single complaint that sleepy Sunday.
