The End Of Innocence

The father of Eric Edgar Cooke despised his baby son from the moment he saw him. Bashings and a hate-filled childhood followed for the boy with the crooked mouth, launching a personality unique among serial killers.

He stalked the city of Perth for months, shooting strangers in the dead of night and using a sickening variety of weapons to steal the lives of his victims. Unknown to the terror-stricken citizens of this trusting, emerging metropolis, the young father of seven children who pulled the trigger had for years been doing other sinister night work. In a remarkable twist of fate the killer's life tangled with that of 19-year-old John Button whose 17-year-old girlfriend was killed. Both men confessed to that crime.

Estelle Blackburn's riveting investigation into the life and untold crimes of the last man to hang in Western Australia reveals new evidence to indicate that two innocent men, John Button and Darryl Beamish, went to jail for one of Cooke's murders.

Here, for the first time, Estelle goes behind the scenes and relates how she came to write 'Broken Lives' -- the investigative trail the suspects and the cops involved, and the families she befriended. Passionate, inspiring and compelling, 'The End of Innocence' takes the reader on a journey to the heart of our criminal justice system -- where good and evil are tightly entwined and truth is sometimes hard to find...