SUICIDE END TO MANHUNT

Press, Volume C, Issue 29518, 20 May 1961, Page 13

SUICIDE END TO MANHUNT

Killer Of Warder

(N.Z.P.A .-Reuter—Copyright) BOSTON, May 18.

A gaol-breaker wanted for two murders killed himself last night with a bullet in his head as police stormed his hideaway in a flat in a fashionable section of Boston. Edgar Cook, aged 48. died in hospital about three hours after he shot himself. He and Norman Porter, aged 21, both already held on murder charges, shot and killed a warder in escaping from the county gaol in nearby Cambridge on Sunday. Porter’s whereabouts remain unknown.

The capture of Cook was the climax to a chain of events worthy of a television thriller, the Associated Press said. While police were checking every available lead, an unidentified man telephoned the Middlesex County sheriff. Howard Fitzpatrick. The man asked Fitzpatrick whether his offer of 5000 dollars reward still stood for the killer of Robinson.

‘Til pay 10.000 dollars for that guy.” Fitzpatrick replied. The tipster then agreed to meet the sheriff at East Cambridge gaol, scene of the fatal shooting on Sunday. Hideout in Flat At the appointed hour, the informer appeared and talked with Fitzpatrick. State police and FBI. agents. He told the police he knew some of Cook’s friends and they had persuaded him to let Cook use his flat as a hideout. The man said Cook had been in the apartment since early this morning.

Police surrounded the building. Two girls in the flat next to that where Cook was hiding were quietly led out by a policewoman. When they appeared at the front door of the building, the raiding party dashed upstairs. As the police stormed up the stairs, they heard a noise like “a cap pistol." They broke down the door and Cook was alone and lying on the floor, shot through the head.

Police said the gun Cook used to shoot himself was the same one he used to kill the gaol warder.