‘I hear him cry out in my nightmares'

Robert Rogers sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole for 19 years

Editor's Note

A warning that this story contains disturbing details.

TINA COMEAU TRI-COUNTY VANGUARD

tina.comeau@saltwire.com

Stacey Cook wasn't present the night her 26-year-old son Colton Cook was murdered. But she relives the final moments of his life in her nightmares and in each passing day.

“I held onto the thought that Colton died quickly. That he didn't suffer because you shot him first. But that was not true,” she told Robert Rogers in a Yarmouth courtroom before his sentencing for second-degree murder.

“He cried out after you shot him,” she said in her victim impact statement. “Now, I hear him cry out in my nightmares every night.”

At the conclusion of a three-week Supreme Court jury trial in January, Rogers was convicted of seconddegree murder for the September 2020 death of Colton Cook.

On March 16, he was sentenced to life imprisonment – the automatic sentence for this crime. To be determined was how much time Rogers must serve before he can apply for parole consideration. The minimum wait is 10 years. The maximum is 25 years.

The Crown sought parole ineligibility in the range of 19 to 20 years. The defence asked for 12.

Justice Pierre Muise said 12 years wasn't justified given the brutality of the murder, plus he disagreed with the defence that rehabilitation for Rogers is a realistic prospect.

He ruled Rogers, who will soon turn 60, must serve 19 years before he can apply for parole.

Rogers was also convicted of indignity to human remains for dismembering Cook's body. He received the maximum sentence of five years.

Stacey Cook said she was very satisfied with the sentencing, feeling her family has received justice. She said if Rogers is ever granted a parole hearing, she will be there.

“Trust me, he will not get out as long as I have a voice,” she said.

HIS FINAL MOMENTS

Colton Cook was killed after arriving at a residence in South Ohio, Yarmouth County, on the night of Sept. 25, 2020.

At trial, the court heard that Rogers, who was heavily intoxicated, shot Cook and then slashed and stabbed him relentlessly with a machete. Rogers testified he remembered little about that night due to his state of intoxication.

Another man at the residence, Wayne Crawford, stabbed Cook repeatedly in the chest. Crawford has pleaded guilty to seconddegree murder and will be sentenced in May.

At Rogers' trial, the province's chief medical examiner, Dr. Matthew Bowes, testified the number of sharp force injuries Cook received were too numerous to count.

There were injuries to his face, head and chest. He suffered fractures to bones in his arms. The wounds penetrated his skull and punctured his heart and lung. He said it was likely that Cook died from blood loss and multiple injuries.

After he was dead, Rogers cut Cook's leg off with a chainsaw.

A third person, Keith Siscoe Jr., pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder. He helped Rogers and Crawford dispose of Cook's body and evidence. He was sentenced to three years, less credit he received for time spent in presentence custody.

During Rogers' sentencing, the Crown called this a brutal, unprovoked attack.

Crown attorney Chelsea Cottreau also spoke about Rogers' previous conviction of attempted murder. The victim was Rogers' father, who Rogers, while drunk, had stabbed in the neck. Rogers was convicted in October 2011, but because he didn't have a lawyer after his conviction, he was only sentenced in January 2014.

The jury hearing the Colton Cook case never heard about Rogers' attempted murder conviction. The defence argued it would be prejudicial and could make the jury presume Rogers has a propensity for violence.

But at sentencing, the Crown said Rogers does have this propensity. Cottreau referred to Rogers as a dangerous person.

“He had the intention to kill in 2014. He did kill in 2020,” she said.

The Crown also noted Rogers had been prohibited from owning or possessing firearms after his attempted murder conviction, yet he had them at his home and used one to shoot Cook.

Justice Muise had harsh words for Rogers' actions and the brutality of the murder.

He said things Rogers did – like discarding Cook's remains in the woods, dismembering his body, and writing a letter while in jail threatening to ‘sink' co-accused Keith Siscoe in court if Siscoe's family didn't give Rogers

$500 – were not the actions of someone who had remorse and wanted to give Colton Cook's family closure.

He said Rogers has convictions relating to alcohol dating back to the early 1990s but hasn't taken steps to address his alcoholism unless forced to. He said Rogers has convictions of violence and his actions have not mellowed or improved with age, but have worsened.

Muise called Cook's death barbaric and senseless.

He called Stacey Cook's victim impact statement ‘heartwrenching.'

A MOTHER'S HEARTBREAK

Stacey Cook described the heartbreak and anguish her son's murder has caused.

“Colton is the last thing I think about at night and the first thing I think of in the morning. But thinking of him is not the same as living with him.”

Day after day, the mother sat through the horrific testimony, saying she had to be inside the courtroom for her son Colton. But it took an immense toll. She referred to how Rogers displayed ‘zero emotion' throughout the trial.

“What happened to my son was so cold-hearted. He suffered and I relive this over and over again now in my nightmares every night.”

She said her son was a good person and not deserving of what happened to him. Perhaps Rogers didn't like the way her son carried himself, but it shouldn't have gotten him murdered. She told Rogers if he had taken the time to get to know her son, he would have liked him.

“But you just didn't care about the person who was my son. You didn't care about his life and you certainly didn't care about his pain.”

“He felt what you did … I feel what you did. Those details are now part of me,” she said. “I look in the mirror and I don't recognize the person looking back at me some days. The pain and suffering you placed on my son has changed me, and I hate that part of myself.”

She finds herself not as loving. Quick to anger. Consumed with thoughts of revenge. She feels guilty for wanting to experience joy, because she doesn't want her son to think she can move on without him.

Cook described her last goodbye with her son as simple, carefree, happy and loving.

What she would give to have that moment back.

“If I had known it was the last time, I would have held him tighter. I would have looked at his beautiful face a little longer.”

There has never been a motive or reason offered for why Cook was killed.

“Why did you do that to my baby?” Cook asked Rogers. “I don't understand why you had to make him suffer so much.”

“I am left to live the rest of my days thinking of my son crying out in pain,” she said. “I see a machete coming down with so much force it broke my son's arms as he tried to protect himself.”

Her son's life had brought her happiness.

His final moments bring profound sorrow.

The mother said she pictures her son crumpled on the floor, losing air and dying alone, while surrounded by so much hate and evil.

“That's how he left this world,” she said. “His life not meaning anything to the people in that room who watched him die.”

“Colton is the last thing I think about at night and the first thing I think of in the morning. But thinking of him is not the same as living with him.” Stacey Cook Colton Cook's mother