Mike on Crime

By Mike McIntyre
Winnipeg Free Press

A career criminal fighting a dangerous-offender designation has continued to bully terrified family members from behind bars — even while his high-profile court hearing is underway.

Darryl Cook, 42, was caught on wiretap threatening to attack his sister’s boyfriend in a jailhouse phone call last month. He also called the woman on Monday night and said he would only back off if she refused to come to court.

“That just added more pressure to how I’m already feeling,” a sobbing Deanna Cook testified Tuesday. The Crown subpoenaed her to testify about her experience with Cook in their attempts to prove he remains a grave danger to the public.

The Crown played the recorded phone call to Deanna, in which he asks several questions about another sister he’d previously been convicted of assaulting. Cook repeatedly asked where she lived and whether she was planning to testify against him.

“She’s going around talking behind my back,” said Cook. “If she ever gives me attitude again I’ll give her a licking.”

Cook grew angry with Deanna for not being more concerned about his situation.

“I’m looking at the rest of my life here and you don’t want to talk about it? Shows how much you care, worrying about your own little life. Take your kids and shove them up you (expletive),” he said before hanging up.

Cook then called back minutes later. Deanna’s boyfriend answered the phone. “If I ever get out, I’m gonna come and punch your head in,” said Cook.

Justice officials are seeking an indefinite prison sentence for Cook, who has been convicted of dozens of offences throughout his entire adult life and has not spent more than three months at a time in the community since 1991 without landing back behind bars. He has committed numerous violent assaults on victims including men, women, children and the disabled.

Cook was convicted of manslaughter in 1998 after beating a man to death with a baseball bat following an argument on the street. He was given seven years for that crime and served every single day without parole. However, it only took a few weeks after his mandatory February 2005 release until Cook had gone back to drinking and got involved in a heated argument with his two sisters. Cook began choking one of the women and shoved the other to the ground. Neither was seriously injured. Cook also attacked his uncle, breaking the man’s nose and beating him unconscious while visiting his father’s house in Portage la Prairie.

Cook was sentenced in 2007 for the attack on his siblings and was given a rarity in Canadian law — a maximum sentence of five years custody. Now he is facing sentencing for the attack on his uncle, with the Crown seeking the most serious sanction available under the Criminal Code.