Going West: True Crime - Rachel Cooke // 172

Episode Date: February 5, 2022

In 2002, a 19-year-old woman was visiting her family's home in Georgetown, Texas when she headed out for a morning run. When she didn’t return home, her family desperately reported her missing. But despite massive searches, numerous composite sketches, and even a gruesome confession, it’s still unclear what exactly happened to her. This is the story of Rachel Cooke. BONUS EPISODES patreon.com/goingwestpodcast CASE SOURCES https://www.kxan.com/news/local/williamson-county/blood-possibly-found-in-car-linked-to-rachel-cooke-disappearance/1477367419/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/crime/2021/01/10/williamson-sheriff-has-new-suspect-case-missing-rachel-cooke/6615785002/ https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2004/sep/19/features.review7 https://medium.com/@jennbaxter_69070/the-baffling-disappearance-of-rachel-cooke-d31b45797523 https://soapboxie.com/government/Where-is-Rachel-Cooke https://www.fbi.gov/wanted/kidnap/rachel-louise-cooke https://www.kvue.com/article/news/local/rachel-cooke-disapperance-20-years-later-texas/269-b8e09e50-0018-4d6b-aa0b-81949896cc90 https://www.statesman.com/story/news/crime/2021/01/10/williamson-sheriff-has-new-suspect-case-missing-rachel-cooke/6615785002/ https://www.doenetwork.org/cases/3518dftx.html https://original.newsbreak.com/@fatim-hemraj-561392/2486890762484-the-curious-case-of-rachel-cooke-20-years-ago-a-student-vanished-without-a-trace-during-a-morning-run https://truecrimedaily.com/2017/12/01/where-is-rachel-cooke-texas-woman-remains-missing-as-investigation-is-renewed-with-new-sheriff-in-town/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Heath, and I'm your host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. We are reporting live from our new studio in Portland, Oregon reporting live reporting not so live, but almost live. We're recording this today on Friday. So thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you to everybody who has recommended this case that we're covering today. We have had so many people ask us to cover this one. And cases like this just make me so mad because there are countless true crime cases that involve someone just like minding their own business on a run and they either go missing and or are murdered and it has made me so scared to just get outside by myself and

go on a walk so I'm sure a lot of you guys agree. Yes and this is just yet another one of those cases and the details are extremely frustrating as you guys will see. But let's get right into today's episode. This is episode 172 of Going West, so let's get into it. In 2002, a 19-year-old woman was visiting her family's home in Georgetown, Texas, when she headed out for a morning run. When she didn't return home, her family desperately reported her missing. But despite massive searches, numerous composite sketches and even a gruesome confession, it's still unclear what exactly happened to her.

This is the story of Rachel Cook. Rachel Louise Cook was born on May 10, 1982 in Texas to parents Janet and Robert Cook. She was raised with her younger sister Joanne in the city of Georgetown, which is a very quaint-looking historic city in central Texas, just about 30 miles or 50 kilometers north of Austin. She had incredibly supportive and loving parents. Her dad, Robert, was a software engineer for IBM and her mom Janet was an art teacher in Georgetown. Rachel attended Georgetown High School and there she was extremely well-liked. She was an

accomplished runner there and she participated in the cross-country team at her school because running was a big hobby of hers. And we'll get into that here in a bit. Rachel was also known to be very creative, even with her fashion choices, and probably especially with her fashion choices. Her friend said that she could pull off just about anything, and she was a total fashionista. And during her senior year, she competed to become Miss Georgetown. But she didn't end up winning, though that didn't really seem to bother her and she just kind of chalked it up to a fun experience. So between this and her big interest in the fashion world, it's no surprise that after

graduating in 2000, she decided to pursue a career in fashion. So interested in trying something new and kind of getting out of her hometown, Rachel headed off to San Diego, California to attend Mesa, Junior College. After getting her general education out of the way in 2002, she planned to transfer to a college in Los Angeles, so you know, very close to San Diego, to study fashion.

And she was super excited about that. But at the time this story takes place, she is not quite gotten there as Heath will go into. In December of 2001, 19 year old Rachel headed home to Georgetown with her boyfriend Greg West so that they could spend the holidays with her family during the college winter break Greg was known to be a great guy for Rachel and her family absolutely loved him They just like that she was with someone who gave her space to accomplish her goals and dreams But also was there for her every step of the way like basically, you know He was he wanted her to have her independence and do what she wanted to do in her life

But he also wanted to be with her. Yeah, and of course this made her parents happy because their first priority is that she is doing what she wants to do with her life. And this is actually the first time that Rachel's family was meeting Greg, and he just made a really good impression. Yeah, just blew them away. Totally. So according to them, Rachel was very much in love with Greg and hoped that one day he'd

propose. They weren't living together at this point, but things definitely seemed to be going in that direction for them, and they were just really happy. As they rung in 2002, Greg headed back to California to return to work, but Rachel decided to stay in Texas a bit longer so she could attend her cousin's wedding with the rest of the family. And then once that was over, she'd head back home to San Diego and get ready for her upcoming fashion program to start.

While Rachel stated her family home, she slept on the couch because she kind of no longer had a room with her own there. But she tried to keep a normal routine and go on her daily morning runs among spending time with family. Yeah, as we'll go into this too, but I'm pretty sure her family, I think they might have moved since she moved out or they just put other stuff in her room.

They converted it to like a storage space or something. Yeah, or something like that. I couldn't find exactly, but it just seemed like there was no actual room for her, so she was sleeping on the couch, and that happens a lot to people who come home from college. Right right.

But she was trying to make the best of it and you know continue with her daily routine. Yes, exactly. So on Thursday, January 10th, 2002, Rachel had plans to go out with her good friend for dinner to kind of catch up. This is her friend Shannon. And she was also seeing friends while she was there, in Texas of course her old friends from school, and she was also picking up shifts from her old workplace, which was a restaurant called Wildfire.

And although there was a ton of room for her at her parents house, they felt really good having Rachel home because they actually worried about her being a young woman in the big city of San Diego. So her being in their small hometown, you know, close by to them, made them feel comfortable. So that Thursday winter morning, Rachel's sister Joanne headed off to class at Georgetown High School, while her parents said goodbye to Rachel and left for work. Rachel's only plans that morning were to go on her usual six mile run, which was something that she had been doing since she was very young and she pretty much always took the

same path. After being slightly woken up by her mom as she left to teach art at Georgetown High at 8 a.m., Rachel went back to sleep until she got a call on her cell phone from her boyfriend Greg at about 9.15am. Now during their call Rachel told him about her plans to go on a run and she even mentioned that she would call him back when she was done. And with that she changed her clothes, grabbed her yellow Sony Walkman and left. So as Daphne just mentioned Rachel always pretty much took the same path directly out of her

home in the North Lake area of Georgetown. She jogged out of her family's front door on Navajo Trail and head down a road that didn't have much traffic but passed by various ranch-style homes. She and her family loved this neighborhood, which is known to be very nice and serene, and it was a place where the cooks could host family holidays, as well as barbecues with the ones that they loved most on their three-acre property. And many of these homes are described as being, you know, set back a bit from the road since they were on larger pieces of land, but it still wasn't like a remote area, per se, yet everyone seemed to have enough privacy.

There were other cars occasionally and neighbors outside who could still see the road, and Rachel felt safe and comfortable whenever she'd do this because she had run that road so many times, and since she typically ran between 4-6 miles each morning, this would put her it being gone for just under or over an hour kind of depending on pace. So hours later, Rachel's father Robert got off of work early as he had planned to, because he wanted to take Rachel shopping that day, which was one of her absolute favorite activities. Of course, I mean, she's super into fashion, so she loves to shop. And although she had a ton of great outfits for her cousin's wedding, that was just two

days away, she wanted to get a few more things. But when her father Robert arrived home that day, Rachel wasn't there. All of her stuff was there, including her cell phone and her purse, so Robert was very confused and concerned as to where she was. And also I want to mention that this area that they lived is and was at this time, that very quintessential safe neighborhood where the cooks actually rarely locked their doors. And they admitted that later like, yeah, we, we really didn't lock our doors ever. Yeah, they didn't feel any any need to. Yeah, which so many towns are like that across

this country alone. So, you know, this is a normal thing in Georgetown, or at least it was in 2002, to kind of give you a better idea of how safe Rachel felt going on the run, how safe her parents felt having her there, it was like there was no worries, but, you know, sadly, that's just not true. Right. So as we mentioned, when Rachel came home to Georgetown,

she picked up some shifts at her old workplace, which was a steak restaurant in Georgetown called Wildfire. And this was a good way for her to make some money, while she was away from her home of San Diego, where she worked at the restaurant Hooters. So her dad wondered if she had ended up picking up a shift at Wildfire, and she had just left her purse and phone by mistake. Now obviously this kind of feels like a long shot because they had plans. Why would she leave all her stuff? But obviously, again this is a safe area he's not expecting the worst.

He is just thinking maybe she's at work. So Robert kind of waited at home for a little while and then when Janet came home from work at the school, they talked about where could Rachel be and Janet decided to just call over to the restaurant and see if Rachel was there. And to their relief, they were told that Rachel was working that night and she was there presently. So that answered all their questions. And Rachel of course didn't have a car there in Texas, so they just figured that she would call them later for a ride or get a ride home and that everything was fine. But, the next morning came and Rachel still wasn't home. Her phone was left in the same place and so was her purse.

And it was now Friday morning and her parents were even more worried about where she was. So they called the restaurant again to ask what time Rachel got off of work the night before. And get this. They were told that their Rachel didn't work that night, but a different Rachel did. So the person that they spoke with the previous evening pretty much got these two Rachel's confused. Which is totally makes sense because Rachel Cook didn't work there regularly.

So why would this person assume they were talking about Rachel Cook, who was just maybe gonna pick up a shift there while she was in town? Right. So it's so frustrating because it's like, it's not that person's fault, but oh my God, what a horrible, horrible mistake. Exactly.

So now her parents were absolutely freaking out because there was officially no sign of Rachel since they both left for work over 24 hours earlier. So at this point, they knew that something had to be very wrong, and they decided to look through her things to see if anything could point to any clues. Because at this point, they didn't even know the last thing that she did was going to run. But when they noticed her running shoes, walkman, and some other exercise clothing was missing, they had a feeling that that was the last thing that she concretely did.

So I know I keep like harping that this is a safe area, but just to be clear, violent crime is not high in this area at all, or at least, like we're talking about 2002 here, I don't know how it is now, we're talking 2002 though. Violent crime is very low, and people are not typically abducted or murdered at all. So their initial thought was that Rachel may have been hit by a car while she was running.

So Robert hopped in his own vehicle and started driving the route that he knew Rachel always ran to see if he could find any sign of her. But when he got back, he reported to Janet and Joanne that he didn't see anything. So with that, Janet called around to local hospitals, as well as other people close to Rachel in the area, just hoping to get a sign of good news. But Rachel was nowhere. And Janet even went to a hospital

to see if any unidentified women had been brought in, which is such a sad thing to think about, but, you know, there weren't any. So they headed down to the local police station, which is the Williams and County Sheriff's Office, and they reported their daughter missing and explained everything that had happened up to that point. But because this area is known to be safe, police felt that this was all some big misunderstanding

and that Rachel was fine. Even though she had been missing for over 24 hours. I had just hate when this happened. After all, she was 19 years old. She's independent. But still, just like every case we discuss on this show, her parents knew that something had happened, especially because when they spoke to Rachel's best friend

Shannon about the whole situation, she explained to the cooks that she had dinner plans with Rachel for the night before, and she hadn't shown up. And this had been really alarming to Shannon because Rachel never bailed without calling, so she had been worried about where Rachel was, and she wasn't the only one. Greg had never gotten a call back from Rachel, even though she said that she would call

them after her run, so it was very clear to Rachel's immediate circle that something had happened. So since police weren't really helping at this point, the family organized a search for the next morning with various friends and neighbors who searched around the community. Here's Rachel's description. A 5'3", 115lb white 19-year-old woman with blue and hazel eyes and brown hair with thick blonde highlights slash streaks. She had a tattoo on her left shoulder of two heart shaped cherries and a black star tattooed on her left foot.

She also had multiple piercings in her ears and one in her navel. She was wearing a gray running outfit with a green sports bra and running shoes. So this is who the neighbors were looking for. And even neighbors who owned horses joined in and searched the trails more easily this way. So it really seemed like all these people and it was, you know, around 50 people really cared about helping Rachel and her family. But to everyone's surprise, during this search, there was still no sign of Rachel. So luckily that afternoon, police joined in

and began organizing their own search after realizing how serious the situation was. That Saturday went on and all Rachel's family could think about was her, meaning her cousin's wedding was the last thing on their minds. Which is so sad because the only reason that Rachel was still in Texas was for this cousin's wedding was the last thing on their minds. Which is so sad because the only reason that Rachel was still in Texas was for this cousin's wedding and she didn't even make it to the wedding. So the following morning, which was Sunday, January 13th, 2002,

the Texas Rangers joined the search for Rachel, and one of the first things they did was try to create a timeline in what happened to her. As we know, what happened to her. As we know, Rachel spoke to her boyfriend Greg on the phone at around 9.15 a.m. when she woke up for the day, on Thursday, and she told him about her plans to go for a morning run. Although it's unclear exactly what time she would have left, we can imagine it was shortly after the call ended.

And via cell phone records, police were able to conclude that Greg had called her from his phone in San Diego, so he was not a suspect in her disappearance. But he was very, very worried about her, so he flew right back to Texas to help look for her on that Sunday just two days after she went missing. Still, of course, police wanted to interview him to see if he knew anything and even give him a polygraph, which he passed. During her run, there were a couple witnesses

that saw Rachel. One of the cook's neighbors that was just around point one miles away from her house so very close had seen her. Two people at that home had noticed her running past their house at about 10.45 a.m., an hour and a half after her call with Greg. Another witness was a man, and he saw Rachel that morning just up the street from her home, and he said that she was running. So two people saw her likely towards the end of her run, so close

to her house, yet it didn't appear that she ever made it home. Texas Equesturch was brought into the search, who's this really awesome search and rescue organization that helps a ton of missing persons cases throughout the entire country, and they spend about two weeks looking for Rachel Cook. On top of this, Roberts co-workers, along with more people from the community, police, and Texas Rangers, searched for her on horseback, ATVs, and helicopters with cadaver dogs and more, but at this point, there was still no trace of Rachel. From more witness statements, Lisa uncovered that some neighbors remember seeing

a white Camaro driving around and seemingly aimlessly in the neighborhood around 11 a.m. that morning, which is just around the time that Rachel would have been near her house finishing her run. Two males were noticed in the vehicle appearing to be in their early 20s or even younger, and actually the police uncovered who that car belonged to and who was behind the wheel. After some digging, they uncovered that two teenagers had skipped school that Thursday morning and went for a drive. Considering they could still be suspects, police questioned them extensively, but eventually they cleared them of any involvement.

But there was another male that had been seen in the area, and police needed the public's help to identify him. He was described as being a white 18-25-year-old man with black hair and somewhat of a muscular build driving a small white Toyota pickup truck or possibly a small white Nissan. A few composite sketches of this man were created and released to the public, and we actually posted those composites on our socials for you guys to see. Yes, I know we say this a lot, but for those who still don't know, go check out our Instagram, which is at Going West Podcast, Twitter at Going West Pod, and there were also on Facebook.

Within a month of Rachel's disappearance, a $50,000 reward had been collected from locals and it was posted, hoping to bring some kind of movement in the case. A few months later, another composite sketch was created, and police also released that this man could have been driving a newer Camaro, or potentially a trans-am. Remember that. And they even had a pretty specific detail pertaining to one of these cars that it had a blue and white stripe along both sides.

So this particular person had been seen talking to a young woman in the very same area that Rachel had been running. Many tips came in about this man as well as the ones that Heath had mentioned, but none of these tips led to answers regarding Rachel. So the search is dwindled down, but they never did for Rachel's family. When Robert could search during his time away from work, which was mostly on the weekends, he would just try to get anybody together that he could to help him look, and this went

on for nine months until they kinda had to throw in the towel because they had done absolutely everything they could in their power to find her and they just couldn't. And it goes without saying that this all really affected the entire family, but it of course even affected them in regular day to day situations. For example, Robert told the Guardian that even one hot day after Rachel's disappearance when they tried to have a nice day by the lake in Austin, he would see girls around the same age as Rachel was. And maybe they'd go off down a wooded path by themselves, and despite

the fact that there were people around and everything seemed perfectly fine and safe, just as it had for Rachel, all he wanted to do was shout after them to please be careful and to not go off alone, you know, just thinking of his own daughter. That's just so sad to think about the fact that he can't even look at, you know, girls the same age as his missing daughter without having some sort of like fear for them. Oh, I know. And we'll talk about this later. I know we always say that we'll talk about this later, but we do go into more of his

efforts. And I mean, her family is just amazing. Robert also said later that he made a personal vow to Rachel that he promised he would find her. So he felt this responsibility to do so and to not forget her ever. Which is so sad too that he felt this, you know, telling her in his heart I'm going to find you and then feeling like he has to follow through on that. Absolutely.

So, the months continue to pass with no sign of their wonderful daughter, but the family began to fall apart in the midst of just this unthinkable tragedy, and Robert and Janet eventually divorced. So it's pretty safe to say that the Cook family was incredibly defeated at this point by the lack of findings in this case. And this frustration carried on for nearly two years, until the Williams and County Sheriff's Office elected a new sheriff in early 2004. And this new sheriff took on Rachel's case into his own hands and established a task force

to see if there was any new clues that could be uncovered. Although the first sheriff wasn't able to solve Rachel's case, they really did do everything that they could to search for her, and even interviewed over 200 people and followed up on countless tips. But the new task force wanted to double down and make sure that all the people interviewed and the hundreds of tips that had already been followed up on had been done so properly. So they essentially started from scratch here and over the next few months, they put in over 1000 hours into Rachel's case, but still, they found nothing of use.

Which is so crazy to me because it's clear that over the years, so much was put into this investigation. You know, assuming Rachel was abducted during her run, this happened during broad daylight while multiple neighbors were outside noticing people going up and down the street, you know, whether walking or driving, yet still, they could not figure out what happened to her. And I will add, originally, her parents wondered if someone had been waiting in their house since they didn't lock their doors for Rachel, and she was ambushed there versus on the street. But investigators played into this for a bit and they just didn't see any evidence of

a struggle or anything inside the house, so they really felt that something had happened to her while she was on the run. So a couple more years passed, and something huge came to the case. Someone confessed to murdering Rachel. In late 2001 and 21 days before Rachel disappeared, a young woman pulled up in front of her house in Lampassis after work, which is 50 miles or 80 kilometers northwest of Georgetown. When a pickup truck pulled up behind her and started chatting with her. But things escalated quite quickly and he grabbed her right there in the street. She ended up being able to get out of his grasp and she sprinted into her house.

And since she got away, the man fled himself. Now this man that we're talking about is 27 year old Michael Keith Moore. He wasn't initially caught for this, but the woman did get a good description of him and it would pay off later. But first, let's talk about Michael. Michael Keith Moore had been in trouble with the law since the age of 13. He was a high school dropout, and although he sat at an average intelligence level, he was very cocky, arrogant, and just had no remorse.

I mean, like a true piece of shit in our opinion. But we're not even to the super frustrating part yet. So Michael liked toying with people, especially the police. He was apparently the guy that would leave breadcrumbs for a crime that he committed and then become enraged when he was suspected of it. When he wasn't in jail or prison, he worked as a fireplace installer, a furniture

mover, and a janitor. And it always freaks me out when I learned that people like Michael Keith Moore had regular jobs like going into people's house to install a fireplace or move their furniture, you know? Oh, yeah. Knowing that really bad people do those jobs and that take place inside your home. Yeah, exactly. They could be in anybody's home at any time doing some sort of like odd job. Yeah, very scary. So Heath, why don't you go into some of his many crimes? Right. So most of the crimes that he committed from 13 on include theft, leading a high speed chase, making a bomb threat at his high school, shoplifting, burglary, using a BB gun to break into dozens of cars and homes, punching his girlfriend and putting

a knife to her throat, use of an unauthorized vehicle, and more. His father had this to say about him. He has no guilt on anything he does. He never has, and he can stand in front of you and lie to you, and you can't tell whether he's telling the truth or he's lying, which is terrifying. Yeah, so he's just like the fucking worse. And this is coming from his own father. Exactly.

So, Michael has been in and out of prison since his teens, and even after getting out, he would always act out again. A year and a half after Rachel went missing and September of 2003, he murdered a 35-year-old woman in Round Rock, Texas, which is just outside of Georgetown, named Christina Moore, and by the way, there's no relation to him. And this, Christina Moore was described as a loving mother of a 15-month-old daughter, and she was also

three months pregnant with another child, and she was also a devoted wife. Michael entered her home that day and cut her throat. Days before the murder, he went to a party in Georgetown and actually raped a woman who had previously been sleeping, so he's just, you know, this horrible, horrible person. been sleeping. So he's just, you know, this horrible, horrible person. And just four days after murdering Christina, he anonymously called the police to say that he found checks with Christina's name on them in a payphone coin return slot. So it seemed like he was either trying to throw police off or just kind of insert himself into the investigation. But this would end up being his downfall. Because two days after this, now that police had his name on their radar and knew about his criminal record, they questioned him regarding Christina's murder.

In November of 2004, Michael was indicted for murdering Christina Moore. And while he was in prison a couple years later, he confessed to murdering Rachel too. So this is where this comes in. So he told police that he had been driving around Georgetown looking for something to steal when he came across Rachel on a run. He then struck Rachel in the head with a hammer, put her in his vehicle, drove her to another location, raped her, and then suffocated her. He then said that he wrapped her body in a tarp, weighed it down with rocks, and threw her in the Madaguarda Bay, which for reference is a

whopping three hours drive south, and it's located in the Gulf of Mexico. He also said that he buried her jewelry and other personal items and that he would tell police where those items were, as well as exactly where he had put her body. Now with this full confession, Michael agreed to plead guilty to the murder of Rachel Cook, in which he would receive another life sentence to run concurrent with his previous charges, meaning he would still be eligible for parole after 30 years when he was in his early 60s. I just, I don't know. Monsters like this, I just think.

This man should not be free. No, yeah. There should be no eligibility for parole for this guy. I agree, but I think because he came forward with this confession, you know, maybe they got to give him something, I guess. Yeah, or at least the hope for something, but that doesn't mean he would, he would get out. That's true, yeah. And he probably wouldn't have.

Yeah, exactly. So the cooks had extremely mixed feelings about this whole thing. They were glad to have some answers, but the nature of what had apparently happened to their daughter was just too much to bear. And all of those initial emotions from four years earlier came right back. Like she had been taken from them all over again. Because of course they knew that something bad had happened to her, but to hear somebody say that they hit her with a hammer, raped her, suffocated her like, these are horrible things to hear about your loved one, obviously. So they're like, finally we know, but that's not what we wanted to hear.

Yeah, exactly. Two months after his confession, on November 9, 2006, a courtroom filled his Rachel's family and others got ready to finally close this chapter in some way. But when the judge asked 31-year-old Michael Moore how he wanted to plead, this mother fucker said that he wanted to plead not guilty. Insane. Which surprise not only Rachel's family, but literally everyone, even Michael's own attorney. The fact that he did this, you know, against the advice of his attorney and whatever

conversation they had up to this point, like what the f? I know, seriously. So although Michael had already confessed and they expected him to plead guilty, he ripped it right out from underneath everyone, acting like the same old teasing, remorseless monster that he'd always been. And as you can imagine, this absolutely gutted Rachel's family. They couldn't believe what was happening. Michael said he made the whole story up so that he could get special privileges in prison while the authorities visited him, which included being able to have extra time visiting with his wife, and yes, this piece of shit really did have a wife, but this left the question.

Did he really not do it? Or did he kill Rachel and just wanted to jolt everyone by recanting his confession? I mean, this guy is next level evil to toy with her family like it, or did he kill Rachel and just wanted to jolt everyone by recanting his confession. I mean, this guy is next level evil to toy with her family like this. I absolutely hate this guy. Because even if he did do it, the fact that he confessed and then retracted it like this and then the charges were dropped, like, F you man, like who does that? That's just the most evil thing I could think of doing to a family like it's just pure evil because we know Also that he is capable of murder because he's murdered before we know he's a rapist like so this just makes you question everything and Not know what to believe and I just want to mention the composites drawn of the potential suspects all had dark hair

But Michael doesn't match this description. I mean, he is white, but he has red hair, so he does not match the composites, but that also doesn't mean that he didn't do it. Maybe no one saw him. Yeah, exactly. Unfortunately, after all that, there was nothing but Michael's confession. There was no actual evidence that tied him to her case. So it went cold again, and the investigation essentially went back to square one. One person that always stood out to police was Rachel's ex-boyfriend. And we're not talking about Greg. Yeah, Greg's a good guy.

Greg's a good man. But rather someone from her hometown that she knew and dated previously, a young man named Thomas. Now he did not make a good impression on her family and proved to be extremely volatile. After they broke up, he would show up at her family's home in the middle of the night screaming for Rachel, and Rachel's parents had to threaten calling the cops so he would stop. He even reached out to Rachel while she and Greg were together, and eventually Greg had

to tell him to stop calling, telling Thomas that Rachel did not want to talk to him anymore. Thomas allegedly even cried on the phone to Greg, telling him how much he loved Rachel. And police have kept an eye on him since the start of the investigation, but they have not been able to prove that he was behind her disappearance. And his last name has not been released by police, nor information regarding his appearance or his type of car, so it's hard for any of us web sleuths to say if he's involved or not, but he clearly was not over her after all that time and had even seen her recently and they'd gotten into a fight so that does not look good.

In June of 2017, the Williamson County Sheriff's Office received a tip regarding potential human remains buried on a property in Liberty Hill, Texas. The person who called in with the tip mentioned Rachel by name, but there wasn't anything obvious that pointed to these remains having belonged to Rachel. Various crews excavated a 15 by 20 foot area that was 18 inches deep, but they didn't uncover anything. They continued to dig and search the field with cadaver dogs, but the field was so large, so it's something police are still looking into at this point.

I did read online mostly on Reddit, because I really couldn't find it anywhere else. I found something on WebSlooth too about it, but that there was a sock found. Now, I don't know if it was found at this property, but there was, I read on WebSlooths, a green sock found, and then a bunch of locals were talking about it on Reddit saying that they thought that, or they had heard that Rachel's socks were found on this property, but I can't confirm it because I wasn't able to find an article to back that up.

It doesn't seem police are officially releasing that information, so I just wanted to mention it briefly. But this is just something that's out there on the web. Yes. Right, so in 2018, 16 years after Rachel disappeared, a white 1998 Pontiac Trans-Am was found in Dallas that was connected to a person of interest in Rachel's case. And remember we talked earlier about how a Trans-am was seen in the area at the time.

Exactly. And the Williamson County Sheriff's Office said that tests indicated the potential presence of blood on the passenger floorboard and the passenger door. A tip had come into the Sheriff's Office in April of 2018, which led police to collecting the vehicle and transporting it to an FBI crime lab. But sadly, there was no official update as to whether or not it was blood, and if so, who's it was? And also, sorry to keep interjecting on you, Heath.

No, it's good. But someone on Reddit pointed out that the car appears to have been taken from a project garage or junkyard because the engine and the front end of the car are missing. So it doesn't seem that this car was actively in use, especially for any of us asking, how would there be blood after all that time if it is connected to Rachel's disappearance. But also, we don't know how much blood or if it even was blood, and if it was it could have been very small traces as well. Later that year in December of 2018, investigators dug up a field in Georgetown following a tip

about Rachel's case, but they declined to say if anything of interest was found. And this is when the potential sock could have been found as well. If anyone out there is a local on happen to hear about this on the news or something regarding a sock and you know more than I do about this, please let us know in the comments because I really could not find a lot about that and I don't even know if it's relevant so they did want to bring it up because we like to mention everything that we find. So in January of 2021, so just over a year ago, the Williamson County Sheriff's Office announced that they were looking for a man who may know something about Rachel's case, saying quote,

After investigating over 2,000 tips and eliminating numerous individuals suspected to have been involved with Rachel's disappearance, we are looking for a subject that was living in the Georgetown area in 2002 and it's traveled to multiple cities throughout the state of Texas." End quote. Now this really doesn't tell us or the public anything about this person, but police also said that the man is known to have been in acquaintance of Rachel's and is believed to have been in the horse and cattle industry. To this day, Rachel's cooks remains have not been identified, but it's heavily presumed

that she is deceased. Michael Moore is still considered a potential suspect, but at this point, there still isn't enough evidence to concretely connect to anybody to Rachel's disappearance. Sadly, Rachel's father, Robert, passed away from a long illness at the age of 59 and late 2014, before ever finding out what happened to his daughter. The last 12 years of his life were dedicated to looking for her and speaking at various conferences regarding missing persons cases. The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for any information that would lead to Rachel's location. And the Cook family is doubling that, making the total reward $100,000.

So if you have any information regarding Rachel Cook's disappearance or death, So if you have any information regarding Rachel Cook's disappearance or death, please call the Williamson County Cold Case Tip Line at 512-943-5204. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode, and next week we'll have two more cases for you guys to dive into. Yes, thank you everybody for listening to our two episodes. It seems like most of you are listening to both, and that means a lot to us. We just want to get more stories out there.

Heath and I have gotten so many recommendations for cases over the last few months, and we just kind of realize more than ever that there are more cases than just one, you know, like four in a month, it just seems like two, two little. We want to cover more cases and help get more stories out there. So thank you everybody for listening and sharing the show. It means the world. And please share Rachel's case because I feel like there's so many persons of interest in this case and I do feel like it is solvable. Well, and with a most recent update coming from just last year, police are very much still looking into this and still trying to figure out what happened to her, but the fact that

there is no trace of her still just boggles my mind when there's been so many tips and so many people out there looking for her but that is the sad reality of a lot of missing persons cases so thank you guys for listening, thank you for sharing Rachel's story and we love you all. And if you guys are looking for any extra going west episodes, we do have a Patreon, you can head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast, we have a ton of ad free full length bonus episodes for you guys to binge. Alright guys, so for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger. 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc

1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc 1 tbc Thank you. you