Law&Crime Sidebar - 'True Evil': Ex-Boyfriend Allegedly Recorded Rape of High School Senior Before Murdering Her

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

An Oklahoma man stands accused of recording himself raping his ex-girlfriend before murdering her in her bedroom on April 22. Madeline Bills was a high school senior who was a star student, a standout basketball player, and a beloved sister, daughter, and friend. Nineteen-year-old Chace Cook was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and rape nearly one month after the brutal killing. The Law&Crime Network’s Angenette Levy breaks down the affidavit with former Tulsa homicide detective David Walker.LAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokePodcasting - Sam GoldbergWriting & Video Editing - Michael DeiningerGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa Bein & Kiera BronsonSUBSCRIBE TO OUR OTHER PODCASTS:Court JunkieObjectionsThey Walk Among AmericaDevil In The DormThe Disturbing TruthSpeaking FreelyLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. View Shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller

that will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. A high school senior raped and murdered in her bed and police say her ex-boyfriend recorded it on his phone. A veteran homicide detective discusses the murder of Madeline Bills. I'm Anjanette Levy and thanks for joining us for Law and Crimes Sidebar podcast. Madeline Bills was a star on her high school basketball team and she was getting ready to graduate with straight A's.

Then she planned to play basketball at northeastern Oklahoma A&M College. She had everything going for her, a bright future, until the morning of April 22nd. Police in Moore, Oklahoma, say Maddie was in. in a pool house at the home where she lived with her adult brothers when her ex-boyfriend, Chase Cook, broke in, recorded himself raping her and then killed her. That pool house had actually been converted into a bedroom for Maddie. What makes this even more frightening and tragic, the affidavit charging cook with killing

bills says that she feared him so much that she thought about staying in the main house with her brothers. Officers say in the affidavit that surveillance video showed a man. hopping a fence at the home that morning at 6.38 a.m. 90 seconds later, police say the man hop back over the fence only to go back into the yard six minutes later at 644. Police say that man was Chase Cook and that he left the property at 717 a.m. So if you do the math there, that means that he spent about 33 minutes on the property. Maddie was found dead later in the day when her family called 911. Police said that Chase Cook initially agreed.

to speak with them and claimed he'd been in Galveston, Texas, training in the ocean to become a Navy seal. It appears that story unraveled when police told more they knew he was in the area when Maddie was murdered because his vehicle was caught on camera. Also, police had pulled him over. Cook asked for a lawyer and was charged with murder and rape. Officers claim in another affidavit that they found Cook's phone and that it had video of him raping Maddie who appeared to be unconscious. Police say Cook's DNA was found on Maddie's body during her autopsy. Joining me to discuss the murder of Madeline Bills is Dave Walker. He is a 36-year law enforcement veteran, and he supervised the homicide unit at the Tulsa Police Department

for a time in his career at the end of his career. So Dave, welcome to Sidebar. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. Your thoughts, first of all, just generally speaking, on this case, It didn't seem like it took a whole lot to solve it. They got on it quickly. We knew that Maddie feared her ex-boyfriend, but your initial thoughts. The initial thoughts is if there probably was no trauma to the body, that's why they had to kind of wait for maybe the autopsy to come in to determine how or why she was dead. But obviously there was some sort of crime there that was committed. and the location of the body being kind of hidden in the areas, the suspect had to know how to get there and who was there.

So that is a good thing from the investigation part. You just have to separate yourself from the trauma of the event and the family and the fact that we have a victim that really probably shouldn't be a victim. And she even knew she was going to be a victim and we didn't take or they didn't take the correct steps to keep her safe. And then law enforcement just needs to move from there. So I think my initial thoughts when I started looking into it was if I walked into that one, I knew we were going to have a solve, or at least we were going to have a suspect to Chase initially. And that's always a good thing. And our suspect, the defendant in this case, is Chase Cook.

He is the ex-boyfriend of Maddie Bills. And she had told friends she feared him, Dave, that she wanted to go from the pool house, which was her bedroom, into the main house where her. adult brothers lived because she thought he might hurt her. And it seems to me, and Chase Cook is innocent until proven guilty, of course, that he left a trail of breadcrumbs here. There was surveillance video that showed a man hopping over the fence back and forth. We had his cell phone. We had a traffic stop that he was involved in around the time of the murders. So the thing that disturbs me so much about this, beyond the fact that she was raped and murdered, is the fact that

police are saying they found his cell phone and that he videotaped himself raping Maddie and that she was unconscious. What does that tell us about this crime? The fact that somebody would document something like this in this way. Well, I tell you, all the things that you said breadcrumbs lead you to believe that it's going to be disorganized. He really didn't plan the murder. He planned to do something. And I believe sex was probably the big part of that. You mentioned a lot of things. And here's the neighbor's video, asked video, all those are very important for communities to have. And personal video solves a lot of crime and puts people convicted of that crime. Chase Cook is probably one of those criminals that is true evil, but he's functioning in society.

Just those things alone means he did not really plan to kill her. and most murders don't because they'll keep their cell phones with them they'll do stupid things and then they'll try to explain it later. And Chase is just one of those examples of a young criminal murderer evil person

that try to get by with it on the fly. And you can't do that because homicide investigations are usually you get, well you do get the best detectives that are around that area and you're just not going to fool us that way.

You can't say I wasn't there, I wasn't there, I wasn't there, and just get loud and keep saying. We know you were there and chase, you're hung, so just carry on. I think there are things that since she said that he was going to hurt her, boy, you know, the family has to live with that. There's things that could have been done that weren't done. We have to predict who we need to protect society from. And Madeline predicted who we needed to protect her from. And we didn't do that. When it came time, no matter if she's an athlete or not, he was bigger and stronger and she was just a victim.

And, you know, the mindset at one point is good for athletics. But when you're fighting for your life, you have to be able to win that fight. And unfortunately, Madeline did not win that one. And let's talk about one of the last things you mentioned there. I have a couple of things that I want to discuss. But first off, the fact that she had told people that she was afraid of him and that he may hurt her. She feared he might hurt her. And I think that in society, we need to really take those things seriously because you have to

trust your gut. That's the old saying, trust your gut. If it's making the hair on the back of your neck stand up, there's something wrong. Take some action. And certainly not blaming Maddie here. But if she's telling people this, it's so sad. You know, it's easy to hindsight as 2020, but it makes me very sad that she was fearful and that this ended up happening. You're absolutely right. It is terrible thing when you look back at

2020. How many times do people say something and fear something and it's not really true? But women have to trust your gut, as you say, women I found in history no more when they send something wrong, it's wrong. And you have to just abide by it. And I don't know if law enforcement was contacted on this, on her feeling, her gut feeling. But again, if they were, we would have sent out a tip sheet saying this person has alleged this about this person. It doesn't have to go to the media. It doesn't have to go to the public. But it's got to go to law enforcement to that officer in that area, maybe to the neighbors.

And say, if you see somebody hopping your fence on your video, call the cops and make a difference. And unfortunately, in this instance, we're talking about it in the past tense. But we could save so many people just by communicating with people. And understanding, yes, you are innocent until proven guilty and just a threat from a woman saying I feel odd when you're standing near me. This one had had legs and probably should have been investigated a little bit further by Madeline, by her family. And if they notified law enforcement, then we need to take it up from there and protect those family members and do something. I think Chase Cook probably is one of those predators that has a history of doing something like this. And had law enforcement looked into that history, maybe we would have found a rape victim that didn't come forward.

And therefore, we would have saved Madeline. So all those things, when you look at law enforcement from the outside looking in, now that I'm retired, you have the time to look at it and say, we could do something a little bit different than we normally do. We don't want to investigate after. Why don't we investigate before? Dave Walker, retired sergeant with the Tulsa Police Department. Thank you so much for joining us today. This is a horrible, horrible case.

And we all feel for Maddie Bills' family and hope that she can rest in peace. It's just a tragedy. Thank you so much. Thank you. And that's it for this edition of Law and Crime's Sidebar podcast. You can listen to and download Sidebar on Apple, Spotify, Google, and wherever else you get your podcast. And of course, you can always watch us on Law and Crimes YouTube channel. I'm Annette Levy, and we will see you next time.

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