Metro-Dade police officer, William Cook, 25, a six-year veteran, was shot and killed in what was euphemistically called a "domestic disturbance" on Wednesday, May 16, 1979. The killer also critically wounded two other Metro-Dade officers after shooting his wife and another woman and then was killed by police. The killing of Officer Cook came one day after Police Memorial Day of 1979.
The tragedy began around 2:10PM, just five minutes before Officer Cook and his fellow day shift officers were due to head back to the Central District Station for the end of the shift at 3:00PM. A radio call went out for a "34", a domestic disturbance, and then for a "330", a shooting at the same location. Officer Cook, riding with reserve officer Scott Lincoln, responded along with two other units.
Army Pvt. Lewis Randal ("Skeeter") Pearsall, 21, had deserted from the army three months earlier but made no attempt to hide his whereabouts as he lived and worked in his old neighborhood in Liberty City. Pearsall had been stationed at Ft. Carson in Colorado Springs, CO, but deserted after his wife, Zelma, 18, left him, taking their infant son with her back to Miami. The couple had married when Pearsall was 17 and Zelma was 14. Zelma had decided she wanted out of the marriage. Pearsall followed her back to Miami. He wanted his wife back. Desperately. For a short time, they lived together in Miami. But then she left again, this time talking of divorce. He protested. She avoided him. He stalked her. (Miami Herald, 5171979)
Zelma quit her job as a baggage inspector at Miami International Airport because her husband's "threats harried her to distraction."
Pearsall evidently had decided to end his misery. "The day before he had given away his possessions. This was to be his Armageddon." As early as 6:00AM on Wednesday, May 16 (the day of the murder), Pearsall had been seen hiding in the trees across the street from his mother-in-law's home at 7531 N.W. 12 Ct. (where Zelma and the infant lived) wearing a red warmup suit and carrying a satchel. At 2:10PM, after eight hours of waiting, Pearsall saw Zelma get into the backseat of a 1972 Chevrolet Nova. Two of her female friends were in the front seat.
Pearsall walked up to the car and began to argue with his wife. He then pulled a handgun (a Colt .38 short revolver) from the satchel he was carrying and began shooting. One woman in the front seat was shot in the left shoulder and both women then got out of the car and ran toward a nearby house. Neighbors called the police.
Zelma crawled over the front seat, got behind the wheel and attempted to drive away. Pearsall ran after her, shouting, "Hold it! Hold it!" He caught her after she had driven only one block at the corner of N.W. 12 Ct. and 77 Terrace and "jammed his pistol to her head and forced his way into the car. The couple struggled as the car bucked and lurched down the street."
A 74 year-old woman came up to the car and begged Pearsall not to kill his hostage. Pearsall said nothing as his hostage begged the elderly woman to help her. The elderly woman said that she was too scared to attempt to help the hostage.
Pearsall forced Zelma to drive and the car lurched forward. Another passerby attempted to walk up to the car but Pearsall shouted at him to "get out of here" and threatened to shoot him. As the man ran away he heard a shot as Pearsall had shot Zelma in the stomach. He ran over to one of the arriving police cars and told the driver that the man inside the car had pointed a gun at him.
By this time three police cars had arrived and blocked the intersection at N.W. 77 Terrace and N.W. 12 Ave. so that the car only traveled one block. Officers Cook and Lincoln arrived in one car while Officers Robert Edgerton, 39, and Keith DiGenova, 27, arrived alone in their cruisers. The four officers got out of their patrol cars, all but Lincoln with guns drawn, and surrounded the Nova.
Officers Cook and Lincoln approached the driver's side of the vehicle while DiGenova approached the passenger side with Edgerton at the rear. The officers were shouting, "Freeze, drop your gun!" but Pearsall, who was in the front passenger seat holding the female hostage "close to him with a firearm pointed at her head," did not obey their command.
DiGenova leaned through the open passenger window (his upper body was completely inside the window) and began to struggle with Pearsall in an attempt to disarm him. Officer Lincoln leaned into the driver's window but was thrown back out of the car to the ground on his back by Pearsall (or by his "hysterical" wife as she threw open the driver's door and jumped out of the car). Pearsall then fired "point blank" at DiGenova's forehead. "The blast impelled the officer against the roof, then left him jackknifed over the door." Cook and Edgerton, who were standing outside of the Nova (Cook by the driver's door and Edgerton at the rear), fired at Pearsall striking him twice in the back. Pearsall slumped over in the seat with his neck falling backwards. Edgerton yelled at Cook, "I got him," and, assuming that Pearsall was disabled or dead, holstered his gun (to be able to use both hands to aid DiGenova) and started around the car to go to the aid of DiGenova.
But Pearsall was not dead. He was slumped over in the passenger seat and, though fatally wounded, had a few seconds to act before his fatal wounds took effect. He had dropped his revolver (which was empty except for a single cartridge that had misfired) to the floorboard when he was shot, but while slumped over, saw DiGenova's police revolver on the floorboard and picked it up.
Pearsall then "sprang up and shot through the window" hitting Edgerton "just beneath the heart, leaving him to crawl for safety on his hands and knees." Edgerton was shot as he began trying to pull DiGenova out of the window and later recalled seeing a puff of smoke (but no sound) and being hit in the chest and then falling to the pavement.
Pearsall then moved toward the passenger side of the front seat as he attempted to fire again at the disabled DiGenova and Edgerton. Cook, who was still at the driver's window, saw Pearsall's "move" toward his fellow officers and shot twice hitting Pearsall in the back. Cook then made the same mistake Edgerton had earlier made---he assumed that Pearsall was now disabled and tried to run around the front of the car to go to the aid of his fellow officers.
But Pearsall, though fatally wounded, revived a second time and fired two shots through the front windshield at Cook as he passed in front of the car. Cook had on a bulletproof vest but was not wearing the vest "side plates" and one bullet hit him in the side, an inch from his bullet proof vest. One investigator described the shot that killed Cook as a "one in a hundred million shot" that found its mark. Cook fell mortally wounded to the pavement.
Edgerton heard the shots fired by Cook and Pearsall but could not draw his gun as he lay on the pavement due to a new type of holster issued a month earlier that required him to push down and then out. Reserve Officer Lincoln, who was paid $1 a year and rode with the police a couple of times a month, never drew his gun and remained on the ground during the firefight.
Pearsall then fired through the back window at Det. Don Blocker who had just arrived and had approached the Nova from the rear. Blocker dropped down and Pearsall may have thought he had been shot as he then jumped out of the car on the driver's side where Cook and Lincoln were lying on the ground.
As Pearsall stepped out of the car, Det. Blocker fired his weapon, hitting Pearsall in the chest. Pearsall fell to the ground with a bullet through the chest that lodged in his spine. He was at last truly disabled. The "action" took only 7-10 seconds but one Metro-Dade officer and Pearsall lay mortally wounded while two other officers were critically wounded.
Fire rescue units arrived shortly after the shooting. Officer Cook was rushed to North Shore Hospital and admitted at 2:35PM with no vital signs. Attempts to revive him were unsuccessful and he was pronounced dead at 3:05PM. DiGenova was also wearing a bulletproof vest but had been shot in the head. He was rushed to North Shore Hospital in critical condition. Edgerton was not wearing a bulletproof vest and was shot in the chest and right forearm. He was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital and listed as critical.
Pearsall was dead at the scene while his wife was taken to Jackson Memorial Hospital and listed in serious condition. The woman in the front seat who had been shot by Pearsall earlier was listed in fair condition.
Officer DiGenova underwent brain surgery for five hours at the hospital and doctors listed his chances of living as "50-50". The bullet and bone fragments were removed from his brain. Fears were expressed that he would be permanently paralyzed or suffer from brain damage. DiGenova's identical twin brother, Kenny, flew from Chicago to Miami to keep watch with his parents, Pat and Sue, his brothers Gene and Dennis, and his sister Donna.
Police and witnesses at the scene were amazed that the officers had approached the car and attempted to physically disarm Pearsall and that the officers did not shoot Pearsall before he shot them. One police officer said, "under normal circumstances...you don't wrestle with people with guns. That's why we have guns." A civilian witness who saw the event was amazed that the three policemen did not shoot the man in the car since he fired one shot at his hostage in their presence and pointed his gun at the officers.
Other officers suggested that recent criticism of the police had made the officers more reluctant to use deadly force for fear of further criticism. Many expressed the view that the hesitation that caused the death of one officer and the serious wounding of two others was due to the anticipation of criticism and action by the Department, the prosecutor, the media and the public. As one officer put it, "If you shoot you're 'brutal,' if you don't shoot you die." Other officers said that the recent "wrong-house raid" on Nathaniel LaFleur had made Metro-Dade officers more hesitant to use force. A Metro-Dade homicide officer suggested that the three officers on the scene hesitated as they did not want to be the next officers sued.
Ironically, even though one police officer was killed and two others seriously wounded, the assistant county manager had to send a 13-member citizens' committee into the community "spreading the word in the neighborhood that this case was not an incident of police brutality." The Miami News reported that reaction in the community was "mixed" and quoted one young man as saying that Pearsall "had become their hero" because "he 'offed' the cops like a real soldier." Others interviewed expressed support for the police and said Pearsall "got what he deserved".
Det. James McHugh, the lead investigator on the case, told reporters that ballistic evidence confirmed that the three officers were shot by Pearsall from inside the car and that none of the officers were hit by crossfire from other officers. The numerous police and civilian witnesses at the scene also eliminated any suggestion that the officers may have been hit with "friendly fire." The medical examiner determined that all three shots to Pearsall were fatal indicating that he killed Officer Cook and wounded Officer Edgerton as he "was living out the last seconds of his life."