The Unsolved Mystery of Kelly Cook: A Tragedy that Shocked a Community
A community’s search for justice: The unsolved case of Kelly Cook. Kelly was a 15-year-old girl who was abducted and murdered in 1981. Her body was found bound and anchored in Chin Lake Reservoir, east of Lethbridge, Alberta.
On April 22, 1981, 15-year-old Kelly Jane Evelyn Cook of Standard, Alberta received a phone call from a man identifying himself as Bill Christensen. The caller asked if she would babysit that evening and Kelly agreed.
The arrangements were made for the caller to pick her up at her residence. However, at 8:30 P.M., when a vehicle pulled up in front of the Cook’s residence, Kelly got into the car with the unidentified male and was never seen alive again.
Kelly’s body was found two months later in the Chin Lake Reservoir, east of Lethbridge, Alberta.
Her body was bound by ropes and anchored by two concrete blocks.
It is believed that the perpetrator of this crime had planned the abduction over a one or two-month period. The authorities have been unable to identify the perpetrator, but they suspect that the unknown man who had demanded to see Kelly’s body at the funeral home in Calgary, may have been her killer.
The Cook family had settled well in Standard, a small farming community with a population of less than 400 at the time. Kelly was a popular girl at school, who earned good grades and enjoyed figure skating.
On the day of her abduction, Kelly received a phone call from a man who introduced himself as Bill Christensen, asking her to babysit for him later that night.
Kelly and her family had no firsthand knowledge of this man, so they were skeptical. However, when Kelly asked her classmates if they knew a man named Bill Christensen, some of them replied that they had heard of the name.
