'This case is far from over': Investigators not giving up after 20-year search for Rachel Cooke

GEORGETOWN — It's been 20 years since Rachel Cooke was last seen jogging near her parents' home outside Georgetown, and investigators are still receiving a steady stream of tips about her disappearance.

But her whereabouts remain a 2-decades-old mystery, and the case continues to frustrate and haunt detectives and relatives.

Last year, investigators conducted a dig to search for her remains and looked through a house after getting tips about Cooke, who was 19 when she was last seen Jan. 10, 2002. They did not find anything, said Cmdr. John Foster, who supervises the criminal investigators at the Williamson County sheriff's office.

The dig took place in another county, he said, and the house search was in Williamson County.

READ: 17 years after Rachel Cooke's disappearance the search continues

Investigators have a few "people of interest" they would like to talk to about Cooke, but Foster said those people won't cooperate.

"They are not forthcoming regarding their relationship with her," Foster said. Some of the people have said it's a chapter of life they don't want to return to, he said.

"We know they are trying to forget and move on with their lives, but we need them to remember a community and more importantly a family that has not moved on and is not going to forget about it," Foster said.

READ: Williamson County sheriff searching for man with details about Rachel Cooke's disappearance

Investigators don't have DNA that would lead to a suspect in the case, he said.

Tim Miller, whose Houston-area organization EquuSearch helped look for Cooke by horseback, helicopter and boat in 2002, said he recently received a tip from a man about her disappearance.

"I was real excited about three months ago, and I met with this guy for breakfast, but it was very disappointing," Miller said. "It was nothing but speculation."

Miller said he told the sheriff's office about the tip because the man didn't want to meet with detectives.

He said he still has hope that the case will be solved.

"This case is far from over," Miller said.

In 2015, Miller said he helped find the remains of Rosemary Diaz, a 15-year-old who had been missing for 25 years from a rural community about 70 miles southwest of Houston. He also is working on the case of a person who has been missing for 41 years.

"Let's hope this 20th anniversary (of Cooke's disappearance) touches somebody's heart that knows something," Miller said.

Rachel's mother, Janet Cooke, said she just wants her daughter back. She said she is not sure whether Rachel is dead or alive.

"I just want Rachel's remains," the 65-year-old initially said in an interview last month. "I don’t care who did it. Before I die, I want to bury my baby girl. I want her sister to quit wondering what has happened."

But later in the interview she said her daughter might still be alive. "I don't know," she said. "It could be sex slavery. She was a very good-looking young lady."

Janet Cooke moved away from the North Lake subdivision house after her daughter disappeared and now lives in a house in Georgetown. Even though her oldest daughter lives in New Mexico and has asked her to move there, she said she doesn't want to leave the area.

She is still hoping to get the call that Rachel has been found. "It's one of the reasons I don't move, because if something happens I want to be right there."

The disappearance still generates the most tips of all the cold cases the sheriff's office has, Foster said.

"I think that's because everybody knows about it," he said. "There is probably not anything in the Rachel Cooke case that we have not heard of, not a theory we haven't considered."

Detectives still get about five to 10 tips on the case per month, Foster said. Since Rachel disappeared, investigators have combed through thousands of tips.

READ: Ten years after teen's disappearance ringing phone punctuates family's frustration

"The Cooke case really sent a shock wave through Williamson County," said Foster, who was a sheriff's deputy when Rachel was last seen. "She literally vanished. ... These things don't happen in the rural area where she was, or in the county."

Cooke was visiting her parents’ home northwest of Georgetown while on winter break from San Diego Mesa College in California when she left home at 9:30 a.m. for her daily 4-mile run.

She was last seen walking on Neches Trail toward her family’s house from 200 yards away, wearing a gray running outfit, a green sports bra, Asics running shoes and a yellow Walkman with sports-style headphones.

She was 5 feet 3 inches tall, weighed 115 pounds and had blue/hazel eyes and blond hair with highlights. She also had two heart-shaped cherries tattooed on her left foot near her pinky toe, multiple ear piercings and a navel piercing, according to the sheriff’s office.

Janet Cooke said she was leaving for work that morning when she stopped by a couch where Rachel was sleeping. "I nudged her, and I said, ‘I love you,’” Cooke said.

"Little did I know it would be the last time I saw her."

Rachel Cooke's father, the late Robert Cooke, and Rachel's younger sister, JoAnn Cooke, were also not at home when Rachel was last seen, officials said.

Janet Cooke said that when Rachel did not come home that night, she thought her daughter was out with friends but was concerned because she had left her purse and cellphone at home.

Later, hundreds of people searched the area on foot, on horseback and by helicopter for the missing jogger, but they found nothing.

Her disappearance drew national attention, and her picture was distributed on flyers throughout Central Texas. In 2004, the sheriff’s office put together a team of 10 investigators who spent 1,000 hours interviewing people in connection with the case.

When Robert Chody became Williamson County sheriff in 2017, he started a unit that focused on cold cases, including Cooke's.

In April 2018, a white 1998 Pontiac Trans Am was seized in the Dallas area in what was considered at the time the investigation's most significant development in years. FBI investigators believed the vehicle was linked to one seen in the area when Cooke vanished and found what might have been blood on a passenger floorboard, Chody said.

Foster said in December that investigators have not found any evidence of value in the car but that the sheriff's office still has the vehicle.

"We are still exploring that with our partners at the FBI," he said.

Investigators also received tips while Chody was sheriff that resulted in digs in fields near Liberty Hill in June 2017 and near Georgetown in December 2017, but they revealed no new information.

Two sketches of suspects were rereleased in January 2020 but did not lead to any useful tips, Foster said.

Chody, who did not respond to a request for comment about the 20th anniversary of Cooke's disappearance, lost his bid for reelection to Mike Gleason in 2020.

Foster said the sheriff's office investigates every tip received in Cooke's case.

"It's not fair to the community or Cooke's family to say publicly we got a tip today," he said, "because the tip could turn out not to be anything. I just want the case to be solved. It's been 20 years too long."

The FBI is offering a $50,000 reward for information leading to Cook's location. Cooke's family is also offering a $50,000 reward.

Anyone with information about the case can call the sheriff's office at 512-943-5204.

Rachel's younger sister, JoAnn, said she still keeps a letter in her wallet that Rachel wrote to her while in college.

"She's just talking about her relationship with boys and what she was doing with her pet guinea pig," JoAnn said.

"She was dating a guy named Greg, and when she came to visit for Christmas she was talking about how she felt like he was ‘the one’ and they were so happy together."

JoAnn, who is married and a director for outpatient programs for a behavioral health clinic in New Mexico, said the 20th anniversary of her sister's disappearance "is just another year without her."

"If (remains are) found, yes, it could provide closure, but it's not going to be good news," she said. "Probably part of me doesn't really hope for it. I'm ambivalent about it."

Both JoAnn and her mother said they missed being able to see Rachel grow up.

"The worst part of this is Rachel had so much to give and she never got the chance to come full flower," said Janet Cooke, a retired art teacher. Rachel went to Georgetown High School, where she ran cross-country and sang in the choir.

"She loved life and was always into something," Cooke said. "She loved to shop and hang out with her friends."

Rachel fell in love with California and decided to go to college there, Cooke said.

"She was going to school and doing well," Cooke said. "She had friends and met a young man who was a very good match for her."

While in San Diego, Rachel worked as a waitress at Hooter's to make money for school, her mother said.

"If somebody tried to touch her, she would smack them," Cooke said. "She was tough."

Rachel had planned to go to fashion school before her disappearance and had been talking about moving to Los Angeles, her mother said.

"One of my favorite memories is when Rachel was maybe 3 or 4 years old and JoAnn was still in a high chair," Cooke said. "I have a picture of Rachel looking at JoAnn. Rachel was in awe of her. It was a great moment."

A painting of Rachel looking at JoAnn in her high chair is in the living room of Cooke's house. Cooke said she still has some of Rachel's belongings but doesn't want to unpack them from boxes.

"When Rachel was living in California, she bought me a hammock to hang in my yard," Cooke said. "I haven't got the guts to hang it. I don't want to ruin it."

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Investigators not giving up after 20-year search for missing Rachel Cooke