Sammie Luckus Cook, Jr.
The first witness was Virginia Smith.   That was not her true name, but she testified that it was the name which she wanted to go by for this trial.   At the time of the offense, Virginia Smith lived in an apartment complex in Dallas.   Virginia Smith testified that April 13, 2000, was a day that she will never forget.   She got to her apartment about 5:30 p.m., changed clothes, and went to check the mail.   When she got back to the apartment, she opened the patio door and started cleaning the kitchen.   While she was putting up the dishes, she heard a noise from the patio.   Then she saw a man standing in her living room.   She made a positive identification of appellant as the man who came into her apartment and assaulted her.
Virginia Smith said that she asked appellant what he wanted and that he kept telling her to shut up.   Virginia Smith testified that appellant grabbed her by her arm and pulled her into her bedroom.   Then he took her into the bathroom.   Appellant closed the bathroom door, and Virginia Smith could hear him in the kitchen going through the drawers.   When he came back to the bathroom, appellant had Virginia Smith's purse and a knife.   He told her to give him all the money that she had.   Virginia Smith said that appellant had the only sharp knife which she had in the apartment.   After he took all the money from her purse, appellant told Virginia Smith to get undressed.   Virginia Smith started crying, and appellant poked her with the knife until she complied with his demand.   Virginia Smith identified the pictures which showed the way she looked when the police came to her apartment later that night....
Proof at Punishment Phase
Six other victims of aggravated sexual assaults testified at the punishment phase of trial.   There was DNA evidence from each of those assaults which matched the DNA evidence from appellant.   These witnesses will be identified by the pseudonyms which they used during trial or by initials.
Amy Harrison testified about events on February 15, 1995, when she was subjected to two acts of aggravated sexual assault by an unknown man.   The police took her to Parkland Hospital for the rape kit examination.
"Mary Smith testified about events on December 18, 1995, when she was subjected to an aggravated sexual assault by an unknown man.   The police took her to Parkland Hospital for the rape kit examination.  
M.C.R. testified through an interpreter about the events on March 28, 1996, when she was subjected to an aggravated sexual assault by an unknown intruder (in the presence of her five-year-old daughter).   The police took her to the hospital for an examination.  
Joanna Smith testified about events on May 7, 1996, when she was subjected to a series of aggravated sexual assaults by an unknown intruder.   The police took her to Parkland Hospital for the rape kit examination.
 Beth Smith testified about the events on May 19, 1996, when she was subjected to a series of aggravated sexual assaults by an unknown intruder.   The police took her to the hospital for a rape kit examination.
Mary Becker testified about the events on May 6, 2000.   These events occurred 23 days after the offense for which appellant was convicted.   After he committed several acts of aggravated sexual assault, appellant fell asleep in Mary Becker's apartment.   Appellant was arrested after she was able to escape and call the police.   The police took her to the hospital for the rape kit examination.   The police detective put appellant's photograph into the photographic lineup which he showed to Virginia Smith.
http://caselaw.findlaw.com/tx-court-of-appeals/1450468.html
During the mid-to-late '90s, police were convinced that not one, but several, serial rapists were terrorizing northeast Dallas. Ultimately, a 34-year-old man named Ollie Ray Diles, who had been labeled "The Box-Cutter Rapist" after victims described the weapon used to subdue them, was caught in 1997, convicted for three sexual attacks and given three life sentences. Next to be apprehended was Sammie Luckus Cook Jr., 31, who was linked by DNA evidence to as many as 15 rapes dating to 1995.
The litany of details provided by Cook's victims was numbing: Their assailant, each reported, had worn a bandanna over his face and either gloves or socks on his hands to prevent leaving any fingerprints. Purse straps, belts or electrical cords were used to bind their hands and feet, and they were threatened with a knife or scissors. In one case, a woman told of coming out of her bathroom to find a man holding a kitchen fork to the throat of her 6-year-old daughter. The mother managed to grab the youngster but was eventually raped as the terrified child looked on. Another had been eight months pregnant at the time of her attack.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2002-10-31/news/likely-suspect/full/
Gary Faison...
Police, however, were convinced Diles and Cook were not the only rapists terrorizing northeast Dallas.
There had, for instance, been the young woman who, after returning from a week's vacation, was awakened at 2 a.m. by an intruder who entered her apartment bedroom and placed a towel and a gloved hand over her face before raping her. During the attack he had threatened to cut out her eyes if she screamed or resisted. When he asked for money, the victim provided him with her ATM code number. Then, before leaving, he had forced her to shower in an effort to do away with any physical evidence of the attack. She would later tell police that she never saw the assailant's face.
There would, however, be a photograph of a man using the automatic teller machine near the woman's apartment after the assault. Additionally, a palm print was lifted from a window screen that had apparently been removed from the victim's apartment and found nearby.
Two weeks before Christmas in 1995, a 26-year-old SMU graduate student was attacked in the early morning hours by a man who had entered her apartment through a sliding glass door. The assailant covered her head with a pillowcase, bound her hands with a pair of pantyhose and raped her. Throughout the attack, he warned that if she screamed, he would cut her. Following the rape, he had also demanded that she shower before he disappeared into the night.
The victim, who never saw her attacker's face, could only describe him as being 5-foot-10 and weighing approximately 190 pounds. The only clues left behind were partial prints left by the intruder on the front-door deadbolt and a strip of tape used to disable a locking bar.
Unfortunately, as with the previous case, the police had no suspect with whom to compare the prints.
The following July, a young married woman whose husband was out of town on business was dressing for work when a man burst into her apartment bedroom and threw a blanket over her head before sexually assaulting her and taking $20 and a Discover card from her purse. Through the traumatic event, she later told investigators, she had talked of being the mother of a young son and begged that her life be spared. She also asked that her attacker use a condom during the rape. All she could remember the man saying in response was for her to "settle down and shut up."
Though she was unable to provide police with a description of the man who attacked her, a neighbor later told authorities of seeing a black man looking into the woman's apartment window. Another resident said she'd been walking her dog two days earlier and saw an unfamiliar African-American male near the rape victim's apartment.
While relatively certain the same person had committed all three rapes--and perhaps as many as a half dozen others--frustrated investigators had no real suspect on which to focus. The man they had been desperately searching for was little more than a faceless ghost. Until Gary Faison was arrested.
http://www.dallasobserver.com/2002-10-31/news/likely-suspect/full/
