Hanners: Be dedicated to courage in future reporting

Published 5:00 am Saturday, July 6, 2024

We’ve been here before. Throughout the 47-year history of Texas v. Kerry Max Cook, the Tyler Morning Telegraph often failed to distinguish itself with its coverage of the 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards and Mr. Cook’s subsequent legal odyssey. The paper’s June 22 article, “Family, experts react as Kerry Max Cook cleared of 1977 murder of Linda Jo Edwards,” did it again.

The article itself isn’t so much the problem; rather, it is the “case expert” (the article’s phrase) the paper quoted in the article — a former Morning Telegraph reporter who covered the case before moving on to academia. All too often, the Tyler Paper’s coverage of this important case rarely went beyond reporting what Smith County officials said publicly. As the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals noted in ruling Mr. Cook is actually innocent, those officials often dealt fast and loose with the truth.

The “case expert” rhetorically asks how someone might feel “if…you have to wait 40 years for someone to agree with you….”

Mr. Cook didn’t have to wait 40 years for someone to agree with him. As a reporter for The Dallas Morning News whose articles exposed some of the wrongdoing, I became convinced of Mr. Cook’s innocence in early 1988, a couple of months after I began looking into the case. While I was investigating and writing 40-plus articles revealing how police, witnesses, prosecutors and Cook’s own original trial attorneys had contributed to the debacle, the Tyler Paper often defended Smith County authorities.

So somebody was listening to Mr. Cook’s claims of innocence. Just not the Tyler Morning Telegraph.

Our work in The Dallas Morning News was followed by investigations by Jim McCloskey of Centurion Ministries and the lawyers who represented Mr. Cook in the cases that followed. They documented numerous instances of incompetence and injustice and presented them in court. What I did and what Mr. McCloskey et al did could have been done — and should have been done — years earlier by police and prosecutors who had power of subpoena and other law enforcement tools at their disposal. And I did nothing the Tyler Morning Telegraph couldn’t have done.

The article characterizes the former reporter as lamenting the fact many of the case’s questions may never be answered. Indeed, key figures have died. Evidence has deteriorated or disappeared or, as the Appeals Court noted, been purposefully destroyed by Smith County. Imagine how that could have been avoided in 1988 — 36 years ago — if authorities had undertaken a genuine clean-slate investigation into Ms. Edwards’ murder instead of just setting out to re-railroad an innocent man.

Mr. Cook has endured enough. Ms. Edwards deserves the justice that still eludes her 47 years after her death. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling is a disturbing compilation of injustice upon injustice.

My first newspaper job was at the Amarillo Globe-News. Each time I entered the building, I walked beneath an inscription chiseled in stone above the door. It was a quote from legendary Panhandle editor and publisher Gene Howe: “A newspaper can be forgiven for lack of wisdom, but never for lack of courage.”

In the wake of Mr. Cook’s case, I hope the Tyler Morning Telegraph dedicates itself to courage.