Kerry Max Cook talks to family members in the Smith County 114th District Court in 2016. This week, Smith County moved to dismiss all charges and the indictment against him in a 1977 crime he didn’t commit. (Tyler Morning Telegraph File)

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to include information about Cook’s career.

“It’s finally over.”

Those were the words of Kerry Max Cook on Wednesday after soaking in the news a court dropped charges against him for a 1977 crime he did not commit.

Cook, whom a court found is innocent of a 1977 Tyler murder, and his lawyer on Sept. 13 filed a request to dismiss the original indictment against him in the case of the murder of Linda Jo Edwards. Although a Texas Court of Criminal Appeals earlier this year determined Cook to be actually innocent of the crime, that indictment still hung over his head.

But not anymore. On Wednesday, Cook’s name was formally cleared once and for all.

Smith County District Attorney Jacob Putman and Assistant Criminal DA Michael J. West on Wednesday afternoon filed a motion in the 241st District Court on behalf of the State of Texas to dismiss the indictment on the grounds that the Court of Criminal Appeals found Cook to be “actually innocent of the offense alleged by the indictment in this case,” the motion reads.

After reviewing the motion, Smith County 241st District Court Judge Austin Reeve Jackson on Wednesday dismissed the indictment and formally dropped all charges against him in the death of Edwards. The order states the decision came after “due consideration of the state’s motion and the Court of Criminal Appeals’ opinion.”

In that opinion, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals found instances of prosecutorial misconduct, proof of false testimony, admissions of perjury and new scientific evidence. While the June ruling fully exonerated Cook, who wrongfully spent 20 years on death row for the crime, this week’s dismissal was the final hurdle Cook had to overcome.

The move finally closes the door on decades of false allegations against Cook. Edwards was brutally murdered in her Tyler apartment in 1977. Her actual killer was never determined, but Cook was wrongly accused of the crime for decades.

“It’s finally over,” Cook told the Tyler Morning Telegraph on Wednesday night. “A 47-year-long nightmare has ended. Today starts the first day (of) the rest of my life.”

Cook’s first conviction in 1978 was overturned in 1991, and a second trial in 1992 ended in a mistrial. A third trial in 1994 resulted in a new conviction and death sentence. However, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reversed this verdict in 1996, citing misconduct by police and prosecutors. In 1999, the Smith County district attorney planned a fourth trial but ultimately reached a plea deal that released Cook from prison while maintaining his conviction. Until 2024, Cook remained classified as a murderer by the Texas justice system.

Because of the wrongful conviction, he experienced “extreme physical abuse and psychological trauma by other inmates” while on death row, his lawyer previously stated in court documents.

After his release, Cook, now 68, became an international keynote speaker “making a difference in the lives of others around the world as an ambassador for hope and determination.” In addition to inspiring others through his speaking engagements, Cook is an author of best-seller “Chasing Justice,” a facilitator, media consultant, law school presenter, and “an expert on teaching everyone to believe in their dreams and never give up.”

The Cook case and all its complexities has drawn national attention and is referred to as one of the America’s most notable capital murder cases of the last 50 years.

Justice still eludes for Edwards, who was 21 and working as a secretary and living in a Tyler apartment at the time of her murder.

Cynthia Edwards, the wife of Linda Jo’s brother Jimmy, previously told the Tyler Morning Telegraph she’s glad an innocent man is no longer being accused of the crime, but it also means the real killer got away.

She said Cook earned his freedom. She acknowledged the negative impact the murder had on her husband’s family but thinks about how Cook’s family must have felt all these years, too.

“Something didn’t go right. They had the wrong man all these years,” Cynthia Edwards said. “They sentenced him to death … Two innocent people could have [been killed].”

There are many unanswered questions about what happened to Linda Jo Edwards, but those may never be resolved since key players have died and evidence has degraded.

Acquaintances described Linda Jo Edwards as a lovely, responsible and professional young woman. Cynthia Edwards said the family hopes the case is reopened and investigated so justice can be served for the young woman, who tragically lost her life at the hands of a unknown killer.

June 10, 1977: Linda Jo Edwards, 21, was found dead in her bedroom at a Tyler apartment complex on Old Bullard Road. Cook was accused in the crime after his fingerprint was found on Edwards’ patio door. However, he maintained another man was responsible for the crime.

1978: During his trial, Cook invoked the Fifth Amendment and did not testify. He did so again in a 1992 retrial, a 1994 retrial and a 1999 grand jury investigation. Also in 1978, Cook was tried for the crime, convicted and sentenced to die by a Smith County jury.

1989: The Court of Criminal Appeals overturned the case in 1989, because a psychologist had not read Cook his Miranda warning, thus rendering all information in the psychological interview useless. He was not freed at the time because he remained under indictment for capital murder, and then-Smith County District Attorney Jack Skeen took two more tries at convicting Cook.

1992: Smith County tried the case, but the jury deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.

1994: Cook was found guilty of capital murder, but prosecutors used the testimony of a witness who had died.

1997: The Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the 1994 verdict.

1998: As Smith County was moving forward with a fourth trial, Skeen offered Cook a deal that would convict him of murder but would not require him to admit he killed Edwards. In exchange for his plea of no contest, Cook was convicted of murder but sentenced to the time he already served.

1999: Cook was released from prison, then spent decades seeking a full exoneration.

2016: A state district judge set aside Cook’s conviction after another suspect, James Mayfield, admitted to previously giving false testimony about when his affair with Edwards ended. However, visiting Judge Jack Carter, of Texarkana, declined to recommend the state Court of Criminal Appeals approve Cook’s writ of actual innocence.

2024: Cook is formally exonerated on June 19 by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Also, the original indictment against him was dismissed.

Source: Tyler Morning Telegraph archives, court records