Eric Edgar Cooke hanged, last person in Australia to be executed.

On October 26, 1964, a solemn event marked the end of an era in Australian history. That day witnessed the execution of Eric Edgar Cooke, the last person who would face the gallows on this continent. But this wasn’t just an ordinary hanging; it was the final act of capital punishment in Australian law, signalling a profound shift in societal attitudes and legal paradigms.

Eric Edgar Cooke, often referred to as “The Night Caller”, was a notorious figure in mid-20th-century Australia. His heinous crimes created an atmosphere of fear and apprehension that lingered long past his demise. Cooke’s story is one of great national significance, and is important for understanding the path to abolition of the death penalty in Australia.

Born in 1931, Cooke endured a traumatic and abusive childhood in the suburbs of Perth. Filled with resentment and anger, his life took a dark turn into criminal activities. He matured into a felonious character, involved in several cases of theft and arson before descending into more violent acts. The reign of terror that he initiated would last nearly a decade, claiming multiple lives and injuring many more.

Cooke was attributed with a string of attacks and murders, predominantly women, sparking widespread panic in Western Australia during the early 1960s. His method of perpetration varied from stabbings to shootings, thus baffling the police, and earned him the moniker “The Night Caller”. Capturing Cooke involved one of the largest criminal investigations in the state’s history. His eventual arrest and conviction in 1963 brought relief to the terror-stricken residents of Perth, but it also initiated a profound debate on the morality and legitimacy of the death penalty.

Australia, at that time, was divided on the issue of capital punishment. Cooke’s case, due to its high visibility and widespread public impact, became an essential part of this conversation. Though his crimes were heinous and, in the eyes of many, warranted the harshest of punishments, others questioned the ethics of taking a person’s life as reprisal.

When Cooke was sentenced to hang, protests emerged across the nation. These were not only demonstrating against Cooke’s sentence but against the death penalty itself. Despite the protests, the sentence was carried out in the early morning of October 26, 1964, at Fremantle Prison. Cooke’s execution was the last of its kind in Western Australia, and it marked an important juncture on the journey towards the abolition of the death penalty in Australia.

Following his execution, Australia gradually started to shift away from the practice of capital punishment. The contentious nature of Cooke’s execution and the resultant public outcry significantly influenced public sentiment and political discourse about the death penalty. This changed attitude was reflected in the judicial system as well.

In the years that followed, Australia saw no further instances of capital punishment. Ultimately, the death penalty was officially abolished in all Australian states and territories between 1973 and 1984. In 2010, it was also removed from the Commonwealth law.

The story of the last person executed in Australia, Eric Edgar Cooke, is not just a grim tale of one man’s homicidal spree. It is an episode that explores the changing cultural and social landscape of Australia. It tells the story of a nation grappling with the principles of justice, ethics, and humanity and choosing to forsake the eye-for-an-eye mentality of retribution in favour of a penal system based on the principles of imprisonment and rehabilitation.

the 1964 hanging of Eric Edgar Cooke serves as a crucial historical landmark in Australian history, marking the end of capital punishment. It was this seismic event, a combination of horrific crimes and subsequent legal and social response, that set the stage for a different course in Australia’s penal system, demonstrating the power of public sentiment in precipitating lasting legal shifts.