On this date, July 20, 1987,
16-year-old Kevin Swaney and his friend, Carlos Froyan Cruz-Ramos were murdered
by Daniel Wayne Cook in Lake Havasu City,
Arizona.
Justice came 25 years later, when Daniel Cook was put to death by lethal
injection in Arizona on August 8, 2012. Let us hear from the loved ones from
Kevin Swaney who witnessed the execution.
Summary:
Cook, John Matzke, and Carlos Froyan Cruz-Ramos worked at a restaurant in Lake
Havasu City and shared an apartment. On July 19, 1987, Cook stole some money
from Cruz-Ramos. When Cruz-Ramos began searching the apartment for the money,
Cook and Matzke tied Cruz-Ramos to a chair and began beating him with their
fists and a metal pipe. Cook also cut Cruz-Ramos with a knife, sodomized him,
and burned his genitals with cigarettes. After several hours of this torture,
Matzke and Cook crushed Cruz-Ramos' throat with the pipe. When Kevin Swaney,
another co-worker, arrived at the apartment, Cook forced him upstairs and
showed him Cruz-Ramos' body. Cook and Matzke then tied Swaney to a chair.
Matzke went to sleep while Cook sodomized Swaney. When Cook was finished, he
woke Matzke and the two men strangled Swaney to death with a bed sheet. Matzke
later went to the police, confessed to the murders and implicated Cook. Matzke
was allowed to enter a guilty plea and was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.
He was released from prison in July 2007.
After
doctors had set up the line to administer the lethal drug, witnesses who had
been watching that process on a TV saw the black curtains removed from the room
and Cook spoke.
“I’d like to say I’m sorry to the victims,” Cook said. “I know that’s not enough.”
“I’d like to say I’m sorry to the victims,” Cook said. “I know that’s not enough.”
QUOTE 1: “To me, they were hollow,” said Lester, 39, later Wednesday at the Holiday Inn Express in Florence where she and family members were staying. “I do not feel he truly had any remorse.”
“People need to know that it was a rightful execution,” Lester said. “He’s not an innocent man.”
CASE: On July 19, 1987, Daniel Wayne Cook and John
Eugene Matzke were living together in a two bedroom apartment in Lake Havasu
City, Arizona. Carlos Cruz-Ramos, a co-worker at a local restaurant, who
recently had moved in with Cook and Matzke, slept on the floor. After Matzke
returned from work that afternoon, Cook told Matzke that he knew Ramos had a
lot of money and that he wanted to take it. At approximately 6:00 p.m., Cook
suggested that Matzke take Ramos upstairs to show him the view from Matzke's
bedroom balcony.
After
Matzke and Ramos returned downstairs, Ramos discovered his money pouch was
missing, and Cook suggested that Ramos look for the pouch upstairs. When Ramos
went upstairs, Cook grabbed him, Matzke ripped up some bedsheets, and they tied
Ramos to a chair in Cook's bedroom. Cook punched and taunted Ramos before
putting Ramos in Cook's closet so that Cook and Matzke could look through
Ramos's other possessions. Ramos escaped from the closet, but Cook chased him
down, took him back upstairs, and re-tied him to the chair. Cook and Matzke began
beating Ramos with a metal pipe and a stick. Cook and Matzke also burned
Ramos's chest, stomach, and genitals with cigarettes. Cook cut Ramos's chest
with a knife, and Matzke put a bandage on the cut to stop the bleeding.
At around
9:45 p.m., Matzke went to the Acoma Stop and Shop to buy beer. When Matzke
returned to the apartment, he saw Cook sodomize Ramos. Cook also used a
mini-stapler on Ramos's foreskin, stapling it to the chair. Matzke asked Cook
why he was torturing Ramos, and Cook replied, “I'm having fun.” At around 11:00
p.m., Matzke told Cook that they could not let Ramos go, and Cook responded,
“Well, you can kill him at midnight; ?the witching hour.” Cook and Matzke
continued torturing Ramos until midnight, then Matzke attempted to strangle
Ramos with a sheet and the pipe. Matzke eventually placed Ramos on the floor,
placed the pipe across Ramos's neck, and stood on the pipe until Ramos's heart
stopped beating at around 12:15 a.m. After throwing Ramos's body down the
stairs, Cook and Matzke placed the body in Matzke's closet.
At around
2:30 or 3:00 a.m., Kevin Swaney arrived at Cook's apartment. At first, Cook
told Swaney to leave but then Cook asked Swaney to come into the apartment.
Cook told Swaney that they had some drugs they wanted to get rid of, and pushed
a couch in front of the door so nobody would come into the apartment. Then Cook
and Matzke told Swaney about the dead body. Cook took Swaney upstairs to show
him the body and, when they returned downstairs, Cook told Matzke to get
bindings and a gag. Cook forced Swaney to take off his clothes, and Matzke and
Cook tied Swaney to a chair. Matzke asked Cook what Cook was planning to do,
and Cook said he was going to talk to Swaney. Matzke told Cook that if he was
going to torture Swaney, Matzke did not want any part of it. Matzke went to the
living room and fell asleep. At around 4:30 or 5:00 a.m., Cook woke Matzke.
Swaney was still tied up and crying. Cook told Matzke that he sodomized Swaney
so now they had to kill him. Cook took a sheet from around his neck and wrapped
it around Swaney's neck. Matzke and Cook each took one end of the sheet and
pulled, but Matzke's end kept slipping out of his hand. At that point, Cook
said “This one's mine,” put Swaney on the floor, and strangled him. Matzke and
Cook took Swaney's body up to Matzke's room and placed the body in the closet.
Matzke and Cook went back downstairs and slept.
That
afternoon, Matzke went to work for two and a half hours before quitting because
he was concerned about what Cook would do if he was not there. When Matzke got
home, he and Cook went to a bar and drank for several hours. At 10:30 p.m.,
they returned to the apartment and met Byron Watkins and other friends by the
pool of their apartment complex. Cook and Matzke invited their friends into the
apartment. The next morning, Matzke showed Watkins the bodies. Watkins
convinced Matzke to go to the police. Matzke and Watkins went to the police
department, and Matzke gave a videotaped confession. Officers responded to the
apartment and arrested Cook at around 4:50 a.m. After Detective David Eaton
gave Cook Miranda warnings, Cook said, “we got to partying; things got out of
hand; now two people are dead.” Cook then said that “my roommate killed one and
I killed the other.” He admitted to choking Swaney to death. After making those
admissions, Cook refused to make any further statements.
Although
the lethal drug took longer — about 35 minutes — than what some media witnesses
of previous executions said they experienced, it was a far better death than
what Swaney and Ramos experienced, Lester said.
QUOTE 2: “It was less painful and they were
concerned about his comfort,” Lester said. “I guarantee
you that no one (neither Cook nor John Matzke, who admitted to killing Ramos in
exchange for testimony against Cook) was concerned about Swaney’s or (Ramos’)
condition when they brutally murdered them.”
QUOTE 3: A doctor entered the room at 11:03 a.m. and
declared Cook dead.
The
execution viewing process — which had been the subject of a federal appeals
court ruling — was open whether on the flat screen TV above or through the
windows to the room from the time Cook was seen on the padded gurney to the
time he was declared dead.
Swaney family members, including Lester, Lynne Pattee (sister) and Shean Stewart (brother) did offer formal comments directly after the execution.
Stewart
offered an opinion that some family members clearly do not agree with.
“I
felt sorry for him,” Stewart said. He paused for several minutes after
making that statement and being asked to elaborate.
“What
he did was brutal and wrong,” Stewart said. For a lot of
years, I used to hate (Cook). The man I saw laying there on that gurney was
scared.”
QUOTE 4: Lester clutched a photo of her brother Kevin at the
press conference and later detailed thoughts on how she’s dealt with his murder
through the years.
“For
me personally, he’s always been with me,” Lester
said. “But it doesn’t consume my every moment. It
can’t. That doesn’t mean I love him any less.”
As the
execution process moved along from searching for the best vein in his arms
(left arm chosen) to administering the drug, Cook gulped several times,
appeared to cry and his pupils became wide toward the end.
I went to school with Kevin and his sister and recall vividly the day this took place. Kevin was a friend, and while this story is thankfully missing some of the details of the torture they performed I’m glad to see they finally executed someone for this.
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