Mosser, Carl

Mosser family Photo Caption Above is a scene at the abandoned Lee Hall lead and zinc mine in the western section of the city from which the bodies of the Carl Mosser family were removed this afternoon. The five bodies, those of Mosser and his wife, and three children shown in the picture, were identified by the FBI and other officials as the missing Illinois family. They are believed to have been killed by Bill Cook, 22 year old Joplin Missouri desperado, who was captured in Mexico today. The shaft is 102 feet deep. The bodies were discovered floating on the water, 34 feet from the surface. Gagged, bludgeoned and at least two of them shot to death, the bodies of all five members of the missing Carl Mosser family were removed this afternoon from a 34 foot deep abandoned mine shaft a mile west of downtown Joplin Fourth Street. Police and FBI agents said there was no doubt but that the bodies were those of the Mossers and that all five had been brutally murdered. The father, Carl Mosser, and his 7 year old son, had been shot in the head. Gary Carl Mosser, 5 years old, and Pamela Sue Mosser, 3 apparently had been beaten to death. The wife, and mother, Mrs. Thelma Mosser, had been bound, beaten, gagged and it was not immediately determined if she had been shot. Dr. W. W. Hurst, coroner, said the bodies probably had been in the shaft at least 10 days. Dim car tracks were found near the shaft, which had been boarded over. Police and FBI agents said it appeared that the bodies had been hauled to the shaft through a winding road off West Third Street, and dumped in. All five bodies were clothed, but the shoes of Mrs. Mosser and Gary Carl Mosser were missing. Police officials said that from the physical facts surrounding the case, there was some doubt that one person committed the mass murders and dumped all five bodies into the shaft. They indicated that a new investigation to determine if William E. Cook, Jr., the apparent slayer, had an accomplice, would be held. Detective chief Carl E. Nutt, Detective Walter Gamble and two FBI agent found the bodies shortly after noon today when they went to the mine as a result of a tip from a former convict. Cook had threatened the convict with murder and threatened to throw him into the shaft the informer did not accompany Cook on a crime expedition...Cook had claimed to have murdered a man and had cast his body into that shaft. However only the five bodies of the Mosser family were found this afternoon...the shaft is about 100 yards north of Fourth Street in the 2100 block. ...using a powerful flashlight officials could see two or three of the bodies floating 34 feet below in the shaft. ...all five bodies were found floating on the surface and were removed. The first body brought to the surface was that of the little girl, Pamela Sue Mosser. She appeared to have been bashed in the head. Her body was clothed, and her hands were not tied. The next body removed was that of Ronald Dean Mosser, 7 years old, who had been shot behind the right ear. His hands had been tied behind him with a piece of cloth. He was not gagged. Gary Carl Mosser, 5, also appeared to have been beaten to death, as there was no immediate evidence of a gunshot wound. One of his shoes was missing, but he was other wise clothed in blue jeans and shirt. Mrs. Mosser's hands had been tied behind her with a piece of yellow cord. There was a gag in her mouth and the condition of her head was such as to make it impossible to determine if she had been shot. The last body brought to the surface was that of the father. He had been beaten about the head as though he had engaged in a furious fight, and had been shot near the left ear. There was a gag in his mouth and his hands had been tied behind him, but the string had broken, perhaps when he was thrown into the shaft...it is believed at this point that all five had been slain before the killer brought them here. The shaft in which the bodies were found is the old Lee Hall Mine. Engineering record show it was about 102 feet deep, but it was filled with water to within 34 feet of the surface. The shaft also is about two miles from the home of Cook's 72 year old father, William E. Cook, Sr, and near the old Smelter Hill- Chitwood area where the younger Cook was reared. More than 1,000 persons had gathered at the scene of the discovery of the bodies before the fifth body was removed. They were held some distance back from the scene by police, who used lines of ropes...

There is a photo of William E. Cook, Jr....Cook, 22 year old ex-convict, has been sought throughout the country since the disappearance of an Illinois family of five in Oklahoma. The manhunt, one of the most extensive in the country's history, started early in January after the blood-stained automobile of the family of Carl Mosser was found abandoned near Tulsa, Oklahoma. Cook, whose card [a pistol purchased receipt] was found in the car of a man who was believed to have robbed was located at Blythe California, where he had been employed as a dishwasher...Blythe sheriff's deputy said Cook told him that he had killed two men in Oklahoma, in addition to the Mosser family...A torn and possibly blood-strained cotton dress was pulled from a creek in northwest Arkansas yesterday and authorities believe it may offer a clue to the missing Mosser family...

In the absence of any police or FBI testimony relative to the part William E. Cook, Jr. played in the tragic deaths of the Mosser family, a coroner's jury at an inquest last night merely found that Mr. and Mrs. Carl Mosser and their three children were shot to death "by a party or parties unknown to this jury." the five bodies were found and recovered from an abandoned mine shaft on West Fourth Street Monday, and were sent to Atwood Illinois, for burial...it was believed members of the Mosser family were killed instantly by gunshot wounds with the possible exception of Mrs. Mosser. Four were shot in vital spots. Mrs. Mosser was shot in the right chest and Dr. Hurst believes she died from a liver injury...all were dead when their bodies were thrown into the mine shaft, since there was no evidence of drowning or abrasions that hemorrhaged as the bodies fell into the shaft...

Murders Haunt Joplin Missouri after 50 Years: The cemetery where Billy Cook is buried is now overgrown and thick with weeds, a wasteland of debris, trash, and fractured and toppled tombstones. The road through the graveyard is broken and impassable. Deep depressions the headstones long gone are the only evidence today of some unknown person's passing. A few isolated graves are maintained, and some still have a splash of fading plastic flowers, but even that and sunshine on an unusually warm winter day can't obscure the fact that this is a forlorn place. Billy Cook is an neglected in death as he was in life...Rex Marshall a former miner..said he can't forget what he saw on another mild winter day in January 1951... Floating in a mine 34 feet below the opening were the bodies of Carl Mosser, his wife, Thelma Mosser and their three children. ... Looking through a stack of old pictures, Marshall pointed to a man in one of them. Most of the crowd in the picture is staring at the bodies laid out on the ground. One man, however, is looking away, staring at the ground near his feet. That's Marshall, who is now 80 years old... Note: A long and excellent article about the murders.