The Deanna Cook Case: Major 911 and Police Failures
[Dallas, Texas]
Deanna Cook (32) was such a beautiful woman and her soul was sure to match. She was extremely vibrant, outgoing, and family-oriented. When Deanna came around her family, they knew she was always about to bring a good time with her.
A loving mother to two young daughters, Deanna moved to South Dallas in an attempt to raise them in a nicer area than where they were originally. “She moved there because it was a nice area” her mother, Vickie Cook, said. However, there was one specific danger that Deanna could not rid herself of. According to her Twitter page, she was dealing with an obsessive stalker.
On August 17th, 2012, one day after the tweet, Deanna Cook failed to call her mother during her drive home from work. This was alarming because a daily call with her mother was a common routine. Deanna’s mother, sister, and two daughters visited her home to check on her. Her small dog was barking, no one was answering the door, and a river of water was flooding out from under the garage door into the gutter. Her mother, Vickie, called 911 to see if an officer could be sent out for a welfare check.
Shockingly, the operator told her that they could not send anyone out until the family attempted to call all the local jails and hospitals. For a few minutes, Deanna’s mother stayed on the line begging the operator for any type of assistance.
Deanna’s sister, Karletha, grew frustrated with the operator and told her mother to hang up because she was going to kick the door in. Once they were able to gain access into Deanna’s home, a strong, sickening odor smacked them in the face, along with water that led back to the bathroom in the bedroom.
As the operator stayed on the phone, Vickie was heard suddenly hysterically screaming. She had discovered her daughter, Deanna, submerged in the bathtub. Her face had been brutally beaten and she had been strangled to death. “I just started screaming he did it. He said he was going to do it and he did it”, her mother cried.
Revisiting the weeks before her death, Deanna had placed her own plethora of 911 calls trying to warn operators about her near future. She explained that she had a stalker ex husband who would sit outside her home and watch her. “You can look up my name you can see a hundred thousand by the thousand complaints, but ain’t nobody doing nothing”, she complained to the operator. Police never considered any of Deanna’s calls for help as a priority. Even more shocking to the investigation, it was revealed that on the exact day she was killed, she placed one last 911 call.
Within the call, Deanna was frantically screaming for her estranged ex husband, Delvecchio Patrick, to stop attacking her. The fear and panic in her voice was obvious. He was very abusive to Deanna and often landed himself in a jail cell over it. When he was released, the cycle of abuse continued so Deanna formed enough bravery to file for a divorce and a restraining order. However, the harassment and threats to kill her never ended.
On the 911 call, the operator repeating “hello” over and over, in addition to asking small questions — all while Deanna is screaming for her life. “Do you need police, fire or medical”, the operator asked?
In the background, Patrick mocked Deanna’s hope for police to show up and repeated that he was going to kill her. Just seconds later, he wrapped his hands around her neck and began choking her. The call captured the sounds of her gasping for breath along with bubbling water as if she was being drowned. After Deanna’s murder, there was silence on the operator’s end for 15 long minutes before they asked if she needed fire, police, or medical help again. In total, it took 50 minutes for police to respond to the scene. When they arrived, they knocked and conducted a small glance around the house, but left when they did not get a response at the door.
In a twisted turn of events, it took Deanna’s family finding her lifeless body in the bathtub for police to take action. Two 911 calls, one from Deanna and one from Vickie, were placed that day where law enforcement could have responded in a more effective manner, but they failed.
The operator that took Deanna’s call was placed on suspension while the operator who spoke to Vickie was completely fired.
During the trial, Delvecchio exhibited cruel behavior that only confirmed the type of evil he truly carried with him. Disturbingly, when Deanna’s daughter took the stand, he gave her the middle finger. Further into the trial, the courts played the full 911 call as a distraught Vickie was on the stand listening to every second. She cut her rage-filled eyes at Delvecchio when his voice was heard on the call teasing her daughter's last moments.
Throughout each minute of the trial, he showed no remorse for his actions. As a result of his choices and his lack of apologies, he was sentenced to 85 years in prison.
According to the Dallas 911 center, since Deanna’s murder, the center has undergone noticeable revamping. They increased staff by a large amount and have “begun treating domestic violence cases more seriously.” However, her family was shattered to pieces knowing that Deanna’s life had to be ripped from her in order to create these changes. In an attempt to keep her light shining, her family created a foundation in honor of Deanna called Deanna’s Voice. It is available on Youtube and Facebook.
