Next day, defendant pleads guilty to bestiality charges.

By Gary Dickson, Editor -Siouxland Observer

ELK POINT, S.D. – Editor’s Note: The contents of this story may be disturbing to some.

Late afternoon Thursday, Aug. 15, a Union County jury found Troy Cooke guilty of one of two counts of sexual contact with a child under the age of 13. The verdict came after barely one hour of deliberation.

Troy Donald Cook, 51, of Sioux City, Iowa was originally charged on March 27, 2024, by a Union County grand jury with one charge of sexual contact with a child under the age of 13, a class 3 felony and two separate charges of bestiality, both class 6 felonies.

Conviction on a charge of sexual contact with a child under the age of 13 carries with it a sentence of up to 15 years in prison and a $30,000 fine.

A guilty verdict was reached on the second of the two counts. The jury found the defendant not guilty on the first count.

Circuit Court Judge Tami Bern set sentencing for Oct. 18, 2024, pending a presentence investigation. The report of a presentence investigation contains any prior criminal record of the defendant and information about his characteristics, financial condition, and the circumstances affecting his behavior that may help impose a sentence, grant probation or in the correctional treatment of the defendant, and such other information as may be required by the court.

The next morning, Friday, Aug. 16, Cooke changed his previous not guilty plea to the two bestiality felony counts to guilty. It wasn’t clear Friday afternoon when his sentencing date would be, but it is possibly the same date as the sex abuse sentencing date of Oct. 18. That conviction is punishable with up to two years in prison and a fine of $4,000 for the first offense. It could be possible the judge considers Thursday’s conviction a prior sex crime. If so, it could land Cooke in prison for up to five years with a fine of up to $10,000 on the bestiality charges alone.

Two days before the trial, the defendant and his court-appointed attorney, Phillip Terwilliger of Vermillion, made a successful motion with the court to separate the sexual abuse charges from the bestiality charges into two trials. By this time, the state had added a second charge of sexual contact with a child under the age of 16 to the counts against Cooke.

So, since the defendant pleaded “not guilty” to all the charges against him and asked for jury trials, two trials were scheduled – one for Aug. 15 to decide the sexual abuse charges and another the following day, Aug. 16 to hear the bestiality charges. The defendant also was successful in preventing the state from introducing into evidence his juvenile record or prior criminal history.

The prosecutor was Kathy Zenner, Union County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney. Both trials would be heard by Circuit Judge Tami Bern.

For Thursday’s trial, jury selection began at about 9:00 a.m. and the actual proceedings started at 11:00.

Sexual contact was with a 9-year-old girl

The sexual contact with a child under 13 and the acts of bestiality took place on or around March 8 of this year according to court documents. During the trial, the jury heard testimony from the now 10-year-old victim, the victim’s mother, North Sioux City Police Officer Andrew Ryan who originally took the report, and Jessica Fetrow, a Child Forensic Interviewer from MercyOne Child Advocacy Center. Troy Cooke took the witness stand as the defense’s only witness.

The young girl gave her testimony in a mostly steady, clear voice that would occasionally get soft when she spoke of something uncomfortable or wasn’t certain of a detail. She told of how Cooke was at her family’s house “all the time” fixing things while her father was away in prison. She said Cooke liked to tickle her all the time and that sometimes it made her uncomfortable.

The victim described riding with Cooke to McDonald’s in North Sioux City one day and how Cooke started to tickle her leg, then moved his hands up under her shirt to her chest — “To my boobs,” she said. She said it was after they went through the drive-up to the restaurant. This was the incident covered by count one.

Another time, the victim said, she was lying on her bed in her bedroom watching television. She said the door was open and her mother was lying down in the other bedroom with her baby brother trying to get him to go to sleep. The girl testified that Cooke came into her bedroom and sat on her bed, then started tickling her. He laid down next to her and continued tickling her. She stated Cooke got on top of her while she was lying flat on her back and began rubbing against her back and forth in a humping motion. The victim stated she could feel Cooke’s penis become hard through his pants. She asked him to stop, and he did. He got off her and left the room.

The victim also stated that Cooke walked in on her twice while she was changing clothes and another time while she was taking a bath with her toddler brother in the bathtub.

The victim’s mother took the stand and described how the victim told her about the sexual incidents with Cooke. The mother stated her daughter started to cry and was embarrassed about talking about it. On March 11, the mother and her daughter talked to North Sioux City Police Officer Andrew Ryan at the North Sioux City Police Department. The mother said she also gave Officer Ryan a video recording from a “nanny cam” that showed Cooke performing sexual acts with their family’s dog in their apartment in North Sioux City. She said Officer Ryan interviewed her daughter for an evidence report.

The victim’s mother told the jury about her relationship with the defendant. She said he had been a good friend to their family since her husband left. He had helped out by making repairs around their place and fixing problems with her car. She said he was always around.

The mother thought that Cooke’s always tickling her daughter was a little overboard, but nothing to be worried about. She said they sometimes had meals together at their place. The victim’s mother said that contact was terminated with Cooke once she learned about the abuse from her daughter.

See the case through the eyes of a child.

Kathy Zenner,
Union County Chief Deputy State’s Attorney

Officer Ryan shared what the victim had told him during the interview. He said the girl disclosed information about Cooke putting his hand up her leg, to her stomach and to her chest. He also described how the victim told him about the incident in the bedroom — how she told him that Cooke had tickled her, then laid on top of her and begun moving back and forth and how she could feel his hard penis. Ryan said she told him it made her mad and uncomfortable and she told him to get off her.

Jessica Fetrow of MercyOne’s Child Advocacy Center summarized her forensic interview with the victim for the jury, describing how she tried to make the child comfortable and relaxed in the interview room. She also talked about the importance of not asking leading questions of the child during the interview and explained that a child may use their own words for different things like body parts.

Much of her testimony was taken up by showing the jury video segments from the interview with the victim. The video showed the victim quite relaxed, coloring throughout the session, talking easily to Fetrow, and stopping occasionally to gesture with her hands to explain something. All in all, she looked like a normal 9 or 10-year-old girl.

Defense attorney Terwilliger was both gentle and assertive when cross-examining the victim. He pushed her a bit to try to narrow down details of the McDonald’s incident, such as whether it took place before they went through the drive-through or afterward. He also questioned her about details such as the clothes Cooke was wearing — whether he had on jeans or another type of pants and what the material was.

The attorney questioned whether the door was broken or not and where her mother was during that time. He also wanted to know whether her mother told her what to say before she went into the Child Advocacy Center Interview. “No,” was the little girl’s answer. “I was just supposed to tell the truth.”

An erection dysfunction defense

The defense had no witnesses to call other than the defendant. So in a surprise move, Troy Cooke took the stand in his own defense.

It may not have been the best of strategies.

Cooke told the jury he drives a forklift for Palmer Candy. He has two grown children. That he was divorced. He had a concrete business for 25 years but didn’t explain why he didn’t have it any longer. He apparently had been a part-time bounty hunter, too.

Perhaps this press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Northern District of Iowa can shed some light on it:

A Sioux City man, who was a part-time bounty hunter and cement contractor, was sentenced to one month in federal prison on November 22, 2019, for providing an employee a firearm knowing that employee was a felon. 

Troy Cooke, age 47, from Sioux City, Iowa, received the prison term after a June 25, 2019, guilty plea to one count of transferring a firearm and ammunition to a prohibited person.

Evidence produced by the United States at the change of plea and sentencing hearings revealed that Cooke allowed felons access to his guns and, on one occasion, actually gave a felon a gun as collateral on a debt.      

Cooke was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Chief Judge Leonard T. Strand.  Cooke was sentenced to one month’s imprisonment.  He was fined $15,000.  He must also serve a 3-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Cooke was released on the bond previously set and is to surrender to the United States Marshals on January 2, 2020.

The case was investigated by the Sioux City Police Department and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Forde Fairchild. 

Cooke went on to say the victim’s mother’s husband worked for him as a concrete finisher.

“I’d be a handyman and fix her car and we’d all go out for dinner,” Cooke testified.

The defendant said he got along with the victim and her mother very well.

“She (the victim) would beg me to tickle her,” he said. “We had a good relationship.”

Cooke claimed he doesn’t recall the incident where he and the victim drove to McDonalds. As for the incident in her bedroom, Cooke said that couldn’t have happened.

“I’ve had ED (Erection Dysfunction) for seven years,” the defendant stated. “I’ve had no sexual desire, no sexual response during that time.”

Cooke said a physician gave him pills for his ED, but they didn’t work.

He denied ever having abused the victim, describing the mother as a “wackadoodle”.

In closing arguments, Prosecutor Zenner asked the jury to “see the case through the eyes of a child”. She told the jury the victim is 10 years old now, and that she’s not making this up.

“She said he got hard,” Zenner told the jury. “A child can’t make something like that up with those details, and personalize them.”

Zenner said Cooke’s story didn’t make sense, but the victim’s does. She said she didn’t think he was honest about anything except that he was divorced.

This is a ‘He said, She said’ case.

Phillip Terwilliger, defendant’s attorney

Terwilliger responded that tickling is not a criminal offense. He claimed tickling was Cooke’s and the victim’s relationship. The defense attorney claimed the state was unable to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and that’s what he wanted the jury to focus on.

He finished by saying, “This is a ‘He said, She said’ case.”

The jury apparently thought it was more than a “He said, She said” case and chose to see it through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl. Although they didn’t find the evidence strong enough to convict Cooke on the first count of sexual contact with a child under the age of 13, they found there was enough to convict him on the second one. That’s the incident where Cooke got on top of the little girl in her bed.

Defendant admits to bestiality charges

So, now it’s Friday morning Aug. 16 and a second trial is going to be held for Troy Donald Cooke at the Union County Courthouse. Yesterday it was two charges of child abuse of which he was found guilty of one. Today it’s two charges of bestiality which like the child abuse charges, were also made by a Union County grand jury on March 28.

The first charge stated that Troy Cooke did, for the purpose of sexual gratification, use any part of his body or an object to sexually stimulate an animal, for the purpose of Cooke’s sexual gratification.

The second charge said that Troy Cooke did engage in a sexual act with an animal for the purpose of Cooke’s sexual gratification.

The state intended to present for evidence a video of the defendant and Diego the dog in the home of the victim and the victim’s mother from Thursday’s case. The video, which was taken March 8, 2024, through a “nanny cam” recorded the defendant using his hand to sexually gratify Diego the dog. Although Cooke denied the act, the state argued that the video proves the defendant did knowingly and intentionally sexually stimulate Diego the dog for the defendant’s own sexual gratification.

Perhaps Cooke and his attorney saw the handwriting on the wall and figured changing his plea would be better than going through a jury trial where 12 citizens were made to watch him massaging Diego’s genitals and who knows what else. So, Cooke changed his plea to guilty. Sentencing will likely follow on Oct. 18.

---