West Virginia : Brian Cook
Nestled within the heart of the Appalachian region, West Virginia is the 10th smallest state in the United States. Situated in a picturesque pocket of the country, the low wooded mountains are surrounded by Kentucky, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Maryland. West Virginia’s unique history is marked by its role as the only state to break away from a confederate state during the civil war.
While coal once reigned supreme as the linchpin of its economy, the late 20th century saw a remarkable shift. The state’s landscape transformed as it transitioned from being a coal and lumber driven powerhouse to embracing tourism. The stunning outdoors allows for the ultimate getaway. Camping, biking, fishing, off-roading, rock climbing, stargazing… anything you can do in nature. West Virginia is there to provide and remains a hub of historical significance and natural beauty.
Boone County located in the southwest quadrant is no different than the rest of the state. Low wooded mountains rich with coal found in the mid 1700s in the Great Kanawha Valley. Named after famed explorer, Daniel Boone, who called this valley home for the better part of a decade.
Now, Boone County houses just under 22 thousand people and reached a certain level of fame when Johnny Knoxville produced a compelling documentary titled “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia”. It follows the White Family for an entire year discussing one family member’s rise to fame as a mountain dancer. Clogging is a popular and historical activity in Appalachia that was introduced to the region from Irish and Scottish immigrants that settled into the mountains in the early to mid nineteenth century.
Even with systemic issues plaguing the region including drug addiction, poverty and corruption, Crimegrade.org gives the county a B meaning the crime rate is slightly lower than the national average. Your chance of becoming a victim of a violent crime is as high as 1 in 18 in the southeast neighborhoods but as low as 1 in 54 in the northwest portion of the county. These are current crime statistics and unfortunately I was unable to find statistics from the time period of the story I am sharing with you.
This week we are navigating advocacy with the story of Brian David Cook. Brian was born on December 31, 1973, right there in Boone County, West Virginia. Brian's early life was marked by a strong desire to escape his hometown. At the age of 18, he enlisted in the Marines where he would ultimately serve 6 years. He was known as a hard worker, always eager to keep busy.
In 1995, Brian's life took a significant turn when he met Christine at a dance club. It seemed as if it was love at first sight. Christine posted on her Facebook that she felt like they were the only people in the room when they were together and she fell head over heels in love. They eventually married in 1998 and two years later, they welcomed a daughter named Macy. Brian was overjoyed to become a father, and Christine described him as "the most incredible father."
As the years went by, Brian's life took a challenging turn. He left the military and began working as a welder, often working long hours that frequently kept him away from home. During this time, he started self medicating with drugs, beginning with marijuana and later encountering heroin-laced marijuana. His dependency on drugs increased, and he became less present in his family's life. He was able to hide it for a while but eventually Christine learned about his dependency.
Christine tried to help Brian by getting him into rehab and returning to the workforce to help with finances, but he struggled to complete the programs. He entered the program three separate times but never finished them.
One day, less than a year after he started using heroin, Brian was arrested for possession. Brian’s mother bailed him out of jail and that evening Christine had cooked the family dinner. After an incident at the dinner table Christine decided that this was no longer a safe environment for Macy.. She put their house up for sale, moved in with friends, and sent Brian a letter explaining her decision. When the house sold, she took half of the proceeds and placed them in a separate bank account for Brian and later filed for divorce.
Brian's life took a further downward spiral, and he continued to struggle with substance dependency. Despite their separation, Christine and Brian continued to write to each other, and they clearly still cared for one another. Christine wrote in a facebook group “I couldn’t find the right combination of things that would snap him out of the life that overcame his once beautiful existence… For a short time all of his dreams came true and he was over the moon with happiness he had never known. That's the piece of him I choose to remember. He was a good person, a hard worker and the most incredible father I have ever seen.”
Christine even allowed Brian to see Macy whenever he was "sober enough." Brian was incarcerated for a period of time and once released he bounced around staying between family members but continued battling his addiction. He would call every single day to talk to Macy.
Brian eventually moved in with his incredibly sick father and began a relationship with a woman named Alicia, who was also battling drug dependency. Alicia came from the prominent family in Boone County, the Whites. Yes, that very same family that the documentary I told you about.
In mid July of 2011 Brian inherited $16,000 from his father upon his passing and him and Alicia moved in together in Oceana. Oceana is located in Wyoming County West Virginia just south of Boone County.
On July 26, 2011, Brian called Christine, excited to buy his father's truck from his stepmother. He planned to drive the truck to see Macy and that he would be there in the next day or two. Christine was living with a friend in Virginia. However, after July 26, Christine stopped hearing from Brian, and he never arrived as planned. And Brian hadn’t called which was extremely out of character. He called every day and never missed one day let alone two.
Panic set in and on July 28th, Christine contacted Alicia, who hadn't seen Brian since the 26th. Brian's mother confirmed that she hadn't heard from him in a week. Worried that something was wrong, Christine urged Alicia to contact the police, leading to Brian's official status as a missing person.
Brian's disappearance prompted Christine to create a Facebook group called "Help Us Find Brian David Cook." The initial reports suggested that Brian had gone with Alicia's drug dealer, Maurice, to buy the truck.
According to the Unfound podcast, Brian and Maurice did make it to their destination but were unable to complete the purchase of the truck due to Brian's alleged intoxication and that the stepmother told him to come back the next day.
Maurice dropped Brian off at the Lynco, WV post office, and this would be the last time he was seen. Lynco is 13 miles west of Oceana. It’s out of the way to Christine or even back to his home. And why a post office?
Christine continued to communicate with Alicia, who appeared genuinely upset about Brian's disappearance. However, after a few weeks, Christine began to suspect that Alicia wasn't telling the whole truth.
Christine's suspicions deepened when Alicia asked Brian's mother to pick up all of Brian's belongings from their shared home. The police tried to question Maurice and Alicia multiple times but were unsuccessful due to their drug-induced states. Detectives did speak to Brian's stepmother, confirming that he had visited her on the day of his disappearance. However, they did not initially explore Brian's phone records or attempt to ping his phone.
As the investigation continued, some suspicious developments emerged. Maurice suddenly acquired new possessions, including mud tires for his truck and an ATV. Within a week of Brian's disappearance, the police questioned Maurice about the source of these new items, but he had no satisfactory answers as to the sudden influx of funds.
The police began to suspect that Maurice may have had something to do with Brian's disappearance. Officers also harbored suspicions about Alicia, as she had been acting as if Brian was already gone. There were also reports of a truck registered to Maurice being found on fire, with a lockbox inside containing a single key.
Christine believed that the lockbox belonged to Brian and was where he kept the $16,000 inheritance. There were two keys to Brian's lockbox: one owned by Brian and the other, Christine believed, by Alicia. When Brian's mother retrieved his belongings from Alicia's house, the key was among his things, leading Christine to believe that the key inside the lockbox belonged to Alicia.
As if Brian’s sudden disappearance wasn’t enough, three other individuals had also gone missing in the area. Chester Stewart, Rachel Toler, and Sherry Myers all vanished under mysterious circumstances. Unfortunately, we know much less about these three victims than Brian.
Chester Stewart, a former coal truck driver, disappeared on August 6, 2011, after telling his mother he was going to visit an aunt. His mother initially wasn't overly concerned, as Chester had a history of going off for extended periods. The 49 year old was dropped off by his mother at an apartment complex in Oceana. Later that same day, she received a ton of calls from an unknown person that never said anything. Just sat on the line. The number was not blocked but she didn’t know who owned the number. Chester’s mom knew that he had a substance dependency that he struggled with for years. She tried to get him into rehab but couldn’t afford the treatment. When she hadn’t heard from Chester after his usual time away, she reported him missing.
Rachel Toler was a 37 year old loving mother and was last seen on August 9, 2011, getting into a truck with a man named "Kevin" from Greenbrier County. I could not find when she was officially reported as missing.
Sherry Myers was last seen talking to someone in a gray or blue Silverado pickup truck at Oceana Apartments on August 9, 2011. Two days later, the 34 year old spoke to someone on the phone and has not been heard from since. On August 23, Sherry was reported missing.
The disappearances of Chester, Rachel, and Sherry raised suspicions in the community, prompting family members to wonder if there was a connection between these cases and Brian's disappearance. Many searches were completed including the mountain side and a prominent river but no evidence was reported as being found.
The investigation into these cases faced numerous challenges, with limited leads and a growing sense of frustration among family members seeking answers.
By mid-September, the Wyoming County Sheriff's Department confirmed that they were following every lead and had interviewed several people. A local reverend organized a candlelight vigil for the missing individuals.
As the investigation continued, Alicia and Maurice's drug-induced state made it difficult for authorities to gather information. Brian's family continued their search for answers, determined to find out what had happened to him.
October 17, 2011, a hunter was out in the woods near Stewart Cemetery less than 10 miles outside of Oceana in Matheny (muh theeny) setting up a tree stand when he found a human skull. He called local law enforcement who came out and searched the surrounding forest. Other parts and personal items were found but nothing that could be used for positive identification. Dental records were requested for comparison and as we all know, this takes time.
October 22 was Chester’s 50th birthday. His mother received another silent chilling phone call. No sound on the other end. She called the number back and received a busy signal. Having written down all of the numbers she received silent calls from, she handed them over to the investigators who determined the calls came from Huntington, Delbarton, Bluefield and Lewisburg. All of these are in a 100 mile radius of Oceana. Chester had a history of visiting huntington and delbarton, but his mother had no idea why she would be getting calls from these other locations. She continued receiving calls for 6 months. All silent. I couldn't find any reports of law enforcement tracking these numbers or who they may be owned by.
February 2012 Wyoming County Sheriff’s office finally announced that the dental records showed a positive identification of the human remains found in October. They were the remains of Rachel Toler. After identification, Rachel’s remains were sent to the Smithsonian in hopes to determine the cause of death but law enforcement is investigating it as a homicide.
The next advancement in this string of disappearances wouldn’t come until May 11, 2012. A house attendant was checking a home that had been vacant for some time off of Bear Branch Road. This home had a homemade swimming pool in the backyard with around 9 feet of water in it. The house attendant contacted the sheriff’s office when she found Chester’s body in the pool bound with ropes and weighted down with two cinder blocks. There was advanced stages of decomposition leading investigators to believe he had been there for sometime. They were able to positively identify him by his ID Card on his person. His remains too were sent to the Smithsonian for further investigation into the cause of death.
The Sheriff told the local newspaper that they were able to recover quite a bit of evidence at the two scenes where bodies were found but unable to make an arrest.
In 2017, Christine received word that a clerk at a market in Wharton, which is 45 minutes north of Lynco where Brian was supposedly dropped off, had seen Brian around the time he disappeared. She said he looked really rough and was asking for help. She went to get the phone to call for help and when she returned to the front of the store she saw two white men with barbed wire tattoos on their biceps putting him into a black vehicle. Christine doesn’t know if the clerk contacted police or not. She doesn’t even have the clerk’s name. Christine does believe the two men she described knew Brian. She thinks they both went to school with them. She also believes that the clerk meant he looked “really rough” meaning he had been in an altercation as opposed to having been under the influence.
Another tip Christine had received was from a counselor. She knew about these men with barbed wire tattoos. One of the men lived behind this market where Brian was supposedly seen. A relative by marriage, let’s call Jordan, had hosted a bonfire and was bragging about all of the crimes he had gotten away with. Including Brian’s disappearance. The counselor didn’t have more information than that but it’s known that Jordan regularly purchased drugs from Maurice and that they knew each other very well. To the point that Jordan also sold drugs for Maurice.
The counselor states that the story behind this is that Jordan and Maurice kidnapped Brian to take his inheritance money. And that Maurice didn’t take Brian to Lynco. They took him to Jordan’s house that’s less than a block from the market. Brian escaped and made it to the market where the two barbed wired men grabbed him and took him back to Jordans. A group of people were present and when they asked Brian for the money he declined. A fight broke out and brian ended up being “clubbed to death”. From there the group took Brian into the mountains in Boone County and left him there.
Jordan died in 2020 and this story has never been corroborated.
No definitive connection between the four has ever been established. Christine didn’t know if Brian knew any of the other three. He was new to Oceana and only knew Alicia and Maurice’s connections.
Law enforcement has been reported as stating they believe one person is involved in 3 of the cases but there was one he was unsure of. When probed about the 4 potentially being drug informants, the sheriff confidently stated that they were not.
All four families are still seeking answers. Christine runs an active Facebook page and every birthday, her and Macy make a peanut butter silk pie, Brian’s favorite, and host a red balloon launch. Christine stated that “I hope they realize that he was more than just his illness at the end of his life. He was a remarkable person. The hardest working man I’ve ever met, and a really amazing dad.” She also doesn’t know if she believes this story from the counselor or that she even knows the truth about what happened to Brian.
When Brian went missing he was described as 5 ft 9 inches tall, weighed 185 lbs, had brown hair and hazel eyes. He has surgical scars on the inside of both of his forearms.
Sherry Myers was described as 5 ft 7 inches tall, 170 lbs, and has short black hair. She has a butterfly tattoo on one arm. Shee was last seen talking to someone in a pickup at Oceana Apartments.
Both Chester Stewart’s and Rachel Toler’s murders remain unsolved.
If you have any questions related to any of these 4 cases, please contact the Wyoming County Sheriff’s Department at 304.732.8000.
Sources:
https://haleygrayresearch.com/
https://charleyproject.org › case › brian-david-cook
https://namus.nij.ojp.gov/case/MP30507
https://www.facebook.com/HelpBrianCook/
https://theunfoundpodcast.com/2020/06/29/brian-cook-tip-of-the-tentacle-ep-200/
https://share.crimedoor.com/profile/y8WC8ZB9DN6SlEIQ4OhH
