Suspended University of Wisconsin-Madison student Alec Cook, center, appears Thursday, October 27, 2016, in Dane County Circuit Court in Madison, Wisconsin. (John Hart/Wisconsin State Journal via AP)
After a woman came forward earlier this month to tell police she was tortured and held against her will by a male student at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, several more women told detectives Alec Cook sexually assaulted them, too. The harrowing tale playing out at the prominent midwestern college suggests many women remain reluctant to report assaults on campus, and is consistent with research suggesting rapists are often serial predators.
Dozens of women have reportedly come forward with stories about Cook, claiming that even if he did not assault them, his behavior was often creepy or downright scary. Cook, who is 20, has been banned from campus while the case unfolds, and remained jailed as of Friday. He had yet to enter a plea for the most serious charges (he pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charge), but his lawyers maintain their client's innocence, suggesting he's victim of a witch hunt.
"There's nothing to support the monster that exists in the minds of all of the people of UW-Madison," his attorney Christopher T. Van Wagner said this week, bemoaning Cook being "slaughtered by the social media image of him."
But a search warrant obtained by the Daily Beast shows the club rugby player and business student kept a leather bound notebook—cops described it as the work of someone engaged in "grooming and stalking"—that contained the word "kill," which prosecutors say may hint at murderous desires.
The case against Cook was launched when a woman with the initials JAS told police how, after almost running him over with a bike, the two connected on Facebook and hung out a handful of times. According to a criminal complaint, they spent the day of October 12 at Chipotle and the library, after which point Cook invited JAS back to his apartment. She later told police that before she accompanied him, the young woman explained that she wasn't looking for casual sex and was only interested in a longer term relationship.
"We won't do anything you don't feel comfortable with," Cook allegedly replied.
But JAS was uncomfortable almost as soon as they entered Cook's apartment. Light kissing turned into what she described as "eating my face," which evolved into fingering despite repeated protests. She would later report that for two and a half hours, Cook raped her, with and without a condom, at one point choking her until she began to lose her vision, slapping her, and telling her that since he (eventually) put on a small amount of lube, she had "no excuse" for crying out in agony.
Cook had reportedly been flagged to campus police in the past for making a woman uncomfortable by staring at her in a college library and allegedly following her from the building. Cook apparently expressed a willingness to comply with police instructions to stay away from her.
Meanwhile, Cook's attorneys are doing everything they can to suggest he's not entirely ignorant of the ongoing dialogue about rape culture in America.
"He takes this very seriously," his attorney Jessa Nicholson Goetz told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "He's absolutely devastated to learn women felt pressured or unsafe in his presence. He doesn't desire to come off in a way that is intimidating or frightening."
But once JAS's allegations made the news, the phone calls began pouring in. Detectives soon heard from a woman who took a ballroom dancing class with Cook, who would allegedly grope her every time they were paired together. Cops also made contact with a student who casually dated Cook and described what sounded like being slipped a roofie at his house. She recalled feeling fuzzy after drinking something he'd offered her and says they had vaginal intercourse despite her saying "no."
"I didn't want to ruin his life," she told the cops about why she hadn't come forward sooner. "I felt ashamed to tell anyone, because I thought I would make him look bad. I saw the news story and was empowered by another girl being able to tell what happened to her, that I thought I could now finally tell."
Police also heard from a woman who recognized Cook's mugshot on TV and decided to come forward about a rape she claims took place in the spring of 2015. And on October 24, a woman came forward to describe a consensual sexual encounter that descended into violence that included choking, gagging, and crying.
"She felt like an object and not a person," the criminal complaint concludes.
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