Pocono News Section

Family & Neighbors React to Murderer's Confession

Family & Neighbors React to Murderer's Confession - Thursday, April 24, 2008 at 4:00PM EST

Reported by: Laurie Monteforte
Thursday, Apr 24, 2008 @ 04:00pm EST
PRICE TOWNSHIP - Early this month, the day after jury selection for his trial, Thomas Cook Junior took police to the place where he buried Randy Huegel's body.

Then Cook plead guilty. Now he won't face a trial and instead of spending life in jail, he will face 20 to 40.

Randy Huegel's family had mixed reactions to the news. They're glad police finally found their son's remains but that also means they have to give up hope that he'll come home alive.

WBRE News spoke with Randy's mother Pyyllis Huegel. Here's how she described Cook. "He's an animal. He's more dangerous than a grizzly bear."

She had trouble finding words strong enough to describe the man who killed her son. "I wake up in the morning and I have maybe two minutes before it's there she said."

It is the pain of knowing she will never hold her son again, the pain of realizing her three grandchildren will grow up without a father.

Thomas Cook murdered Randy Huegel more than six years ago. He shot him in the head then buried the body in the woods.

For all those years Phyllis held on to the hope that Randy would come home. She said, "II guess it's just part of being a mother. I just hoped that I would see him again."

But here hope was shattered on April second. The day after jury selection in his trial, Cook decided to tell police where they could find Huegel's body, in the woods of the Eagle Claw Rod and Gun Club.

Now Cook won't have to face a trial. And Phyllis won't have to sit in the courtroom and hear how cook killed her son. She said, "That is a relief that we don't have to go to trial and sit there and listen to that animal."

But the relief is small compared to the pain. "It hasn't taken the pain away. I don't know what or when that's ever gonna go, if ever," she said.

Phyllis also said she feels bad for Cook's family. His two sons will grow up with a father in prison.

People who live in the Wayside Apartments are wondering whether or not you can ever really know someone. In August of 2001 Randy Huegel lived here. Thomas cook was his landlord. Cook has confessed that he murdered Huegel and even showed police where he buried the body.

But Barbara Seese refused to believe it's true. She said, "It kind of threw me off 'cause I still don't think he did it. I really don't. I know he confessed to it but I think if he did it he had to have a very good reason."

Rosemarie Overpeck also knows Cook. She asked to rent an apartment days after Huegel disappeared. It was full of his belongings but Cook told her it would be open very soon.

"He knew it was going to be open obviously now that he confessed," she said.

The women said Cook was kind and understanding. When someone had a stroke and couldn't walk, he built a ramp. When someone couldn't pay their bills, he let them slide for a month or two

"Tom was a very nice man. You wouldn't think he would do something like this," she said.

Seese added, "He had one tenant, number eleven that gave him a hard time. They're still alive. I mean if he gave them as much of a hard time as he did Randy you think they would be gone too."

Overpeck says she has learned that you can't really ever know a person. And she has a message for Cook. She said, "Deep down in my heart I don't want to believe it. But you confessed to it and I'm a little bit upset."

Since Cook confessed he will face 20 to 40 years in jail. If head was convicted in a jury trial he could have faced life behind bars.