Episode Details

As always, thank you for hanging out and remembering Deanna Antoinette Cook with me today.
In August 2012, 32-year-old Deanna Cook called 911 from her Dallas home while being attacked by her ex-husband, Delvecchio Patrick. The dispatcher heard her struggling, screaming, and calling Patrick by his nickname, “Red,” but failed to obtain her address or classify the call as an emergency; officers did not reach the home for roughly 50 minutes and left after receiving no answer.

Two days later, Deanna’s family forced their way inside and found her face down in a bathtub, where she had been strangled and drowned. In 2015, a jury convicted Patrick of murder and sentenced him to 85 years in prison, with parole eligibility after 30 years. Deanna’s murder became a national example of the devastating consequences of a failed emergency response, prompting major reforms to Dallas’s 911 system and renewed attention to domestic-violence intervention.