Indiana County President Judge William Martin last week ruled that 64-year-old Charles Cook can proceed to trial for the 1991 murder of 76-year-old Myrtle McGill at her home in Indiana. Martin scheduled a July 10th status conference with the attorneys in the case but yesterday Cook’s attorney asked for a continuance of that conference.
Cook, who police say was a drifter when McGill was shot in the kitchen of her home along South 6th Street, was tracked down in Minnesota in the fall of 2016 and extradited to Indiana County in February of 2017. In 2007, investigators identified him as a suspect in McGill’s shooting death after the return of DNA tests on a cigarette butt found in the victim’s car, which they say Cook stole and later abandoned at the Pittsburgh Greyhound Bus terminal. Cook evaded arrest for the shooting for years, but served time for other crimes in other states.
In April, defense attorney Robert Manzi Jr. filed an extensive omnibus pretrial motion in the case and Judge Martin ruled on some of those motions last month, reserving judgment on others. The judge also ordered a psychiatric evaluation to determine Cook’s competency to stand trial, which was the basis of last week’s finding that he is indeed able to stand trial.
