James E. Cooke Jr.WILMINGTON, Del. (AP/WBOC)- A former death row inmate charged with raping and killing a University of Delaware student in 2005 has been sentenced to death again after a retrial.
James E. Cooke Jr. maintained his innocence and decried what he said was a corrupt judicial system after being sentenced Monday.
The 41-year-old Cooke was convicted in April of killing 20-year-old Lindsey Bonistall of White Plains, N.Y. A jury voted 11-to-1 to recommend the death sentence.
Cooke was first sentenced to death in 2007, but the Delaware Supreme Court overturned his conviction and death sentence in 2009 because his public defenders, without Cooke's consent and despite his repeated claims of innocence, argued that he was guilty but mentally ill.
Prosecutors said that in May 2005, Cooke broke into Bonistall's off-campus apartment in Newark, Del., and sexually assaulted and strangled her. He then placed her body in a bathtub and set the apartment on fire, court records show.
"Nothing changes the fact that Lindsey will not return home with her mom, dad, and sister to Westchester County today, however, the sentence handed down reflects the brutality of her attack and murder," Delaware Attorney General Beau Biden said in a statement following the sentencing.
