Published: November 07, 2009 06:30 pm      

Reward upped by $1K in search for Matthew Cook

A Hartshorne resident says he will add to the reward being offered by the father of a man who has been missing for more than a decade.

Scott Spears says he will personally add $1,000 to the $15,000 reward being offered by John Cook.

Cook’s son, Matthew Cook, has not been seen by any of his friends and family since his father dropped him off on his grandfather’s property in a rural area in Dow.

Spears said he and Matthew Cook graduated together from Hartshorne High School in the class of 1989.

“He was my best friend,” Spears said. “He was a great guy.”

Like Matthew Cook’s family, Spears is hoping the reward money that’s being offered will lead to a break in the case.

“Somebody’s got to know something,” Spears said. “That’s what we need.”

Matthew Cook’s father has spent more than 10 years trying learn what happened to his son. Investigations by law enforcement officers have not turned up any trace of the missing man.

“When he disappeared in April 1999, he was 26,” said John Cook, of Hartshorne.

While there’s been no finding by investigators that Matthew Cook was the victim of a homicide, his father is convinced that is the case.

Shortly after his son went missing, John Cook searched the family property in Dow where his son had last been seen and he, with some family and friends, found some information that left him puzzled — including a barefoot track on the right-hand side of a road and a big boot-print on the left side.

John Cook said he’s convinced that the person wearing the boots had forced his son to walk down the road after forcing him take his shoes off “so he wouldn’t run away through the briars and bushes.”

The search for answers has led John Cook to periodically up the amount of the reward being offered.

“I will offer $15,000 for information that will lead to the arrest and prosecution of the killer,” he said recently.

The $1,000 that Spears said he is adding to the reward brings the total amount to $16,000.

Pittsburg County Sheriff Joel Kerns said he and John Cook talked recently and the case is still open. Although it’s not under active investigation at this time, Kerns said his office is ready to act “if we get something new.”

Anyone with any information can call the sheriff’s department at 423-5858.