Man Convicted in Frayser Kidnap, Rape

March 5, 2022 – A 28-year-old man was convicted Friday of sexually assaulting a Frayser woman as she was returning home from work in 2017, said Shelby County Dist. Atty. Gen. Amy Weirich.

A Criminal Court jury deliberated just 10 minutes before convicting Michael M. Cook Jr. on one count of aggravated rape and two counts of aggravated kidnapping. He remains in custody and will be sentenced next month.

The woman testified that Cook abducted her in the driveway of her home around 6 a.m. on Aug. 20, 2017, showing her a gun on his hip and forcing her to accompany him to a nearby vacant house.

He raped her there and kept the condom that he used, putting it in his pocket. He then told her to count to 200 before she moved, or that he would come back and kill her.

Hours after the rape, police recovered a stolen car a block from the defendant’s home. Inside the car they found items the victim had described her rapist wearing, including a black ski mask, a black thermal hoodie and black jeans.

The condom also was found in the car, and testing by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation lab showed a positive match for both the victim’s and the defendant’s DNA on the condom.

The case was prosecuted by Asst. Dist. Attys. Devon Dennis and Gavin Smith of the District Attorney’s Special Victims Unit (SVU) which handles cases involving rape, child sexual abuse, severe physical abuse of children, elder abuse, and vulnerable-adult abuse.