Carroll Cole: The Serial Killer Who Asked to Die

Carroll Edward "Eddie" Cole strangled at least 14 women across California, Nevada, and Texas between 1971 and 1980, then confessed when police were about to let him go. He refused every appeal and became the first person executed by lethal injection in Nevada.

Case record · Verified against court records and 1985 press archives · Updated July 2026

Carroll Edward Cole (May 9, 1938 to December 6, 1985) was an American serial killer convicted of 5 murders in Texas and Nevada and linked by his own confessions to at least 14. Cole targeted women he met in bars, killed by strangulation, and moved between states for 9 years without becoming a suspect. His case ended at Nevada State Prison in Carson City, where he was executed at 2:10 a.m. on December 6, 1985, after instructing his lawyers to file no appeals.

Who Was Carroll Cole?

Carroll Cole was born in Sioux City, Iowa, on May 9, 1938, the second son of LaVerne and Vesta Cole, and grew up in Richmond, California, after the family moved west for shipyard work. His mother Vesta abused him emotionally, dressed him as a girl, and took him along to her wartime affairs under threat of beatings if he told his father. Classmates mocked the name Carroll as a girl's name, and Cole later told interviewers that his resentment of his mother hardened into an obsession.

At age 8, Cole drowned classmate Duane Eugene Owen in a lake near Richmond, a death authorities recorded as an accident. Cole admitted the killing decades later in the autobiography he wrote on death row, describing it as the point where he had "made the mental commitment" to get even with his mother. The admission moved the start of his span of violence back to the 1940s, 25 years before his first proven adult murder.

Between 1958 and 1963 Cole cycled through a bad-conduct discharge from the US Army, an attack on two couples in parked cars, and 3 years of psychiatric hospitals. Staff at Stockton State Hospital diagnosed antisocial personality disorder, recorded his stated fantasies of strangling women, and released him in April 1963.

The Murders: 1971 to 1980

Cole committed his first proven adult murder on May 7, 1971, strangling Essie Louise Buck in his car after meeting her in a San Diego tavern. Over the next 9 years he killed in California, Nevada, and Texas, choosing women he met in bars and telling detectives later that he saw his mother's adultery in them. The 5 convictions covered Kathlyn Blum (Las Vegas, 1977), Marie Cushman (Las Vegas, 1979), and Dorothy King, Wanda Roberts, and Sally Thompson (Dallas, November 1980).

The full list of named cases, including his wife Diana Pashal, whose 1979 death police initially attributed to alcoholism, is on the page Carroll Cole Victims: The 5 Convictions and the 14 Confessions.

Arrest and Confession in Dallas

Dallas police arrested Cole on November 30, 1980, at the scene of Sally Thompson's death, then prepared to release him when her death looked natural. Cole responded by confessing, unprompted, to Thompson's murder and at least 13 more killings dating back to 1971. He said heavy drinking blurred the exact count, and estimates in court records and interviews ranged from 14 to 35.

Why a man on the edge of walking free chose to confess is examined on Carroll Cole Confessions: Why He Confessed to 14 Murders.

Conviction, Death Sentence, and Execution

A Texas court convicted Cole of 3 murders on April 9, 1981, and sentenced him to life without parole. After his mother died in January 1984, Cole waived extradition to Nevada, asked for no defense that would spare his life, and thanked the judge who sentenced him to death on October 12, 1984. Nevada executed him by lethal injection on December 6, 1985, the first use of the method in the state's history, while the ACLU protested a sentence that Cole himself demanded.

The execution record, his last meal, and the study of his brain at the University of Nevada are documented on Carroll Cole Execution: Nevada's First Lethal Injection. Every verified date from 1938 to 1985 is listed on the Carroll Cole Timeline: 1938 to 1985, Every Verified Date.

Why the Carroll Cole Case Still Matters

The Cole case exposed 3 failures that criminologists still cite: psychiatric hospitals released a man who told staff he fantasized about strangling women, police in San Diego closed his wife's homicide as a drinking death, and no agency connected killings across state lines before he confessed. Cole's brain was removed hours after his execution and studied at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, an early attempt to find a biological marker for serial violence. The questions his case raised about voluntary execution, diminished capacity, and institutional blindness remain live in every death penalty debate since.