Police locate doctor's bar pal

RALEIGH -- Police have found the woman who was in the company of a plastic surgeon charged this month with second-degree murder after investigators accused him of driving drunk and causing an accident that killed an aspiring professional ballerina.

Witnesses told police that Raymond Dwight Cook, 42, a physician with Wake Med facial plastic surgery and a UNC-Chapel Hill medical school faculty member, was sitting with an unknown woman at The Piper's Tavern on Falls of Neuse Road before his black 2005 Mercedes-Benz E55 AMG crashed into a silver 2008 Hyundai driven by Elena Bright Shapiro, 20.

Police did not release the name of the woman Tuesday. Nor would they say whether the woman was Cook's wife. The woman was not in Cook's car at the time of the crash.

"The investigators are trying to talk to anyone that might be in a position to talk about the events that led up to the crash and to give it some perspective," Raleigh police spokesman Jim Sughrue said Tuesday.

The discovery Tuesday of the woman's identity came on the same day Wake County District Court Judge Ned Mangum signed a court order requiring Cook's mobile phone provider, AT&T, to turn over his cell phone records, according to court records made public Tuesday.

Investigators requested the records, as well as GPS data, to help them determine Cook's whereabouts leading up to the accident. That information was needed to help determine where and how much alcohol he had consumed, and also identify the woman Cook was seen with at The Piper's Tavern, Raleigh officer C.A. Bradford said in the court order.

Police also seized the electronic data recorder from Cook's car, according to separate search warrant application filed in court Tuesday. The device will reveal other evidence such as seat-belt and headlight use.

The Piper's Tavern co-owners Bill McGee and Jimmy Powers said Cook arrived at their business about 7 p.m. Sept. 11 and left about 8:15 p.m. Employees at Piper's told the police that Cook, who is also charged with driving while impaired and careless and reckless driving, had shown signs of being impaired when he arrived and when he left the establishment.

It was about 8:30 p.m. that police say Cook was speeding west on Strickland Road at 85mph in his Mercedes-Benz when he slammed into the rear of Shapiro's Hyundai. Shapiro, who had been cast to appear in Carolina Ballet's production of "Swan Lake" last week, died from her injuries.

Investigators also think that Cook was at the Raleigh Country Club on Donald Ross Drive before he arrived at The Piper's Tavern, court records show.

More witnesses, officers and emergency medical workers who arrived at the crash all reported that Cook showed obvious signs of impairment: "a strong odor of alcohol coming from his person, being unsteady on his feet, actually bumping into people and objects as well as red, glassy, bloodshot eyes," according to the court order. Results of a test to determine Cook's blood alcohol level have not yet been released.

Cook surrendered his medical license Sept. 15, the day he was charged with second-degree murder.. He was released from the Wake County jail on a $250,000 bond the same day.

The woman at the tavern with Cook will not be criminally charged, Sughrue said.

Cook's next court date is Oct. 5, the Wake County Sheriff's Office reported Tuesday afternoon.

Latest Comment View all comments

Images