Espresso Stand Visible Reminder Of Family’s Loss Parents Still Hopeful Son’s Murder Will Be Solved

Business is only part of the reason Mac and Myssie Cook opened an espresso stand in this Seattle suburb.

Their bigger goal is evident in the name, Andy’s Place. They hope the operation leads to a tip enabling police to solve the murder of their son, Andreau “Andy” Cook, slain at his own espresso stand 15 months ago.

“That’s one of the main reasons we opened this up,” Mac Cook said, “just to keep the name alive and keep it around so that people might drive by and see it and maybe remember something they’ve seen.”

His 22-year-old son was abducted from his stand, TJ’s Espresso, in Tukwila, a neighboring suburb, on April 5, 1996. Hours later, the son’s car was found burning behind a store in Renton. His body was found two days later beneath a bridge near Enumclaw. He died of blows to the head.

The motive remains unclear, although police initially suspected robbery. The cash box, which would have contained no more than $100, was missing and a few coins were found on the floor.

“It continues to be a high priority for myself and the Tukwila Police Department,” said Detective Ron Corrigan. “We continue to receive information on the case from the public, family members, other law enforcement agencies and various tip lines, and we investigate each tip and try to eliminate or validate the information we receive.”

Cook’s widow, Wendy, and other relatives tried to keep operating TJ’s Espresso, despite drug dealing, gangs, prostitution and violence in the area, then gave up in October.

Mac and Myssie Cook, who never were involved in TJ’s Espresso, said Andy Cook was active in an effort to clean up the neighborhood and combat crime.

“We loved our son, and he was an upright young man. Anybody you talked to had nothing but the highest praise for him,” Mac Cook said.

“He and Wendy were young, and they had the nerve to go into business despite the business climate being what it is. We had thought about doing it, too, and then dismissed the idea of opening a place ourselves,” he added. “When this place came along, everything just seemed to fit.”

Wendy Cook recently went to work for Eddie Bauer and isn’t involved in Andy’s Place.

“She didn’t want anything else to do with the espresso business,” Cook said.

Some of Andy Cook’s old customers stopped by the new stand at first but it is too far from his old location for them to become regulars, the father said.

He and his wife still expect police to catch their son’s killer.

“Every new lead they get, they open the thing up and they go searching. I’m still very hopeful.”