Police: Woman shot by brother in family dispute

SHAPLEIGH – A woman was shot in the neck and her husband was struck in the hand while wrestling a rifle away from her brother during a dispute that erupted as the siblings’ mother received hospice care in another room, authorities said.

Glenn Cook, 62, opened fire inside his house with the .22-caliber rifle, splintering a door jamb and hitting his sister in the neck, before the woman’s husband intervened to get the gun away from her brother, the York County Sheriff’s Department said.

Cheryl Cook, 45, of Old Orchard Beach, was taken to Maine Medical Center, where she was in stable condition Monday morning, said her husband, Stanley Defreese.

“This is so surreal. I can’t believe it happened,” Defreese told the Journal Tribune. “All I remember is her brother came out of a room with a gun.”

A dispute over family property may have been behind the shooting at 2:45 p.m. Sunday, said Lt. Gary Fecteau of the York County Sheriff’s Department.

It began with Glenn Cook firing his weapon inside the house, Fecteau said. He fired twice when his sister appeared in a doorway, he said.

When deputies arrived, Defreese was tending to his wife’s neck wound despite having been shot in the hand during a struggle to get the gun away from Glenn Cook, Fecteau said. Glenn Cook, who was still in the house, was arrested.

The incident was witnessed by Glenn Cook’s daughter as well as hospice workers caring for the mother of Glenn and Cheryl Cook. One of the hospice workers called police.

Glenn Cook, who was arraigned Monday afternoon, underwent a psychological examination before being transported to the York County Jail, where he was being held on charges of attempted murder and elevated aggravated assault.