Rogers in 1952 or 1953.Roy Rogers: a biography, radio history, television career chronicle. Robert W. Phillips. p. 47 She soon asked Cooley - who had had many of his own affairs - for a divorce. On March 23, Cooley filed for divorce, citing "incompatibility" and seeking custody of their three children, Melody, Donnell Jr. and John. On April 26, 1961, Cooley was indicted by a Kern County grand jury for the murder of his wife on April 3 at the couple's home near Willow Springs. Cooley's then 14-year-old daughter, Melody, recounted to the jury how she was forced by her father to watch in terror as he beat her mother's head against the floor, stomped on her stomach, then crushed a lit cigarette against her skin to see whether she was dead. Cooley claimed his wife had been injured by falling in the shower. Cooley was defended by attorney P. Basil Lambros, in what was the longest case in county history at the time, and was convicted of first-degree murder by a Kern County jury on August 21, 1961, after unexpectedly withdrawing an insanity plea. Facing a maximum sentence of death in the gas chamber, Cooley was sentenced to life in prison, eligible for parole after serving seven years. Cooley had a parole hearing after serving eight years, in August 1969. His friends in Hollywood had been lobbying Governor Ronald Reagan, who threw his support behind Cooley being released on parole; the state review board voted to grant Cooley a release on parole, effective February 1970. However, Cooley died before his parole took effect. Death On August 5, 1968, the California State Adult Authority voted unanimously to parole Cooley on February 22, 1970. He had served less than nine years of a life sentence and was in poor health from heart trouble. On November 23, 1969, he received a 72-hour furlough from the prison hospital unit at Vacaville to play a benefit concert for the Deputy Sheriffs Association of Alameda County at the Oakland Auditorium (now known as the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center) in Oakland. During the intermission, after a standing ovation, Cooley suffered a fatal heart attack backstage. He is interred at Chapel of the Chimes cemetery in Hayward. In popular culture John Gilmore has written an in-depth portrait of Cooley's life and death in Shame on You, a segment of Gilmore's non-fiction work, L.A. Despair: A Landscape