 | Sunday, November 22, 2009 |
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Background: News related to the history of the South Hill rapist case.  Video• Video Journal: Reign of Terror-The South Hill Rapist
• Reaction from the assistant attorney general Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006.
• Reaction from Coe's attorney Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006.
• Kevin Coe enters the courtroom Monday, Dec. 18, 2006.
Slideshows  Players
in the civil
commitment trial
 Prelude
to the civil
commitment trial
 Faces
of Kevin Coe
 Trials
of Kevin Coe
Audio• Clips from testimony by psychologist Amy Phenix on Monday, Dec. 18, 2006.
• Clip from statements by Judge Kathleen OConnor on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006
• Clip from closing arguments by assistant attorney general on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006
• Clips from closing argument by Coes attorney on Tuesday, Dec. 19, 2006
Archived stories (PDFs) • "Coe could be free in four years (S-R, Jan. 29, 1988)
• "Coe convictions reversed" (Chronicle, Jan. 28, 1988)
• "Coe guilty on 3 charges" (S-R, Feb. 13, 1985)
• "Coe trial opens; delay rejected" (S-R, Jan. 8, 1985)
• "New trial ordered for Coe" (S-R, June 8, 1984)
• "Coe gets life sentence" (Chronicle, Aug. 17, 1981)
• "Coe guilty on 4 counts" (S-R, July 30, 1981)
• "Coe testifies he's not the South Hill rapist" (S-R, July 28, 1981)
• "Ex-girlfriend tells of Coe's unusual habits" (S-R, July 24, 1981)
• "Battle lines drawn in rape trial" (S-R, July 21, 1981)
• "Judge hears opening statements in rape trial" (Chronicle, July 20, 1981)
• "5 more charges filed against rape suspect" (Chronicle, March 23, 1981)
• "Six rape victims identify suspect" (S-R, March 12, 1981)
• "Spokane man, 34, held in rape on South Side" (S-R, March 11, 1981) |
10/26/2008 | The trauma of rape doesn't have an expiration date.After she was sexually assaulted by Kevin Coe on a dark South Hill street in October 1980, Julie Harmia slept with Tuffy, a protective German shepherd, and never again got on the city bus she'd ridden home that night after her first day at a new job. Her marriage failed. 10/26/2008 | OLYMPIA Kevin Coe is back on McNeil Island, behind the locked gates and razor wire of the state's home for sex predators. 10/17/2008 | Key moments leading to the arrest and conviction of Kevin Coe, known as the South Hill rapist. 10/14/2008 | After two criminal trials and a best-selling book, it might seem everybody with a story to tell about Kevin Coe has been heard from. 10/9/2008 | Kevin Coe has a "striking lack of empathy" and is highly likely to reoffend within six years if he's set free, according to the state expert who evaluated him for his civil commitment trial. 10/7/2008 | Kevin Coe's distinctive "signature" including a gloved hand forced down the throat and crude sex talk was present in 18 of 52 rapes committed on Spokane's South Hill from 1978 to 1981, according to a nationally known crime profiler. 10/3/2008 | A positive DNA sample from the woman whose South Hill rape sent Kevin Coe to prison for 25 years must be introduced by DNA experts and not by a psychologist who will testify for the state that Coe has a mental illness, a Spokane judge ruled Thursday in Coe's civil commitment trial. 10/1/2008 | Julie Harmia, the only woman whose first-degree rape charge against Kevin Coe stuck, took the stand Tuesday in Coe's civil commitment trial to describe her terrifying 1980 assault, which occurred two days after she and her husband moved to Spokane.
9/30/2008 | Spokane broadcaster Shelly Monahan strode into the Spokane County Courthouse on Monday and told a graphic, painful story of her rape on Sept. 9, 1979 part of a string of violent assaults on women that terrorized the community. 9/26/2008 | Only one member of the jury that will decide convicted rapist Kevin Coe's fate lives on the South Hill, where most of the rapes that paralyzed Spokane took place. 9/16/2008 | The stories of Kevin Coe and the dozens of rapes that terrorized Spokane more than a quarter century ago are very much alive today, according to many prospective jurors' answers Monday in the opening day of juror questioning in Coe's civil commitment trial. 9/14/2008 | The fate of Kevin Coe whose two rape trials galvanized Spokane in the 1980s hangs on 12 jurors who will decide over the next eight weeks whether he walks free or is locked away indefinitely as a sexually violent predator. 9/12/2008 | A judge has denied a request by Kevin Coe's lawyers to seal the courtroom during individual juror questioning in his upcoming civil commitment trial. 9/10/2008 | Results from a DNA analysis that authorities wanted to introduce in South Hill rapist Kevin Coe's civil commitment trial will be suppressed because the state attorney general's office failed to preserve the evidence for testing by defense experts, a judge ruled Tuesday. 9/9/2008 | "South Hill rapist" Kevin Coe was absent for motions leading up to his Sept. 15 civil commitment trial, but there were plenty of sparks Monday.
8/16/2008 | A request from Kevin Coe's lawyer to house the increasingly depressed, convicted rapist at Eastern State Hospital during his upcoming civil commitment trial has been rejected.
7/19/2008 | A judge has rejected Kevin Coe's request to move his Sept. 15 civil commitment trial out of Spokane County or bring in jurors from another county. 7/5/2008 | Rapist Kevin Coe does not think he can get a fair civil commitment trial in Spokane County. He wants to be tried elsewhere or have jurors brought in from outside the county, according to a motion filed Thursday by Coe's attorneys.
5/31/2008 | The Spokane judge who will preside over rapist Kevin Coe's civil commitment trial this fall has decided that 21 women on a state list of uncharged rape and indecent liberties accusations can be included in the trial to determine whether Coe is a violent sexual predator likely to rape again. 5/31/2008 | Calling his civil commitment trail a "Hitlerian effort" to further punish an innocent man, convicted rapist Kevin Coe says during an interview set to air Sunday night on "Dateline NBC" that he's not a threat to women.
3/20/2008 | For the record, Don Brockett will not be changing his name to Don Quixote.Although the former Spokane County prosecuting attorney certainly has reason to identify with that famed literary windmill-tilter.
12/22/2007 | The decision Friday to delay his civil commitment trial will ensure that South Hill rapist Kevin Coe will have served more than two years in custody past his release date, even if a jury decides next September he is not a sexually violent predator.
8/25/2007 | Attorneys reached a verbal agreement Friday allowing South Hill rapist Kevin Coe to avoid both contempt of court and the requirement that he submit to an evaluation of his arousal levels to images of forced sex. 8/24/2007 | Kevin Coe is continuing his quarter-century pattern of refusing to talk about the sexual assaults that brought him the label "the South Hill rapist." 8/15/2007 | The Washington attorney general's office will ask a Spokane County judge to find Kevin Coe and his attorney in contempt of court.
2/16/2007 | South Hill rapist Kevin Coe was ordered Thursday to provide prosecutors a new DNA sample so they can double-check previous tests that may erase any doubt about the rape for which he spent 25 years in prison. 2/16/2007 | South Hill rapist Kevin Coe was ordered Thursday to provide prosecutors a new DNA sample so that they can double-check previous tests that may erase any doubt about the rape for which he spent 25 years in prison.
1/13/2007 | South Hill rapist Kevin Coe will be shown explicit videos depicting violent rape and consensual sex so that a psychologist can measure his arousal levels to both, a judge ruled late Friday. 1/6/2007 | South Hill rapist Kevin Coe has long argued that DNA evidence would set him free. Turns out he may be wrong, according to new court records.
12/20/2006 | The legal battle over South Hill rapist Kevin Coe will be fought long before a jury is seated to decide whether he ever again becomes a free man. 12/19/2006 | South Hill rapist Kevin Coe should know today whether he walks free or returns to a secure facility on McNeil Island to await a trial that could lead to his incarceration until death. 12/18/2006 | The latest legal fight for South Hill rapist Kevin Coe starts today.
10/12/2006 | A judge has postponed a hearing that will determine whether the state has enough evidence to proceed with a civil trial to commit convicted rapist Kevin Coe as a sexually violent predator. 10/11/2006 |  Retired Spokane jurist George Shields, who presided over convicted rapist Kevin Coe's trial in 1981, died Tuesday from complications of surgery. He was 78. 10/6/2006 | The attorney representing convicted Spokane rapist Kevin Coe is asking a judge to keep Coe off the witness stand in an upcoming legal hearing to determine whether the civil commitment trial against him should proceed.
9/22/2006 | MCNEIL ISLAND Two weeks after he was scheduled to walk free from prison, Spokane rapist Kevin Coe spends most of his hours behind locked doors, with only a single window consisting of slits of shatterproof glass. 9/9/2006 | OLYMPIA Notorious Spokane rapist Kevin Coe arrived on Thursday at what will probably be home for at least the next several months: the state's Special Commitment Center for sex predators. 9/7/2006 | Wearing a light-blue dress shirt and a tie, a pale-skinned Kevin Coe returned to Spokane County Superior Court Wednesday for the first time since he was convicted of being the South Hill rapist 25 years ago. 9/2/2006 | The attorney appointed to represent the South Hill rapist said Friday that he plans to file a motion next week to postpone the probable cause hearing necessary for the state's effort to civilly commit Kevin Coe as a sexually violent predator. 9/1/2006 | When he dropped Kevin Coe off in King County in 1981, then-Spokane sheriff's Deputy Jerry Brady never thought he'd see the South Hill rapist again.
8/31/2006 | The Spokane police detective who was instrumental in arresting Kevin Coe in 1981 said Wednesday that he's extremely glad state attorneys now are attempting to keep the convicted rapist locked up indefinitely. 8/31/2006 | For two of the nation's most experienced civil prosecutors of sexually violent predators, no case has been more important to them than the massive legal effort to keep South Hill rapist Kevin Coe from ever again walking free. 8/31/2006 | Key moments leading to the arrest and conviction of Kevin Coe, known as the South Hill rapist.
5/21/2006 | WALLA WALLA Each morning, convicted rapist Kevin Coe rises early in his 6-foot wide, 9-foot deep, 10-foot tall cell and performs his isometric exercises.
3/21/2006 | The South Hill rapist could be coming to a courtroom near you. Again. With convicted rapist Kevin Coe's scheduled Sept. 8 release date fast approaching, state prosecutors have begun contemplating whether to pursue a civil case that could keep the prisoner behind bars until his death.
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