Saturday, November 21, 2009

ONGOING COVERAGE: KEVIN COE TRIAL

Writings provide insight to Coe

Rapist spent hours each day typing

Coe

Richard Roesler
Staff writer
October 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.

In more than a quarter century of confinement, the notorious Spokane rapist largely kept his silence. He granted few interviews, complained bitterly about the publicity surrounding his case, and fired off angry rebukes to friends who talked publicly about him.

But in his cell, Coe was for years quietly churning out a large archive, much of which he clearly never intended to become public.

Through a public-records request to state prison officials, The Spokesman-Review has obtained thousands of pages of Coe's writings from prison and before. They include notes, prison complaints, legal work, even a self-published pornographic novel. The writings suggest a smart, arrogant, sex-obsessed man convinced he could write his way out of prison.

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They also show a manipulative inmate who wrote dozens of manic love letters to a Hanford secretary who eventually married him in prison. He soon had her sending him money, pitching his book proposals to publishers and bringing him expensive food for their monthly conjugal visits in a trailer on the prison grounds.

"I can understand your reluctance to borrow from Granny," he wrote the woman, Shawn O'Brien, in 1986. "Maybe only $500 would be enough."

But most of his writing consisted of legal arguments and the outlines for two huge books that were intended to exonerate him, restore the family name – and make Coe rich.

"The true story of the Coe cases can make some of the best reading ever in the big-selling crime docudrama genre," he wrote in 1988, already seven years into his 25-year prison sentence. "The book and film potential is tremendous."

Coe was arrested in 1981, suspected of being the South Hill rapist who had terrorized Spokane for two years.

In long letters to friends on the eve of his first trial, Coe laid out the case for his innocence. He was such a "male feminist," he said, that his girlfriend, Ginny Perham, jokingly called him Alan Alda.

"They couldn't have found a less likely candidate for a rapist," he wrote in one letter.

That winter, from prison, he wrote a several-thousand-word letter to a longtime friend named Jason, who'd blasted Coe in a letter.

"Your matter of guilt was obvious to everyone," Jason wrote. "... You've crushed people's lives."

Coe responded in the grandiose language that marks much of his writing. Crime, he said, is "the tool of brutes and the unintellectual. … I resent your error in finding me capable of rape. … I consider you a Judas!"

He went on to boast about his "voluminous 'fan' mail," particularly from women.

"You wouldn't believe the mail I get and from all over the country!" Coe wrote. "Kinky, suggestive, lewd, libertine, call it as you wish!"

In a handwritten note written around the same time – the purpose is unclear – Coe again denied being a rapist, but said that many women fantasize about it.

"I don't think women fear being raped as long as it's not too violent," he wrote. And in a note to a prison friend, he joked about gifts from "the SHR Christmas Catalog," including the rapist's gloves, oven mitts and bus route maps. The acronym stands for South Hill rapist.

Coe's jailers gave him good reviews for his first couple of years in prison. A typical record from 1983 described him as a cooperative, low-profile inmate whose family was supportive. He exercised intensely – 200 pushups and 100 chin-ups daily – and spent hours each day at a typewriter. He told prison officials that he hoped to be freed soon and go to live with family in Las Vegas or France.

"In many ways prison is a trip," Coe wrote to a friend in 1982. "It ain't no biggie. And, in fact, it's a fascinating subculture."

In letters and legal documents, he continued to maintain his innocence, pointing to other felons as more likely to be the real South Hill rapist.

One undated legal memo was 75 pages long, objecting to 213 elements of the investigation and conviction. He blasted prosecutor Don Brockett, criticized witnesses’ testimony, said certain questions shouldn’t have been allowed and decried the presence of cameras in the courtroom. He railed at the destruction of rape swabs before they could be tested for DNA.

"There is a high probability that a staggering injustice has taken place," he wrote.

Yet he did acknowledge in an early 1980s document that he had been "obsessed with the notion of committing a rape."

Upon arrival at the state prison in Shelton, Coe wrote a brief statement for the Board of Prison Terms and Paroles.

He said he was intrigued by the South Hill rapist cases and had embarked on his own investigation.

"I devoted a good deal of time to the SHR clue search," he wrote. "At some point the reason is unclear to me, other than a sort of temporary insanity, I became obsessed with the notion of committing a rape. I did so in an SHR copycat fashion.

"The act completely turned me off," Coe wrote. "I was unable to complete the essentially 2nd degree assault, and subsequently lost all fascination with the act of rape."

But contrary to what prosecutors said, Coe wrote, that admission doesn't indicate that he was the South Hill rapist. And instead of prison, he wrote, "I would like sexual psychopathy treatment at Western State Hospital so I can understand why I committed this act."

Prison officials turned the document over to the prosecutor's office. And Coe stayed in prison.

By 1985, his parents living in Las Vegas were approved for overnight family visits with their son in one of the state penitentiary’s trailers. In the case of his mother, Ruth Coe, the visits had to be approved by Nevada parole officials. She had been convicted in 1982 of trying to hire a hit man to kill the prosecutor and judge in her son’s case.

In 1985 Coe struck up a pen-pal correspondence with a former Spokane woman.

"Case is comin' fine, darlin'," he wrote. "I will be free in about 15 months."

The woman got married and moved to Idaho. Coe kept sending her letters.

"It is I who will teach you the meaning of pleasure," Coe wrote, urging her to send photos of herself.

Shortly after that, Coe mailed her a cassette tape of himself working himself up with extremely explicit talk and masturbating.

The woman called police, saying she'd tried telling Coe to stop writing her but that he wouldn't. The letters were vulgar "and the tape even more so," she complained. The items were turned over to Spokane detectives.

That same summer, Shawn O'Brien, a 25-year-old Hanford secretary, wrote to Coe. She'd read author Jack Olsen's book, "Son: A Psychopath and His Victims," about the Coe case.

"Unusual name for a female," Coe wrote back, telling her about his book plan and his efforts to prove he was innocent.

"Meantime, stay as you are a sensitive and inquisitive young woman," he told her. "... And thank you for the photo of yourself."

That summer note soon led to a flurry of correspondence from Coe. By fall, he was proposing marriage.

"Hi, wife," he wrote four months after O'Brien's first letter. He told her he "will not take no for an answer."

He told O'Brien that he would soon sell an 850-page book about his mother's case, titled "Entrapment." It would make them both rich, he said, and he'd buy her a Cadillac.

“The worst is over,” he assured her in November 1985.

He wrote to O’Brien’s sister, whom he’d never met: “Have no fear I will treat that little doll like the jewel she is.”

Coe's letters were full of endearments and manic expressions of love, often in capital letters and exclamation points. He called O'Brien "Wifey-poo" or "Duckling." He was "Huz-buns." He had another inmate draw her as “a spirited pony, prancing across a sunfield.” He once put on Chapstick and kissed a page before sending it.

Still, he sometimes sounded more calculating than love-smitten.

"Right now, marriage would help me a great deal, in numerous ways, as you know, including the trailers," he wrote in April.

Coe's letters were also full of sexual references. One included semen. On another, he traced his penis.

Coe eventually gave O'Brien an ultimatum: Marry him in prison and he'd always owe her a great debt. Marry him later and he'd owe her nothing, including fidelity.

When O’Brien balked repeatedly at marrying him, Coe’s tone changed. He mocked her "little mind" and told her she was paranoid. "You are going too far," he wrote. "...You have to get a grip and start to help me."

He told her how to handle queries from reporters: Be polite, "tell them you love Kevin. Kevin is innocent...After that NO COMMENT!"

In October 1986, the two were married at a brief ceremony at the state penitentiary in Walla Walla. Coe, who called his jogging clothes an "ensemble" and who’d once boasted of his $100 sneakers and crimson silk pajamas, was married in a mail-ordered jacket from Sears and J.C. Penney shoes.

Months before their October 1986 wedding, Coe began sending O'Brien credit card applications.

"These credit cards can be enormously valuable," he said. "You should have as many as possible and apply while your credit is A-1."

He soon urged her to ask for higher credit limits. And he kept careful track of her pay, noting when she was getting raises. By late 1986, O'Brien was pulling out hundreds of dollars in cash advances on a credit card to send to Coe.

He rebuked her for sending him a $350 personal money order.

"I know you will not make the mistake ever again of sending anything but a POSTAL money order," he wrote.

He had O’Brien typing things up, ordering him clothing. When a TV show featured wrongly convicted people, Coe had her buy a transcript.

Coe kept track of their prison visits. No. 77 took place on Christmas Eve Day 1986.

"Visit 155 was great!" he wrote in late 1987.

In addition to their regular visits, the two qualified for overnight stays together in one of the prison's trailers. O'Brien could bring groceries for the couple, and Coe wrote her shopping lists that grew more detailed over time. Steak. Redken soap. Chips. Cheese. But only one toothbrush because he wanted to share it.

Later, the lists grew. "Lots of lamb chops," he wrote. Cola. Cake.

By 1987, Coe was calling for three pounds of steaks, cashews, lots of bacon, crab, cake, eggs, cold cuts, cottage cheese, celery, cream cheese and Tillamook Medium Cheddar.

O'Brien, who was living on less than $1,400 a month, was struggling with finances and loneliness. She vowed to stand by him.

"Sometimes Kevin when I’m feeling lonely or down, I will dwell on the bad times and lonely times I’ve had and I’ll get so mad at you," she wrote in September 1987. "... I realize I cannot blame you. I made my choice and I am happy with it because I love you more than anything."

In letters apparently written by Coe, she pitched his manuscript to agents in Hollywood and New York.

"We truly believe ours is the greatest UNTOLD and UNSOLD story in existence today," read one letter. "… The story of the Coe cases and Kevin himself can be a highly profitable commodity, promoted correctly."

But by May 1988, O'Brien had had enough. Coe responded to her request for a divorce with a polite but distant farewell, suggesting Nevada for a quiet divorce filing and asking her to ship all his files to his parents. "And please take good care of yourself," he wrote, "… because we may need to call you as a witness someday."

He vowed to someday pay O'Brien back the $8,000 he owed her.

One thing that's obvious from Coe's files is that he was a big fan of himself.

"Happy Birthday to me!" he wrote in a two-sentence letter to his wife in 1987. A year earlier, he'd urged her to tell her family about the relationship, suggesting this line: "He is gorgeous and so youthful."

In 1987, Coe formally complained to prison officials after a strip search messed up his hair before a TV interview. He complained again when guards mocked his "red fashion underwear."

Years earlier, trying to get out of a community-service sentence, he protested, "I am an extremely busy man ... Considering the kind of money I am able to make, 72 hours of community service represents a great deal of money lost."

He’d walked out of the store with Perrier and steaks.

"I practice a specific application of psycho-cybernetics and mental discipline called Laserlife," he wrote to the court, describing it as intense mental focus. "I go in and out of Laserlife states throughout any given day. This heightens mental awareness and allows for extraordinary achievement, but it also makes easy the forgetting of things other than the subject of concentration."

Later, from prison, he wrote to a male friend, "I’m highly artistic and creative. But I choose to seduce women with charm ... good looks ... good clothes ... material possessions (cars, etc.) ... and genuine affection for our superiors, females."

In another letter, he described turning 29 in Las Vegas, "working at one of the world's most glamorous and celebrity-filled discos. … I was inundated with gorgeous women."

Still, he said, he returned to Spokane to live his dream of investing in real estate and opening a disco.

"Spokane, however, was resistant to disco," he wrote.

Among the writings in Coe’s prison files: A pornographic political spoof that Coe wrote in 1974 under the pen name "Superfry." It’s full of bizarre, sex-related puns.

"Prezidunt Richyard Obb Noxious the Prezidunt of the United States of Amareeka liked to think of himself as a ... master debater," it begins.

Some of his later writing was just as wince-inducing. Spokane, he wrote, was surrounded by "an engorgement" of lakes. Brockett, the prosecutor, was "a political wolverine." And the media was "rife with nugatory notions and swollen in conceit like a sated mosquito."

In his book about his mother’s case, written in the first person from her perspective, Coe described Mount Spokane as "an ancient ice cream cone currently spreading its annual gourmet dessert downward." The fake hit man was "dressed like a guttersnipe," Coe wrote. And instead of paying a hit man, he said, his mother should have been elsewhere, picking up her "ultrachic new beige ultrasuede pantsuit."

In a legal note, he also shed light on some bizarre investigation work by his defense team. One of the rapist’s hallmarks was to silence victims by jamming an oven-mitted hand into their mouths.

"In out-of-court testing by the defense," Coe wrote, "it was determined shoving a clumsy oven mitt down anyone’s throat was virtually impossible."

Coe's files suggest that he did almost nothing except exercise and write for most of his 25 years in prison. Despite urging, he took no classes. And except for a very short stint in a prison kitchen, he never did any sort of prison job. Over and over, he protested that any kind of prison work work inflame his allergies and asthma. He said he typed, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.

"I was framed, smeared and railroaded for a crime I clearly did not commit," he wrote to a parole board in 1991.

But his prison files thin dramatically in the late 1990s and beyond. He repeatedly refused to meet with a sentencing review board, saying it was pointless.

By 1994, after years of noting that Coe refused to work or take classes in prison, officials rating his prospects for rehabilitation circled "Poor."

"At this point there seems to be little purpose ... in hearings," the parole board concluded in 1995.

In 2002, he again wrote the board, saying he was innocent. But the letter is far from the thousands-of-words treatises he was churning out early in his prison sentence. This one was just six paragraphs. In a prison progress review later that year, his only comment was "No comment."

He apparently spent virtually his entire prison career in a one-man cell, for security reasons. (Another inmate slashed Coe’s throat in 1994.) While briefly in a four-man cell in 1984, he said, his cellmates set fire to his mattress while he was on it.

Since 2006, Coe has spent most of his time at the state's Special Commitment Center, the state's high-security home for sex predators who've served their prison terms but are deemed too dangerous to release. He was said to be struggling with depression as the state successfully asked a jury to order him involuntarily committed, perhaps for life, to the remote facility.

"He was just like anybody facing trial," said sex predator Richard Scott, who eats meals with Coe at the facility. "It's a situation that none of us want to face: your whole life spread out in front of you. But he took the pressure well."

Awaiting trial, Scott said, Coe did what most of the other residents do: watch TV, walk around the exercise area, and eat meals.

Now back on McNeil Island after his trial, Coe was under observation in the facility's "intensive management unit" last week, Scott said. Scott, who said he has spent time in the unit, described it as a "prisonlike" room in a basement, with other residents frequently yelling.

"So he's down there in this torture chamber," Scott said, "to see if he's depressed."