Coe to help ready his defense

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.

Upon his request, Judge Kathleen O’Connor granted a motion to postpone Coe’s probable cause hearing to Oct. 30. She also agreed to allow him to be moved in the meantime to the state’s Special Commitment Center for sex offenders at McNeil Island.

The probable cause hearing will determine if the state has established a case to allow the possible civil commitment of Coe as a sexually violent predator. If O’Connor agrees with the state, she would later preside over a jury trial seeking to keep Coe in the Pierce County facility from which he might never be released.

Appointed defense attorney Tim Trageser filed the motion to postpone the hearing for 30 days. But Trageser said he spoke with Coe Wednesday morning, and they agreed to ask O’Connor to delay the hearing even further.

“I have received approximately 66,000 pages of discovery in CD format. We are at the beginning stages of reviewing discovery,” Trageser said. “Additional time is needed to review that with Mr. Coe in order to be properly prepared for a probable cause hearing.”

Trageser said Coe requested to be moved to McNeil Island – the same facility he would call home if a jury decides he’s a sexually violent predator and unsafe to be released into the community.

“It actually offers a better opportunity for us to prepare,” Trageser said of the secure facility operated by the state Department of Social and Health Services. Coe will “have access to a computer, which ordinarily is not available at the jail. His ability to assist us has increased.”

The computer, which the defense must purchase from the state, will not have Internet access, Trageser said.

The request for transfer had nothing to do with Coe’s treatment in the Spokane County Jail, Trageser said.

“Everything has been fine,” he said. “It’s my position that he is entitled to be (at the Special Commitment Center) and out of a facility that’s designed to hold convicted criminals.”

Assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers said he doesn’t know how long the probable cause hearing will take when it’s convened next month.

“It’s in Tim’s court,” Bowers said of Coe’s attorney. “We’ve presented pretty much all of our evidence. It’s up to (Trageser) to challenge it.”

That evidence includes police reports of many of the 43 sexual attacks that Spokane police attributed to the South Hill rapist.

Coe was arrested in 1981 and charged with six rapes. He initially was convicted on four counts, but after two rounds of appeals only one rape conviction remained. For that case, Coe was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

He was scheduled to be released Friday, but he will remain in custody until the civil commitment process is decided.

If O’Connor agrees with prosecutors, they would have to convince a jury that Coe has a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes him more likely than not to reoffend if he were to be released into the community, Bowers said.

If a jury agrees, Coe would remain indefinitely in the mental health facility on McNeil Island until his underlying mental problems improve to the point where he could safely be released back into the community, according to court records.

Dave Sutton, a former acquaintance of Coe’s, attended Wednesday’s hearing. He said his brother Don and Coe had been good friends.

“Fred had come by my house quite a few times,” Dave Sutton said. “I haven’t seen him since (high school) graduation.”

Sutton explained that he knew Coe as “Frederick Harlan” Coe, which is the name he received from his late parents. However, Coe preferred the name Kevin and later legally changed his name.

“We didn’t know what to expect,” Sutton said of himself and his female friend, whom he did not identify. “I was under the impression that (Coe) would be getting out.”

Asked if that was his hope, Sutton replied: “It’s my personal opinion that he should not be released. I read the book. There’s been plenty of family discussion about it because he was in our family home.”

The crime spree by the South Hill rapist between 1978 and 1981 became international news and the basis for a true-crime book by the late Jack Olsen titled, “Son. A Psychopath and His Victims.”

“I didn’t realize it was (Coe) when I first saw him,” Sutton continued. “I don’t recall him ever having a mustache.”

Asked if his curiosity was satisfied, Sutton replied: “I think so. I could have stayed home and watched it on TV.”