Coe has no business being back on our streets

I‘m usually the skeptic when it comes to public panics.

Let the record show that I pegged that Y2K millennial end-of-the-world hubbub as a total non-event months before midnight tolled and life remained the same.

The bird flu?

I’m not shaking in my shoes.

But I do see a potential doom looming over Spokane, and it has me scared silly.

I refer to the impending release of Kevin Coe – aka the South Hill rapist – from the Washington State Penitentiary.

Maybe I’m being hysterical. But should that awful day arrive, I can actually see this self-obsessed psychopath returning to Spokane to stick his smug mug in our faces.

I don’t know about you, but I’d rather see Riverfront Park turned into a nuclear waste dump than have Kevin Coe back in town.

So, today I’d like to put the South Hill rapist on notice.

I hereby declare Spokane a “No Coe Zone.”

Think of it like a restraining order – only with pitchforks and torches.

Maybe we’ll need volunteers to patrol the city limits and maintain a Coe Watch.

Can I see a show of hands?

As reported in a Tuesday newspaper story, the inmate’s 25-year sentence is about up. Prosecutors may try to keep him locked away for life through a civil action. To do that, they would have to prove Coe is off his rocker and a menace to society.

If it doesn’t happen, Coe walks out of the Walla Walla slammer on Sept. 8.

Coe has always had a lust for the limelight. If he lands in Spokane, he’ll probably start showing up at City Council meetings, offering his wisdom on growth issues during the open-mike public forum segments.

Kevin Coe on Channel 5.

Oh, the humanity.

Coe has always maintained he was the innocent victim of this gigantic miscarriage of justice.

And a quarter-century has passed since his arrest. Spokane is now home to many people who weren’t around to see the suffering of the real victims. Or the city paralyzed by fear after a series of vicious rapes and sexual attacks.

Anyone who needs a Coe refresher course should read “Son,” the book Jack Olsen wrote about the twisted dark events that rocked the Lilac City.

Here’s the short version:

•Though suspected in 30 assaults, Coe was charged with six rapes. He was convicted of four.

•Coe appealed. All the convictions were overturned.

•In a new trial, Coe was convicted of three rape charges.

•Only one charge stuck. The others were later overturned because investigators used hypnosis to interview witnesses.

And who can forget the tabloid elements that elevated this saga to something far beyond the bizarre?

Coe’s father, Gordon, was managing editor of the afternoon Spokane Daily Chronicle.

And Coe’s shrewish mother, Ruth. The woman made Mommie Dearest look like Mother Teresa.

Or more like Momma Soprano.

Between Sonny Boy’s two trials, Ruth tried to hire a hit man to whack the prosecutor and a judge.

Things finally began to cool down in Spokane after Coe went to prison. Until 1991, that is, when Olsen’s book was turned into a cheesy TV movie. That potboiler – “The Sins of the Mother” – starred Elizabeth Montgomery as Ruth.

Here’s an online plot summary:

“A charismatic real estate agent, Kevin Coe, is publicly proud of his mother, a prominent socialite, but privately he must put up with her constant belittlements and taunts. And while his latest girlfriend starts discovering the depths of his anguish, no-one connects him with a long series of violent rapes that have been troubling the area.”

Stay the hell away, Kevin. You raped Spokane once. Don’t do it again.