Coe checks into McNeil Island center

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.

At noon, Coe arrived in a Spokane County sheriff’s van at the dock at Steilacoom, a small town overlooking the water and McNeil Island. The state-owned island is home to the commitment center, a state prison, and a halfway house for treated predators. A state-run ferry is the only access to the island.

“He remained in the vehicle,” said Steve Williams, a spokesman for the Department of Social and Health Services, which runs the civil commitment program.

Coe, suspected to be the infamous South Hill serial rapist who attacked dozens of women in the Spokane area in the early 1980s, was slated for release from prison on Friday. He’s been in prison since 1981. Instead of releasing him, the state wants a judge to order him detained indefinitely as a “sexually violent predator.”

For now, Williams said, Coe will be in the center’s “medical/intake” orientation program. New arrivals are assessed and learn the rules of the facility, Williams said.

“That could last for a week to several weeks, depending on their attitude,” he said.

Coe was moved to the center from the Spokane County Jail so he could use a computer to review tens of thousands of pages of court records, police reports, Department of Corrections files and other documents. At the center, he can use a computer provided by the state for six hours a day, Williams said, or can buy one for his own use.

“But he would have to buy it through us,” he said. The department allows only a single, stripped-down model of Dell computer with a CD-ROM reader, he said. No CD recording or DVD playing or recording is allowed, to prevent the sex offenders from sneaking in contraband pornography and making copies of it.