DNA slide found in Coe case

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.

Despite a widely held belief that all biological evidence had been destroyed in the case that sent Coe to prison for 25 years, Spokane Police detectives apparently kept a vaginal slide that has now linked Coe to the rape through DNA profiling, Assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers said.

“That slide was given to police a long time ago. The cops have had that in the evidence room,” Bowers said.

The revelation came this week as attorneys prepared to argue motions next Friday in the state’s effort to civilly commit Coe as a sexually violent predator. Superior Court Judge Kathleen O’Connor will decide what evidence can be used in the trial, which is scheduled for July 16.

If the state succeeds, Coe could be locked up until his death. If a jury finds in favor of Coe, the state must immediately release the man who was convicted of one rape in 1981 but was linked by Spokane Police to more than 40 other sexual assaults between 1978 and 1981.

The DNA news came as a surprise Friday to former Spokane County Prosecutor Don Brockett, who had to answer questions in federal court about how rape kits from sexual assaults linked to Coe had been destroyed more than two decades ago.

Brockett testified that someone inadvertently marked a box on the evidence log calling for the evidence against Coe to be destroyed. But Coe, 59, has repeatedly accused Brockett of deliberately discarding the evidence to prevent future appeals.

“I had the impression from that hearing we had in federal court that everything had been destroyed,” Brockett said. “And I’m glad it wasn’t.”

But Coe’s attorney, Tim Trageser, said he has serious questions about how and where the state obtained the never-before-disclosed DNA evidence.

“You have got to be kidding me. For 25 years we have been talking about the destruction of the rape kits. Then all of the sudden they find this box from Coe,” he said. “It’s very mysterious to me at this point.”

Trageser said he inquired about the evidence and was told by state attorneys Friday that their investigator found a small box a couple months ago at the Spokane Police Department.

“Somebody was rummaging around the property unit and found a small box which was described as (containing) slides from the Coe case,” Trageser said. “Supposedly (the slides) had the names of three victims.”

Bowers wouldn’t comment when asked by a reporter if the state located DNA evidence linking Coe to any other alleged victims.

But Trageser said he learned from state attorneys that the same box had slides from two of Coe’s other alleged victims.

“One of those was negative for Coe. The DNA belonged to somebody else according to the AG,” Trageser said.

State attorneys told Trageser that it was not clear whether the third sample was a match to Coe, but that they wanted a new DNA sample from Coe so they could compare it to the third slide, Trageser said.

“So it’s all very suspect from my standpoint,” he said.

The slide that matched DNA to Coe also had DNA from three other people, Trageser said. He doesn’t know who they were or how their DNA got on the slide.

“We are just at the beginning stages of understanding how this evidence got there,” Trageser said.

Bowers said he and Assistant Attorney General Malcolm Ross will file a new motion on Monday asking Judge O’Connor to approve a battery of psychological and personality tests for Coe.

That motion will also ask O’Connor to order Coe to submit to an interview with a psychologist. They also want her to order Coe to submit to a lie detector test about his past sexual history, Bowers said.

Trageser said he plans to argue against all of those requests.

If the state succeeds in persuading O’Connor to allow the DNA evidence, it would contradict the arguments Coe has made for 25 years about his innocence.

In an interview May 11 with The Spokesman-Review, Coe said he wished DNA testing had been available when he was arrested in 1981.

“Just to give you an idea, if this exact same fact pattern occurred now … when we have the DNA technology of course, I would immediately demand a DNA test and that would be the end of the case,” Coe said. “It would have been over right then and there.”