Jacqueline B. Helfgott: What the release of the South Hill rapist says about the civil commitment of sexually violent predators, remorse and justice

I never met Kevin Coe, but I saw him once while touring the Washington State Penitentiary as a college student in the late 1980s. I had been following his case in the news. Seeing Kevin Coe in person made crime, rape, psychopathy, incarceration and remorse something that I have never stopped thinking about.

After 44 years behind bars in prison and at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island, Kevin Coe has been released.

What is interesting in 2025 about Kevin Coe and his release is that since he was convicted in 1981, he has not publicly expressed remorse, admitted guilt or participated in treatment. In his late 20s and early 30s he was a notorious serial rapist. The late, great local true crime author Jack Olsen wrote about him in “Son: A Psychopath and his Victims.” There was a made-for-TV movie about him.

At age 77 (coincidentally the same age Jack Olsen was when he died), Coe is deemed no longer a danger and sent back into the community, relocated to the city of Auburn. No treatment. No public expression of remorse. Just time and a determination by a psychologist and the Washington state Attorney General’s Office that he no longer meets the definition of Washington state’s Sexually Violent Predator Law based on his age and deteriorating health.

The release of Kevin Coe offers an opportunity to think deeply about the capacity of the criminal and civil justice systems to deliver justice, protect public safety and repair harm.

The Washington State Special Commitment Center was built after the 1990 Community Protection Act that instituted civil commitment of sexually violent predators and sex offender registration. Washington was the first state in the country to enact the modern-day civil commitment of sexually violent predators. The purpose of the SCC is to protect public safety by civilly committing individuals who have completed their prison sentence and who have been deemed “sexually violent predators,” whose sexually violent behavior is the product of a mental abnormality or personality disorder that makes them likely to engage in predatory acts of sexual violence if not confined. Today, over 20 states have sexually violent predator laws with thousands of people held in confinement.

Theoretically the only way to get out of the SCC is to complete treatment and to be deemed no longer a danger to the community or to be released through a legal appeal. However, a person housed in SCC can opt out of treatment on constitutional grounds creating an inherent paradox in the intent and utility of SVP law to treat those who are civilly committed and to protect public safety.

Even though Coe – one of the most infamous serial rapists and sexually violent predators in modern history – opted out of treatment, he was released from the Washington State Special Commitment Center in McNeil Island.

Is it justice to civilly commit someone under the SVP law with the explicit goal of treatment and then release them with none? When a civilly committed person shows no remorse, opts out of treatment, and is released because of old age, is this justice? If the SCC’s mission is treatment, not punishment, what does it mean when someone refuses treatment and walks free? How important is it to consider research on crime burnout and aging that shows that while physical disability impacts the ability to physically commit a crime, some sexually violent predators are less likely to psychologically “burn out” as they age?

This is not a story of rehabilitation or accountability or reparation of harm or public safety. It is a story that begs the question: What does justice look like in the absence of remorse?

I don’t wish a lifetime of confinement on anyone, even Kevin Coe. Reparation for some means forgiveness, for some vengeance, and for others the knowledge that the perpetrator who harmed is remorseful, will lead a constructive life, accept responsibility, and will not go on to harm someone else.

I am left wondering what collective need for justice Kevin Coe’s release serves, what it tells us about SVP laws and civil commitment of sexually violent predators, and whether we need expression of remorse, rehabilitation and accountability to achieve meaningful justice that repairs harm.

I do not pretend to have the answer. But I do know this: We need to talk about what justice means when someone like Kevin Coe – someone whose very name has become the synonym for no remorse – walks free.

Jacqueline B. Helfgott, Ph.D. is a Seattle University Loyola endowed professor and director of the Crime & Justice Research at the Seattle University Department of Criminal Justice, Criminology & Forensics. She is author of “No Remorse: Psychopathy and Criminal Justice” (Bloomsbury, 2019), “Copycat Crime: How Media, Technology, and Digital Culture Inspire Criminal Behavior and Violence” (Bloomsbury, 2023), and “Criminal Behavior: Theories, Typologies, and Criminal Justice” (Sage, 2008).