Civil commitment could keep notorious "South Hill Rapist" behind bars

SPOKANE — Kevin Coe, convicted in Spokane's notorious "South Hill Rapist" case, is scheduled to get out of the Washington State Penitentiary at Walla Walla when his 25-year rape sentence ends in September.

But it's likely that Coe's departure from custody will be delayed for years, if not indefinitely, while the state pursues a civil commitment process for sexually violent predators, a state prosecutor says.

Shortly before his Sept. 8 release date, the state will file a motion seeking a civil commitment hearing for Coe, 59, assistant Attorney General Todd Bowers said recently.

"He has been formally referred" to the End of Sentence Review Committee, Bowers said. Civil commitment motions typically are filed about a week before an inmate is due to be released, keeping him in state custody while the case works its way through the courts, said Bowers, who said state policy bars him from saying more.

Documents obtained by The Associated Press from the state Department of Corrections indicate the sentence review committee concluded in March 2005 that Coe is a Level 3 sex offender, likely to commit more violent sex crimes after his release. That is a requirement for beginning the civil commitment.

Paperwork relating to Coe's prison activities and conduct were sent in July 2005 to Bowers' office, which hired a forensic psychologist this month to review Coe's record for signs of personality disorders or mental abnormalities which are not amenable to treatment, the documents indicate.

Coe declined requests for interviews by The Associated Press.

The thought that Coe could be released soon troubles one of the rape victims whose testimony sent him to prison.

The woman, who still lives in Spokane, said Coe should be kept behind bars after his sentence expires and thinks other victims share her concerns.

"They don't want to see him again," she said. "I guess 25 years was better than 10. He never admitted guilt, he never admitted remorse to me."

Coe would be returned to the Spokane County Jail, and a superior court judge would schedule a civil trial to determine whether he is a sexually violent predator who suffers from a mental abnormality or personality disorder which makes him likely to offend again.

While awaiting a civil trial, Coe would be held without bond at the Special Commitment Center at McNeil Island. That could take years, Bowers said.

Should Coe be sent to McNeil Island, the process of treatment and persuading a judge to conditionally release him is a lengthy one, said Steve Williams, a Department of Social and Health Services spokesman.

"There is no real pattern established for how long it takes to get through the program, but we have never had anybody graduate completely from the program," established in 1990, Williams said.

Coe would join eight other sexually violent predators committed from Spokane County among the 236 housed in the secure mental health facility on McNeil Island, southwest of Tacoma in Puget Sound.

Coe has always maintained his innocence, claiming he was the target of a vendetta by Spokane County officials because his father, the late Gordon Coe, was an influential newspaper editor. While at the state penitentiary at Walla Walla, he has steadfastly refused to participate in prison therapy sessions that could have resulted in his early release, or transfer to a lower-security prison.

That could work against Coe in the civil commitment process, Bowers and Williams said.

"When they are in the Special Commitment Center, they don't have to participate in treatment," Williams said. "But if the don't, it would be extremely difficult convincing a judge they are ready to be released."

Judges who commit sexually violent predators to the program receive annual reports of their progress, and those judges are the only ones who can order someone released, he said.

The six-step treatment program, somewhat like the 12-step Alcoholics Anonymous program, requires an offender to accept responsibility, Williams said.

Documents obtained through a Freedom of Information request indicate Coe spent most of his term in the prison's Special Housing Unit and committed five serious infractions that resulted in a stay in an isolation unit and loss of 10 days of "good time." He quit victim awareness and social skills programs before they were completed and dropped out of a janitorial training class after a day, the records show.

He routinely declined to attend classification reviews and parole hearings.

Coe was investigated in as many as 30 rapes in the South Hill rapist case that terrified Spokane residents in 1980 and 1981.

A Spokane County jury convicted Coe of four of six counts of first-degree rape in 1981. The convictions later were overturned on appeal and Coe was convicted on three of four rape charges in a 1985 retrial.

Because investigators used hypnosis to help jog memories of witnesses, the state Supreme Court in 1988 overturned all but one rape conviction.

The case, along with the conviction of Coe's mother, the late Ruth Coe in 1984 for trying to arrange the murders of the Spokane County prosecutor and a judge who sentenced her son, became the basis for a nationally acclaimed book "Son, a Psychopath and his Victims" by the late Jack Olsen. The late Elizabeth Montgomery portrayed Ruth Coe in a 1991 made-for-television movie.