Casefile True Crime - Case 74: Eric Coy

Episode Date: January 20, 2018

On the morning of January 24 1987, nine-year-old Eric Coy hopped on his bike to make the one-mile journey to his cousin Eddrick’s house in the Northern Californian town of Martinez. The two boys were best friends and it was a trip Eric had made countless times before. Eager to get there as quick as he could, Eric took a shortcut.  ---  Episode narrated by the Anonymous Host Researched and written by Anna Priestland --- OFFICIAL SKETCHES Suspect's Sketches PHONE NUMBERS Martinez PD ([phone] Anonymous tip line: [phone] Contra Costa County Sherrif’s Dept. ([phone] FBI tip line (from USA) 1-800-CALLFBI (225-5324) or online www.tips.fbi.gov For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-74-eric-coy

Our episodes deal with serious and often distressing incidents. If you feel at any time you need support, please contact your local crisis centre. For suggested phone numbers for confidential support, please see the show notes for this episode on your app or on our website. Today's episode deals with a crime committed against a child that won't be suitable for all listeners. We're going to go to Warren, right? And even though recently changed this grey building on the right, this 15-hour block

of Pacheco was an ice cream place, so kids would frequently hang out there. That's where they get the ice cream. The other thing you'll notice is that the streets tend to get pretty narrow down here. They're more designed for the old, I mean a lot of these houses down in this area might have been built in the early 1900s. So the streets become a lot narrower. Turn right here. There we go, let's turn around the corner.

I mean to the extent if two cars are coming at each other, you know, in opposing directions, one is going to have to pull off. So people can't go as fast to these areas and you know, it's just right by the tree in front of the driveway. All right, we're going to park here and we'll go on the walking tour. In 1987, nine-year-old Eric Coy was living with his parents and older brother in a central neighbourhood of Martinez, Northern California. Most Saturdays, Eric played with his cousin, Edric, who was also his best friend.

Edric only lived a five-minute bike ride away from Eric. They often hung out after school and on the weekends, tossing baseballs and footballs and climbing trees. They did what all the local kids did, got ice cream or sweets at the store and while away the hours riding their bikes and mucking around, staying out most of the day. Close to Edric's house was the Youth Boys and Girls Club, where kids from all over went to hang out, often playing basketball on the courts out the back. As the weekend rolled around, one would phone the other's house to see if they could play

and on Saturday, January 24th, 1987, that's exactly what Eric did. Just before 11 a.m. that day, he phoned his aunt Angela to see if he could visit and play with Edric. At first, she said he couldn't come up, but then changed her mind and said yes. At 10.55 a.m., Eric got on his bike and set off to Edric's house. It was a shortcut through Martinez Jr. High at the bottom of his street. It was raining a little and he wanted to get to his cousin's house quickly. So he took the shortcut.

In the East Bay region of San Francisco Bay, along the southern shore of the Carquines Strait, is the city of Martinez. The city is still small today, with just 15,000 households over 12 square miles. But in 1987, it was even smaller, with a population of around 24,000 people. Martinez has views directly over the Carquines Strait, facing the city center of Benicia and the southeastern part of Vallejo. It looks over to the ridgetops of Mount Diablo and other mountains. To the west of Martinez are the regional parks and recreational areas.

It seems to sit in a little valley, hugged on each side by either mountains or water. In 1987, you would be hard pressed to find families who didn't know each other or have at least some link to one another. It was a simple place, in a time when no one worried about what their kids were doing. They were all outside exploring and playing. It was just how it was. The Alhambra Creek meanders its way from north to south through Martinez, although it can run low in the summer months.

In winter, it's full and attracts otters and turtles. Downtown Martinez is quaint and even now fairly unchanged from 1987. Martinez has managed to keep many of the buildings traditional, just the way they always were. There is a slow pace in Martinez, like a big country town. There seems to be no rush and people are friendly and warm. The Main Street businesses are a mixture of local traders or mum and pop stores, and the city is famous for its antique stores and its fair number of legal services.

Being the county seat for Contra Costa County and home to the county courthouse, the county jail, and various other government amenities like the county hospitals, Martinez services many people outside its own population. If you need county services, you have to go to downtown Martinez, and with that comes a slight air of transience. Martinez has always been a hub for public transport. The Amtrak National Rail System has for decades had a daily route through the small city. This train runs from Emeryville, near San Francisco, all the way to Chicago.

There is also a service from Seattle to Los Angeles, and numerous other local trains bringing people from all walks of life. Not impossible to walk from one side of Martinez to the other. The train station is just blocks from the courthouse, and likewise just blocks from the hospitals, including a mental health facility. Eric Coy and his family lived just a few large blocks from downtown Martinez, in a duplex on the corner of Willow and Warren Streets, a quiet suburban neighborhood which at the time was a mixture of single dwellings, duplexes, and townhouses.

Danny and Barbara Coy brought their second son Eric into the world in 1978, while Danny was stationed in England with the military. They already had a son, Jason, who was three. The Coy family moved back to Martinez around the time of Eric's first birthday. Sometime during the year that followed, Eric's parents broke up, but two years later, when Eric was four, they reunited and all began living together as a family again. Other family members would say that Eric was closest to his mother Barbara, and his brother Jason was closer to his father Danny.

They lived in a corner duplex and shared a driveway with their neighbors. Although many houses, including Eric's, have now been redeveloped, most of the homes at the time were built around 1900. The streets are narrow and homes are relatively close together, including Eric's and his neighbors, whose doors were only around 10 meters from each other. The local police department, fire station, and youth boys and girls club were just a few small blocks away from Eric's house. At the top of Warren Street, up a slight hill, and just a minute's bike ride, is Martinez

Junior High School. And just past the high school, over the Alhambra Creek, was Eric's cousin's house, Edrick. Even today, 31 years later, cars still drive slowly and roll up to corners at a relaxed pace. It feels like a neighborhood well cared for. A house on Eric's old street flies the American flag. Gardens are neat, and school kids huddled together opposite Martinez Junior High to

buy ice cream cones from a street vendor as the bell rings. In 1987, John Q was a 17-year-old local kid from the neighborhood. Martinez is a very simple, plain town that's just wonderful and beautiful, and like you said, there's nothing big about Martinez. There's not a target in this, and there's nothing like that around there. There's Walmart, and maybe a home depot, it's just a very simple, small, great town. I have so much family in Martinez to this day, but it's unbelievable. People who are born in a raised family there don't leave, because the place is so wonderful

and just everyone loves it. When Eric Coy first started school, he attended Martinez Elementary, a couple of blocks from his home. But he had a hard time focusing, and he began to fall behind. It was thought he might do better if he attended Los Winter Cemetery a couple of miles away, which allowed kids to get a little more help and focus, and the smaller class sizes allowed Eric to have more one-on-one attention. By 1987, Eric was in the third grade and into his second year at Los Winter Cemetery.

He had close friends and was known as a cute and happy kid. He reminded people of the character Spanky in the Yao Gang films. Eric's principal said the following about him, quote, Eric was a likable boy who was always smiling. Just last week, he won a good citizen award by caring for the environment and returning lost articles. He was watching to keep things clean without being told. He had a big smile when he got his award.

On Saturday, January 24th, 1987, after Eric got off the phone to his Auntie Angela around 10.55 a.m., he went to his room to fetch his Chrome Raleigh bike. As he rolled his bike through the house, he said goodbye to his father Danny and brother Jason. Danny told him to put a jacket on and to call home when he got to his cousin's house. Eric then set off on the short ride to Eddrick's. It was an overcast morning with a little light rain, but Eric only had less than a mile to ride and with the trip taking just minutes, the rain didn't bother him.

He rode up Warren Street two short blocks to Martina's Junior High. It was the shortcut he took to Eddrick's. The school building is at the top of a slight hill and riding down the hill towards the baseball field and grassy area at the back allowed Eric to gain some speed. At the back of the school grounds, along the fields, runs the Alhambra Creek, which was pretty full at that time of year. That's a wooded area with bushes and trees lining the creek on both sides and a row of houses on the opposite side to the school.

There was a simple chain link fence separating the school from the creek. The chain link fence led to the back left corner of the sports field where it stopped for an opening for a 15-metre long concrete footbridge that went over the creek. It was a narrow bridge with three concrete steps. Kids would dismount their bikes, walk them over, then jump back on to the other side. On the other side of the footbridge, which is no longer there today, there is a small street with houses that go right up to the creek. After going over the footbridge, Eric's route would have taken him past the Goody Hart, which

was the local corner store where Eric and his brother often stopped to spend their pocket money. The shopkeeper knew them well. It was a route he had taken countless times before. At 11.30am, Eric's auntie Angela phoned his house looking for him because he hadn't arrived yet. Eric's parents said he had left shortly before 11, so he should have been there by now. Even if he stopped off at the Goody Hart, it shouldn't have taken him this long.

Eric's father, Danny, waited 10 minutes in case he got a call from Angela saying Eric was there. But when no second call came, he got in his car and drove the route to Angela's house. He couldn't drive the exact route Eric would have ridden because of the shortcut through Martinez Junior High, but he drove around the outskirts of the school. Eric's uncle jumped in his car at the other end and did the same. During his search, he ran into Eric's mum, Barbara, who had started searching on foot. But there was no sign of Eric.

Sometime between Eric leaving home and his auntie Angela reigned to say he hadn't arrived yet, a local 13-year-old boy ran into the Boys and Girls Club on Alhambra Avenue. To get to the Boys and Girls Club, the 13-year-old boy had ridden his bike on the same path that Eric had taken through Martinez Junior High. When he got to the footbridge at the back of the school, he saw Eric's bike and Eric lying face down on the ground, close to the bridge on the school side. The boy quickly rode to the Boys and Girls Club and asked some of the other kids to come back to the bridge to help because Eric had fallen off his bike.

A few of the kids from the club jumped on their bikes and made their way to the footbridge. One of those was 17-year-old John Q. When I got up and walked to the Boys Club and I was playing basketball and doing my normal thing, playing ping pong, playing pool. And then one of the kids, and honestly I can't remember his name, he ran into the Boys Club. He was like, well, someone came with me to the junior high school. I was like, why? He was all, well, that kid Eric, I was walking by the Boys Club or by the bridge.

It was the junior high school by the bridge and he's laying face down in the mud and he's not moving. I'm obviously thinking, oh, God. So me and a couple other kids ran to where the bridge was from the junior high school. And once we got there, I told them to stay back because I walked over the bridge and I noticed Eric's bike was propped up against the fence that was there. It wasn't mangled, it was just propped up nicely on the fence. And then I walked past that and I looked over and I saw him.

And he was face down in the mud with his eyes open and his throat cut from ear to ear. And that was the most horrific thing I've ever seen. And all the other kids are like, what's going on, what's going on? And I couldn't stop them, obviously. I called them, they shouldn't look. They walked up from behind me and they looked and they were like, well, what's going on? I don't know. I didn't want to say anything.

I mean, even at my young age, I knew what had happened. I knew he was dead because there was so much blood and his eyes were wide open and he wasn't moving. And that picture, I can draw your picture to this day, it's horrifying. And then with that potions in my head, it just still scares me just to see that again. And so I tried to get them away from the area and I looked around and didn't see anybody else. And then I ran to one of the neighbors and knocked on the door and said, well, there's

a kid over here by the junior high school. He's face down the mud and he's not moving. And his bike is propped up like, I don't know what I should do. What can you call the police? And so because the police, you know, said to walk the whole place right now, he closed his door. Then I had all the kids stay with me by the bridge, not by Eric, thank God, but by the bridge and then the cops showed up and the fire truck showed up and they're like, well,

you know, what's going on? I told them what's going on. I saw they walk over there and then the guys from the fire truck, they start rushing over there and I heard one of them say that he has a slight pulse. I was thinking, that's impossible, but not me, but the main kid that found him, the police took him to one of the patrol cars to try to calm him down because once he realized what was happening, I vaguely remember that he started to freak out a little bit because of what he had seen.

The fire department were the first responders to arrive. When they found Eric, he was lying face down with his head tilted to one side and his eyes open. They quickly rolled him over to perform life-saving procedures and discovered multiple stab wounds to his torso. He had some superficial defensive wounds to his hands and forearm and his throat had been cut ear to ear. There was nothing that could be done.

He was already gone. Martinez police department arrived on the scene soon after. While he was out searching, Danny Coy saw some police officers huddled down the end of the street leading to the back of the school. So he pulled up, leaned out his window and asked them if they had seen a young boy. The officers asked Danny to pull his car over. Danny Coy quote, I just kept saying to myself that he's not dead, he's hurt. But I knew he was dead.

The policeman told me, your son's been murdered. All I could say was why. Eric's mother Barbara and Eric's uncle pulled up at the school when they saw Danny's truck. Danny walked over to them and said, Eric's been murdered. Barbara became so distraught, the police had to take her to one of their vehicles and drive her home. Police took over the scene and collected evidence. With Eric being found within minutes of his attack, either the killer got in and got out

very quickly or the killer saw the 13 year old boy who found Eric riding towards them and fled. A red compact style pickup truck was seen in the vicinity of the crime scene that morning. When police searched, there was no sign of it. But they did contact the owner of a similar truck which was parked on a nearby street that day. They learned that a father and son had been sitting inside the truck waiting for the rain to stop so they could get out and throw their baseball in the field at the back of Martinez

Junior High. But they didn't see or hear anything suspicious. And had been raining a little so police were able to collect some footprints from the scene. I remember a few days afterward that the cops had come to the workshop and gathered up the kids that had seen what we saw and asked us to make foot impressions because on the other part of the junior high school there was a sand pit for the long jump for PDE and track everyone else. I guess they had found a footprint in the sand that morning when they were checking

everything for whatever, any kind of clues or their hasomic foot impressions. After cross checking the footprints found at the scene against all the kids who had been there as well as first responders, they were unable to match them to anybody. An extensive neighborhood canvas was carried out with all hands on deck. At the time there were 37 members of the Martinez Police Department and doors were knocked on all the way along Eric's route around Martinez Junior High and surrounding areas. People were asked if they had seen or heard anything suspicious that morning. Police made detailed notes of each person they spoke with and also jotted down and ran

all vehicle license plates in the area. They spoke with the people from the homes which sat right up close to the footbridge at the back of Martinez Junior High. One of them was the elderly man John Q had run to for help and who had called 9-1-1. In the second home from the footbridge was an elderly woman, she didn't see or hear anything prior to the kids yelling for help. She said, quote, It's always been so quiet around here.

The only time we ever have any noise is when kids go across the bridge to go to school or play. Detectives looked into records of all inmates that were discharged from the local jail during that week. Being only a few blocks from the crime scene, they followed up on every name. But no one stood out as a suspect. When police sat down with the Coy family, they realized how small the time frame was of Eric's murder.

He left home at approximately 10.55 am. He would have gotten to the footbridge just before 11, and he was found by the 13-year-old boy heading to the Boys and Girls Club just 15 minutes later. Why would someone viciously attack a 9-year-old boy in broad daylight? Eric's family had no idea. His grandmother Ruth said, He just loved people, but he would not take up with strangers. He was a street smart boy.

His father, Danny, sitting on the back doorstep of their house, spoke to a reporter. He was wavering between being devastated and angry. Quote, He was a very active kid, and he loved that bike. The good kids are the ones taken from us. When asked about the killer, Danny said, I would love to watch the son of a bitch die. They could let me in the cage, and I would strangle him myself.

When speaking to the press on Monday, Martinez police chief Robert Markwith confirmed they were doing everything they could to track down the killer, but they had no answers. Quote, We have recovered some evidence at the scene. It's a baffling case. Right now, we have no suspects, no motives, and no weapons. There is reason to believe the suspect had been lying in wait prior to contact with the victim.

All the resources of the department are involved. We are looking at anything and everything. We aren't limiting ourselves. As Martinez police awaited results from the autopsy, they made contact with the FBI and the Department of Justice to aid in the investigation. The FBI was asked to complete a psychological profile of the killer. Police set up security around Martinez Jr. Hire and had an officer stationed at the footbridge as kids started arriving at school on Monday

morning. A 24-hour hotline was set up for anyone with information. Police chief Markwith said he was confident the case would be solved. The autopsy confirmed Eric's death was caused by multiple stab wounds to his torso and a single wound to his neck. The murder weapon was believed to be a six-inch double-edged knife or sharp object of some sort. While investigating circumstances surrounding the lead-up to Eric's murder, police ascertained

there had been an argument between the Coys and their neighbors the night before, January 23. The Coys' female neighbor, Alicia, who they shared a driveway with, had complained to Barbara that Eric's bike was blocking the pathway to her front door. Alicia's brother Benny was staying with her as he often did, and that day, the day before Eric's murder, he and a friend Eddie were fixing a car out the front of their place. Eric's bike sparked an argument between Barbara and Alicia, and Benny and Eddie also chimed in.

Barbara called Eric's father Danny, who was at a friend's house, and asked him to return home. When Danny arrived, the argument continued between him and Benny. Verbal threats were made against the Coys, including the following, quote, get your kid to move his bike or I'm gonna kill him. The argument was heated enough for Danny to call the police. There was apparent there had been some animosity between the families, but there was nothing to suggest the threat was anything more than a terrible coincidence.

On Tuesday, January 27, Benny, who hadn't been staying at his sister Alicia's place since the murder three days earlier, got wind that the police wanted to speak with him, so he attended Martinez police station voluntarily and was interviewed. He confirmed that there was a verbal altercation, and there had been arguments before between him and the Coys about him working on cars in the driveway. His version of the altercation was slightly different to Barbara and Danny's. After his interview, Benny was released and was not considered a suspect. Two witnesses came forward during the investigation and said that on the morning of the murder,

they were parked on Susanna Street at the northwestern end of Martinez Junior High. Eric was found about 200 meters south of their location at the southwestern corner of the school grounds. The two witnesses saw a man walking down the ramp from behind the school and then walk on to Susanna Street away from the murder scene. He was described as being of Italian or possibly Latin descent, 18 to 21 years old, 5 feet 8 inches tall, 165 pounds, muscular build, with medium length combed back black hair. He had very piercing dark eyes, a light complexion, and possibly a few acne scars on each cheek.

He was wearing medium faded Levi jeans, a Levi jacket, light colored tennis shoes, and he was carrying a collapsible short umbrella. This person was also seen by two kids in the area at the time of the murder. Police confirmed when releasing a composite sketch of this man to the public that they simply wanted to talk to him. He wasn't necessarily a suspect. Police Chief Markworth, quote, We want to talk to this man because he was in the area.

We don't have any suspects. Danny and Barbara Coy believed the description of the man sounded familiar and they may have seen him before. Despite a large amount of media attention, the man was never identified. The composite sketch can be found in the show notes. The crime scene was in close proximity to a lot of people. There were the houses just on the other side of the footbridge. There were the two witnesses in the car on Susanna Street with a view into the school

grounds. There were kids playing basketball at the high school who were just about on top of the crime scene. But no one heard anything. Not one scream was heard from Eric. Detective Sergeant Dave Mathers and Detective Miles Williamson drove us around the site and showed us the close proximity of the footbridge to Susanna Street where the man from the sketch was seen by the two witnesses.

So where we're taking you guys now is Susanna where we looked out to from inside the school and just to kind of see where that witness was that gave us a description. Straight ahead you see there's a person walking kind of between the notch and the trees. There's an actual path that comes down to a cement path that comes down from the brother school. When that was installed I'm not quite sure but I'm sure that path has been there for a long time. If you look across the field you can see where we were standing.

My recollection is from the eyewitness that we're in one of these off the roadway parking spaces waiting, it's raining, the person comes walking across, the person in the sketch looks, gives them I think like the quote unquote a hard stare and then continues walking west from here. So look how small this is. So I mean it's almost unreal what happened because if it comes back this way you have houses everywhere right here. You go that way, you have kids on the basketball court, you go to the left there's that guy

and it's a vehicle. We then drive around Martinez where we really got an appreciation of just how close everything was to the crime scene. And we're going to come to the area where the Boys and Girls Club is and a fire station and then I'll show you the other interesting feature. So here's the firehouse called Station 14 and on the backside of the firehouse is a rec center Boys and Girls Club. So you see all of that on your left you might see some kids that are out, you can see the

area over there where the cars are parked. So that's kind of how close. In addition to this park the next thing you notice on your left is the Martinez police station. So that's how close everything is. And now it has still been here, I mean look at that building. So that's, so here's the city hall complex. We're talking four and a half blocks.

Martinez was officially dealing with the first murder of a child in the city's history. The community was better known for burglaries and drug possession than murders, let alone the brutal slaying of a nine year old child. Due to the grief and emotional reaction of the local community, staff from the Contra Costa County Mental Health Department hosted a community support meeting. Parents who had always felt Martinez was a safe and quiet area were now fearful. Most said they would be escorting their children to and from school until the murderer was caught.

Traffic jams were caused at the school in the days after the murder as the number of cars to pick up students quadrupled. At Eric's school, as well as Martinez Junior High, counselors and nurses were made available to all students. Eric's principal said that teachers were looking for students who were showing signs of distress over the murder and referrals were made to the school psychologist if needed. A representative of the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Department visited classrooms to talk about safety.

Children were reminded of routine safety tips, including not talking to strangers, walking home with a partner and staying on major roads. One local parent said, quote, this is the first thing that's happened around here. It's really scary. You hear about how these things happen in other places, but this was right in our own backyard. I'll never let my kid walk to school again. Many of the children Eric's age didn't really understand what had happened.

The little kids, it was hard to comprehend. Many of them knew something bad had happened to Eric and he wasn't coming back. But it would be years before it really sank in. We spoke to Sarah, not her real name, about what it felt like to be a kid in Martinez at the time, a city changed by a crime that many felt could have been any one of them. In January 1987, I was eight years old and in the second grade. I lived in an area known as the townhomes off Pine Street, the road that runs in between where Eric lived and Martinez Junior High.

As an eight-year-old, I remember the Challenger tragedy, Haley's Comet, seeing stand by me in the movie theaters, and Eric Coy's murder. Eric crossed over my street that morning on his bike. We didn't hear the news until later in the afternoon. The son of a family friend had been one of the kids that had discovered Eric's body. His mom had called my mom to tell her what had happened. I can't recall the exact moment she told me, however I do remember seeing it later in the news and then my mom pointing it out to me in the paper the next day.

It took a while for it to sink in exactly what had happened. At first it seemed like there were various rumors of what had happened floating around. All we knew as kids was that there was a child killer on the loose, in our town, and the freedoms I enjoyed as a child changed somewhat. Having just seen stand by me the previous summer, I felt the parallels with that story, how the kids had found a body and how they came to understand death through that. It was surreal and did not hit home for a bit. I felt more put out that I was no longer allowed to go wherever I wanted.

Looking back I realized I really didn't understand at the time what had happened. I didn't know that I even knew what murder meant or the violence Eric endured. I certainly didn't comprehend the timeliness of his murder and how it happened only a few minutes after leaving his house on what was such a short bike ride. At the time I never realized how brazen and act it was. It was a time when you went to other kids houses to watch cartoons on Saturday morning or if you were playing outside all day, which is all we did, you would only check in at lunch or whatever time your mom said to come home.

We never ever played inside unless we had to. There was nothing scary about the outside world to me. We had nothing to be afraid of. As kids it was as if we believed all adults were watching out for us. They were there to make sure we were safe. Eric was crossing a footbridge, maybe 25 steps from one end to the other and was murdered in those 25 steps in the middle of the morning with doors and windows and people just shout away. The footbridge is gone now.

It's overgrown and for most people they wouldn't even know it had ever been there. But for the people of Martinez, for us kids, and those around at the time, we will never forget it and we will never forget Eric. In the first week of the investigation over 200 tips were called in. Police Chief Markworth said there were some really good leads which they were following up and some not so good leads. There was something else significant about the day Eric Coy was murdered. For a city not known for violent crime and only one murder on record the entire previous

year, there were two murders that day. Only four hours after Eric Coy's murder and only a five minute drive away, a 24 year old man was found stabbed and bleeding in the gutter outside his home just outside the city limits. He died later that evening. Contra Costa County Sheriff's handled the case and although it was hard to believe the two murders had occurred so close together on the same day, investigators believed the 24 year old victim knew his killer and it was completely unrelated to Eric Coy's murder. Eric's funeral was held the Thursday after his death and as family and friends mourned

inside the funeral home, police continued to patrol the streets of Martinez hoping for someone or something to show up. But nothing did. Two weeks after the murder, the people of Martinez opened their newspapers and were given a glimmer of hope that the perpetrator may have been found. The suspect in a robbery had been arrested and appeared in court. He resembled the composite sketch of the man walking out of Martinez Junior High on the morning of Eric's murder.

The robbery suspect was 16 year old Luke Calora and Martinez police were eager to interview him. A few days after Martinez police released their composite sketch, police in Atherton an hours drive south of Martinez released the composite sketch of a robbery suspect. Although there were some differences, the two sketches were similar enough that it peed to the immediate interest of investigators. 16 year old Luke Calora armed with a gun, robbed a couple in Atherton a week after Eric Coy's murder.

He locked the couple in their basement and ransacked and burglarized their house. He fled with $3,500 worth of jewellery, the couple's vehicle and their 17 year old daughter Gina. Calora hadn't kidnapped Gina though, they were working together. Gina had escorted Calora into her family home and stood by as he cut the phone line and locked her parents in the basement. After fleeing Atherton they went on a crime spree, committing abductions and robberies in Reno on Las Vegas before eventually being caught in Riverside County.

Luke Calora was only 16 years old but there were similarities between his sketch and the sketch released by Martinez police after Eric Coy's murder. The sketches were completed by the same sketch artist, Tom Makris of C&H's A police department, a highly regarded artist who often helped other departments with their cases. He was involved in Composers sketches in the East Area rapist case covered in Case 53 of Case 4. The Martinez sketch and the Atherton sketch of Luke Calora showed similar facial characteristics but other details of the sketches were different.

Makris said it wasn't unusual for two of his sketches to have similarities, he also said his sketches should be treated as guideposts rather than exact descriptions. Quote, All of it is subject to distortion because of problems with witnesses recall and the circumstances of their observations. The width of the face and the hairstyle were similar but the man's hair in the Martinez drawing was collar length and wavy while the hair in Luke Calora's sketch was straight and longer.

The Martinez sketch also showed darker eyes. Although only 16, Luke Calora could have easily passed for 21 as the man seen leaving Martinez junior high was thought to be. But it wasn't him. The lead fizzled. It was just a coincidence which caused great disappointment to the Coy family, the police and the people of Martinez who all hoped they might have found their man. The second suspect came to light after another child murder on February 21st 1987 almost a

month after Eric Coy's murder. Six year old Jeremy Stoner disappeared in Vallejo 15 minutes north of Martinez just over the water. His nude strangled body was found four days later. A team of eight Vallejo police investigators worked around the clock on the case. One of the civilian volunteers who helped search for Jeremy was Sean Quincy Milton, a 26 year old one time security guard, wannabe private investigator and a known police hangarant who often told his neighbors he worked for the police.

Two days after Jeremy disappeared Sean Milton visited Jeremy's parents John and Karen Stoner offering his services as a detective. He attended the candlelight vigil for Jeremy as well as his funeral. Milton's former psychologist who had treated him a few years earlier in relation to threats he made against his parents phoned Vallejo police a week after Jeremy's body was found. During Milton's sessions he had told his psychologist that he fantasized about taking young boys to the Delta area and leaving them after harming them. The Delta area is where Jeremy's body was found.

Twenty minutes after the phone call as police were preparing to go and speak to Milton he walked into the police station to offer information that he had gathered on Jeremy's case. He handed over a 15 page typed report on the killing. After providing his information he left the station but police kept a close watch on him. Milton returned to the police station that same afternoon to talk further about what he knew. Only this time he wasn't allowed to leave. He was charged with Jeremy Stoner's kidnapping and murder.

Milton lived in a mobile home with his wife and his neighbors were surprised by his arrest stating he had never bothered their children. They said Milton was a quiet person who mostly kept to himself. After Milton's arrest, Martinez police immediately sent two detectives to Vallejo to investigate whether Milton could have been responsible for Eric Coy's murder as well. Martinez police couldn't ignore the proximity in place, time and age of the two victims. During his police interrogation, Milton described himself as a violent, paranoid schizophrenic obsessed with sexual perversions and death.

He showed signs of a mean second personality, changing his voice, mannerisms and facial expressions. He started calling himself Wolfen. Later, his wife confirmed that his second personality was named John Wolfe. During the parts of Milton's interrogation where he spoke as John Wolfe, he indicated to police that he was with the person who killed Jeremy Stoner. He referred to the killer as the Terminator, but that's all he would say about him. Milton claimed he had nothing to do with Jeremy's murder himself.

He was innocent. Milton only had one prior arrest for writing a bad check four years earlier. After an extensive investigation, there was no evidence to link Milton to Eric Coy's murder. No charges were laid by Martinez police. And to this day, there is no evidence to suggest he was involved. He was charged with Jeremy Stoner's murder, but both trials ended in a mistrial due to deadlocked juries.

A decision was made not to seek a third trial, meaning Sean Milton was allowed to go free. Several more suspects were looked at for Eric Coy's murder. Many were ruled out completely. And some, there just wasn't enough evidence to proceed any further with. One name that came up was Tommy Lynn Sells. Tommy Lynn Sells was a serial killer that travelled the United States, killing anywhere between 22 and 40 men, women and children between the years 1978 and 1999. He was eventually caught and sentenced to death.

He was executed in a Texas prison in April 2014. The Texas Rangers reached out to Martinez police and advised them that Tommy Lynn Sells could be a potential suspect in Eric Coy's murder, believing he was possibly in California around that time. He also resembled the composite sketch that had been released. Detectives reached out to Sells, but were never able to prove if he was or wasn't in Martinez in January 1987, and it never went any further. Contra Costa County DA cold case investigator Paul Holes spoke with us about some of the

persons of interest who have come up during the investigation. Somebody like Tommy Lynn Sells, he gets caught in Texas and they end up time lining him out, and he starts dropping into various jurisdictions, including California, and so what years are he in California and what kinds of cases, what cases are out there that would kind of fit what we knew he was doing. We've seen that with Henry Lee Lucas and Otis Tool, who happened to come through this county at a certain point when they were, once they were found and they had travelled all over the nation, well, they come into this county and now we're starting to take

a look at unsolved homicides because they just happen to be in the county around, you know, travelling through it. So sometimes these notorious guys pop up in these little local jurisdiction cases because of that situation, and it's an absolute bona fide way to, it's bona fide to pursue that as an angle because you could have, you know, some of them committing a crime in your jurisdiction, but a lot of times it's a non-starter, you know, they literally just were somebody that maybe were travelling on the freeway, got pulled over by CHP, given a ticket and they're moving on, and didn't spend any time at all and weren't responsible for any of the unsolved.

You know, part of this, in the 1980s, in this area, we had an unusual number, and it's regional, not just Contra Costa, but kind of regionally, we have an unusual number of kids, mostly girls, that went missing. You know, so we have Amber Schwartz-Garcia and McKayla Garrett and Eileen Michelhoff, well, Terakasi in 1979, Nikki Kim. So you kind of look at the context of what's going on in this county and here we have another kid that is, that's being killed, kind of a different type of crime, but it's also kind of within, well, what's the context of what's occurring in the crime types, it just kind

of happened to Spike that we had a lot of crimes against kids in the 1980s, for whatever reason. So that's just probably also something that influences maybe the original investigator's thoughts that this must be a stranger type of crime. So then you get somebody like Timothy Bittner, you know, who's a guy that's rolling around in a blue van who's showing up any time a girl goes missing and he's got little posters of missing kids in his van and he's reaching out to the moms and missing girls and he's just somebody that's always there and he's always been suspected with a variety of these

cases and then Fairfield, you know, surface search warrant on his house and he sued them and actually won that lawsuit because they announced it to the media, you know, so he had sort of a defamation type of situation. But you know, you have these types of individuals that are sort of notorious and are known to law enforcement and when you have a certain type of crime, of course, you're naturally going to start thinking, well, what offenders that we know of who are out there would fit. And so you do have the Sean Nelton's or the Timothy Bittner's that are local guys that you naturally just start eyeballing just to see.

Typically if you have a fantasy motivated offender, he's going to spend more time with the victim than what we see in this case, you know, so if it were something like that, that's where I'm thinking the guy got scared off before he could do anything more. But if that's the case, I mean, this was literally, this little boy is attacked and killed right away. This was not something where the offender is spending a lot of time with this victim before because then you'd probably see evidence, other types of evidence, especially if it's sexually motivated, and you'd see, you know, this roving of the body and stuff like that.

So this literally, to my eyes, and it's been a long time since I've looked at the crime scene photos, to my eyes is that boy is pushing his bike and somebody comes up and is immediately starting to kill him. And that tends to gear the motivation unless this guy's fantasy is to kill. And that was Gary Ridgway's very first crime was he just wanted to see what it would be like to push a knife inside a body and he goes up to a younger boy and stabs the kid. You know, you don't have the typical fantasy stuff going on that you would naturally be able to interpret in a crime scene reconstruction.

So do you have that going on or is this, this is an individual who's trying to eliminate this little boy for whatever reason? Is it because he's got angst against the boy or is it because he is trying to communicate through this violence to somebody else? Within a month of the murder, the Koi family's neighbors who they had an argument with moved out and moved away from Martinez. Nothing further is known about them. As the weeks turned into months, Martinez began to go back to the way it was.

Police stopped circling the streets around Martinez Junior High and the footbridge. Last tips came in and before long, there was no one left to interview or question. The Koi family were quiet, coming to terms with life without Eric in it. Eventually, Danny and Barbara separated again and this time they didn't get back together. By 1994, Danny Koi was living in his car in a nearby city. He was battling drug and alcohol problems. According to Jason Koi, Eric's brother, Danny said he took care of it, meaning he took care of the person that murdered Eric.

Jason asked his father for more details, but Danny wouldn't elaborate. Jason didn't know if his father had really found out who killed Eric and had dished out straight justice or if he was just drunk and talking shit. There is a report of Danny Koi shooting a gun towards a moving vehicle with two people inside around the same time he told Jason this story. Danny was convicted and served jail time for the shooting, but he didn't hurt anybody. The occupants inside the vehicle said they had no idea who Danny Koi was or why he shot at them.

It appeared to be nothing more than a road rage incident. It's unknown if this was the incident Danny was referring to in his conversation with Jason. Perhaps he was talking about another incident entirely, or maybe Danny was under the influence and wasn't talking about anything that really happened. Following Danny's release from prison after the shooting, he took his own life. Eric's case eventually went cold and wasn't looked at again until about 10 years later. People from the initial investigation, including members of the Koi family, were re-interviewed,

but nothing further came to light. The FBI gave three possible suspect profiles. 1. Transient drifter type, mental health issues, loner, possibly a pedophile that was in Martinez at the time of the murder, and Eric and him came in contact with each other by happenstance that morning. 2. Local loner, 20-30 year old male, not married, some type of mental health issue, social issues,

possibly lives with Marmora Lone, possibly a pedophile that was from the area and committed the murder and is still in the area living a low-key, unassuming life. 3. Crazy, wild biker type that lives on the edge, involved in alcohol and drugs, works odd jobs that require little to no education. Boisterous and known in his inner circle to live a nefarious, violent lifestyle, and might even have boasted about his illegal dealings to friends or family. This person hadn't slept in several days and was in a sort of drug-induced psychosis

when the murder occurred. He still lives in the surrounding area, possibly in prison, or has possibly since died due to his lifestyle. There are others who suspect the killer doesn't fit any one of those profiles, and maybe someone who was known to Eric or the Coy family. Detective Sergeant Dave Mathers has been hoping to solve Eric's case ever since he first picked up the file. In 2005, I assisted Lisa Maloney, then a detective, with conducting some investigative work on

the anniversary of Eric Coy's death. Our work didn't generate any new leads at that time. Then in 2007, I was assigned to investigations as a detective. My supervisor, John Sylvia, provided me a copy of the Eric Coy case file. I started reading the assortment of documents and I began to attach post-it flags next to items where I had questions. Quickly I noticed I was running out of post-its. I was overrun with questions.

Unfortunately, I was not assigned to this as a cold case and my workload took priority over the Eric Coy case. My initial review of the Eric Coy case file left me overwhelmed, thinking there was no way to wrap my arms around the case. I was promoted out of investigations and returned to patrol as a sergeant a few years later. I learned that Patrick Salamed, a newly promoted detective at that time, had taken an interest in the case, but my involvement was limited since I was now working in patrol. Around 2012, I returned to investigations as the detective sergeant.

In my new role, I had more oversight of the Eric Coy case. I was approached by one of our police dispatchers, Autumn Turnage, about this case. Autumn took a real interest in reading the files and listening to the audio recordings. Autumn made significant efforts to fill in many of the blanks. She's done an amazing job as a researcher. I've been very impressed with her knowledge of the case. In January of 2014, the local newspaper, The Martinez Gazette, did an article about the 27th anniversary of Eric Coy's death.

We hope to generate enough interest that someone would call in with a tip. We received some calls, but nothing significant developed from those leads. The case direction has not changed much in the last three years, except for the Martinez police personnel trying to bring it to closure. A year ago, I retired from the Martinez Police Department, Autumn Turnage moved on to another department, and a newly promoted detective has taken up the case. As a part-time assignment, progress is still slow. There have not been any major changes or revelations with the case.

Martinez PD continues to look at physical evidence, hoping advances in evidence processing and DNA will improve the chances of identifying Eric Coy's killer. When I look back at this case, I imagined it was overwhelming back in 1987 for a small police department with four detectives trying to manage all the moving parts of the worst crime for a police department, the worst crime for a community, and most significantly the worst crime for a family, the murder of a child. I think the adage of the first 48 hours certainly applies to this case. Of course, for me, now 31 years later, it's very easy to second-guess the detective's

decisions and their investigative strategies. But I know they did their best with what they had. A department that wanted to solve Eric Coy's murder, that wanted to bring someone to justice, that wanted to restore the community's sense of safety, and that wanted to bring some form of closure to Eric Coy's family. 31 years has passed. Eric's family still have no answers, but the detectives determined to solve the case have not given up.

Special thanks to Detective Sergeant Dave Mathers, without whom this podcast would not have been possible. Thank you to Detective Miles Williamson, Autumn Turnage, and Contra Costa County DA cold case investigator Paul Hulls for sharing your wealth of knowledge. Thank you John Q and Sarah for sharing your stories. If you or someone you know has any information regarding the murder of Eric Coy, please contact your local law enforcement office, the Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office, the Martinez Police Department, or the FBI tip line.

Contact information for all of those departments will be in the show notes. Thank you. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye. Bye