True Crime All The Time - Kevin Coe "The South Hill Rapist" Part 1

Episode Date: August 31, 2020

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, there were a high number of sexual assaults in the South Hill section of Spokane, Washington. The authorities created a task force to catch this predator that the media dubbed "The South Hill Rapist." It would take some time but, eventually, authorities closed in on a man named Kevin Coe, whose father was the managing editor of The Spokane Chronicle. When the true extent of Kevin's crimes came out they were shocking. The authorities believe that he is responsible for more than 50 sexual assaults during a relatively short time period.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the life and crimes of Kevin Coe. In this first part of a two part series, we'll explore Kevin's early life and the strange relationship that he had with his mother Ruth. We'll detail out some of the crimes for which he would later be tried and talk about the tactics that the task force used to close in on him. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Your math skills have global potential. As an actuary, you'll solve some of the world's most pressing problems while helping people to live better lives. Become an actuary through the society of actuaries and work anywhere in the world. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 198 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime. Mike Gibson, how are you? I'm doing good, man. How about you? I'm doing great.

Good. I know we've had some more. unrest in the country. We had another shooting in Wisconsin. We did. Man, I think everybody knows our feelings about it. If you haven't watched our Patreon video, we spent a whole Patreon video. Right. Talking about our thoughts and feelings and our stances. So I'm not going to go through that again. What I do want to talk about is Facebook. Yeah. And, you know, what's happening on social media these days, you know, a lot of this is playing out there. People are angry and, you know, it's a place where a lot of people are venting their frustrations. For us, we have two

Facebook sites, true crime all the time and true crime all the time unsolved. Now, there is another, there are obviously other true crime all the time sites, but they're fan pages. Right. There's a really big one called True Crime All the Time fan group. You and I don't own that. Nope. That was started by fans. It's run by fans. It's a great place where fans can talk about the show or, you know, whatever they want to

talk about. Right. What I'm worried about is that you and I are getting a lot of messages saying, hey, I can no longer listen to your show because of what's going on on the fan page. Right. What I want to tell everyone is, you know, it's just not our page. We don't control everything that is said on that page. And so I really don't want, you know, that to come back on us because that's not fair.

Right. You know, if we put something out, right, Mike Ferguson or Mike Gibson, we put it out on one of our pages. Okay, that's us. Right. But we can't control what people say on a fan group. Yeah, we don't have control over the post and the comments and none of that. We don't. We just don't.

You know, we certainly can go in there and post and make comments like anybody else. Yeah. And we do sometimes. Yeah. But we don't have control over who gets in, who gets kicked out, who gets to post, who, you know, who gets the comment, who doesn't comment. None of that. It's just, you know, we don't. Yeah.

So I don't want to talk about it a lot. But I want to make sure everybody knows that because I don't think everybody does. We get a lot of messages from people. Normally when we explain that we don't own that, it's not our page. They're like, oh, okay, we didn't know that. Yeah. So I'm putting it out on the regular podcast because, you know, right now is a big time of civil unrest. It really is. There's a lot of stuff going on. People are voicing their opinions. Not everybody's going to like that opinion. Right. And we just want to make sure everybody knows that those opinions are not ours. We and we can't control what is on that page. Exactly. All right. That being said, we've had a lot of great Patreon support Gibbs. Let's give our shout out. All right. We had J.E. Jay, Jay, Jay, Petra Cantini. Hey, Cantini.

Lynn Ann Price jumped out at our highest level. Well, thanks, Lynn, Ann. Tiffany Willoughby. What's going on, Willoughby? Laura Lucado. Hey, Lucata. Jamie. What's going on, Jamie?

Lisa St. San Angelo. Thank you, Lisa. Barbara. What's going on, Barbara? Anthony Stoops. Hey, Stoops. Deener.

What's up, Deaner? Thomas. Thomas. Rebecca Kozack. What's happening, Kozak? Katie Quigley. Well, thanks, Quigley. Stephanie Gross.

Well, Stephanie, how are you? Captain Nick Perrault. Well, what's going on, Captain Nick? I got to say captain, because he is the captain of a boat. Well, he definitely is that big old boat. And the whole boat listens to True Crime all the time. Yeah. Eric Hancock.

What's going on, Eric? Ellie Rose. Hey, thank you, Ellie. Rebecca Ramirez jumped out at our highest level. Awesome, Rebecca. Madison de Giorgio. Hey, DeGeorgio. Linnae Gunderson.

What's happening in Gunderson? Claudine Castro. Hey, thanks, Claudine. Sheila Hawkins. What's going on, Sheila? Stacey Jones. Thank you, Stacy. And last but not least, Tracy Horde.

Well, thank you, Tracy. And then if we go back into the Vault Gibbs, this week we selected Rhonda Lightner. Well, thank you, Rhonda. So we appreciate all the new support and the continued support on Patreon. We had some great PayPal donations as well. Scott Hamilton. Thank you, Scott. Jennifer Vaughn made a sizable contribution.

Vaughan is in the house. Yep. Morgan Villanueva. Ooh, Villanueva. And John Krimmon. Thank you, John. So thank all of you as well. Gives, we have a lot out this weekend.

On Unsolved, we have a brand new episode on the Unsolved murders of Tammy Call and Pamela Miller. Yeah. We headed down to the Leesville, Louisiana area. We are. And we also have a brand new Patreon only episode out on Charles Harrelson. Good episode. It is, the father of famous actor Woody Harrelson. So, you know, if you're not a Patreon member,

remember it's a great time to become one and check out what that was number 26 so we have 26 full episodes of patreon only and tween all that is all the many episodes yeah and then we have every week we put something out yeah all right buddy are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time man i am so ready for this one we are talking about kevin co who from 1978 to 1981 committed a large number of sexual assaults in the Spokane, Washington area. Gives this is a case that's been requested for years. There have been a lot of people that have wanted us to cover this one. The media dubbed him as the South Hill rapist. And I'll say right off the bat, there is a lot to this case. So much so that it's going to take us two episodes

to tell the story correctly. Not only is there a lot involved in the case of Kevin Coe, but there are a number of things that are so strange that if they were not proven to be true, you would not believe them. It's kind of the old thing of, you know, if this was in a movie script, you would laugh.

Right. You would not laugh, but you would say that's laughable. Right. It's not believable. All of this stuff is true. And not laughable. And not laughable, but hard to believe.

You know, the numbers are staggering when it comes to Coe. We'll get into all of the crimes for which he's convicted. But the number of his victims is thought to be between 40, 50, maybe 50 plus. You know, we always know it could be higher. I think what is safe to say is that Kevin Coe, in a matter of about three or four years, left a lot of carnage and heartache in his wake gives he could be right up there with the East Area rapist Joseph DeAngelo in sheer numbers of victims. I believe you're right on that.

And if he is, when you look at it, co-committed his crimes in a much shorter span of time. But before we jump in, I have to give a huge shout out to Rosalie Brown for her help in researching and writing this episode. gives when someone reaches out to you with a background and research and journalism and offers you help, you say, yes, please. Yeah. Sign me up. And that's what happened when Rosalie reached out to us.

Kevin Co. was born Frederick Harlan Co. On February 2nd, 1947 to Gordon and Ruth Co. He later changed his name to Kevin. So for the sake of continuity, I'm just going to refer to him as Kevin throughout the episode to help limit any confusion. And Kevin's parents are a huge part of this case. From what I could tell, they seem to be very different people. Gordon Coe started out as a reporter and later became the managing editor of the Spokane Chronicle, a daily newspaper in the region. Impressive. Yeah. I mean,

he held a prestigious position. He served in World War II as an intelligence officer and was very highly decorated. Ruth was at one time a model as well as a charm school teacher. As was I, a charm school teacher. And a model. Didn't you, didn't you model the Huskies? I did. In the Sears catalog back in your younger days. Yeah, I did. But also like you, she had a habit of using made up accents and pretending to come from different parts of the country. It just know what you're talking about. No, this was within the United States. Oh, okay.

But, you know, she would use a southern accent and tell people she was from Georgia or, you know, East Coast and things like that. Yeah, or an East Coast accent. Yeah. For no reason. I don't know what it gained her. So let's just say this. At the very least, she was a little eccentric.

I think we're going to come to find out that she was a little bit more than that, though. Right. I think the other area where Kevin's parents differed was. in their parenting style. Ruth's favorite nickname for her son was son. Oh. That's what she called him. Okay.

Is that the strangest thing in the world? Well, I think my nickname for my dad, I think he called me and my brothers. Hey, you and whoever answered first was who got whatever he needed. Yeah. I mean, to me, it seems like it's something I've heard from fathers more often than mothers. But, you know, who knows? you know, like, hey, son, can you do this for me? Right.

It just seems like that's something that, that I've heard. But I'm sure mothers do it too, but it sounds like that's what she called him all the time. Yeah. Basically. There have been people who have commented over the years that the relationship between Kevin and his mother was less like mother and son and a little bit more like a couple. Oh. Okay.

Yeah. So I'm not going to go. full Dr. Freud on this one, but it's been described as a little odd for sure. It's more of a Hey, sweetie, honey bun. Well, I think when things were going well between them, it was really good, right? They went out on dates. They were quick to compliment each other's appearances. They just got along really well. It's been said that later in Kevin's life, his mother kind of played the role of his spouse. But as far as I know, there has been no confirmation that they had any type of physical relationship. So that's why I said, I'm going to hold off on the, the full Dr. Freud,

Oedipus, you know, all that stuff at this point. But does anybody know the true extent? I don't know. I'm glad you're holding back on that epitus. Or Oedipus. Yeah. However you want to say. Yeah. Now, Kevin had a younger sister named Karen that. really it's been said of her, she couldn't do any wrong in her mother's eyes. And basically, for the most part, received nothing but praise. I mentioned it. When Kevin and his mother were doing well, they were doing really well. But Kevin's treatment at the hands of his mother really depended on what type of mood she was in. So I think she was either saying, you know, my son is the best thing in the world. Or he was.

He's the biggest POS that ever walked to face the earth. Right. I mean, we're talking about a woman in Ruth whose mood could change on a dime. No middle ground. Yeah. It seemed like it was, it was either one end or the other. And then you have Gordon more of a passive type of person, right? Probably didn't get too high or too low, but he had to live with the tirades and the verbal outbursts.

bursts from Ruth. That's rough to live with somebody like that. It is. It really is. Especially if you're like a really even keeled type of person. Yeah. You know, not too high, not too low, kind of go with the flow type person. Yeah. But your spouse is this, you know, up and down verbal outbursts, rule the, the ruse type of person. Chekle Hyde is what I call that. Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde. Oh, I knew what you were referring to. You didn't. have to explain that part. I think everybody knows who Jekyll. Yeah. Most people, I think a lot of times people refer to it as Jekyll and Hyde. Yeah. Not Jekyll Hyde. Jekyll Hyde. But A. It's a new law firm. As I always say, you say it however you want. There you go. And I do. And people appreciate the

fact that you do. One thing I found very odd Gibbs is that it's been said that Kevin often referred to his mother is bareface. Not really a term of endearment. No, it's really not. Come here, bare face. That's like saying, come here, butt face. It's not good. No, none of that would be good. No. So I guess what I'm trying to get at here is that mother and son had a strange relationship. Apparently, even as an adult, Ruth had this thing about family meal time. So even after Kevin began living on his own, his mother demanded that he be at her house for every meal. So I'm talking about breakfast at 7 a.m. Then back for dinner at whatever time. Oh, wow. We're like, you know, no, I'm going to eat corn flakes at my own place. Thank you very much. I'll see you for the Sunday

dinner, ma. But we'll see, you know, a little bit later in the episode or as we go through the episode, why his mother probably was able to demand things of Kevin. We'll find out why that is. is. Now, I'm not sure how it worked when he had girlfriends and dates. So obviously he couldn't have eaten dinner there every single night, but maybe he did. He said, hey, we got to go over to Moss. I think it happened quite a bit. Yeah. So let's get into more of Kevin Coe. I think somewhat like his mom, this is a guy who seemed to swing from one end of the spectrum to the other. He was a reasonably good looking guy. Some women have called him handsome. And they said he was meticulous about his hygiene, smelled of soap, had fresh breath. He could be extremely charming one minute and then

really creep someone out the neck. Yeah, that's scary. And I think this obsession with his appearance started at an early age. You know, he liked to dress a little over the top, almost as if he was either trying to be the best dressed in the room or he was dressing to be noticed. He's always dressing to the nines, huh? Yeah. But then apparently there were times when he would show up in his jogging suit, looking like he hadn't showered in days. So you kind of have this strange dichotomy between, you know,

a guy who a lot of the time is so worried about his appearance that he's always freshly showered, clean-shaven. And then maybe like Jackal and Hyde, there's sometimes where it looks like he hasn't showered in days. So like you. Yeah, very much like me. Right. I think for Kevin Coe, it's hard not to think that this had some correlation somehow to either his mood or his mental state or something like that. In his 20s, Kevin went to work in real estate. Now, mind you, he didn't have any experience, but he used his father's good name and prominent position in society to get his foot in the door. That helps.

As some people do, it does help for sure. But as we all know, that will only get you so far. And I think all of us, you and I, everybody listening, we've all seen those people that can talk a big game. They can talk their way into something, but generally they get exposed pretty quickly. Sure. Yeah. When you get down to the brass tax, you know.

Exactly. Well, at the end of the day, you can either get the job done or you can't. So all you're talking at some point flies out the window if you can't produce the results that you're expected to produce. And Gibbs, you have quite a bit of real estate experience. Sure. You know what it takes to be successful in that arena. you can definitely make some good money. Make some real good money.

But it takes hard work. It does. Networking. A lot of hours. A lot of hours. And I think it takes a certain level of drive, right? To really make it in that world. Yeah.

As we'll see, you know, drive and hard work. They're not really the calling card. We're not the calling card of Kevin Coe. Yeah. You just like being on that business card. Well, he wanted attention. This was a guy who wanted to. be seen as much more impressive and successful than what he was, or really he would ever be.

He told family and friends constantly that he had a huge number of sales in the pipeline, but it was all an illusion with this guy. So he was like a lot of agents back in the day, you know? Well, that's what I was going to ask you. Did you ever experience this when you were in that world where it was always like, I'm about ready to do this. I got this and this working in the hopper. But yet these people weren't making any sales.

Exactly. You'd hear those stories all the time. You knew who was actually selling stuff because you go to the closing table and you talk through the closers and they would tell you who they're seeing at the title company day in and day out. You knew who was actually doing this stuff. In 1972, at the age of 25, Kevin married a woman named Jennifer Sandstrom. And Jennifer would later say that the marriage was troubled from the start.

I mean, I think for one thing, she had a very hard time with Ruth and her antics. And let's face it, Ruth doesn't exactly sound like anyone's dream mother-in-law. It'd be tough to be, well, look, it's hard enough having a mother-in-law. It is. Right? Yeah. But to have a mother-in-law that appears to be fairly controlling, you know. And I think that's being euphemistic.

Yeah. Yeah, I got you. It's definitely going to make any relationship very difficult for sure. So not only was she controlling, I think she, to her face, would tell Jennifer that Kevin married the wrong person. She was not the right person for her son. So that's always a way to warm up that relationship. Well, a little awkward at family dinner, right?

To come out and say, hey, I don't like you. I wish my son had never married you. you're not the right person for him. Right. Pass the gravy. Yeah. Thank you. They stayed married for seven years, but I really think it was rough on her.

And she's been pretty honest in, you know, interviews and different things that that she's done over the years. She developed a problem with alcohol. Now, I don't know if it was a direct result of the marriage, but it happened during the marriage. So, I don't know. I'd probably have to drink a lot, too, if I was an. marriage. But she later told outlets that Kevin's parents gave him money, like all the time. Yeah. And money he that he would blow through. And then the next thing you know, he would go to the supermarket and shoplift steaks. Putting beef down his pants, huh? Yeah. Got to have some beef in there.

Wow. That's what's for dinner. I'm going to leave that right there. But then they would give him more money. And the next thing you know, he would, you know, would have a, a brand new suit or some fancy clothes. And I think he got caught for shoplifting on different occasions. Got to be embarrassing. Which is embarrassing. Yeah. But I think the key to it is, you know, this was a guy in his mid to late 20s, essentially living off his parents. Yeah.

Even though he's married with a, with a place of his own, supposedly has this good job. the problem is he's not making any sales. Right. But he's keeping up the illusion that he's this impressive realtor by using the money that his parents are giving him. Right. Yeah. All right, Gibbs. Let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsors.

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He had the right equipment. Well, no, he was out jogging. Yeah. And I'm sure he had the right equipment. He was out jogging, but what he was really doing was using it as a cover for his true purpose. He was out hunting women. He was out scoping out sites and sizing things up. Yeah.

And if you think about it, it's actually kind of, I hate to say it, but it's a really good cover for someone that is out trolling. We talked about a lot of killers, rapists, people like that who use their vehicle. Well, to just be driving around neighborhoods, not doing anything but driving, that's very suspicious. Yeah. In some people's eyes, obviously you have your license plate, things like that. But who thinks twice about somebody that's out jogging every night? Yeah. That's just what they do.

Well, today, you know, I mean, I walk a lot and I go by these houses and I see those doorbell camera things. Oh, yeah, like the ring doorbells and things like that. It's always wave. You just wave at them. How you doing? So when they look at it later, if they do? Yeah. Yeah, you're probably going to get the cops called on you.

Probably will. Yeah. I'm sure I'm going to be a suspect at one point in something again. At the very least, there's going to be a theft of some Amazon packages and you're going to get a call from police. Well, I do like Amazon. So not to get off on a tangent, but, you know, my daughter's down to college, right? She's got her own apartment. I ordered her something on Amazon. I had it shipped to her apartment.

For this, the first time it's ever happened to me, I went, it was late. And I went to track it and it said your package is running late. It may be lost. That's what it said on Amazon. Yeah. So I clicked the button. This little virtual chat came up and they were like, it wasn't even. in a real person.

It said, are you wanting to talk about this product? And I was like, yep. Do you want us to send out a new one? And I was like, sure. And that was it. They took care of it. Now she has two of them. No, I don't.

The first one never showed up. Oh. It literally got lost somehow. I had that happen one time. And they just credit my account. And then stuff showed up like a week later. Yeah. And you just kept it and went on.

Dude, they make so much money. It just doesn't even phase them. Yeah. They're fine. And especially right now with, what's going on, they have to be getting so many orders. Oh, it's unbelievable. Well, now they're doing groceries deliveries and two hours if you were in their market.

So a wave of sexual assaults began taking place in a particular area of Spokane known as South Hill. They started in April 1978. A 19 year old woman named Lois had just stormed out of a VIP's restaurant in Spokane. And it was around 1130 p.m. She'd been at dinner with her husband, Al and some of his friends. Now, Al and Lois had a rocky marriage. She had a hard time keeping Al at home. He was a biker.

Didn't seem to be all that interested in domestic life from what I gathered. That makes it tough, right? It's not going to make it easy on Lois. She came from a poor family. She struggled with mental health issues. and, you know, before this incident had just recovered from a suicide attempt. So she really wasn't in the best state of mind, right? That night when she and Al met up with friends at the restaurant, someone got too loud

or too drunk. Words were spoken. Whatever happened, Lois decided that she'd had enough. She was done for the night. Now, she was only 5'5, small framed, but she had some fire in her. You know, that's what friend said about her. So Lois decided she'd rather walk the three miles home than spend any more time with these guys, including her husband.

And Lois was used to walking, sometimes walking five to 10 miles a day when she was a child. So that was no big deal for her. No. And her psychiatrist had told her that walking was good for her when she struggled with some postpartum depression. So she began her walk. And by the time she turned west on Indiana Avenue, it was about 1145. She was pretty deep in thought.

Probably running through that whole night's event. Probably. But I think the key is, you know, when you get into your head like that, when you're having those deep thoughts, you're not really paying attention to what's going on around you oftentimes. So she barely noticed this stranger at first. And apparently he quickly appeared from behind a white parked car. And before she knew it, he was blocking her path and he grabbed her.

She later told authorities that he had long blonde hair and a mustache. He was broad-shouldered and had what she described as dull eyes. Dull eyes. Dull, yeah. Lifeless. I don't know what. That's a good word for that. That's the only thing I can think of to describe.

dull. As soon as he grabbed her, she screamed and later said that she knew right in and there that this man was going to rape her. He put his hands over her mouth and made her promise not to scream again. She nodded in an agreement, but as soon as he took his hand away, she screamed. Right. So he jammed his hand down her throat, into her mouth, down her throat. And this is a big deal. This is going to come back in a lot of the crimes committed by Kevin Coe, the South Hill rapist. It's really what's going to tie a lot of his crimes together. This method. This method of putting his hand into his victim's mouths and shoving it so far down that they literally can't scream, can't do anything.

He lifted her to her feet and then began to. sexually assaulted. So I will say right up front that the details of this attack are brutal. And we even toned it down a little bit where we could. But to me, it's very important to have a complete understanding of what happened. If not, you don't get the full sense of what a monster this guy really was. Yeah, because he was a monster. Yes. Lois reported later that he fondled her and then dropped to his knees, pulled her jeans off, and then from a kneeling position, he kept his one hand lodged in her throat while he orally copulated her. After a few minutes, he pulled her down to the ground.

And she later said that she felt a wave of relief at that point, believing that, okay, finally, he's going to take his hand out of my mouth and I'll be able to breathe. But he didn't. He jammed it further into her throat and pushed her on to her stomach. He climbed on top of her and Lois said that she could hear him saying the words, come on, come on. It was clear to her that he was having performance issues. Couldn't get his little lily up.

No. He finally turned her over and he forced himself inside her and started asking her questions. You know, if she was married, did she have a boyfriend? Did she like sex? Did she like what he was doing to her? Who in the world would like what this guy was doing? Was he waiting for someone to say, oh, yes, I do. Yeah, nobody's going to say that.

No woman is going to say that. Later, Lois reported that his breath smelled like mint. Finally, the man pulled himself off her and finished with his hand. Lois said that she was looking away, trying to focus on the landscaping. It took her a moment to notice that he was adjusting his clothes. As he did this, he threatened her not to tell anyone saying that he would find her and that he would kill her. And with that warning, he was gone.

She sat there for a couple of minutes, but then she sprang into action. She ran toward nearby houses, banging on them, just hoping someone would open. open their door. As she was running to the third house, she realized that she was half dressed and her bra was stuck around her neck. And it was at the third house that a woman reluctantly answered the door. But after Lois told this woman that she'd just been raped, the homeowner let her use the phone to call police. Very scary. Very scary. It's also a situation I think that you and I have talked about a couple of times, which is, you know, it's late at night. You hear banging on your front door.

What do you do? Do you go and see who it is? Yeah. Because most people think, why would somebody be banging on my door at midnight or whatever time it is? That's a scary proposition for a lot of people. I think more so today with all the home invasions that you hear about. Yeah.

We definitely hear more about home invasions today than back then. but well but is some of that because of the 24 hour news cycle there's 18,000 channels dedicated to news that's true they're all looking for content is that why we hear more about it I think some of these crimes go national much more so than they would have in let's say the 70s oh I believe that just because of how news works and all that but she went to two houses And again, I don't know if those people weren't home or if they were just too afraid to answer their door. Luckily, this third woman did because Lois needed help. Gibbs, this is the first reported attack of the monster that would become known as the South Hill rapist.

But he would victimize many more over a relatively short period of time. Around 6.30 p.m. on December 17th, 1980, a 9,000. grade girl was walking in southeast Spokane to meet up with a friend near a local bus stop. The 14-year-old noticed a man jogging, but he was behind her. When he caught up with her, he grabbed her, as we'll find out was his MO. He shoved two fingers of his gloved hand into her mouth and forced her to the ground. He then told her to stand up, threatened this girl that he had knife, although she never saw it, she believed at some point it was poking her in the stomach. He then forced this girl to walk to a wooded area in a vacant lot.

She was made to lie down, take off her clothes. The man told her not to look at him. And he went through his usual routine, asking this girl very sexual questions while he fondled her. He then orally copulated her and raped her. While this attack was taking place, the girl's friend who had been waiting near the bus stop for her called her name. Not wanting to be discovered, the attacker put two fingers back into her mouth and said if she made any noise, he would use the knife on her. He got up, put his clothes on,

told her that she could get dressed, told her not to call the police, and he ran off. Then on February 5th, 1981, around 630 and 3rd. the morning. A 51-year-old Spokane woman was jogging on the track at Hartsfield. She was a regular there. And a few days before, she had noticed a vehicle parked for several minutes, but no one ever got out. And then eventually the car pulled away. On this particular morning, the track seemed empty until the woman noticed one individual running the grass area inside the track. And then he started coming towards her. She greeted him with a good morning as they passed, as most people would do, right? You're friendly. But as soon as he got behind her, he grabbed her. He immediately struck her in the

mouth and told her to keep quiet. But this woman screamed, even though he told her not to. And he ended up cutting her mouth and face by hitting her with his fist. He shoved his fingers into her mouth. His M.O. His M.O. And again, it's important because it's what's going to help police link these violent sexual attacks to this one person. Her assailant wrestled her to the grassy area, told her he had a knife. She didn't believe him. That's something that she later told authorities. He kept trying to control her. And at one point told her if she would stop fighting him, he wouldn't rape her. But she was fighting him. Yeah, she wasn't going to give up that easy.

So they're wrestling. He struck her in the face again, hit her in the stomach. He pinned her on the ground and straddled her. He repeatedly told her to open her mouth, but she refused. So he slapped her. He pulled her cap off her head down onto her face just to make it harder for her to see his face. Right. Now, later in court, she would testify to seeing his face at least six.

different times during the encounter. He pulled down her pants and penetrated her with his finger. And again, Gibbs asked this woman about her sex life with her husband. He asked her if she was embarrassed that he was looking at her as he fondled her telling her that she had no idea how much he needed this. It's so bizarre. It is. I mean, the act of sexually assaulting someone is.

is horrible. But as you go through these details and you realize that as the sexual assault is happening, this man is asking such bizarre questions. You know, how's your sex life with your husband? Right. You have no idea how bad I need this. Or you turned on by what I'm doing.

Yes. That kind of weird stuff. I mean, that's just, it's very strange. This woman asked him why he didn't find a girl his own age at a bar. And he responded that he couldn't possibly do that. He tried to force her legs open while he was laying on top of her, but he couldn't do that.

He began moving around and then told her, I did you a favor and finished in my pants. And then he got up and ran off. Gibbs, I did you a favor. Wow. Yeah, this guy's in his own world, man. Oh, he definitely is because I don't care what happens during or after a sexual assault. To tell a victim that you just did them a favor is unbelievable. This woman suffered bruises on her neck, shoulders and face. She had cuts to her lip and inside her mouth. Later, this woman

underwent hypnosis. And I think this happened with a number of the victims. And it had a huge impact on the outcome of the eventual trial that we'll get to later. On February 9th, 198,000, A 20-year-old woman had just gotten off the bus. This was around 6.25 a.m. She was returning from taking her one-year-old son to her parents' home. As she walked down the street, a man jumped out from behind a tree. He grabbed her and put his hand on her mouth. And then he shoved his hand into her throat while wearing a quilted oven mitt.

So he's changed his wardrobe a little bit on this. A little bit. a little bit. I mean, you know, I think what you'll see is in a lot of attacks, he wore gloves or some version of that. He told her that he wouldn't hurt her as she was choking on this oven mid. She pleaded with him telling him she had a baby. He was so rough with this hand down her throat that her nose started bleeding. He threw her down to the ground, again, telling her not to scream. He slid his hand up her skirt. He told her that he'd been watching her and asked her why she didn't take the same bus all the time. The rapist fondled her. And as he said again,

that he'd been watching her for a long time. But while he was trying to force her legs open, someone in a nearby house opened their front door, causing him to stop. But for some reason, the person either didn't see what was going on. They went back inside the house. And the rapist continued his attack. He made this woman roll over on her stomach after he was done. He then asked her about school. Asked her if she ever masturbated.

Asked her if she liked sex. And he wanted to know Gibbs if she was enjoying this encounter. Again. More of those bizarre. They're all bizarre, but it's the last one. Are you enjoying the fact that I am sexually assaulting you against your will? Right. You enjoying this?

I hope you're enjoying this. No, because nobody would. He then began masturbating all the while. He's talking to her. When he finished, he laid on top of her a while before he got up and forced her to as well. He then asked how much money she had, took her money, and threatened her as he walked away. Now, this woman didn't get a good look at her attacker, but she did say he was tall with a medium build, had a square set jaw.

He was wearing a ski jacket, jeans, boots, and oven mitts. About two weeks after the attack, this woman was hypnotized. She later identified her. rapist in a lineup on March 10th, 1981. Now, we know that's going to be Kevin Coe, right? We know that. Right. I think gives a huge part of the challenge in bringing the South Hill rapist to justice was because the Spokane Police Department at the time was incredibly understaffed. They didn't have the budget to hire more officers. It's been reported that there were about 250 officers for, for 177,000 residents.

Kind of tough to do your duties when you can't get to everybody. Yeah, I actually don't know what the perfect allocation would be. You know, how many police officers should there be for this number of residents? I don't know what the number is. But in the reporting, it's stressed that, you know, at this time, the Spokane Police Department was under. staff. Oftentimes, crimes that lacked substantial evidence would be classified as low priority and either wouldn't be pursued at all. Sometimes they marked them as inactive. Obviously,

there's a priority system. Sure. Like with any place, you're going to have your priorities on what you tackle first. Yes. But to not be able to work crimes and, you know, eventually mark them inactive due to an inability to allocate the right manpower, that's tough. That really is tough. It also took the Spokane Police Department some time to piece together this pattern of the South Hill rapist. I think it became more obvious after newspapers devoted, you know, more to the story, right? In-depth features, things like that. The Spokane Chronicle established a secret witness hotline.

And what's so interesting about this is that the calls were routed directly to the desk of the managing editor, who we know to have been Gordon Co. Kevin's father. So it might be easy to think that, you know, okay, dad may have buried some information. If it came in that implicated his son, I don't know if. that's true or not, it seems to be more about the difficulty for police and being understaffed. But there was a ton of public pressure to find and stop this South Hill rapist. So a task force was put together. And in the spring of 1980, they created a special decoy squad, hoping to capture the South Hill rapist. So they would have women, right, out jogging, walking, doing whatever in the

South Hill area acting as decoys and then they would have task force members watching to see who was maybe watching them who looked out of place and task force members observed Kevin Coe watching a decoy from his silver Chevy citation when they ran the plates on the car it came back registered to Gordon Coe and obviously Gordon Coe didn't look anything like the description that had been given by the victims of their attacker. Right. So it created another barrier. Sure.

It's definitely a problem. If the car had been registered to Kevin, okay, maybe the connection is made very quickly, but it didn't happen that way. But as they watched Kevin in his car, they saw him leave it and crouch behind a tree. Basically, he was watching the decoy for quite a long period of time. And then he finally returned. to his car and drove off. So police reported the play, but they also made a note of the appearance of this man. They saw skulking behind the tree. Eventually, officers identified Kevin Coe as the man

watching the decoy. They observed him in his car, following bus routes and including some of the routes of three of his known victims. They saw him watching joggers and people in parks. He was seen driving near the high school and watching young girls. It's always doing all days. Observing, watching, taking notes, it looks like. He's hunting. Yeah. Right.

I mean, if you think about a hunter, how much time is spent tracking, watching versus the actual act of hunting. It's way more, right? Then, you know, I'm not a hunter, but I know for a fact that the period of time and everything involved up until the time that you actually, you know, shoot the gun or, or let go of the bow, it's much more than that, than that period of time where you actually fire. The buildup. And that's exactly what's happening here.

And it's the same with serial killers. Yeah. A lot of them. And we know he's good at it because he tells his victims how good he is. That he's been watching them. He knows their patterns. Why did you do this and not do that? Yeah.

I think, you know, I didn't get into it too much, but, you know, the one young lady, I think she was 20 years old, he asked her about school. Okay. Well, how did he know to ask her that? He knew because he'd been watching her. He knew her patterns, where she went, what she did. Gives, I think the other thing that's interesting, you know, for as much as the police observed Kevin Coe. And we talked about the fact that he was an avid jogger. He told everybody that he was an avid jogger. And he did go out jogging a lot. He was never seen jogging by anyone but his victims. Here's one of the problems, though, that many people have with this case.

So police already have a very strong suspicion, right, of this guy, Kevin Coe. But they didn't put him under round the clock surveillance. In fact, there were two indecent exposure reports filed against him in a relatively short period of time. He exposed himself to two females on February 28, 1981, and he was seen masturbating on a public bench on March 1st. Just sitting there. Just masturbating. Or as you used to say. A Tuesday afternoon?

No. I mean, obviously, his crimes are no joking matter. Right. But to just sit on a park bench or a public bench wherever it is and masturbate, what the hell are you doing? Are you just inviting someone to call the cops on you? Do you want to get caught? I don't know what the mindset is right at this point of Kevin Coe. Yeah, it's not how you can. That's not being sneaky. No, not at all. You're just putting it out there, not caring. Literally. You're literally putting it out there. Not caring. Not caring. about the consequences because and what is it a rush what are you searching for the rush of being seen by somebody i just don't know man i don't know how to get into these people's heads but here's the deal police were definitely closing in on kevin co and and it would be just a couple of weeks before they would get him but what they found out after his capture was horrifying the number

of Coe's victims would turn out to be much higher than anyone could have possibly known. And those details, the bizarre antics of his mother, and his trials will take center stage in part two. Yeah, that's some really good stuff right there. It is. And it's why this case has to be broken up into two episodes. We talked about a number of sexual assaults. We talked about a number of sexual assaults and rapes. And if you notice there were big gaps in between some of them. The ones that we talked about will be what Kevin Coe is tried for. Well, we'll come to find out that it wasn't like he was taking breaks in between those. He was very active. Yeah. And we'll discuss some of those in part two.

It's why most people believe that the number of his crimes is probably upwards of 50 plus. So gives before we end the episode, one thing I want to talk about, you know, I was researching the case and I was looking through old newspapers. Right. And I found an ad from the January 25th, 1981 edition of the spokesman review paper. And the ad was welcoming Kevin Coe to the crane realty team of professionals. Oh, wow. January 25th.

Yeah. He's literally going to be caught in about a month and a half. But they pulled all those ads as quick as they could. Well, imagine you've just hired this guy. Right. You've welcomed him into the office. And then all of a sudden, you're going to find out that this guy's the South Hill rapist. That must have been a tough office to work in.

Not good PR. No, no. And I can't imagine people are knocking down your door to have them list your house when there are probably many other realtors to choose from. Right. That's one of the other things that made researching this case much different from other cases. You know, when you search for somebody's name. Right.

And you're pulling up newspaper articles and different things. well, when you're a realtor, you advertise a lot in the paper. So your name's pulling up on every ad. You ever ran and you have to sort through all that. Yeah. That was something that I hadn't experienced. And it's definitely very specific to being a realtor or somebody that advertises a lot, which a realtor does.

But I mentioned what's coming up in the next episode. Yes. There are some aspects that are so bizarre that they're hard to believe, involving his mother, what comes out at trial, we'll get introduced to a friend of his that does some strange things. It's just, it's just a very bizarre set of circumstances that happen after his conviction. Right. And it is. It's, I mean, I really can't wait to, uh, put that part out. I was really intrigued when I, uh, looked into that stuff. Yeah, I mean, I, we had to do it this way. I think it's really the only way it makes.

sense. In this episode, you get the sense of his background, right? His, the dynamic between him and his family. And then you get a sense of his crimes. But I think part two is going to shed even more light. Just that relationship between him and his mom. Wow. But that's it. That's it for part one of Kevin Coe, the South Hill rapist. Gibbs, we've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, here. From southeastern Indiana, right across. I've been keep listening to

this month, about eight hours a day of work, and I'm in the 180s at this point. And really early on in your podcast, like Eddie or something, somebody mentioned the Wineville Chicken. I love to hear your guys. I love how you guys don't

get bogged down with the issues outside and just keep on the story and just keep level headed. You guys are great. I'm going to keep on listening at work, eight hours a day. See you later. Well, we appreciate that, Josh. We appreciate you listening.

And that's quick, man, to get up into the, what he said, 180s. Eight hours a day, man, that's a lot of T-Cats. It'll get you there. Yeah. It's a lot of Mike and Gibby. Yeah. But, you know, he made an interesting point about kind of separating what's going on in the world right now, because there's a lot going on.

We recognize it. Yeah. And again, we talked about it in our. Patreon episode. But for me, telling these stories and kind of keeping some of the other stuff out allows people to have a brief escape. Right. We're being bombarded. Oh, we sure are. With all the issues and things that are going on. If you're on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, if you watch the news, you can't get away from all that stuff. It's there. Right. Now, I think everybody needs just a little respite, whether that's a Netflix binge, whether that's your podcast, a good book, whatever it is.

Right. Step away. You got to step away from that stuff. It doesn't diminish the importance of everything that's going on. It doesn't change what you think about it. But you got to have a break, man. Got to take a break. And if TCAT is your break, great. If it's a good movie on Netflix, whatever it is. The stuff we're dealing with is not going away. And, you know, And that's unfortunate because we want some of it to go away. But I think just for the mental aspect, you got to take a break from some of that stuff. You do. It's important.

Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is John from Brooklyn. And I'm an artist here. And I work in this big sprawling warehouse from about 8 p.m. to 8 to about 6 a.m. I'm here by myself at night in this sort of industrial remote section of Gowanus, Brooklyn. And it gets a little creepy listening to murder and serial killers all night. I've started carrying my box cutter to the bathroom. Maybe I'll get a K bar someday.

But anyway, I just want to say I love the show. I got kind of burned out on listening to music. So I started listening to podcasts the last year. And to be honest, it was starting to be hard to find good things to listen to and came across your podcast about two or three months ago and loved the first episode I heard. And then I started kind of picking and choosing a few that looked interesting to me and loved those. And then decided to go back to the first episode. And so that's what I've been doing in the last few weeks.

And I just want to say thanks for keeping me company, doing a great job, keep it up. And so from Brooklyn, New York, hey, keep your own time ticking. Yeah, I like that. Forget about it. Get about it. Now, we're here to keep you company. I don't know about that box cutter, man. Be careful with that box cutter.

In the bathroom, man. That's exactly what I was thinking. Right there, man. Make sure you retract that bad boy. Put that safety on. For something bad happens. Hi, guys. Jack from Scotland.

I just want to say hi. And I want to say, I love your podcast and listen to the beginning, really. And you really got me into Drewkind podcast. You're the first one I really got into. So I want to say, I really love the podcast. I think a case that you should really look into maybe is from the UK is a guy called Richard Huckle. One of probably the worst paedophile I've ever read into is an absolutely horrible person.

He was alleged to have raped over 200 children in Malaysia and he was arrested by the age of 28, so done a lot of damage, a very early age. And someone I think you should really look into, but maybe not just because it's a really, really hard case. to look into but anyway you want to say you know I love you guys podcast and uh like again all the way from Scotland um just reaching out everywhere and I'm sure you're reaching all over the world now and um I love it so thank guys and keep your own time checking there we go bye all right from Scotland oh you got it like Scotland yeah I could really understand him his

brogue was yeah was uh not as thick right is that the word you use as some other people from you know Sometimes in Scotland, those brogs get very thick. It can be. Yeah. Just like some people in the south here in the United States, that accent is a little thick. That he's good at golfing. Because he's from Scotland. Yeah.

Where the game was born. Exactly. Maybe. I don't know. You think everybody in Scotland is just Tiger Woods? Natural. They're just a natural. They're just a natural.

Yeah. All right. We had mailbag. Ari Ansbrough sent in a bunch of Harley chips. One caught my eye. It's from Juno, Alaska. Really? Yeah.

Good old Juno. It has what I believe are sea lions riding Harleys. Really? Mm-hmm. It's an interesting chip. I wonder if that could actually happen. What if you could train a sea lion to ride Harley? No, I'm not even sure if I could train you to ride a Harley.

You keep... You can't train. I'm not trainable. You keep hinting that you're going to buy one and then you don't. We can't go on our easy rider tour. I get close. You know, well... Not your type of clothes.

I mean, I look at it on my phone. Right. I look at the price and I go, hmm. The difference between me and you is you look at a lot of stuff, you can just never pull the trigger. Yeah. As soon as I see something,

you pull it right away. That is it. Yeah. It's over. Yeah, you're an easy sell. But we appreciate that, Ari. All right. That's it for another episode of true crime all the time.

So for Mike. And Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.