Mayor in Seattle suburb slams relocation of serial rapist into her city

A Washington state mayor blasted law enforcement leaders after they quietly released a notorious rapist from custody and allowed him to move into her city.

Auburn Mayor Nancy Backus laid into the King County Sheriff’s Office for giving her no heads up that Kevin Coe, known as the “South Hill rapist,” had been relocated to the Seattle suburb.

“Like many of our residents, we learned of this recent development through newspapers and TV stations,” Ms. Backus said in a statement Wednesday night. “That is not how effective public safety partnerships should operate, and we should expect better.”

Coe, 77, was convicted of rape in 1985 and sentenced to 25 years in state prison.

He was first arrested in 1981 after being linked to three dozen rapes around Spokane in the city’s well-to-do South Hill neighborhood. The case received mass public appeal because Coe was the son of the Spokane Daily Chronicle’s managing editor.

The victims ranged in age from 15 to 51 and all described the attacker as a man armed with a knife. The assaults took place between 1978 and 1981.

But most of the convictions secured against Coe were later overturned because the state’s Supreme Court determined that police had hypnotized the victims prior to having them identify Coe in a lineup.

Two more convictions were thrown out when he was retried shortly afterward, but one count of rape stuck because the victim clearly made out Coe’s face when he attacked.

By the end of his prison term, a civil jury ruled that Coe had a mental defect that made him likely to continue being a sexually violent predator.

He was ordered into custody at McNeil Island’s Special Commitment Center for another 17 years until his release on Oct. 2.

“Let me be clear: I am angry that Mr. Coe was released into our community,” Ms. Backus said in her statement. “Auburn was not part of this decision, and we should not be asked to shoulder the consequences of choices made without consultation. Decisions of this significance must be based on safety, communication, and logic — not on convenience, reaction or circumstance.

Coe is registered as a Level 3 sex offender at his current address, which is Washington’s highest risk category.