Rapist charged in 1973 killing

Associated Press

OLYMPIA — A convicted rapist authorities have linked via DNA to the 1973 killing of a Seattle-area girl pleaded innocent to a murder charge Monday in Thurston County Superior Court.

William Cosden Jr., 55, was already in prison, serving a 48-year sentence for rape in a separate case, when he was arrested last week in the slaying of 14-year-old Katherine M. Devine.

He said nothing as he appeared in a white jail uniform, his hands and feet shackled, before Superior Court Judge Richard Hicks. Defense lawyer John Sinclair entered his client’s plea to the first-degree murder charge.

If convicted, Cosden could face life in prison.

Bail was set at $500,000 with trial scheduled to begin May 6.

"It was very creepy," Sherrie Devine, the victim’s older sister, said of the court appearance. Devine’s mother, Sally, said she was nervous about seeing Cosden for the first time.

"It would have been worse if we would have had to look directly at him," she said.

Cosden, who has been segregated from other inmates while in the Thurston County Jail, remains upbeat, Sinclair said.

"He’s not guilty" of the charge, Sinclair said after the hearing.

Sheriff’s deputies arrested Cosden last week at McNeil Island Penitentiary, where he has been since 1976.

The arrest came after authorities at the state Crime Lab, using DNA evidence from the 29-year-old case, were able to link him to Devine.

Sinclair said he was still reviewing the state’s DNA evidence and could not comment.

Devine was last seen hitchhiking in Seattle on Nov. 25, 1973. Witnesses told police they saw her climb into a pickup driven by a man, according to court documents.

Her body was found Dec. 6 by caretakers at Camp Margaret McKenny, southwest of Olympia. She was face down and her clothes had been cut open. An autopsy found that she died from a knife wound to the neck.

At the time, Cosden was working at his family’s truck stop near where Devine was last seen. He had been seen with blood on his clothes and in his pickup at the truck stop, court papers said.

Investigators first examined blood and hair samples from Cosden in 1973 but lab results were not sufficient to support a case against him, Deputy Prosecutor Philip Harju has said.

In 1986, deputies again collected samples of Cosden’s blood, hair and saliva. Last year, the state Crime Lab was able to link those samples to the Devine case, prosecutors said.