McNEIL ISLAND – Had he admitted guilt, shown remorse and received counseling during his 25-year stay in prison, Kevin Coe might be walking free today.
Instead, Coe, convicted of rape in Spokane’s South Hill Rapist investigation, is among 245 men and one woman the state oversees at the Special Commitment Center on McNeil Island near Tacoma.
The state pays about $160,000 annually for each “sexually violent predator” housed in the $61 million mental health facility.
Since being transferred to the island two weeks ago, Coe has kept mainly to himself, officials and residents say.
“This is a big shock to him. He never expected to be here,” said Richard Roy Scott, 59, a convicted child rapist who lives in the same 10-man ward and talks to Coe frequently.
If the state can convince a court that Coe is “more likely than not” to rape again, he will remain on the island indefinitely.
Coe, 59, spends most of his time in his room and on a communal computer, apparently preparing for an Oct. 30 probable cause hearing.
Coe spent the past 25 years at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla on a rape conviction. He was scheduled to be released Sept. 8.
He has always maintained his innocence and refused to participate in prison therapy sessions that could have resulted in his early release or transfer to a lower-security prison.
Charged with multiple rapes but only convicted of one, Coe was arrested after a series of attacks on dozens of women terrorized the Spokane area in the early 1980s.
Despite the high security surrounding it, Coe’s ward seems a bit like a college dorm lounge. There’s a communal TV and VCR, stuffed chairs, a microwave, an ice machine.
Coe declined a request to be interviewed.
“He’s quiet, very subdued,” program area manager Walter Weinberg said. “The residents know who he is. They seem to be leaving him alone.”
The Special Commitment Center is run by the state’s Department of Social and Health Services. Residents have more freedom than Department of Corrections inmates to move around, work, make calls and buy things from catalogs.
The center’s 400 staffers are not armed. But many carry radios or “body alarms” to summon a Kevlar-clad security team equipped with shields and pepper spray.
The residents range in age from their 20s to 78, with an average age in the mid-40s.
For most, their rooms are small, with only a single window that doesn’t open.
Outside in the yard, residents have weights, an exercise bike, a sit-up mat and a heavy bag for punching.
But most seem to spend their time smoking or pacing around the yard.
Some residents have jobs in the kitchen, cleaning or doing yard work or maintenance, for which they’re paid $7 an hour.
Many of the residents have hobbies. Woodworking is popular – “anything from birdhouses up to grandfather clocks,” Associate Superintendent Alan McLaughlin said – and one man is making a saddle. Others tie fishing flies, knit or sew.
“Idle hands are a devil’s workshop,” McLaughlin said. “That’s an important principle to us.”
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