Suspect in Spokane Rapes Facing Civil Trial

A jogger grabbed Julie Harmia as she was walking home from a bus stop, shoved his hand into her mouth, dragged her to a vacant lot and raped her.

Spokane's South Hill Rapist Kevin Coe is lead into a courtroom Monday, Dec. 18, 2006, at the Spokane...

Spokane's South Hill Rapist Kevin Coe is lead into a courtroom Monday, Dec. 18, 2006, at the Spokane County Courthouse to begin the Civil Commitment Hearing, in Spokane, Wash. Coe is likely to commit further sexual violence if he is not kept off the streets, the state argued Monday at a hearing that could lead to Coe being permanently confined.

(AP Photo/Amanda Smith)

As he left he said: "If you go to the police, they cannot protect you 24 hours a day, and I will come and I will kill you."

That was Oct. 23, 1980, and she was among more than 40 women who were raped in well-to-do neighborhoods on the city's South Hill from 1978 to 1981. Some victims were as young as 16.

Now, Harmia is about to again confront the man believed to be the so-called South Hill Rapist.

Kevin Coe, the handsome, clean-cut son of a newspaper editor and a socialite mother, was arrested in 1981, but after two trials and numerous appeals, only his conviction in Harmia's case stood up in court.

Coe has completed his sentence of 25 years in prison, but he's not getting out of jail yet.

Starting Monday, he faces a civil trial as the state tries to keep him locked up indefinitely as a violent sexual predator.

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"We think he's mentally ill and dangerous," said Todd Bowers of the state attorney general's office.

In 1990, Washington became the first state to create a program to keep behind bars people determined to be at risk of committing more sex crimes even after they have completed their sentences. A special facility near Tacoma holds about 300 of them, including Coe, whose sentence was completed in 2006.

Prosecutors will seek to convince a jury that Coe suffers from a mental disorder that prevents him from controlling his sexual behavior.

He refused treatment in prison, and has always maintained his innocence, to the point of refusing to cooperate with the parole board for an early release because that would have required that he admit committing the crimes.

"After the evidence is presented at trial, this community will finally be forced to concede that Mr. Coe is not the 'South Hill Rapist,'" Coe's attorney Tim Trageser said recently.

Getting Coe committed indefinitely will require that Harmia and many of the women Coe is alleged to have raped take the stand and face him. They include 17 women whose rapes matched Coe's methods, but for which he was never charged.