I’ve been writing about psychopaths since 2013, and I’m getting renewed appreciation for the terror many of the more violent ones inflict on individuals and communities.
Before interstates, my mom used to drive me from Boise, Idaho through Spokane, Washington to Seattle for cleft-palate surgeries. I got to know Spokane and over the years have become acquainted with several people there.
A true-crime book about a Psychopath and his Mother.
So I recently read “Son: A Psychopath and his Victims” by Jack Olsen about the South Hill rapist in Spokane. I now know what he put the entire town, and my good friends there through in the 1980s.
The case had it all mediawise. Extreme fear in many neighborhoods, cat-and-mouse with the police for over a year, and finally a defendant from a 4th generation, elitist Spokane family.
Unfortunately, many of the estimated 128 women assaulted or traumatized by Fred Coe — mostly while jogging or after getting off a bus — had shattered lives. They and their loved ones experienced PTSD for varying lengths of time.
Fred “Kevin” Coe resembled the horrific Joseph DeAngelo (Golden State Killer) in some ways. Psychopathic, violent, and cunning enough to get away with innumerable crimes.
But wait. Olsen’s book “Son” has a mother-son twist right up there with the similar duo in “Psycho.”
Psychopaths and Evil.
Back in my Unitarian youth, the term evil rarely surfaced. That’s true even today in the U.S., especially in mainstream Christian religions. But, I’m sorry, Spokane’s psychopathic rapist personified evil, and author Olsen tracks the evil to its source: Ruth Coe.
The poised, stylish matriarch of one of the city’s oldest families, Ms. Coe was married to Gordon Coe who was Managing Editor of Spokane’s Chronicle newspaper. Though she had pretensions of being a socialite, she’s portrayed by Olsen as mercurial to the max.
The making of a Psychopath.
To illustrate: for decades she screams she hates her son one moment – calling him rotten, no good, sickening, and throwing and kicking everything in sight. And then, the next moment, she professes her love for him, sometimes almost seductively.
And get this – she tried to hire a hit man to kill the prosecuting DA and judge who helped put her son away for life-plus. But the hit man wore a wire.
Once again Ms. Coe became the center of attention, something she craved much of her life, as a different DA and judge tried her case.
Astoundingly, she only got a year in county jail, being allowed to attend “interior decorating” classes and have lunch with her husband who was no longer managing editor of the Chronicle.
Ms. Coe was then permitted to move to Seattle after only 6 months in jail and finished her time with a cushy work-release program.
Where are the Psychopath and his Mother now?
Ms. Coe died at 75 in Henderson, Nevada. Her husband at 82 in Edmonds, Washington, still defending his son and wife.
Their”son” Fred didn’t ask prison officials for permission to attend either funeral.
After numerous appeals and serving his “adjusted” sentence, he’s been confined indefinitely at McNeil prison for sexual predators.
Your turn.
Know of any other interesting Mother – Son true crime stories?
Would love to hear from you
