Cooper’s Defense Hits Conflicting Testimony of Massacre Survivor

As the murder trial of Kevin Cooper moves into its final days, the defense continues to focus on witnesses’ testimony that three mysterious men may be responsible for the 1983 Chino Hills massacre.

Defense attorney David Negus has called several witnesses, including law enforcement personnel and hospital workers, who have testified that a young survivor of the bloody killings told them on different occasions that three white men, or three Latinos, committed the murders. Cooper, 26, is black.

San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Dennis Kottmeier has rested the prosecution’s case, which was built entirely on circumstantial evidence. Prosecutors presented no direct evidence linking Cooper to the murder scene. However, Kottmeier has expressed confidence that the available evidence is enough to convince the jury that Cooper is guilty of the June 5, 1983, killings of Douglas and Peggy Ryen, both 41; their daughter, Jessica, 10, and Christopher Hughes, 11, in the Ryens’ Chino Hills home. If convicted, Cooper could face the death penalty.

The victims were hacked with an ax and stabbed with a knife and ice pick. Joshua Ryen, the couple’s 9-year-old son, survived the attack with a slashed throat and a head wound inflicted by the ax.

Admits Prison Escape

Cooper has admitted escaping from the Chino Institute for Men on June 2, 1983, and then hiding at a house located down the hill from the Ryen home until the night of the killings. Investigators also found shoe prints matching the prison-issued tennis shoes that Cooper was wearing when he escaped from the prison.

The bloody sole pattern found at the Ryen home is similar to the diamond design found on prison shoes. A representative of the company that manufactures the shoes testified that the diamond pattern is used only on the tennis shoes the firm sells to the state for prison use.

Three San Bernardino County sheriff’s deputies have testified that young Joshua Ryen told them that three white men or three Latinos were responsible for the killings. Reserve Deputy Luis Simo testified that Joshua, upon seeing Cooper’s picture on television, told him “he didn’t do it.”

Dr. Mary Howell, Joshua’s grandmother, also testified that Joshua told sheriff’s homicide investigator Hector O’Campo that three Latinos were in the house when the family was killed. The boy also told another deputy that his attackers were three white men, but later identified them as Latinos.

Testimony Differs

But when Joshua himself testified at the trial, testimony presented on videotape, he said that he could not remember anything about his attacker or attackers.

Another defense witness, a former employee of the Canyon Corral Bar near the Ryen home, said he remembered serving beer to three men the night before the murders.

The witness, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said he remembered the men because they were not part of his regular clientele of cowboys and neighborhood residents.

He said one of the men was “extremely drunk” and was refused service, but that they left without incident and did not returned.

He told Negus that they wore light-colored T-shirts, similar to a bloodstained T-shirt found June 7, 1983, beside a road near the bar.

The blood on the shirt was the same general type as Douglas Ryen’s.

Upon looking at the shirt, the witness was unable to say whether it had been worn by one of the men.

There also has been testimony that a car bearing the same license number as one stolen from the Ryen home was spotted in Costa Mesa by a motel security supervisor. Cooper has said he was in Mexico on that day.

Witness Mike Staubly testified that on June 7, 1983, the day he saw the car in a Costa Mesa hotel parking lot, three men staying at the hotel caused a disturbance in their room that left blood on the walls and furniture broken. He said one of the men carried what looked like a bayonet.

Staubly told Negus he remembered the license number, 2ALL731, because it struck him as odd and he tried to figure out what it meant.

If Cooper is acquitted of the murders, his legal troubles are not over. He still faces an escape charge for leaving the Chino prison. In addition, Pennsylvania authorities have charged Cooper with rape, kidnaping and another prison escape.

According to Georgie Ann Cherpes, who is in charge of extradition for the Allegheny County, Pa., district attorney’s office, Cooper walked out of Mayview Mental Institution in June, 1982, a year before the Chino Hills murders were committed. Cooper had been sent to the mental hospital after a judge found that he was incompetent to aid in his own defense when he was charged with burglary.

After walking out of Mayview, Cooper allegedly burglarized a home, abducted a young woman and drove her to a Pittsburgh, Pa., park where he allegedly threatened her with a screwdriver, raped her and left her naked.

Cooper was in the process of being extradited back to Pennsylvania when he escaped from the Chino prison.