State Gets Its First Chance to Quiz Cooper

The prosecution on Thursday had its first chance to question Kevin Cooper, who is accused of the bloody murders of four people in Chino Hills in June, 1983, and attempted immediately to link him to the killings.

Waving the ax allegedly used in the bloody slayings, San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Dennis Kottmeier asked Cooper if he had any doubt that it was the weapon allegedly used to kill Doug and Peg Ryen, both 41; their daughter, Jessica, 10, and Christopher Hughes, 11, in the Ryens’ home.

But Superior Court Judge Richard Garner agreed with objections raised by Public Defender David Negus, Cooper’s attorney, and cut off the questioning. He also sustained objections to Kottmeier’s next two questions, which sought to place Cooper at the murder scene.

Admonishing Kottmeier, Garner said: “You can argue (that) to the jury (and) Mr. Negus can argue that to the jury (in closing arguments). Let them reach their own conclusions.”

Negus suggested in his opening statement that most of the prosecution’s case would be based on circumstantial evidence.

Questioned About Prison Life

Kottmeier spent most of the afternoon questioning Cooper about his activities while he was an inmate for two months at the California Institute for Men in Chino. Cooper, wanted by authorities in Pennsylvania for escaping a mental institution, rape, kidnaping and robbery, was mistakenly placed in the minimum-security prison after a burglary conviction in Los Angeles. The prosecutor also wanted to know what Cooper did and thought about after he escaped from prison on June 2, 1983.

Kottmeier suggested that Cooper was ready to kill when he let himself inside a vacant house located down the hill from the Ryen residence. Cooper has testified he hid at the house for two days before leaving on June 4. The bodies of the four victims were discovered on June 5.

“You armed yourself as you knocked at the front door, didn’t you? You would’ve killed anybody who answered, wouldn’t you?” Kottmeier said.

“No, sir,” Cooper said.

Kottmeier has not produced any evidence to show that Cooper was armed after his prison escape.

Earlier in the day, while questioned by Negus, Cooper said he was unaware of the killings until he called a friend in Pittsburgh on June 6. Cooper, who had hitchhiked to Mexico and called from Tijuana, said the friend told him that he was a suspect in the massacre.

The next two days he bought copies of the Los Angeles Times in Tijuana and read about the murders for the first time, Cooper testified. He was formally charged with the murders on June 9, 1983, and was captured near Santa Barbara on July 30.

Cooper had signed on as a deckhand in Ensenada on a 32-foot sailboat owned by Owen and Angelica Handy. Cooper and the couple sailed for Santa Barbara and Cooper was captured in an island bay 20 miles south of Santa Barbara.

The trial resumes today with Cooper taking the stand for the third day.