Cooper Maintains Innocence as Intensive Grilling Ends

The prosecution’s three-day grilling of accused mass slayer Kevin Cooper ended as it begin Monday--with Cooper steadfastly denying that he committed the bloody slayings.

Despite relentless questioning from San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Dennis Kottmeier, Cooper stuck to the same denials about the killings that he offered when questioned last week by his attorney, public defender David Negus. He called the charges against him “bad business” and said he panicked when he learned he was a suspect.

After seeing his name in stories about the killings that appeared in the June 7 and 8, 1983, editions of the Los Angeles Times, Cooper said, he felt that his chances of getting fair treatment were slim because he is black and the victims were white.

” . . . Black man accused of taking out a whole family, a white family, that’s bad business. So, I got scared and left,” said Cooper. He hid in Tijuana after his escape from the Chino Institute for Men on June 2, 1983, and on June 8 decided to travel to Ensenada.

Cooper has denied killing Doug and Peg Ryen, both 41, their daughter, Jessica, 10, and Christopher Hughes, 11, in the Ryens’ Chino Hills home. Joshua Ryen, the couple’s 9-year-old son, survived the attack with a slashed throat. The slayings were discovered on June 5, 1983, three days after Cooper’s escape.

Hid in Tijuana

Cooper said that he became aware of the slayings on June 6, 1983, when he placed a call from Tijuana to a woman friend in Pittsburgh, and she said he had been mentioned in news reports as a suspect.

The defendant admitted hiding out in a house close to the Ryen home for two days after his prison escape. But he denied ever seeing the Ryen residence, which was up the hill from his hide-out.

On Monday, Kottmeier accused Cooper of deciding to go to Ensenada after reading that Joshua Ryen had survived the attack. “Because Josh Ryen survived, it was now time to move south,” said Kottmeier.

“No, sir. That’s not true,” said Cooper.

Moments earlier, Cooper admitted that when he called his friend in Pittsburgh on June 6, she accused him of committing the slayings.

“(She) said to you in that conversation, ‘You killed those people, didn’t you?’ ” said Kottmeier.

“No, she said I was a suspect,” said Cooper.

But Kottmeier was unrelenting. “She said in an accusing fashion, ‘You killed those people, didn’t you?’ ” said Kottmeier.

“I believe so,” said Cooper.

For the most part, Kottmeier was unable to trip Cooper during his lengthy cross examination. At one point Monday, Kottmeier suggested that Cooper has contrived an elaborate story to escape prosecution for the slayings and used Cooper’s relationship with an American couple to show that he can lie his way through anything.

Worked as a Deckhand

After traveling to Ensenada, Cooper hired on as a deckhand on a boat owned by Owen and Anjelica Handy. Cooper lived with the Handys for almost two months, until his capture in an island bay near the Santa Barbara coast on July 30, 1983. He told the Handys that his name was Angel Jackson.

“You didn’t make any slips . . . you were able to fool Owen and Anjelica Handy during that two-month period,” said Kottmeier.

Although Kottmeier frequently accused Cooper throughout the trial of committing the grisly killings, prosecutors have failed to produce any direct evidence linking Cooper to the slayings. In fact, during his cross-examination, Kottmeier did not ask Cooper any questions relating specifically to the slayings or in the manner in which they were committed.