Kevin Cooper Massacre Case Handed to Jury

The murder case of Kevin Cooper, accused of killing four people in a home in Chino Hills in 1983, was delivered to the jury Thursday after prosecutors warned jurors not to be fooled by Cooper’s “lies” and the defense argued that the evidence against the prison escapee was fragmentary and unconvincing.

Cooper, 27, an escapee from the Chino Institution for Men, is charged with murdering Doug and Peg Ryen, both 41; their daughter, Jessica, 10, and Christopher Hughes, 11, in the Ryen’s Chino Hills home. Investigators said the victims were hacked with an ax and stabbed with a hunting knife and ice pick.

Parents Weep

The parents of the Hughes boy wept quietly in the courtroom audience Thursday during the closing argument of San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. John Kochis, who displayed graphic photographs of the victims’ bodies to the jury and described how each died.

Kochis contrasted the pictures of the bodies with large color photographs of the victims while they were alive, saying that their “hopes and dreams were lost by the nightmare that Kevin Cooper brought to Chino Hills.”

Pointing to a tennis shoe sole pattern lifted from the scene where the four people were found hacked and stabbed to death, Kochis told jurors:

“With this pattern you can follow Kevin Cooper from the prison to the hide-out to the murder scene . . . That evidence alone places (Cooper) at the center of the slaughter.”

Cooper escaped from the Chino Institution for Men on June 2, 1983, three days before the bodies were discovered by young Hughes’ father. Joshua Ryen, the Ryen couple’s 9-year-old son, survived the attack despite suffering a slashed throat and beatings to the head with the ax.

Matching shoe prints were also found at a house located near the murder scene where Cooper admitted hiding for two days after his escape. The shoes themselves, however, were never found.

Referring to several aliases that Cooper used while in prison and after his escape, Kochis said:

“You know that Kevin Cooper lies about who he is and what he does, where he comes from. He lies about what he’s done. He’s good at lying. Don’t let him fool you.”

Called a Jigsaw Puzzle

David Negus, Cooper’s public defender, told jurors the evidence against his client is circumstantial, and repeated charges that sheriff’s investigators botched the investigation.

Negus called the case a jigsaw puzzle in which “some of the pieces are missing . . .” and “too many pieces . . . have been changed (and) . . . forced together.”

Negus told the jury that Cooper is probably not the kind of person they would want to associate with and acknowledged his client’s criminal background as a convicted burglar.

“But that, however, does not make him a killer,” said Negus.

He also hammered away at what he called the prosecution’s failure to present a motive for the slaughter.

‘Speculation, Rhetoric’

“(San Bernardino County Dist. Atty. Dennis) Kottmeier has presented no evidence during this trial as to why this crime was committed,” said Negus. “There is no evidence. There may be speculation. There may be rhetoric, but there is no evidence that Mr. Cooper committed the murders.”

Almost 800 pieces of evidence and 141 witnesses were introduced by both sides during the trial. Cooper testified in his own defense, repeatedly denying that he committed the murders.

The trial was moved to San Diego because of pretrial publicity in San Bernardino. Cooper faces the death penalty if convicted.