Mercy or Murder? Doubts About a Death in Desert

The young man opened the spiral notebook and started writing.

“I killed and buried my best friend today. . . .”

He was at the bottom of a canyon in the Chihuahuan Desert, on a bed of white rocks the size of a helicopter pad.

“David had been in pain all night. At around 5 or 6 he turned to me & begged that I put my knife through his chest. I did, & a second time when he wouldn’t die. . . .”

As he wrote, the Guadalupe Mountains towered above him. The chirrup of grasshoppers and crickets echoed across cacti and juniper. The only other sound was the occasional hum of a passing jet--a sign, however distant, of civilization. It was Aug. 8.

“He still breathed & spoke so I told him that I was going to cover his face. He said OK. . . .”

The mercury was already nearing 95, though the reflection of heat off the rocks could push the temperature past 100.

“He struggled but died. . . .”

The rocks were all around the campsite, and he formed them into a pile 7 feet long and 2 1/2 feet wide.

“I buried him w/love. . . .”

“God & his family & mine,” the man finished, “please forgive me.”

*

That Raffi Kodikian took the life of David Coughlin that day in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, plunging a 4-inch folding knife twice into his chest, is undisputed. He confessed to a park ranger and in the journal authorities found at the scene; it contained entries purportedly made by both men during their ordeal.

What remains in question is whether it was a mercy killing--one final act of devotion and desperation between best friends--or something else entirely. The answer could determine whether Kodikian spends the rest of his life in prison.

Kodikian, 25, of Boston, is charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Coughlin, 26, of Millis, Mass. He remains at his parents’ home in Doylestown, Pa., on $50,000 cash bond until trial, set for Jan. 3.

Even if Coughlin begged Kodikian to kill him, the slaying still is considered murder, authorities say. But they have doubts about Kodikian’s story.

“I believe I might die trying to carry him out, drag him out, walk out to find help and bring it back,” says Eddy County Sheriff M.A. “Chunky” Click. “But I don’t think I could kill my best buddy.”

*

They arrived at the park the afternoon of Aug. 4.

They had been on the road several days, headed from Massachusetts to California, where Coughlin intended to pursue a master’s degree in environmental science at UC Santa Barbara.

Coughlin had planned to travel alone but delayed the trip so Kodikian, his best friend since undergrad days, could join him. Coughlin’s co-workers at the Town Hall in Wellesley, Mass., where he researched transportation issues, were relieved his friend had decided to go.

“We were very happy for that,” says co-worker Sandy Hobson. “Raffi was a great guy; David wouldn’t have been friends with him if he wasn’t.”

An added benefit: Kodikian, who worked at a Boston investment firm, had experience jaunting cross-country. Two years earlier he had spent 10 weeks traveling through 25 states, camping out for most of the trip. He chronicled the journey in a freelance series for the Boston Globe.

“I had traveled through deserts, grasslands, mountains, prairies, swamps, rain and a sandstorm,” Kodikian wrote. “My trip has been caked on my tires, dripped on my boots, and seared into my memory as one of the greatest experiences I could have imagined.

“And, God willing, I’ll get the chance to do it again.”

They pulled up to the visitors center around 3 p.m. Coughlin’s uncle had suggested they stop at the park, known for its underground caverns inhabited by thousands of Mexican freetail bats.

But Coughlin and Kodikian didn’t have much time to explore. They picked up an overnight camping permit, listening patiently as the desk attendant reviewed regulations and recommended they carry 1 gallon of water per person per day. Then they drove about a mile to the trailhead for Rattlesnake Canyon.

Gear in tow, they headed down the footpath, carefully negotiating its twists and turns as they descended deep into the canyon.

*

“HELP”

“We filled out a back-country card on Wed afternoon/evening & headed down. Camped Wed, started back on Thursday morning but couldn’t find the entrance to the trail leading to the car. . . . We’ve got minimal water & have been eating cactus fruit.”

According to journal entries released by Kodikian’s lawyer, Gary Mitchell, Coughlin and Kodikian had run out of water by Friday. The words in the notebook grew cryptic.

“We will not let the buzzards get us alive,” read one passage. “God forgive us.”

Another page contained a letter addressed to Sonnet Frost, Coughlin’s girlfriend. It was signed, “David Andrew.”

“I am in utter agony and I know you would understand. . . . I have barely eaten & drank since Wed. evening. Nobody is going to come.”

Mitchell says Coughlin became violently ill, vomiting day and night. Kodikian also was sick, he says, though not as ill as his friend. They hastily scribbled out wills, Mitchell says, and prepared to die.

“Both boys couldn’t stand what was about to happen to them--that is, a slow death--and one friend did what his other friend requested and ended it,” Mitchell says. “There wasn’t any malice or evil, just your best buddy doing what your other best buddy requested and begged for, because they thought it was the end.”

*

About 1:30 p.m. on Aug. 8, Park Ranger Lance Mattson stood alongside a maroon Mazda with Massachusetts plates, scanning the vast canyon below. The camping permit assigned to the vehicle had been issued to two men four days earlier for a one-night stay.

It wasn’t unusual for campers to remain an extra night, or even two, but these guys were way overdue.

“Wanna go look for some lost hikers?” he asked the park volunteer who had alerted him to the car, before setting off past the post marked “Rattlesnake Canyon Trail.”

Mattson worked his way across the mountainside to the top of a ridge and spotted the campsite immediately, although he saw no campers. He began the 670-foot descent. As Mattson approached the campsite, a man rolled out from under a tent.

“Please tell me you have water,” Raffi Kodikian gasped.

Dirty and unshaven, he wore only a pair of shorts. Scrapes crisscrossed his arms and legs, wounds typical of hiking through the back-country brush. The ranger quickly passed him a bottle. The young man gulped ferociously before vomiting--a sign of dehydration.

“Just wet your lips,” Mattson advised as he looked for the other camper. “Where’s your buddy?”

“Over there,” he responded, gesturing toward the canyons beyond. But Mattson didn’t see anyone.

“Where?”

“Right there,” Kodikian insisted, this time pointing to the mound of rocks just a few feet away.

“I killed him.”

*

Mattson says when he first arrived on the scene, the situation appeared desperate. He saw three empty water bottles--just 3 quarts between the two men. Someone had lugged heavy rocks into the pattern of an SOS, although the last S was unfinished.

Some of their gear--a blue sleeping pad, a T-shirt, a sock--was smudged with blood, as were some rocks.

But Kodikian, although dehydrated, could speak coherently and was fine within an hour of receiving a saline IV.

Coughlin’s autopsy showed he was moderately to severely dehydrated, but his urine and blood levels were not deficient to the point of causing death, authorities say.

“He was very much alive when he was stabbed,” says Sheriff Click.

Investigators also question how the pair could have gotten lost in the first place. Their campsite was only 240 feet from the trailhead, which is marked with rock cairns, and a mile from their car. Had they hiked to a higher point, they should have been able to see the trail or the visitors center.

They also wonder how Kodikian, if he was as weak and ill as his lawyer contends, could have buried his friend under rocks weighing up to 50 pounds. Another mystery is why one of the men’s sleeping bags--Coughlin’s, authorities believe--was burned in a fire.

And they note that the men still had provisions: an unopened, family-size can of beans, a hot-dog bun, even a first-aid kit were found at the campsite.

“I keep trying to put myself in their place, and it doesn’t wash,” says ranger Mark Maciha, who arrived at the scene after Mattson.

But desert-survival experts warn against trying to apply rationality to work out what might have happened in such a situation.

“When you start going into dehydration you start making very irrational decisions,” says David Alloway, who teaches a desert-survival workshop at Texas’ Big Bend Ranch State Park. “I’ve seen where people have done some silly things.”

Coughlin’s family appears to be standing by Kodikian. At a memorial service, Coughlin’s brother asked mourners to pray for Kodikian. Coughlin’s father, reached at home, declined to comment.

But at least one man who knew Coughlin wonders how Kodikian could kill the man he called his best friend.

“Worst case scenario: If David did get to the point that he thought it was all over, it was up to Raffi to say, ‘No, we’re going to get out of here. Hang in there,’ ” says Wellesley Deputy Police Chief Terry M. Cunningham, who worked with Coughlin at the town hall.

“You’d find me dead walking out of there, and I’d be carrying my buddy.”