More Kevin Cooper is Guilty

Will New York Times report this?

New York Times columnist Nick Kristof has not responded to my tweets asking if he read the new report commissioned by Gov. Gavin Newsom that confirms that Kevin Cooper is guilty of the 1983 murders that put him on California’s death row.

So I went to his 2021 piece, “Is an Innocent Man Still Languishing on Death Row?”

It does not speak well for the New York Times opinion editors that they ran this extraordinarily long piece based on such thin gruel. But then Kristof argued that despite a guilty jury verdict and judicial reviews that upheld the conviction and death sentence, he only had to establish “doubt.”

Kristof knew how to nurture that doubt. Contrary information? Pretend it does not exist. Kristof never addressed the fact that I spoke to two professionals who had worked on Cooper’s defense; they recognized that the evidence established Cooper brutally murdered Chino Hills chiropractors Doug and Peggy Ryen, their ten-year-old daughter Jessica and Christopher Hughes, the 11-year-old friend of son Joshua Ryen, who somehow survived having his throat slashed.

So what did he get wrong? Here Kristof suggests law enforcement targeted Cooper because he was Black even though they should have been looking for three white men:

The horrifying murder of a beautiful white family in Chino Hills, Calif., created enormous public pressure on the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Office to solve the crime. Although Josh had indicated that the attack was committed by several white men, the sheriff announced just four days after the bodies were found that the sole suspect was Kevin Cooper, a young Black man with a long criminal record who had recently walked away from a minimum-security prison and then hid in an empty house near the Ryens’.

The special counsel’s report noted, there was not terrific pressure to name a killer two days after the crime was discovered. As for the white men, the report noted:

First, after he was found alive on June 5, 1983, eight-year-old Josh Ryen was flown to the Loma Linda University Medical Center. Although Josh’s throat had been slashed, he was heavily medicated, and he was in shock, clinical social worker Donald Gamundoy and Deputy Sheriff Sharp attempted to get some information from him about the crimes, using gestures, hand squeezing, and pointing to letters on a clipboard to allow Josh to convey information. On direct examination by Cooper’s counsel, Gamundoy said that he had elicited information from Josh that three White men had attacked him. (99 R.T. 5928-29.) But on cross-examination, Gamundoy said that he had not used the words “attacker” or “attacked” when trying to learn information from Josh; he had asked how many were there. (99 R.T. 5958-59.) Deputy Sharp elicited information from Josh indicating that three White men had been in the house. Later that day, Deputy Sharp further questioned Josh who indicated through hand squeezes that three Mexican men had been at the Ryens’ house around dusk. Deputy Sharp testified that he asked Josh if “he felt these were the people in the same house the morning when everything went crazy,” and Josh Ryen indicated “yes.” (99 R.T. 6039 (emphasis added).) The information gleaned from Josh Ryen was imprecise. Neither Gamundoy nor Sharp testified to specifically asking Josh Ryen if he saw three men at the time of the crime. (99 R.T. 5928- 30 (clinical social worker D. Gamundoy), 6010 (Det. M. Sharp); Discovery at 435-36.) Second, Detective O’Campo interviewed Josh Ryen on June 14, 1983, when he 57 was able to speak. A psychologist, Dr. Hoyle, was present during O’Campo’s interview. Dr. Hoyle testified that Josh did not state in that interview that he had seen three Mexican men in the house during the attack.

By the way, Cooper became a suspect, not because he was Black, but because he was one of three men who had escaped from a nearby prison within days of the killings. From the special counsel:

Because the Ryens’ house was within two miles of the California Institute for Men (“CIM”), then a minimum security state prison, and Boys Republic (an all-boys’ school in Chino Hills that housed troubled adolescents), the authorities looked into several persons who had recently gone missing from those institutions. On June 5, 1983, the Sheriff’s Department learned of three people who had escaped from CIM days before the murders, including “David Trautman,” who had escaped on June 2, 1983. (Discovery at 1730.)2 Also on June 5, 1983, the Sheriff’s Department determined that Trautman’s true identity was Kevin Cooper..

After the Sheriff’s Department realized that someone had been staying in the vacant house next to the Ryens’ home, authorities checked phone records and discovered two long distance calls to women in California and Pennsylvania. The women , they learned, had been talking to Cooper.

This morning I spoke with Mary Ann Hughes, mother of Christopher Hughes. In June, it will be 40 years since her son was killed.

Hughes is convinced that if the special counsel appointed by Gov. Gavin Newsom had found in Cooper’s favor, the report would have been a huge story and national news. She hopes that the report will end Cooper’s painful (to her) efforts to win clemency.

Will the New York Times run a story about the report, which so thoroughly contradicted Kristof?

“It’s amazing how silent, unless I’m missing something, the whole defense is,” Hughes noted.

I have reached out to Cooper’s attorney. I’ll let you know after I get a response.

One other thing: Hughes tells me she has not heard from Kristof. I think we know why.

Addendum: Here is a PDF of the report.

2023 01 13 Sc Report Invest

13.6MB ∙ PDF file

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Debra J. Saunders is a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute’s Chapman Center for Citizen Leadership. Contact her at dsaunders@discovery.org.