Cooper Won’t Ask for Mercy as Jury Weighs Life or Death

Although he is facing a possible death penalty, convicted mass murderer Kevin Cooper will not throw himself on the mercy of the court, his attorney said Thursday.

Defense lawyer David Negus said that under normal circumstances a person convicted of first-degree murder would ask for mercy to avoid the gas chamber.

“But Kevin Cooper cannot do that. He won’t do that. He told you before that he didn’t commit the crime, and he maintains his innocence,” Negus said in his opening statement to the jury hearing the penalty phase of the trial.

Instead, Negus said he will call Cooper’s family to testify on Monday in an attempt to convince jurors that Cooper should receive life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Negus made the comments as jurors began hearing testimony in the penalty phase of Cooper’s trial. Cooper, 27, was convicted Tuesday of the brutal 1983 ax murders of four people who were hacked and stabbed to death in a Chino Hills home. The same jury that convicted Cooper must now decide if he is to die in the gas chamber or be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

The bodies of Doug and Peg Ryen, both 41, their daughter, Jessica, 10, and Christopher Hughes, 11, were discovered June 5, 1983, in the Ryens’ Chino Hills home, three days after Cooper escaped from the nearby Chino prison. Joshua Ryen, the Ryens’ 9-year-old son, survived a slashed throat and blows to the head.

On Thursday prosecutors presented five witnesses from Pennsylvania, Cooper’s home state, who testified about a burglary and rape that Cooper is alleged to have committed there in October, 1982, after his escape from a state mental hospital. Pennsylvania authorities have charged Cooper with rape, kidnaping and assault in connection with that incident.

The Pennsylvania rape victim, who was 18 at the time of the assault, testified that her attacker told her, “I should kill you,” after leaving her partly naked in a darkened Pittsburgh park.

She said that on the night of Oct. 8, 1982, she had driven to a friend’s home near Pittsburgh. Police said that Cooper was in burglarizing the unoccupied home when the victim knocked at the door.

“He opened the door, I took a step and he struck me on the face . . . He grabbed the back of my hair and forced me to my vehicle,” said the woman.

After arriving at a city park, Cooper forced the woman to remove her pants but allowed her to remain clothed from the waist up. She testified that Cooper pulled her by the hair and dragged her out of the car.

After assaulting the woman, Cooper left in her car, saying, “I should kill you.”

Although the woman never saw her attacker’s face, police were able to identify Cooper as the rapist with the aid of scientifically processed evidence.

Police said that Cooper forced his way into the Pennsylvania home by breaking the window on a kitchen door. Investigators also found Cooper’s fingerprint on the window and his palm print on the gearshift knob of the rape victim’s car.

A police criminalist testified that tests done on the semen taken from the rape victim indicated that it came from Cooper.