Woman to Oppose Mercy for Son’s Killer

The mother of an 11-year-old boy killed in a savage Chino Hills murder spree more than two decades ago vowed Monday to fight the convicted killer’s last-ditch campaign for clemency before his scheduled Feb. 10 execution.

Mary Ann Hughes, whose son Christopher was killed along with three members of another Chino Hills family, also expressed outrage that some well-known actors, including Denzel Washington and Sean Penn, joined several others in signing a letter to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger asking that he delay the execution of Kevin Cooper. The letter raised questions about evidence that, the letter stated, might exonerate Cooper.

“I’ve had it; this is war. I’m not going to sit back and let [Cooper’s legal team] lie at our expense,” Hughes said in a telephone interview from her home in Chino Hills. “What I’d like to do with the celebrities is for them to let Kevin Cooper be their house guest. Let him show them his scrapbook from what he did inside that home.”

Hughes said she plans to launch her own lobbying effort for Cooper’s execution and will pursue newspaper, radio and television interviews to tell her side of the story.

Hughes’ son, Christopher, was a house guest of Douglas and Peggy Ryen when Cooper broke into their home. Cooper, an escaped prison inmate, used a hatchet, knife and ice pick to bludgeon and stab to the Ryens, their 10-year-old daughter, Jessica, and Christopher. Cooper also slashed the neck of 8-year-old Joshua Ryen, Christopher’s best friend, but he survived the attack.

“He deserves to go to meet the devil,” Hughes said. “That’s exactly where he belongs.”

The Cooper case is the first death penalty case to reach Schwarzenegger, and a governor’s spokeswoman said Monday that he is reviewing the materials on the case he has received. The governor’s decision to approve or deny a clemency hearing could come this week.

At the request of Cooper’s defense attorneys, four members of the jury that sentenced Cooper to death in 1985 wrote to the governor and asked that Cooper’s execution be canceled or delayed until questions are answered. Two other jurors have requested that some evidence undergo further testing.

David Alexander, Cooper’s lead attorney, on Monday formally asked Schwarzenegger to either commute Cooper’s sentence to life in prison or grant him a reprieve to allow for evidence testing. Alexander wants some hairs found at the murder scene and a droplet of blood to be tested to ensure they do not belong to other suspects or were not planted by police.

“I really think Cooper’s guilty, but I have questions, and I hate to think they’ll put this person to death with these questions unanswered,” said Jetalyn Kahloah Doxey, a Cooper juror. “The time is here for him to die, and this is tormenting me. It’s grueling to think about, and if he’s executed now, I’ll be devastated.”

Lanny Davis, former special counsel in the Clinton administration, is assisting the Cooper defense team and has accused the lead San Bernardino County prosecutor on the case of misconduct and “withholding and twisting the facts.”

Prosecutor John Kochis dismissed those accusations, saying Cooper’s attorneys are playing “fast and loose with the facts.”

Cooper escaped from the state prison in Chino two days before the 1983 murders and hid in a small house next door to the Ryens.

Police found prints of prison-issue shoes inside the Ryen home and on a spa cover outside the master bedroom. They also found a rope with Douglas Ryen’s blood in the neighbor’s house where Cooper had been hiding, Kochis said. Other DNA-tested evidence found in the Ryen home also tied Cooper to the murders, he said.

Mary Ann Hughes said she still cringes at the memory of Cooper turning around to grin at her and her husband during the trial.

“He’s going to continue to lie about what he did until they put the needle in him,” Hughes said. “He has no remorse. Nothing.”