PORT ANGELES – Robert Gene Covarrubias, who has maintained over the past five years that he was innocent of murdering 15-year-old Melissa Leigh Carter, has confessed to the crime.
He intends to plead guilty as soon as he can and wants to go to prison by Aug. 5.
It is a stunning change of course for the 28-year-old Covarrubias, who went so far as to write “INNOCENT” with a jail laundry marker on the back of his striped inmate jumpsuit, displaying the word to the courtroom audience while standing for murder sentencing in April 2006.
Covarrubias’ taped confession last Wednesday to Port Angeles Police Detective Sgt. Eric Kovatch came to light at an unscheduled Clallam County Superior Court status hearing Monday for Covarrubias’ new first-degree murder trial, which was slated for Sept. 21.
Clallam County Prosecuting Attorney Deb Kelly had requested a court hearing Monday in light of the confession given last week, she said.
At the hearing, she entered into the court record Covarrubias’ 83-page confession.
Found above trail
The nude body of Carter — who was known as “Messa Mae” to her friends and family — was found in brush above the Waterfront Trail on Dec. 26, 2004.
She was last seen alive at a party at the now-closed Chinook Motel on Dec. 23, and witnesses tied Covar rubias to her.
“It’s a good day, a good day, a good day,” said Melissa Carter’s mother, Carla Carter, 45, after Covarrubias’ confession became public in court.
Her daughter would have turned 19 in February.
“[Covarrubias] always said he was innocent,” she said.
“I never expected him to step up to the plate. I never thought he had it in him.
“Maybe his conscience got to him. Something changed his mind, and we are all glad about that.”
Judge George L. Wood said he will not make the confession transcript public for now — leaving open the question of why Covarrubias changed his mind after so vigorously maintaining his innocence.
‘Ralph, I’m done’
Covarrubias’ shocked lawyer, Ralph Anderson of Port Angeles, learned of Covarrubias’ change of heart in a July 10 letter that Anderson received Friday.
“Ralph, I’m done! I want to plead guilty,” Covarrubias said in the first line of the letter, the rest of which Anderson would not release.
Anderson also would not discuss the contents of the confession, but said neither the letter nor the confession transcript went much beyond Covarrubias’ exasperated “I’m done” comment in explaining the about-face.
Nor did the transcript supply an explanation “to my satisfaction,” Anderson said.
“It’s just that he’s tired of it and he wants it over with,” Anderson said.
“Beyond that, I don’t know. I have no further clues. I still don’t understand it.”
But Anderson said Covar rubias asked him not to look into the circumstances surrounding the confession and insisted he not try to talk him out of his decision.
“The letter explained what my desires were,” Covarrubias said in court to Wood on Monday.
Unusual confession
Anderson, a lawyer for 32 years, said the confession was unusual in that Anderson was not notified that Covarrubias wanted to change his plea and therefore was not present when he confessed to Port Angeles police detectives.
“My first reaction was that my client was insane,” Anderson told Wood, adding in a later interview that he considered sending Covar rubias to Western State Hospital for a mental evaluation.
“I can negotiate a better deal on a murder case than 20 years,” Anderson told Wood, referring to the minimum sentence for first-degree murder.
But Covarrubias wants to be sentenced “as soon as possible, by Aug. 5,” Kelly said.
20 years to life
Wood can sentence Covar rubias to 20 years to life for first-degree murder.
He was sentenced to 34 ½ years in April 2006 after a jury in Port Angeles convicted him of first-degree murder in Carter’s death.
But the state Court of Appeals on Jan. 6 ordered a new trial, citing errors in the first trial while asserting that there remained enough evidence to convict him.
Covarrubias had famously scrawled “INNOCENT” on the jail jumpsuit he wore at his sentencing in 2006.
He also wrote “innocent” on court papers at his next hearing April 25 — the first since his sentencing.
Peninsula Daily News photographers captured both gestures of innocence at the two separate hearings.
Similar sentence?
Anderson said in a later interview that he and Kelly expect a similar sentence the second time around, and Anderson said he was strongly opposed to a harsher punishment.
“A lot of it depends on Mr. Covarrubias,” Kelly responded, adding that the chances for a harsher sentence are lessened when there are no aggravating factors, of which there are none in the Covarrubias case.
“It’s very unusual to see this happen,” Kelly said.
“I can’t think of any other case in my career where it’s happened, given the sort of history we’ve had here.”
Carter’s decomposing body was found in a brushy hollow above the popular trail near the foot of Vine Street, about a block east of the Red Lion Hotel.
Police believe she was raped.
She had vanished three days earlier after attending a party at the Chinook Motel, located about a mile from where her body was found.
Covarrubias had been released from prison on another conviction on Dec. 6, 2004, and was living in what Anderson had called a flophouse when he attended the same party at the Chinook.
Covarrubias had spent several years in prison for illegal drug sales, burglary and theft.
Carla Carter attended Monday’s hearing along with about 20 other spectators, while two deputies kept watchful eyes on Covar rubias.
By Monday morning, some courthouse staff had already heard that he had confessed, while Carter said she learned of it Friday from her ex-husband.
“My first reaction was disbelief,” she said, adding she and her family were greatly relieved that they did not have to go through a second trial.
The reality and impact of Covarrubias’ confession sunk in at Monday’s hearing, Carter said.
“I was happy about it. It was a bittersweet but good feeling. I felt like a whole weight was lifted off,” she said.
Now she and her family are preparing for sentencing, when they will tell Covarrubias in court, in public, how what he did fractured their lives.
“I want it to sink into him what he took away,” Carter said.
“She was my daughter, a sister and a best friend to many people. I never had a chance to be a grandma, and she never got to grow up and have kids and have a family of her own.
“He took a big chunk out of my heart and life that can’t be replaced.”
Status hearing
Anderson said Covarrubias likely would have changed his plea at today’s status hearing had he notified Anderson sooner that he had had a change of heart.
“If they had consulted me ahead of time and had the client indicated to me that he did it, we would probably be doing a plea today,” Anderson said.
Another status hearing is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday at the county courthouse “to see where we all are” in setting up a sentencing hearing, Kelly said.
Covarrubias — who was brought back to Port Angeles after serving time on his first conviction in New Hampshire on a contractual basis with Washington state — remains in Clallam County jail on $1 million bail.
By the time he is sentenced, Carter expects a commemorative bench in her daughter’s honor will be finished and ready for placing outside Lincoln High School, known as Choice Alternative School when Melissa attended classes there.
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
