The trial of Nicholas McGuffin, charged with the 2000 murder of 15 year old Leah Freeman begins tomorrow almost eleven years to the day after her death. It has been a long and circuitous journey from the night she was first reported missing to the Coquille Police Department, which passed her disappearance off as a runaway, to the discovery of her body weeks later off a remote stretch of logging road and finally to trial this week. From the beginning, the odds of this murder ever reaching trial were heavily stacked against it by an incompetent, insecure and abusive former police chief, Mike Reaves, and a fossilized city council that defended him instead of protecting its constituents.

Reaves ran the police department not as a law enforcement and public safety agency but as a revenue collection service. The city of 4,300 working class people would see six hundred officer initiated reports and citations per month on petty infractions like seat belts or helmet violations. Officers of the Coquille PD were regarded more as an organized gang of street thugs shaking down their fellow citizens than as protectors. Real crimes went unsolved and because the public distrusted the department so much were frequently unreported. Reaves’ quick dismissal of the missing person report filed by Freeman’s mother, Cory Courtright, entering into the long 4th of July weekend was totally in keeping with the disdain and contempt he showed to most residents.

From the beginning, and even after the discovery of the body, Reaves was reluctant to allow experienced outside help in to investigate and eventually the case went cold. Reaves’ orchestrated reign of terror upon everyday Coquille citizens, however, continued unabated. In January of 2008, Officer James Bryant, frequently accused of brutality, along with another officer was involved in an arrest that left Carl Foster, 5’4″ tall and 115 pounds a quadriplegic. Paul Frasier, the same district attorney trying McGuffin, held a grand jury investigation that inconceivably found Bryant innocent of using excessive force. Always, the Coquille city manager, Terrence O’Connor and the city council stood against their constituents and behind Reaves’ including his decision to keep Bryant on the force. (Bryant was later canned by Dannels over an unrelated incident).

Courtright continued her efforts to keep the case in the public eye. She wrote letters held vigils and spoke out at the city council requesting again and again to allow outside investigators to assist with the case. Reaves maintained the obviously dead investigation was ongoing and in some sort of jurisdictional pissing match adamantly refused any outside help.

In 2007 a gathering instigated by a local CPD victim, Clifford Latta, helped organized the community to rise up against the tyrannical behavior of the CPD and the indifference exhibited by the city council. A series of protests were organized by another relative of Freeman, Dian Courtright, demanding higher standards of law enforcement. Reaves called these citizens malcontents and through his lawyer, the ‘hairy unwashed’. The protests continued and combined with repeated impassioned pleas from Cory Courtright led to the appointment in the summer of 2008 of a new police chief, Mark Dannels.

Dannels reopened the Freeman case, invited expertise from other local law enforcement and built a strong multi-agency team to work on solving the murder.  The team interviewed more than a hundred witnesses and eventually pieced together enough evidence to satisfy the grand jury and charge Freeman’s boyfriend, Nick McGuffin, with her murder. In short, the community had to rise up and get rid of one police chief and demand excellence of a replacement before any hope of closure for Freeman’s family would ever be possible.

Dannels also rebuilt the reputation of the Coquille PD and brought a new attention to solving crimes and less focus on revenue generation. Citizens were no longer afraid to report crimes to the police department leading some people to remark that crime had risen since Dannels appointment. Convictions for real crimes also rose. Today, citizens are proud rather than fearful of the Coquille Police Department.

Whether the district attorney can prove McGuffin guilty beyond a reasonable doubt or not, this trial is a triumph of a mother’s will to see justice for her daughter despite impossible odds. For the citizens who rose up to bring badly needed changes to their city it is proof that working together, even against the inertia of an aging and disdainful city council and an unfeeling city manager, can make a difference.

We love you Leah