PORT ANGELES — Robert Gene Covarrubias got his wish.
Prisoner No. 810822 turned 29 on Saturday while sitting in the intensive management unit at the Washington Corrections Center west of Shelton, with life in prison his personally chosen future.
Covarrubias, who had won a second trial from the state Court of Appeals, instead pleaded guilty July 23 to first-degree murder with sexual motivation in the 2004 death of 15-year-old Melissa Leigh Carter.
He insisted the rape charge be added to the murder charge.
Covarrubias was sentenced Aug. 5 to 34 ½ years to life in prison.
He was transferred from Clallam County jail to the corrections center for processing and eventually will go to a state prison.
Life in prison is what he told Clallam County Superior Court Judge George L. Wood he wanted, and it’s what he told Port Angeles police Sgt. Eric Kovatch he wanted on July 15 in the first part of a two-part, 93-page confession.
Covarrubias had staunchly insisted he was innocent through his first trial in 2006 and his sentencing for first-degree murder in Carter’s death.
He had begun to serve his sentence when the state Court of Appeals remanded the case on Jan. 6 back to Clallam County for a new trial.
The court cited procedural errors in ordering a new trial — but asserted that enough evidence remained to convict him a second time of murder.
Why did Covarrubias change his plea and demand a life sentence, going so far as to insist he enter prison no later than Aug. 5?
“I don’t ever want to get out, just want to do my life in there [in prison],” Covarrubias told Kovatch in the confession.
“I don’t care no more,” he added. “Just give me life. That’s what I deserve.”
“I was shocked, absolutely,” Kovatch told the Peninsula Daily News in an interview.
“A lot of things were running through my mind because he had steadfastly maintained his innocence from Day 1.”
When he murdered Carter, Covarrubias was 24 and had a criminal record that included serving prison time on burglary, theft, assault and felony drug charges beginning when he was 19.
Carter, known as Messa Mae to her friends, was a former honor roll student at Stevens Middle School, was active in a Sequim Bible youth group and attended Choice Community High School.
Covarrubias said in his confession that their paths first crossed about a week before her death when he bought methamphetamine from a friend of hers.
He was awaiting his new trial for Carter’s murder and was incarcerated at the Clallam County jail when Kovatch got a telephone call on July 15 from a “pen pal” of Covarrubias’.
The woman said Covarrubias wanted to talk to Kovatch “as soon as possible,” the police officer said.
“He specifically asked for me,” said Kovatch, who led the initial police investigation into Carter’s murder and was the first to interview Covarrubias four days after her death.
“He felt I was the only person who didn’t lie on the stand [in the first trial],” he said, adding: “Nobody lied on the stand.”
Retraced steps
What ensued was a 35-minute interview by Kovatch in the jail’s interview room and a two-hour, 24-minute interview with Kovatch and Detective Sgt. Steve Coyle while they drove around Port Angeles, retracing Covarrubias’ steps in the hours leading up to Carter’s death at about 1:30 a.m. on Christmas Eve 2004.
The ride-around ended with a visit to the murder scene on the Waterfront Trail, where Covarrubias said Carter had suggested they go to smoke methamphetamine, according to his confession.
“Those are the words of a confessed murderer,” Kovatch said.
“You can place what credibility you want on those words.”
Said Coyle: “The important part of the story is that this girl was brutally murdered.”
As they drove around Port Angeles, Covarrubias was handcuffed to a belly chain and shackled with leg irons.
Coyle asked most of the questions while U.S. Border Patrol Special Agent Keith Fisher drove.
Kovatch sat in the back seat, lighting cigarettes for Covarrubias and running the tape recorder, he said.
Their car was shadowed by at least one other police vehicle.
They first drove to a once-abandoned house, now occupied, that sits obscured by trees and bushes two blocks from the post office.
Covarrubias said he slept there during the weeks leading up to the murder.
Previous prison time
He had come to Port Angeles after being released from Clallam Bay Corrections Center on Dec. 6, 2004.
He had served about one month for failing to report to his community corrections officer and leaving Washington state without permission, Department of Corrections spokesman Chad Lewis said.
Covarrubias was first taken by Fisher, Coyle and Kovatch to the Lincoln Street Safeway, where Covarrubias said he had stolen two 30-packs of beer.
He also said he stole a sandwich from a convenience store later the same day.
“That’s shopping for him,” Kovatch said.
Covarrubias and the officers then visited the now-closed Chinook Motel, 13 blocks from the house.
It was there that Covarrubias, Carter and eight other people, including two juveniles, partied hours before he murdered Carter, according to the confession.
Corvarrubias told the officers he shot meth at the party and drank heavily.
“I mean, I drank 11 beers that night . . . took four or five shots of whiskey or rum, whatever they had . . . I wasn’t tipsy at all, you know? I was just . . . gone . . . on meth,” Covarrubias said as written in the transcript, which includes the ellipses.
“The idea that was just in my mind is . . . sex.”
At about 12:30 a.m., as Christmas Eve began, Carter and her boyfriend, Travis Criswell, had an argument, Covarrubias said.
Those at the party would not let Carter stay, so she grabbed her purse and “stormed out,” he said.
Followed Carter
Within seconds, Covarrubias followed her outside.
“I walked out and never looked back,” he said.
He and Carter walked west down First Street, and Carter suggested they go to the Waterfront Trail, Covarrubias said.
They arrived there at about 1:30 a.m.
Fisher drove the police car onto the Waterfront Trail, which the city closed for Covarrubias’ interview.
Covarrubias said he and Carter walked up a hill just off the trail.
He walked behind her, he said.
“What were you thinkin’ you were gonna do?” Coyle asked.
“I just wanted to . . . surprise her from behind,” Covarrubias said.
“What happened after you grabbed her?” asks Coyle.
“Just . . . I just strangled her,” Covarrubias said.
He laid her on the ground, ripped her clothes off and tore his clothes off, too, while she lay there, he said, identifying boxer shorts later found at the scene as his.
A hair was found inside the shorts that was slated for DNA testing for his second trial.
“Why did you choke her, Rob?” Coyle asked Covarrubias .
They stood where Covarrubias said he killed Carter.
“I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want her to see me,” he responded, according to the transcript.
“I didn’t want her to see what I was doin’. I didn’t want her to . . . see with her eyes. I didn’t want her to . . . know.”
He raped her while she was still moving, he said.
She never struggled, he said.
“There was nothin’.”
What does he remember about strangling her?
“It’s . . . absolute quietness.”
Carter’s nude body was found two days later, in a hollow just off the trail about 600 feet east of the Port Angeles Red Lion Hotel.
Covarrubias was asked during the interview if he intended to murder her.
“I don’t know what I intended,” he said.
“I was obviously real high, but I’m not going to blame my high on what I did.”
Covarrubias said in his confession that he wanted to go to prison by Aug. 5, not explaining why.
“I want a deal of life without possibility of parole,” he said.
“That’s what I want. I want life. I should be able to get life, that’s the maximum penalty.
“And I got on the stand, I committed perjury, so you can add that on there.
“I wasted all these taxpayers’ monies on all these courts, and it’s probably being wasted right now as they’re doing more DNA tests that don’t need to be done.”
Kovatch had reminded Covarrubias that by confessing, he was pleading guilty.
The police officer asked him why he was doing it.
“I’m done with it,” Covarrubias responds. “I’m done with it.”
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Staff writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-417-3536 or at paul.gottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.
