Chino Hills Massacre

Who were the Ryens?

Peggy Ann Howell grew up in Pennsylvania with her mother. She loved animals, particularly horses. She spent much of her childhood training horses and entering them in competitions. She was most definitely a horse girl! Peggy dreamt of growing up to be a veterinarian, but decided to follow in her mother’s path. She graduated from the Palmer School of Chiropractic in Davenport, Iowa in 1963, just as her mother, Dr. Mary Howell had done previously. She joined her mother’s private chiropractic office in Santa Ana, California, before opening her own clinic several years later. When Peggy attended a college reunion in 1970, she met a young man named Franklin Douglas Ryen, better known as Doug. Doug was a former Marine who was near graduation at the school. Doug had been previously married, but was now separated. Unlike Peggy, who grew up in sunny California, Doug was from the Midwest. 

Peggy and Doug quickly grew close and started dating. Two months after Doug’s divorce was final, on December 20th, 1970, the two got married. Doug joined his wife at her chiropractic clinic, but decided to sell when Peggy became pregnant. They used the proceeds to fund their move to Olympia, Washington, where they opened another clinic. Peggy was finally able to purchase some horses of her own; two beautiful Arabian horses. On November 9th, 1972, Peggy gave birth to the Ryens’ first child, a daughter named Jessica Kate Ryen.

Unfortunately, the cost of raising and training the family’s two horses had become significant. With a new baby and the pressure of the chiropractic clinic succeeding being left to Doug, he and his wife made the decision to move back to Santa Ana to join his mother-in-law’s practice in 1973. Peggy’s mother, Mary, gave the family a loan to help them purchase a home with a large backyard for the horses. She now had a total of five horses and one of them was pregnant!

While Peggy, Doug, and Jessica loved their home and backyard, their neighbors were a different story. They consistently complained about the Ryen family raising the horses in the backyard. Always willing to help her daughter, Mary bought a four-bedroom house in Chino Hills, about 30 minutes away. The horses were moved to her house. Meanwhile, the Ryens began doing their own searches for a ranch home. Peggy was pregnant again and she and Doug were excited for their first son. Additionally, several of Peggy’s horses were pregnant and she was incredibly excited to continue training, competing, and breeding her horses! In a letter to a family member, she wrote, “Right now we are horse poor, but give us five years of our planned breeding program and we’ll have only the best. It’s so exciting!  Finally, after all of these years of wanting, I’ve got what I’ve always wanted.” 

Not long after Mary moved to Chino Hills, the Ryen family found a house just up the hill from Mary’s. It was five acres with a barn and a riding ring. The house wasn’t in great condition, however Peggy and Doug planned to fix it up. In 1975, Peggy, Doug, Jessica, and baby Joshua moved into the farmhouse, into a neighborhood populated with several other Arabian horse breeders on Old English Road. The tight-knit group of horse breeders referred to their group as the “Arabian Horse Center of South California”. Just like her mother, Jessica grew up around horses. She loved riding them and helping her mom take care of them. She too was a horse girl! The Ryen family had finally settled down in Chino Hills and were happy to have land and room to continue breeding their horses and growing their family.

The Day of the Murders

On Saturday, June 4th, 1983, 41-year-old Peggy, 41-year-old Doug, 10-year-old Jessica, 8-year-old Josh, and Josh’s friend, 11-year-old Christopher Hughes went to a potluck in the Ryen’s neighborhood. There were about 100 other neighbors there, most of them fellow horse friends. Everyone gathered at the home of George and Valerie Blade, bringing food and drinks to share. Chris got permission from his parents to spend the night at the Ryens’ home after the party. The Blades’ son, Jason asked his parents if he could join the sleepover too, but they said no since his grandmother was visiting. 

Around 9:30PM, the Ryens and Chris returned to the family’s home. The boys fell asleep in their sleeping bags on the floor in Josh’s room. Jessica slept in her own bed, while Doug watched some television before joining his wife in bed in the master bedroom. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as the family went to bed.

Early the next morning, Sunday, June 5th, Mary Ann Hughes called the Ryen household when her son, Chris, hadn’t returned home yet. He was supposed to be home at 9AM to attend church service with his family. Mrs. Hughes called several times, but each time, she got a busy signal. Thinking perhaps the Ryens and Chris went to breakfast or ran an errand, she waited for her son to return, but he didn’t. At 11AM, Mrs. Hughes drove to the Ryens’ nearby home and knocked on the front door. She got no answer. The door was locked, so she walked around the house and tried to peer in the windows of Jessica and Josh’s bedrooms, but couldn’t see anything. She yelled out for the family and Chris, but nobody responded and she didn’t hear anything coming from inside the house. The family’s station wagon wasn’t in the driveway, which further confirmed her suspicions that the family may have gone out. Still, Mrs. Hughes drove home and asked her husband to go to the Ryens’ home to see if he could figure out what was going on.

Bill Hughes then drove up the road to the house. Again, there was no answer at the front door. He walked around the home and approached the sliding glass door that led into the master bedroom. What he saw made his stomach drop. He initially believed he was looking at paint and makeup, but what Mr. Hughes really saw was the horrific scene of a bloody massacre.

Through the glass door, Mr. Hughes could see Peggy laying in the middle of the room. She was nude and covered in blood. Her husband was kneeling by the edge of the bed, also nude and covered in blood. Just past Peggy, Mr. Hughes saw his son laying on his stomach. He wasn’t moving. Josh, also covered in blood, was curled up in a fetal position by his friend. Josh was the only one who appeared to be moving, however his eyes were vacant and he had cuts all over his face. Mr. Hughes tried to pull the sliding door open, but he couldn’t. The door was actually unlocked, however in his panic, Mr. Hughes was pulling it in the wrong direction. Mr. Hughes yelled for Josh to open the door so he could help, but Josh couldn’t move.

Mr. Hughes ran around the side of the house to the kitchen door and kicked it in. Playing on the floor of the kitchen were the family’s two dogs and three kittens. (How eerie) Mr. Hughes headed straight for the master bedroom. In the doorway leading to the bedroom, he found Jessica. Like the rest of the family, she was covered in blood and lacerations. Mr. Hughes reached down to try to help her, but once he touched her, he knew that she was beyond help. Rigor Morris had already set in. As he stepped over her and into the bedroom, he called out to Josh and asked him what happened. Josh tried to speak, but he couldn’t form any words. 

Mr. Hughes moved to his son to find similar findings to Jessica. Chris was bloodied and had significant facial and head injuries, along with rigor mortis. He found that both Peggy and Doug were also beyond help. Mr. Hughes tried to call 911 from the Ryens’ landline phone, but it wasn’t working. He ran next door to have a neighbor call 911. Mr. Hughes, in a terrible state of shock, left the neighbor to wait for police while he drove home to tell his wife what happened.

Several paramedics and firefighters arrived on scene around 12:30PM. Peggy, Doug, Jessica Ryen, and Chris Hughes were pronounced dead on scene. Paramedics went on to do everything they could for 8-year-old Josh Ryen. Josh was in a significant state of shock after so much blood loss. His throat had been slit from ear to ear, which is why he couldn’t speak. He had a large wound to his head, multiple stab wounds to the back, as well as large lacerations across the rest of his face, chest, and head. Josh reportedly had kept his fingers pressed on his throat to stop the bleeding. Despite these catastrophic injuries, Josh was still able to hold up eight fingers when the paramedics asked him how old he was. After initial attempts to stabilize Josh, the paramedics loaded him onto a medical helicopter where he was air-lifted to the local hospital. He arrived at the hospital at 1:36PM. 

As the surgeons began to assess and treat Josh, they found that the stab wounds to his back had fractured three of his ribs and punctured a lung. The wound to his head had fractured his skull and his ear was nearly severed. He also had a fractured collarbone. He was sedated and intubated while surgeons treated his injuries and stabilized him.

Who would do this?!

Mary, Josh’s grandmother, sat by his side at Loma Linda University hospital, waiting for her grandson to wake up. Josh was devastated to learn that his mother, father, sister, and friend were all dead. Mary even said that Josh told her that he wished he’d died too so he could be with them. 

Police wasted no time in talking to Josh to see if he could help them figure out what happened that night. A clinical social worker by the name of Donald Gamundoy interviewed Josh on the same afternoon that he was brought into the hospital. He used a chart of words and numbers and asked Josh to point to his answers. He asked the young boy how many people there were and Josh pointed to three. Gamundoy asked if they were male and Josh pointed to yes. Josh pointed to no when asked if the men were black. He pointed to yes when asked if the men were white. Gamundoy also said that Josh was able to communicate that he’d seen the men before. 

San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputy Ervin Dale Sharp later testified that he also interviewed Josh on the day he was brought into the emergency room. Sharp said that he’d actually interviewed him twice that day. Josh answered questions by squeezing the deputy’s hand for yes and not squeezing for no. During the first interview, he indicated that there were three white men in the house during the attack, but that he didn’t know them. However, Sharp said that during the second interview an hour later, Josh said that the three men were Hispanic and that they attacked the family between 4 and 5AM that morning. He added that Josh said the three Hispanic males were between 18 and 20 years old and possibly driving a Chevrolet Impala, AND had been at the Ryens’ house on June 4th. 

It seemed like a given that there were multiple perpetrators responsible for the massacre. The coroner’s initial determination was that there had been several assailants and that three different weapons had been used to inflict the wounds found: a hatchet, an ice pick, and a knife. Doug had a total of 37 wounds, most of them on his chest, upper extremities, and head. Peggy had 33 wounds, most on her upper abdomen and head and face. Jessica had the most wounds by far, with a total of 46 wounds. She had a large amount of wounds to the right arm and her head, as well as her chest. Chris suffered from 26 wounds and multiple skull fractures. The injuries were catastrophic and all of the victims likely bled out quickly. 

The same day as the family had been discovered, a neighbor found a bloody hatchet down the road from the Ryen house. The Ryens’ station wagon was also still missing. There was limited forensic testing available at the time and there reportedly wasn’t much evidence found at the scene that could be tested. A neighbor told police that they’d seen three men driving to and from the Ryens’ home on Saturday afternoon. Weirdly enough, there were multiple loaded weapons in the Ryens’ master bedroom that had never been touched. 

The Suspect

Investigators began looking for three men who’d recently escaped from the nearby California Institution for Men. The three prisoners were Alboro Knori, Michael Martinez, and David Troutman. While there was no specific evidence linking these men to the murders, it seemed like a worthwhile avenue for police to investigate. They’d also searched a vacant house that was just about 125 yards away from the Ryens’. The house was used as a rental home, but was unoccupied at the time. The San Bernardino County Sheriff, Floyd Tidwell, said that inside of the vacant home, they’d found blood, clothing, and other evidence that indicated that the person who’d been squatting there was involved in the Ryens’ murders. 

On Monday, June 6th, the day after the Ryens were found, Allboro Knori, one of the escaped convicts, was located 40 miles from Chino Hills and ultimately cleared of any involvement. Just after this, Sheriff Tidwell held a news conference stating that the murders happened one right after the other and that there was more than one person behind them.

On Tuesday, June 7th, the prints found at the vacant home were matched to a convicted burglar named Kevin Cooper. Another of the escaped convicts, Michael Martinez was located and cleared of any involvement. A warrant was issued for the arrest of 25-year-old Kevin Cooper. They also determined that David Troutman, the third escaped convict, was actually Kevin Cooper. Cooper had stolen identification from David Troutman and been imprisoned under the name. On June 9th, Cooper was charged with four counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, and a warrant was issued for his arrest. Sheriff Tidwell said that Cooper was the only suspect. Shortly after the murders, the Ryens’ missing station wagon was found in a Long Beach parking lot.

In the search for Cooper, police found that a hotel manager in Tijuana recalled that Cooper checked in around 4PM on June 5th and checked out on the 8th. The hotel was about 130 miles south of Chino Hills. As the manhunt for Cooper continued, investigators learned that Cooper had escaped from a minimum security prison on June 2nd. He had been imprisoned for two residential burglaries. The year prior, he’d been in Pennsylvania, where he’d been suspected of a rape of a young girl who’d been at a home that he was burglarizing.

A few days after the murders, Cooper made friends with a couple in Mexico and went on a boat trip with them up the coast of California. Several weeks later, Cooper was arrested by Santa Barbara police after being accused of attempted rape at knife point on a boat. Several items were found on the boat that had been taken from the vacant home near the Ryens’.

Inside the vacant home, investigators found the sheath from the bloody hatchet, along with a strap from one of several knives that were missing from the home. There was also an ice pick found to be missing. There was a button from a prison jacket that was the same as what Cooper was wearing when he escaped prison, however, there are conflicting reports that said that Cooper was actually wearing a different colored uniform. There were shoe prints found in both the vacant home and the Ryens’ home that matched the shoes that were issued to inmates, and they were also the same size as Cooper’s.

There was an initial search of the Ryens’ station wagon where blood was found on three of the car seats. A second search revealed two cigarette butts that contained Cooper’s DNA. The tobacco found in the vehicle was reported to be exclusively issued to inmates.

Upon Cooper’s arrest, he admitted to having stayed in the vacant home, but denied any involvement in the murders. In the Ryens’ home, there was a massive amount of blood across the floors and walls. Crime scene investigators found a drop of blood that matched Cooper’s blood type, however the amount was too small to determine if it matched completely.

Kevin Cooper 

On August 1st, 1983, Cooper was arraigned in San Bernardino County for the four murders and one attempted murder. He pleaded not guilty. After moving it 100 miles to San Diego due to the amount of threats made against Cooper and the significant racial tension building in the community over the arrest, the trial of Kevin Cooper began in September of 1984. The community was incredibly upset over the deaths of four people, including two children. Now, an African-American man with a criminal history was facing charges, despite the fact that police initially claimed that there were multiple perpetrators involved. They now said that the murders were committed by Cooper and only Cooper. Detectives admitted that their evidence was circumstantial, but they felt it was very strong. They said that Cooper had murdered the family in order to steal their vehicle and money. 

The hatchet used in the murders had been stolen from the vacant home. The prison-issued tobacco found in the Ryens’ stolen station wagon and the shoe prints that matched the prison-issued shoes. There were also matching shoe prints found in blood on a bedsheet in the Ryens’ master bedroom, outside of the house on a hot tub cover, and in the dust in the vacant house. The small blood spot in the Ryens’ hallway that matched Cooper’s blood type. There were indications of blood in the shower and sink in the vacant home. There was a tan t-shirt found down the street from the Ryen home that had several spots of blood on it. The blood was determined to belong to two people: Doug Ryen and the second person was undetermined, however the type matched Cooper. The San Bernardino County Chief Deputy District Attorney said this of their case, “We had overwhelming evidence of his guilty…the footprints, the tobacco, the timing, the murder weapon, the missing car…overwhelming.”

Cooper took the stand in his own defense. He again admitted that he’d been hiding out in the vacant home, but adamantly denied anything to do with the murders. He said that when he arrived at the vacant home, he braided his hair, shaved his beard, then made a few phone calls before heading to Mexico.

Josh Ryen, who was 10-years-old at the time of the trial, didn’t testify in court, however a video was shown in court of him being asked questions while with his grandmother. This was now a year and a half after the murders. Josh was asked if he saw anyone in the house that night that didn’t belong there. He responded, “you can’t really tell at night ‘cause it could be anyone…I saw almost like a shadow or something.” 

Josh no longer recalled seeing three white or possibly Hispanic men in his house, only one shadow. The detective who initially interviewed Josh said that he believed Josh may have been confused and thinking of the three Hispanic men who’d stopped at the ranch earlier that day asking for work. 

The jury heard testimony from a total of 141 witnesses and were presented 788 pieces of evidence throughout the three months that the trial lasted. On February 19th, 1985, the jury returned with a verdict. Kevin Cooper was found guilty on four counts of first degree murder and one count of attempted murder. Less than a month later, on March 1st, it was determined that Cooper would be sentenced to death. 

But…

Despite the jury’s guilty verdict and sentence, many people believed that Cooper was wrongly convicted. One of these people was Peggy Ryen’s mother, Mary. She said that she had a very difficult time believing that just ONE person committed the murders. A private investigator, Paul Ingles, who had once been a detective that was convinced of Cooper’s guilt, agreed with Mary. Both Ingles and Mary said that they don’t just want Cooper to go free, they want the truth and they want to have it beyond the shadow of a doubt. 

There are several points that have made people across the country question whether Cooper is actually guilty or if he was framed:

• Like Mary pointed out, this didn’t seem like a crime that was committed by one person. Even discounting 8-year-old Josh’s initial interview saying that he saw three men that night, police initially told the public that the crime was committed by more than one perpetrator. Additionally, AT LEAST three weapons were used during the murders. In an interview, when asked how Cooper would’ve committed the crime with three different weapons, the prosecutor answered that Cooper was just ambidextrous. When Josh first saw pictures of Cooper on the television while he was in the hospital, he told his grandmother twice that it was not the man who’d murdered his family and friend.
• The findings from the Ryens’ stolen vehicle. The cigarette butts with Cooper’s DNA were not found on the initial search of the car, only on the second search. Cooper believes that these butts were taken from the vacant house and moved to the vehicle upon a second search. Also, the blood found inside was found on three different car seats, indicating that there had been someone sitting in each seat with blood on them. The vehicle itself was ditched in Long Beach. If Cooper was headed to Mexico, it seemed odd that he’d leave the vehicle 50 miles out of the way.
• The evidence found inside of the Ryen house that linked Cooper to the house was a small drop of blood. Cooper strongly believes that this blood was planted. Before the DNA results were shared and upon his arrest, two vials of Cooper’s blood were collected. Before the testing was performed, the sample was signed out overnight by the same criminalist who eventually first connected the blood to Cooper. 
• Inside of 10-year-old Jessica Ryen’s hand was a clump of long blonde hair. Being that Cooper was a black male with dark hair, this hair clearly did not come from him.
• The crime scene itself was reportedly significantly contaminated. The sheriff’s department was said to have allowed more than 70 people to walk through the house. Within 48 hours of the murders, the district attorney ordered that the crime scene should be dismantled. The evidence was then stored in a warehouse that wasn’t air conditioned, which caused most of it to be destroyed. 
• The motive…Cooper was a convicted burglar, however there was cash still sitting on the Ryens’ counter. The keys to their station wagon were inside the vehicle. 

Despite Cooper continuing to insist that he was innocent and his attorney arguing that the state didn’t provide evidence of his guilt, his appeals continued to be denied. In 1994, an attorney filed for a temporary stay of execution for Cooper’s first execution date of November 26th, 1994. Throughout the next several years, continued appeals are filed on Cooper’s behalf, but are denied one after the other. In 2001, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals denied Cooper’s appeal yet again, but approved post-convocation DNA testing to be performed. The judge allowed partial testing with the involvement of the defense team. In 2003, the state announced that the DNA test results confirmed Cooper’s guilt and a new date was set for his execution: February 10th, 2004. 

With just three hours and 42 minutes left until Cooper was going to be subjected to lethal injection, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of execution, commanding the court to perform tests on the tan t-shirt found near the crime scene, to see if the blood contained a preservative. This would indicate that the blood was likely planted. 

The “Witnesses”

Another point of contention is the witnesses. In 1984, a woman named Diana Roper came to police to tell them that she believed her ex-boyfriend was responsible for the Chino Hills murders. Her ex-boyfriend was ex-con Lee Furrow. Both Furrow and Roper were heavily involved in the white supremacy world and Furrow had been jailed before for murder. He strangled a 17-year-old girl in 1974 at the request of gang leader Clarence Ray Allen. Furrow testified against Allen and received a lesser sentence. 

Roper first met Furrow in prison when she was visiting another inmate. At the time of the murders, Furrow was on parole and living with Diana. She said that Furrow’s life consisted of sex, drugs, and uncontrolled rage. She told police that on the morning of June 5th, 1983, a car pulled into her driveway and Furrow walked inside. He was wearing dark coveralls and walking into the closet and dropped them. He changed and left. A few days later, Roper picked up the coveralls to find that they were covered in blood. She also said that when he’d left the house before that day, he’d been wearing a tan t-shirt, like the one that was found. Roper also said that Furrow kept lots of tools out on the back porch hanging on nails and that the hatchet was missing. In her affidavit to police, Roper said, “the coveralls were splattered with blood and there was horse hair and dried horse sweat on the lower leg area. He did not have the beige t-shirt or Levis on that he was wearing earlier in the day. Lee walked to the back of the house and seemed to be in a hurry. Lee took the coveralls off and left them on the floor in the closet. After he changed his clothes, Lee…left immediately.”

She also said that a few days later, Furrow cut his hair short and trimmed his sideburns and mustache. Roper gave police the coveralls. These coveralls were later confirmed to have been thrown into a dumpster by a deputy rather than tested for DNA. Roper’s story was reported to be discounted by investigators because she had a history of drug use and was possibly under the influence at the time, and angry that Furrow had left her and run off with her best friend. 

Another witness, who has not been named due to her being fearful for her life, said that there was a vehicle that almost crashed into her on the day after the murders. She recalled seeing three adult white males inside, one with dirty blonde or light brown hair. She wrote down the license plate number and, when heard about the murders and the missing car, she found that it was the same license plate number. She reportedly wrote to police with this information, but was never followed up with.

Long after the trial, two women came forward and said that on the night of the murders, they saw “three disorderly white patrons” at a bar not far from the Ryen home called the Canyon Corral Bar. They said that one of the men was wearing coveralls and had blood on them. There were also spots of blood on his light colored shirt, which the women said he attributed to a bloody nose. The two womens’ statements were not corroborated by any others. 

Kevin Cooper is still in prison and on San Quentin’s death row. In 2021, the Governor of California issued an executive order to launch an independent investigation of Cooper’s case and further DNA testing. Politicians, religious figures, and even celebrities have publicly voiced their support for further investigation into the conviction, including The Pope and Kim Kardashian. Mary, Peggy’s mother, passed away, still with lingering questions about the conviction of Kevin Cooper. Josh Ryen has made his peace with Cooper being the person who killed his family. There are a lot of people who feel strongly that Cooper was the person behind the Ryen/Hughes murders. You can learn more about both sides online and on Reddit. 

**BEWARE: There is quite a bit of information that has been manipulated based on the storyteller and a lot of information that can’t be verified.