Trial to Indefinitely Imprison Serial Rapist Continues

The convicted rapist who the state is seeking to civilly commit as a sexually violent predator to McNeil Island told a detective that he could not remember the exact number of women he raped prior to his arrest in 2000, but estimated the number to be about 60.

Mark T. Robinson also told the King County detective, Denny Gulla, that he kept a “rape kit,” with knives and rope to bind his victims, in the semi-truck where the majority of the assaults took place, according to Gulla’s testimony during the civil trial in Lewis County Superior Court Wednesday.

“At one point in the interview, (Robinson) said he was out of control,” Gulla told the jury, adding that the defendant was cooperative during their one-hour interview, and cried multiple times throughout it.

“He just wanted to get over it,” Gulla said.

The former detective said Robinson, who previously worked as a truck driver, had a difficult time remembering the total number of women he raped between 1995 and 2000.

Most of Robinson’s victims were prostitutes he picked up in Pierce and King counties who he would force into the sleeper part of his semi-truck and rape at knife point, according to court documents.

Robinson was arrested in 2000 after he picked up an 18-year-old woman who was hitchhiking from Spokane to Portland and raped her at knife point, according to court documents.

Chief Deputy Stacy Brown from the Lewis County Sheriff's Office, who was working as a detective at the time and investigated the rape that occurred at a weigh station in Winlock, also testified Wednesday.

Brown, who interviewed the hitchhiker, said the woman had injuries on her breasts, knuckles, arms and neck.

"She cried for much of the interview," Brown said.

She said police went to Robinson’s house that same day and arrested him, adding that when she personally spoke to Robinson that day he was "seething."

"He was very defensive and sarcastic in his answers to me," Brown said.

Due to his hostile responses to her questions, Brown said, she had a male officer interview him instead. Robinson was much more cooperative with him than he was with her, she said.

When investigators searched his semi-truck following his arrest, they found several knifes, a roll of duct tape, more than 30 pornographic magazines and several pieces of rope and zip ties that could be used to bind someone, Brown told the jury.

After his arrest in 2000, Gulla drove down to Lewis County to ask Robinson questions about previous assaults he might have been involved in, according to court documents. It was during that interview that Robinson admitted to raping women out of anger.

Robinson pleaded guilty to first-degree rape and second-degree kidnapping in Lewis County Superior Court on Sep. 27, 2000, for his attack of the hitchhiker. He was sentenced to approximately 12 years in prison. 

At the end of his sentence, on May 10, 2012 — three days before Robinson was going to be released from prison — the Attorney General’s Office filed a petition in Lewis County Superior Court ordering he be transported to McNeil Island, pending a civil trial in which a jury would decide whether he fit the definition of a sexually violent predator.

Robinson is one of a few hundred offenders in Washington who the state attempts to keep incarcerated indefinitely under the Washington Sexually Violent Predator Law.

This week in Lewis County Superior Court, Malcolm Ross, from the state Attorney General’s Office, will attempt to convince a jury that Robinson is a sexual sadist, and that if he is released, he will likely re-offend.

The trial is expected to last approximately seven days. Superior Court Judge James Lawler is presiding.