Brain-Injured Man Accused in Bank Robbery Attempt Helped Seniors

A preliminary hearing for the man accused of in Ramona on May 3 is scheduled for 2 p.m. today in the U.S. District Court in San Diego. The accused, Stephen Coulter, 52, is a resident of a Ramona facility for people with acquired brain injuries. He has been ordered detained in a federal holding center pending the outcome of his case.

Many people in the care of the brain injury program, operated by Hidden Valley Rehabilitation Services, are able to interact in the community. Coulter regularly volunteered at Ramona Senior Center. After his first court hearing, a few people at the center connected with Patch to provide readers with the positive side of Coulter—“the other side of the story.”

Executive Director of the center, Ray Cardona, told Patch that Coulter had been well liked by staff and members. Coulter set up tables in the dining room for meals, cleaned tables afterward and scraped dishes in the kitchen. Coulter came two or three days a week. Hidden Valley provided transportation, Cardona said. The senior center paperwork listed "Stone Mountain" and another Hidden Valley facility as Coulter's residence.

Patch offered an opportunity for seniors to tell readers about Coulter’s contributions and their impressions of him. Cardona suggested one person and arranged for Patch to do the interview. In the following interview, the name of the individual—a retired professional—has been withheld by request, due to the nature of the case.

Interview

Patch: What do you think might have happened on the day Stephen was arrested for attempted bank robbery?

Senior: I read about what Stephen told them. I don’t believe Stephen planned to “rob a bank for years” or that he’d “kill someone” or even that he’d thought about it. His short-term memory is unbelievably short. If he did this, I think it would have been on a whim, maybe for attention. He made a mistake. He’s not a bad person.

Money was very difficult for him—both the management of it and the lack thereof. He used to tell me he got $15 a week at the Highland Valley Road facility. He didn’t say which facility on Highland Valley Road he lived in but he talked about being transferred there about a week and a half before he was arrested. I thought he lived at Stone Mountain. At the other place where he’d been living, he said he used to get more like $70 a month. He didn’t say where that was but it was a different facility here in town.

Patch: What do you think he would have spent the money on?

Senior: Computer technology. He had his own computer. He enjoyed looking things up on the Internet. He was allowed to use it about two hours a day. He wanted more time on it.

Patch: What were his interests?

Senior: Stephen wanted to do surveys about the world coming to an end, and about God, Jesus, etc. He saw the world as bad and full of bad people. He would ask me about history and things that seemed intellectual. He asked me about Russia and Putin and other historical figures. I talked to him about Gandhi and how he defeated the British without a gun. I talked to him about Stalin. Stephen would jump from topic to topic. Communication was difficult for him.

Stephen had been an Eagle Scout for five of his seven years in a local troop. I think that’s extremely significant, that he wanted to do well with his life.

Patch: How was he liked at the senior center?

Senior: Some people liked him. Some didn’t; for example, they didn’t like the way he ate his crackers.

Patch: Did he talk about his family? Did he have any friends?

Senior: Stephen liked his family. He liked to go spend about a month each summer with his mother on the coast here in San Diego county. He never talked about having any friends at the institution. I don’t think he got many visitors.

He wrote a book about his life. He and his family had lived in Philadelphia and Colorado and another part of California before he moved here. For someone who had spent about 40 years in an institution the book wasn’t bad!

Patch: What did he tell you about how he became brain injured?

Senior: He’d been in a horrendous auto accident when he was 15. He said he was in a Volkswagen Beetle with four other kids and a bus hit them. He suffered the most trauma. He also said he’d fallen out of a tree as a child and that he’d been knocked off his bike once by a car.

He did finish high school. He told me he got his diploma after the other kids because of all the medical help he needed. He told me he tried a college class once. He didn’t say the subject. It was a big disappointment to him that he couldn’t go to college.

Patch: Did he ever mention having jobs?

Senior: He mentioned having a job at Albertson’s. At one time, he hoped to get a job at a pet store. He could use a floor scrubber and waxer. He’d been trained at the facility where he lived.

Patch: How did Stephen like visiting and volunteering at the senior center?

Senior: He was happy to come here. He trusted me. He would come through the door and say, “Hi dude!” I taught him how to wash the plates. He would forget things and you’d have to remind him and show him over again.