Mendocino County homicide suspect’s son arrested

The 20-year-old son of a Mendocino County woman suspected in last week’s shooting death of another woman on rural land where all three resided has been arrested as a suspect in the May 23 slaying.

Alexander Phillip Coan, whose mother, Kelley Anne Coan, 39, surrendered four days earlier, was apprehended Saturday in the inland community of Comptche and arrested for the suspected murder of Jamie Dawn Shipman, 57, authorities said.

Officials say they have evidence the younger Coan “was an active participant in the homicide” for which his mother also remains a suspect, the Sheriff’s Office said in a written statement.

Though he was questioned and released on the day of Shipman’s death, authorities said they later acquired new, unidentified evidence that allowed them to issue a warrant for the younger Coan’s arrest.

Shipman and the Coans, as well as Shipman’s husband, were all residents of a densely forested property on Caspar Little Lake Road, near the Mendocino Coast, when the victim was gunned down on the morning of May 23, the Sheriff’s Office said.

An area resident actually reported hearing shots fired that morning, around 8:30 a.m., but a deputy who searched the neighborhood was unable to find evidence of a crime, in part because of the property’s pygmy forest, the Sheriff’s Office said.

A little after 11 a.m., Steve Shipman found his wife shot and called for help, but she was dead when paramedics and deputies responded.

Investigators found evidence of a homicide and learned Kelley Coan had been upset with Shipman and her husband over some kind of property dispute.

She was not at the scene, and Jamie Shipman’s van was missing.

Kelley Coan turned up in San Joaquin County the next evening, where she turned herself in to authorities after contacting a lawyer.

Authorities also recovered Shipman’s commercial van.

During the ensuing days, investigators developed evidence tying her son directly to the case and learned he might be staying on Docker Hill Road in the wooded community of Comptche, about 16 miles inland from the town of Mendocino and 20 miles from the 33-acre property where the shooting occurred.

Alexander Coan was located there around 3 p.m. Saturday and arrested, authorities said.

He was being held at the Mendocino County Jail on Monday with bail set at $1 million.

His mother was being held without bail, according to jail records.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 707-521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.