Many of the inmates committed violent crimes against women and children before they entered the Washington Corrections Center for Women.
At least eleven transgender-identifying male felons are currently housed at a formerly women-only prison in Washington State. Many of them committed violent crimes against women and children before they entered the Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW), colloquially known as “Purdy.”
Male convicts can be admitted into Purdy, located in Gig Harbor, if they complete a mental-health assessment, health-care assessment, and facility evaluation, and if several multidisciplinary teams approve their “gender-inclusive” housing request. The Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) maintains that trans-identifying male applicants must make a compelling case justifying their request, but the burden of proof is quite low in practice, former Purdy guard Scott Fleming previously told National Review. Men requesting transfers to Purdy aren’t required to have undergone reassignment surgery or a hormone regimen, or be in the process of transitioning, he said. The only prerequisite is that the men claim to be female.
National Review confirmed the identities and offenses of the male Purdy inmates by cross-checking names provided by April Morrow, founder of Sovereign Women Speak, with obtained copies of DOC records, local news articles, court records, and information available on the DOC inmate search database. Morrow learned of the names of the men at Purdy through correspondence with several female inmates who reached out to her to expose the injustice of being housed alongside male inmates.
The DOC confirmed that all the individuals below are living at Purdy. Other male inmates have previously passed through the facility, however. One male felon, Bryan Kim, who murdered his parents and was caught having prohibited sex with a female inmate at Purdy, was moved back to the men’s prison following National Review’s reporting. Another male felon, Nicholas Tanner Lippert, who was convicted of the first-degree rape of an eight-year-old boy in May 2015 according to the Peninsula Daily News, was released from Purdy on field supervision, according to a Washington Department of Corrections employee.
The Washington DOC said that the percentage of its population that currently self-identifies as transgender, intersex, or gender non-binary is a little over 1.1 percent.
“DOC has been consistently identified by the Department of Justice PREA Resource Center as an agency demonstrating best practices in trainings and presentations for the way it has implemented and improved upon Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) Statistics practices, which includes housing placement and programming assignments for those individuals who identify as transgender or intersex,” a spokesperson said.
Warning: The following includes disturbing details of crimes and alleged offenses. Reader discretion is advised.
Fallon Brown
Fallon Brown, 43, was transferred to Purdy in June 2023 after fatally shooting his roommate in the head in the basement of his home in 2015. After the shooting, Fallon confessed the crime to Seattle police, the Tacoma News Tribune reported. Fallon was believed to be mentally ill. Brown has identified as female since at least 2015, according to a jail record obtained by National Review.
After moving to Purdy from a male facility, Brown was marked down for an infraction for taking part in several phone calls in which he directed a woman to whom he is legally married to physically and verbally abuse her ten-year-old daughter, according to a DOC incident narrative obtained by National Review.
“On October 21, 2023, Fallon initiated the assault against the minor child . . . by directing [the woman] to strike the child,” the report read. “The calls that followed, Fallon encouraged the abuse and validated [the woman’s] actions. At no time during any of the recorded calls when attacks were taking place, explicit threats to kill or encouraging the minor child . . . to kill herself; did Fallon direct [the woman] to stop her actions.”
The DOC accused Brown of multiple violations, including committing an act in prison that would constitute a felony. The investigation was sparked after a correctional officer observed peculiar behavior from the wife’s children when they visited Brown at Purdy. Abusive phone calls and messages from Brown continued for months, according to the report.
In one message, Brown told his wife that he was “raging” and “would have mailed her azz off long time ago.” He added that, if he were out of prison, the girl’s “life would be utter misery until I can find a relocation.”
“F[***] that little b**** never had anything to actually cry about. She’s just an inmate to me. She is to be treated as one,” he wrote.
Joshua Cook
Joshua Alexander Cook, a 25-year-old male inmate at Purdy who goes by Alexandria Sophia Cook, was convicted of possession of child pornography and sexual exploitation of a minor on March 13, 2023, according to court records. Cook was first transferred to Purdy in 2021, according to the Washington Department of Corrections employee. He was released, but was returned after the subsequent convictions.
Cook allegedly collected nude photographs of minors then required they perform sexual acts on him, threatening to post the images online or tell their parents if they refused.
“One of these charges included coercion of a 12-year-old which resulted in Cook having vaginal intercourse with the 12-year-old,” according to a pre-sentencing report obtained by National Review.
Cook allegedly exploited multiple victims. While Cook was on parole in 2022, the DOC found nude photographs and a masturbation video of a 17-year-old female on his cell phone, the report said.
“The message correspondence between the two is suggestive to the 17-year-old in a sexual manner, encouraging her to send photographs and videos of her body parts, specifically her vagina,” the report read.
In one message, Cook informs the girl that he has a fetish for wet hair. The DOC uncovered images of her in a towel with wet hair. Cook told the girl he wanted to orgasm to images of her. The girl responded with videos of her touching her exposed breasts and videos of her masturbating. Cook replied with more sexually explicit messages. During multiple points of the conversation, Cook suggests the two should meet, asking her to come to his hotel room, suggesting she would not regret it.
Cook participated in Snapchat conversations of a sexual nature, some of which included nude photographs with four other individuals, some of whom were believed to be still pubescent and in school, according to the report.
Recently, Cook was marked down for an infraction for making false PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) allegations towards another person, according to the Washington Department of Corrections employee.
James Morris
Now 53 years old, male Purdy inmate James Morris, who goes by Jennifer Leaanne Morris, pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree child rape in 2019, according to a court filing.
His wife’s daughter told investigators that Morris first vaginally molested her in 2000 when she was six years old, according to a pre-sentencing report obtained by National Review.
A second child, Morris’s son out of wedlock, revealed in a letter that Morris had sexually abused him from 1998 to 2003 when he was seven to twelve years old by lying behind him in bed and “placing his penis behind his legs and thrusting his penis from behind.” He said this happened approximately ten times, and the last time Morris performed oral sex on him.
A third child, Morris’ biological daughter, said he sexually abused her starting when she was four years old in 2004. She told police that her dad sexually assaulted her every night until age twelve. Morris forced her to perform vaginal and anal intercourse as well as oral sex on him, she said. The incidents happened every time the wife left the house, the report said. The sexual abuse stopped at twelve years old, but then physical abuse began, according to the report. She said Morris made her take Oxycontin and consume alcohol. Morris, who was prescribed Oxycontin but was abusing heroin, allegedly used her urine sample to present to the doctor to prove he was taking his medication.
A fourth child, a daughter in common with Morris and an ex-wife, testified that he sexually molested her as a young adolescent when they took baths together, and sometimes in the bedroom. Born in 1994, the girl said the abuse started when she was “very young, not old enough to have boobs yet.” Morris also had her touch his penis, the child told investigators. Morris abused the girl on several occasions each time she visited during the summer, the report said. The last time she remembered Morris abusing her was the summer between her eighth- and ninth-grade year, likely between 2007 and 2008, when Morris digitally penetrated her while she was in his bedroom, according to the report.
A fifth child, from Morris’s ex-wife’s marriage before Morris, said at the time of the 2017 investigation at 25 years old that she could tell what happened to her, “but she became emotional and said she couldn’t give a statement.”
“James was told of the sexual allegations to which he denied them all,” the report said. “When James was presented with what each victim alleged and he again denied it and stated it was physical abuse, but never sexual abuse.”
Morris was taken in 2017 to the county jail and was booked for three counts of rape of a child in the first degree and three counts of child molestation in the first degree, according to the report. In 2021, Morris petitioned to withdraw his guilty plea from his 2019 conviction, which a court denied.
At Purdy, Morris is believed to have received bottom surgery from the DOC based on health status notes stating that “he has permission to have two dilators and a lubrication,” a Washington Department of Corrections employee told National Review.
Joel Thomas Nichols
A male Purdy inmate named Joel Thomas Nichols, who now goes by Jolene Charisma Starr, was convicted in 1995 of first-degree child rape of an eleven-year-old girl, the Seattle Times reported.
Pretending to be a telephone repairman, Starr entered the girl’s home, seeing her parents were away. After she let him in, Nichols touched her, and she ran from him. Nichols overpowered her, forced her to the floor, and removed her clothing after threatening her. He demanded the child put on underwear that he had brought, and she complied. After putting on a condom, he cut the underwear off her with a knife and attempted vaginal penetration. When she resisted and said it was painful, he turned her over and anally raped her.
“After ordering her to take a shower, he raped her anally again, and then raped her vaginally also,” according to an appeals record of the crime. “He again instructed her to take a shower, which she did. He then put the condom, wrapper, and panties into his pack, threatened her not to tell what he had done and left the apartment.”
The court imposed an “exceptional sentence” of 30 years because the child was penetrated multiple times, because of the premeditated nature of the crime, and because Nichols invaded what was considered a sanctuary from strangers, her home. Nichols first contacted the child by telephone, claiming to be a telephone company employee who needed to fix her phone. He obtained her address and went to her apartment before perpetrating the attack.
“Each one of these factors, independently–on their own, justify an exceptional sentence on C[ount] 1 of 360 months,” the court concluded.
In 1995, Nichols also pleaded guilty to the first-degree kidnapping of a nine-year-old girl, the Seattle Times reported. When he tried to abduct her, three girls aged eleven to 13 heard her screams and rescued her. Nichols claimed he was the child’s father.
Kevin Patterson
Male felon Kevin Patterson was transferred to Purdy after being extradited from Canada on murder and theft charges, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Patterson was found guilty of bludgeoning his roommate to death. When Patterson was arrested in British Columbia, he was still identifying as a man. He later came out as transgender with the female name Haedyn-Khris Beaumann. In 2020, Patterson was denied an eighth judicial review of the extradition order, initially issued in 2015.
Patterson told the British Columbia magazine Asparagus that he hoped to be housed in a women’s facility in the U.S. After being extradited, he was placed in the general population among women at the King County Correctional Facility in Washington State while awaiting trial. Patterson and his friend were accused of beating a man to death with a shovel, then stealing his wallet and car, and fleeing to Canada on a back road, Asparagus noted. Richard Bergesen, the victim of the crime, had been found “brutally bludgeoned” in his home, according to court documents cited by the publication.
Nathan Goninan
Male inmate Nathan Goninan, who goes by Nonnie Lotusflower, is incarcerated at Purdy for the 2007 second-degree manslaughter of a 17-year-old girl, according to the Bellingham Herald. Her cause of death was determined to be strangulation, and her post-mortem examination showed evidence of sexual assault. The ten-year sentence was handed down in 2019. Since the tragedy, the victim’s mother has tended to a roadside memorial where the body was found with flowers, balloons, and other tokens.
Goninan has other prior convictions, including assault, and a prior prison discipline record, including assault of other offenders, threatening to assault and “kill” staff, and destroying prison property, according to a Washington Department of Corrections employee.
In 2022, the Washington DOC paid for Goninan’s breast implants after he filed a civil-rights complaint alleging that the DOC’s failure to provide him with gender-reassignment surgery violated his constitutional rights, National Review previously reported. Three members from the prison’s specialty emergency-response team drove Goninan multiple hours, on multiple trips, from Gig Harbor to Spokane for appointments and surgery, a guard at Purdy said at the time.
John Forrester
Male Purdy inmate John Forrester, now 65 years old, was convicted of first-degree murder and extortion in 1977, the Spokesman-Review reported. His new name is Hop Cat, according to the DOC database and a Washington Department of Corrections employee.
Forrester murdered an elderly couple in their home, where they had lived for over 30 years. James and Hattie Woods, both 73 years old, were found beaten with their throats slashed. Hattie was also shot, and her husband’s skull was fractured in four places.
Forrester stole $100 from the couple before killing them. On Christmas Eve, eight days after the slayings, he tried to extort the police for $10,000, threatening to kill more people if he didn’t get the money. On the phone with police, he gave details that incriminated him in the crime. He also demanded that police leave the money in the men’s restroom of a bowling alley and that the mayor and police chief “had better be there.”
“He said two more people would be killed with a .32 pistol and their throats would be cut,” then-Deputy Police Chief Robert Colliton told the Spokane Daily Chronicle.
Forrester was sentenced to life in prison without parole and remained at the Monroe Correctional Complex until he was transferred to Purdy. In 2009, Forrester was hospitalized after his second attempt to cut off his penis using a razor blade at Monroe. A spokeswoman for the Monroe Correctional Complex told the Seattle Times that he had amputated much of his genitalia several years ago.
While at Purdy, Forrester has been marked down for infractions for allegedly taking/holding hostages, possessing a weapon, and making threats, according to the Washington Department of Corrections employee. His most recent cellmate was a female.
Douglas Perry
In 2017, transgender-identifying man Douglas Perry, who goes by Donna Perry, was found guilty of murdering three prostitutes decades earlier, in the 1990s, CBS News reported. Over a four-month span, Perry shot each of the women in the chest before stripping them. Prosecutors said that Perry discarded their naked bodies on the banks of the Spokane River, according to CBS affiliate KREM-TV. Now 72, Perry has been incarcerated in Purdy since 2017.
Perry received gender reassignment surgery in 2000 in Thailand. Prosecutors argued he underwent the procedure to avoid suspicion in the deaths. During the triple-murder trial, Chero Fread, who was housed with Perry at a Texas federal prison for mentally ill inmates, said on the witness stand that Perry told her he thought of himself as the real-life Hannibal Lecter, a cannibalistic serial killer character from Thomas Harris novels, the Spokesman-Review reported.
“We discussed many things. I would say the focus was recruiting me or turning me into a killer,” Fread testified. “He told me . . . becoming a woman was a disguise to take the heat off of him, that an elderly lady with mental illness would never get caught.”
Christopher Williams
Male Purdy prisoner Christopher Williams, who has no known female name, was arrested and booked for first-degree child molestation in 2005, according to police reports obtained by National Review.
While playing video games on three different occasions, Williams touched his sister’s genitals outside her clothing, she told investigators. Williams also confessed to police that he touched her rear area, according to the reports.
“Chris said that he knew what he did was wrong but he could not help it,” the report read. “He said that his hormones were acting up. Chris said that [the child] was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt.”
In conversation with the investigator, Williams’s father said that three years earlier as well, when the child was presumably six years old, Williams had molested her. Williams was arrested but never charged with the crime because he went to live in a counseling center in Utah, where he spent two years and eight months before he was released, the father told the officer.
Williams later allegedly committed assault. He also failed to register as a sex offender, according to court records. Before being transferred to Purdy, he was at Stafford Creek Corrections Center, a Washington men’s prison where he allegedly got into a fight in 2018, the Washington Department of Corrections employee said.
Zachary William Woods
Forty-year-old Zachary William Woods, who goes by Natalie Woods, is in Purdy prison for second-degree assault and malicious placement of an explosive, a Washington Department of Corrections employee said.
Kenneth Etheredge
Kenneth Etheredge, who goes by Anna Mae, was first incarcerated 30 years ago after allegedly committing assault in the second degree. More recently, he allegedly committed robbery with a deadly weapon and drug charges. His infraction history at Purdy includes significant non-compliant behavior, including fighting with staff and offenders. Since being housed there, he’s been disruptive, but he does not have sexual incidents on his record, according to a Washington Department of Corrections employee.