Reta Coville has spent the last 22 years wondering what happened to her son, who moved to Sitka, married his college sweetheart, then vanished.
On Wednesday, the California woman got one step closer to knowing.
Her son's wife at the time of his disappearance was arrested Wednesday in Illinois and charged with murdering him. Jane Limm, now 45, will be brought back to Alaska to face allegations that in 1988 she killed Scott Coville, then hid or destroyed the body.
Alaska State Troopers and prosecutors are revealing little information about the case and why they think Limm, who also goes by the last name Reth, is responsible for murder. Coville's body has never been found.
For Reta Coville, though, the arrest confirms longstanding suspicions. "There's no doubt in my mind. My husband and I believed pretty much from the get-go (that it was her)," she said from her home near San Diego. "I just thought her whole behavior was so bizarre."
Reta Coville said her son met Limm at La Sierra College in Riverside, Calif. He was studying biology and she was studying to be a physical therapist.
A couple years later, Scott Coville dropped out and moved to Alaska to commercial fish, then work in a pulp mill, Reta Coville said. When Limm finished her degree, she joined him in Sitka.
Even though Scott Coville once told his mother that his relationship with Limm was "fire and ice," they got married in an October 1987 civil ceremony, she said. The couple also planned a February 1988 church wedding in California, but Reta Coville said at the time she wasn't sure it was going to happen because "they had had fights."
She and her husband stayed out of it and the wedding went through, she said.
Things seemed to be going well in Alaska, Reta Coville said. Marine biology was her son's passion and being on the ocean excited him. "He could make your eyes glaze over talking about fish," she said, laughing at her son's love for the sea.
The last time she heard from her son was weeks before the official disappearance date, which was his 26th birthday, April 12, 1988.
It took her awhile to realize her son was missing. Part of that was because in May she received a Mother's Day card in Limm's handwriting signed "Love, Jane and Scott." The card made no mention that anything was awry.
The next time she called her son's Sitka phone number, it was disconnected. That's when she started calling around, trying to find him, Limm or anyone who might have heard from him. She then realized no one had seen her son for quite a while. She reported him missing.
At the time, Reta Coville accepted that her son, her only child, may have chosen to "drop off the grid," although she couldn't imagine why. She spent a lot of tears and time thinking about what she could have done to make her son do something like that, blaming herself for his disappearance.
But Reta Coville said that from the beginning she and her husband, Kenneth, felt Limm knew more than she was saying. Limm never reported Scott Coville missing, Reta Coville says. Limm also never called the Covilles or any of their relatives to ask if they had seen him; she never called to speculate on where he might be.
The only contact Limm had with the Covilles after Scott's disappearance was long after, although Reta Coville couldn't remember precisely when. Limm was in San Diego and called about a cocktail dress she had left at their house and how she wanted to send a friend to retrieve it. Kenneth Coville told Limm she could come and get it herself. She never showed, Reta Coville said.
Find Megan Holland online at adn.com/contact/mholland or call 257-4343. Reporter Jim Halpin contributed to this story.
By MEGAN HOLLAND
mholland@adn.com