Robert Glen Coe was born on April 15, 1956, in Hickman, Kentucky, and grew up in a deeply troubled and abusive household in Weakley County, Tennessee. Raised in a low-income family, Coe was subjected to severe trauma from a young age. His father was reportedly a heavy drinker who engaged in sexually abusive behavior in front of his children. He frequently exposed himself, masturbated in front of Robert and his younger sister, and even forced them to witness sexual acts with their older sister.

These experiences left deep psychological scars on Coe. Throughout his life, he struggled with mental illness, drug addiction, and repeated arrests for indecent exposure. Coe also exhibited signs of severe instability and had an established history of inappropriate sexual behavior. By the time he was in his early twenties, he had already developed a reputation for disturbing conduct in his community.

Despite his troubled background, Coe was never institutionalized for long periods nor removed from society, and he continued to live in Greenfield, Tennessee, where his violent impulses would soon culminate in one of the most horrific child murders in the state’s history.

On the afternoon of September 1, 1979, eight-year-old Cary Ann Medlin and her stepbrother were riding their bicycles through a neighborhood in Greenfield, Tennessee, when they encountered Robert Glen Coe. Coe approached them in his car, feigning familiarity with Cary’s father and asking for directions to his house. Trusting him, Cary agreed to help and got into the car. She would never be seen alive again.

A large-scale community search effort began almost immediately after her disappearance. Cary’s body was found the next day, September 2, on the outskirts of town. The autopsy confirmed that she had been sexually assaulted and then brutally murdered.

Coe was arrested on September 4, 1979, and confessed to the crime three days later, on September 7. His videotaped confession was both graphic and chilling. He admitted to driving Cary to an isolated location where he masturbated in front of her. Though he initially did not confess to rape, investigators suspected he molested or raped her either in his Ford Gran Torino or nearby. According to his own account, Cary responded to his actions by telling him repeatedly, “Jesus loves you,” which enraged him.

At that point, Coe decided to kill the child. He pulled her from the car by her throat, attempted to strangle her until she turned blue, and ultimately ordered her to walk ahead of him down a rural road. As she walked, he pulled out a pocketknife and stabbed her in the throat, severing her windpipe. Cary collapsed, clutched her neck, and bled to death within moments. Her final words, as repeated by Coe in his confession, became a symbol of innocence and horror for the grieving community.

After the murder, Coe fled the area. He told several family members that he had killed a girl, but they initially dismissed his claims. Once the news of Cary’s murder reached them, one relative attempted to help him escape by buying a bus ticket to Georgia, while another notified police. He was arrested at a bus station before he could flee.

In March 1981, Coe was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. His case marked the beginning of a protracted legal process that included numerous appeals and challenges over the course of nearly two decades. Ultimately, Tennessee’s Supreme Court upheld his death sentence. On April 19, 2000, after 21 years on death row, Robert Glen Coe was executed by lethal injection at the Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, becoming Tennessee’s first execution since 1960, and the first since the U.S. reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

His execution marked a significant moment in Tennessee's legal history, reopening the door for future capital punishment cases in the state. The brutal and senseless murder of Cary Ann Medlin remains one of the most haunting crimes in Tennessee’s history, remembered not only for the atrocity itself but for the emotional and spiritual innocence of Cary’s last words to her killer.