The Other Shoe Drops
By most accounts, Marie and Rodger Cotting had taken Scotty Mackay into their family with the best of intentions. Contempt of court was perhaps furthest from their minds. We remember the birthday party they gave him. Friends. Family. Apple bobbing and birthday cake. Devout Catholics in good standing, local priest Father Leonard Hacker — interviewed by a Mackay-friendly witness — spoke highly of them. Called them “responsible members of the community.” Even more to the point, Marie’s brother — Reverend Mr. Joseph Torres Barcinas — was a Deacon in the Archdiocese of Agana. At his death in 2011, the Chaplet of Divine Mercy was prayed four days in a row. There is little doubt that the Cottings followed the Scriptures as they sheltered Scotty Mackay.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in — Matthew 25:35-40
That said, none of this protected them from contempt of court charges brought by Ponape District Attorney Minor Pounds. The charges levied against the Cottings stemmed from “their part in secluding 5-year old Scotty Mackay, heir to an extensive fortune in Alaska real estate… A conviction of the offense carries a maximum penalty of 6 months in jail or a $100 fine… The boy was taken from Alaska by his father, Neil S. Mackay… The pair went into hiding on Majuro, reportedly with the Cotting family.”
“According to information here, [investigators Villagomez and Goodenow]… were prevented from informing the Cottings of the High Court ruling by the disappearance of the entire family together with the young Mackay, who was later traced to Likiep by Marshall Island police.”
Neil Mackay Hires Defense Attorney
Neil Mackay didn’t just hire any attorney to represent the Cottings. He chose instead a man named Russell Walker, the former Assistant Attorney General for the Marshall Islands from 1971 to 1975. Walker was, naturally, well-versed in the intricacies of Marshallese justice. And, of course, both U.S. and Trust Territory law. The former proved decisive.
Walker went on the offense from the start. Aggressively so. His first order of business was to rid the case of Judge Hefner, at least in his role as judge in the Cotting matter. Something about serving as a judge while simultaneously serving as a witness didn’t seem to fit. Hefner was out. He was more important as a witness than as judge.
That move was important — indeed necessary — but Walker’s next move was more substantive. That move was a staple of many a defense strategy: Quash the Search Warrant served on the Cotting home and Suppress any evidence resulting from that search. One portion of that Motion was, shall we say, potentially dispositive. Dispositive because of the sudden disappearance of any physical evidence linking Scotty to the Cottings.
Moves that the Search warrant herein dated March 18, 1978 be quashed and to suppress all things seized and knowledge obtained pursuant to the search warrant covering the following described premises: Rodger Cotting's house and personal residence and dwelling at Uliga, Majuro, Marshall Islands, Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. And more particularly knowledge or information regarding the presence or absence of the minor Neil (Scotty) P. Mackay or Marie or Rodger Cotting.
In other words, with the search warrant gone, the Cottings could no longer be tied to Scotty Mackay. Sure, the evidence that Scotty was recovered in Likiep remained… But Likiep was miles from Majuro, in an environment of fragile communications. Indeed, the most reliable means of communicating was face-to-face [1]. How could the Cottings reasonably know of the changes?
In the present case, the Cottings had flown the coop. They couldn’t know Kabua Kabua’s ruling was overturned. Here, Walker’s intimate knowledge of the distances and communication challenges in the Trust Territories proved decisive. The conceit was: The Cottings were acting under the influence of a legal judicial order. Everything else was superfluous. The challenge, of course, was ridding themselves of the Search Warrant upon their home.
Affidavit in Support of Suppression
Russell Walker struck gold once he started digging into the details of the Cotting search warrant. To say that it was “flawed” is an understatement. Much here depends on the search warrant process initiated by Felix Cabrera, the Majuro Chief of Police. Here’s Cabrera in his own words:
The telephone rings constantly at his (Rodger) residence but failed to revealed anything. I decided then to apply for a search warrant and after getting a warrant we forcibly broke into his residence. Felix Cabrera, March 18, 1978
Lacking any response, Cabrera and his men bullied their way into the Cotting residence with a crow bar. Russell Walker picked apart nearly every premise of that search. Except, of course, for one: Cabrera’s knowledge that Scotty was in the custody of the Cottings, as evidenced by the grant of custody awarded Marie Cotting by Majuro Judge Kabua Kabua. But the litany of “fouls” against Cabrera’s search warrant was a laundry list of hasty and unsupported suppositions:
- Search warrant issued without probable cause
- No affidavit filed in support of such warrant
- Search warrant does not contain facts sufficient to establish probable cause
- The search warrant did not describe any property sought or to be seized as required by law
- Etcetera
And then there was this, helpfully absent from the Search Warrant carried out by Felix Cabrera: “No written affidavit is on file in the office of the Clerk of Courts and no written affidavit was received, requested or filed with the Clerk of Courts as a basis for the issuance of such search warrant.” The search warrant vanished. Busted. Yes, there was still the following tidbit, which seems absent from the proceedings. Make of it what you will. A lot was at stake.
Kabua Kabua to the Rescue
So it was that Kabua Kabua’s grant of Scotty Mackay’s custody to Marie Cotting was “allowed” to stand. The initial ruling, by Judge Hefner — which instead granted custody of Scotty to Steve Goodneow — was “disappeared.” The compromise — at least it seems a compromise from this distance in space and time — was to absolve the Cottings of active participation in Scotty’s kidnapping. All is forgiven. Well, not completely. This according to the Marianas Variety:
Contempt proceedings against Marshalls District government official, Roger Cotting, were dismissed last week when Cotting agreed to file an affidavit attesting to his entire involvement in secluding 5-year-old Alaskan real estate heir Neil "Scotty" Mackay.
The affidavit, according to court-appointed special prosecutor, Minor Pounds, was submitted to Chief Justice Harold Burnett late Saturday (May 13). Pounds said on Saipan this week that Judge Hefner found no difficulty in agreeing with the dismissal motion. Marianas News & Views, May 19, 1978
Attesting to his involvement meant that Cotting had to admit that he’d transported Scotty to Likiep. Why would he do that, if not to avoid the child’s discovery by those “mean men” intent on taking Scotty back to Alaska? Here we’re once more leaning on the Marshallese concept of justice. Which, boiled down, amounts to something like “kiss and make up,” but with more teeth. We don’t know any more than that. The Cotting agreement was suppressed.
[1] The “best” way to communicate from Majuro to the “rest of the world,” was to patch into the military base in Kwajalein. Not ideal. All manner of local conditions — weather among them — could thwart any and all connections. It was, in other words, hit or miss. The Cottings were betting on “miss.”
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Copyright Leland E. Hale (2026)