Leland

Sergeant Leland Coyle is a Prime Asset and one of the antagonists in The Outlast Trials. He is a corrupt and delusional police officer obsessed with maintaining his own distorted notion of the law, who enjoys electrocuting and sexually assaulting people with his shock baton. Leland Coyle was born in the year 1923, in Blackwell, Oklahoma, a small yet well-known sundown town. There are anecdotal accounts of animal abuse and sexual assault during his childhood, which prompted him to enroll in a military academy. Despite exhibiting criminal tendencies, his involvement with the local Ku Klux Klan as a teenager swiftly quelled such behavior.

At the age of nineteen, he entered into his first marriage. However, his spouse passed away six months later under circumstances officially attributed to a fall down the stairs. To circumvent any scrutiny from local authorities, he voluntarily enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. Serving honorably for two years in the Pacific theatre during World War II, he earned three confirmed enemy kills and his company witnessed two suspicious American deaths.

Following his return to Oklahoma post-war, he resumed his involvement with the Klan, eventually transitioning to a career in law enforcement. Since 1947, Coyle proved exceptionally adept in his role as a police officer, accumulating numerous commendations for his service. However, his achievements and success were tainted by allegations of profiting from the exploitation of prison labor, extortion, and civil forfeiture, implying corruption on his part. Additionally, he held esteemed positions within the Elks Club and the VFW.

After marrying for the second time, Coyle promptly extorted his new family. Following their deaths in a fatal electrical fire, his wife fled to Chicago, where she was found deceased under circumstances officially labeled as 'natural causes' on Kostner Ave. on the South Side.

Sometime later, Coyle was promoted to Sergeant and entered into another marriage. However, his third wife succumbed to multiple gunshot wounds to the head, ruled as suicide. Within a year, her family members also passed away under mysterious circumstances, purportedly by suicide, though the methodologies became increasingly violent and complex.

In February of 1956, Coyle encountered Murkoff's Clyde Perry at a bar on Route 177. While chatting, Coyle drank alcohol heavily and casually ate nuts from the table. Perry's pretext was bribery, but Coyle quickly discerned his deception. The interaction turned physical, resulting in Perry sustaining two broken fingers, extensive bruising, and urinary complications. Despite Perry's survival, he believed Coyle toyed with him akin to a cat with its prey, surmising Coyle's restraint from killing him as evidence of this. Nevertheless, or perhaps due to this incident, Perry vehemently endorsed Coyle for PROJECT LATHE.

The specifics of Coyle's recruitment into PROJECT LATHE remain unknown, although it seems very unlikely that he was recruited from a prison or asylum, unlike Mother Gooseberry and Franco Barbi.

Leland Coyle behaves akin to an exceptionally cruel police officer, exhibiting extreme brutality in his pursuits and showing no reluctance in hurling insults and making sexual remarks and threats at his victims. He often takes pleasure in tormenting individuals who are disadvantaged or unable to defend themselves. A former member of the Ku Klux Klan, Coyle is deeply bigoted and patriotic in his convictions. He frequently indulges in ranting about ideologies that differ from his traditionalist beliefs, such as Communism, which he believes undermines his ideal vision of America, and he regularly expresses racist, xenophobic and anti-Semitic views.

Aligned with his weapon of choice, an electrified cattle prod/baton, Coyle holds a fascination for electricity. During surveillance conducted by Murkoff, he was observed standing in a field amidst a lightning storm on five occasions. He is also shown to be sexually aroused by electricity, pressing his weapon to his groin or bare hand out of pleasure, and many of the mannequins and corpses seem to have been sexually assaulted with his weapon or electric wires.

He has been shown in both Trials and Documents to be incredibly rash and will not hesitate to resort to physical violence such as when he attacked an Ex-Pop trying to avoid him. He happens to have his own view in laws, even if it's technically wrong as he thinks the true laws are the one that fits his ideology. This can be shown during his interruption of the "lawyers" in Vindicate the Guilty and his belief that anyone on trial is a criminal regardless of the court's decision.

Prior to Project LATHE, he maintained excessively detailed notes, considering himself an indispensable figure in history and believing himself to be of significant interest to future generations, indicating a possible struggle with narcissistic personality disorder. However, this disposition sometimes veers into sheer paranoia, particularly when contemplating the consequences of being caught off guard. He frequently projects his cruelty onto those he harbors resentment towards. It can be assumed that even after abduction Leland Coyle still holds some sense of awareness to outside world events, though this is somewhat skeptical from his remarks on events that are years before the events of Outlast Trials.

He was an extremely popular and well-liked person on the job as well as privately. He very much enjoyed being social as both a member of the Elk Club and VFW, having a high standing in both. Coyle being evidently a power-obsessed person and considering the speed at which he rose the ranks to Sergeant, it can be speculated that he actively made efforts to curry favors with those around him to further his own social standing and influence. Money also played a big role for him in that regard, as he actively extorted his in-laws and took bribes, furthering his social standing and lifestyle even more to cement his position of power in society.

When patrolling, Coyle sometimes comment about women and seems to be only value them when it comes to his own benefit, like The Judge and Lady Justice from the Courthouse trials. He also shows concern when they held power tools such as Mother Gooseberry, who has unstable mental health condition and armed with the drill. He mentioned that a woman shouldn't given any weapon (or power), reflecting his classic 1950s era sexist view. While the reasons are unknown, he also killed all his wives under one year of marriage, shows no remorse and cracks a joke about their death, such as the telling the Snitch that he looked like his second wife. With how he remarks on how Mother Gooseberry reminded him why he killed his wife, there's a possibility that all his wives turned against him at some point, perhaps to the point of fighting him.

Leland's surname "Coyle" is likely a nod to the electromagnetic coil, which is an electrical conductor used to create a rotating magnetic field. His affinity for electricity can also be seen in his choice of weaponry. The badges displayed on Coyle's uniform contradict both his established lore and rank within the Police Force. The badge on his chest reads Lieutenant Born to kill despite his ranking being that of a Sergeant. While his belt buckle reads Sheriff's Dept Oklahoma. Coyle's hat badge reads Special Killer. It is most likely a play on the commonly available Special Police costume badge. Coyle wanders around singing his version of "This Little Light of Mine" and make a reference to another song, "Plastic Jesus". Like the Night Hunter, Coyle has a noticeable regional dialect or accent; he speaks with a significant drawl which is typical for the southern States of the USA. Dialogue from the Courthouse suggests that Coyle took part in the Battle of Okinawa, which is considered to have been the bloodiest battle of the Pacific Theatre during WWII. Considering the battle took place during April and June 1945 at the tail end of WWII, and Coyle having served two years honorably following his enrollment in the Marine Corps after his first wife's death when he was between 19 and 20 years old - as she died half a year after their marriage - his approximate year of birth would be 1923/24. This would mean that Coyle should be around 35/36 years old when he was brought to the Sinyala Facility in 1959. He also would have spent much of his childhood during the Great Depression, possibly in part explaining his juvenile delinquency and obsession with posterity and power. Cornelius Noakes and Coyle were both stationed in the Pacific Theatre during WWII; however, they fought in different Battles, with Noakes being present at the Battle of Attu. According to unused dialogue, Coyle's father also served during WWII, fighting Nazi forces in Germany. He was present during the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, located in today's federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia. In stark contrast to the victorious Battle of Okinawa, the fight in the Hürtgen Forrest was an embarrassing affair for the Allied Forces, as the Nazis not only held out long enough to make this the single longest battle the US Army ever fought, but also managed to end it as a defensive victory. Coyle notes, that his father lost his foot in this battle. He does not make the extent of his father's injuries clear, though they could have possibly made him an invalid, and incapable of working normally anymore. Leland Coyle's hometown of Blackwell, Oklahoma features the Electric Park Pavilion, a historical building that is very in line with his theme of electricity. Blackwell also used to be a Sundown Town, reflecting Coyle's xenophobic ideals. Growing up in such an environment may have greatly contributed to the normalization of this mindset. Coyle even refers to his parlor in Sinyala as a Sundown Town in his dialogue. Coyle describes an instance of him witnessing a cow being struck by lightning in one of these lines. He uses the term "Kraut Black Angus" as a descriptor for the animal, with the German Angus cow being a specific breed that is bred for their beef. This suggests that Coyle's parents were cattle farmers. The battery strapped on his back used to belong to the Pontiac car. Coyle warns about this when he gets stunned by the Reagents. From his unused dialogues, Coyle used to have an irrational fear of lightning when he was a child. This made him afraid of taking a bath as he expected lightning would strike him from the pipes. During his collaboration with Mother Gooseberry in trials in Prime Time event, Coyle has officially confirmed that he killed all his wives. Leland Coyle states that he watched the movie that helps him spot communists. He might be referring to the 1955 propaganda manual film from the U.S Military.[1] After changing the educational film in "Teach the Police Officer", Coyle is depicted during what seems to be a panic attack of sorts: He is covering his face with his hands as he cowers in a fetal position, laying on his side, shaking, and seemingly weeping. It is unclear under which circumstances the contents of this film have been recorded, however it is of note that this is a state which is very unusual for Coyle to let himself be seen in. He does vocalize his paranoid assertions and describe how he experiences nightmares and shifts from lucidity into states of abstruseness, but witnessing him displaying a physical reaction like that is still very uncharacteristic considering his usually confident and brash character. The alphabet rhythm in his dialogues refers to organizations and associations in America rather than a traditional alphabet song. Coyle's cattle prod weapon may be inspired by the "Picana", which was used in Chile during the 1930s-1970s as a torture device. Often, they would strap Ford Car batteries to power the Picana. Prime Assets are not allowed to harm each other, but they often bicker. Despite their psychotic and hostile nature, they never attack each other, only the Reagents.