The Outlast Trials

Recall Range: 2

Sergeant Leland Coyle is a Prime Asset and primary antagonist in The Outlast Trials. A former corrupt police sergeant from Blackwell, Oklahoma, he is a delusional authoritarian who enforces his personal, sadistic version of “the law” through electrocution, sexual violence, and murder with an electrified stun baton. He is voiced by Julian Bailey. Early Life Born in 1923 in Blackwell, Oklahoma (a known sundown town). Anecdotal records describe childhood animal abuse and sexual assault, leading to military-academy education. Teenage criminal tendencies were largely redirected by local Ku Klux Klan involvement. At 19 he married. Six months later he murdered his wife, claiming she “fell down the stairs.” To avoid investigation he enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served two years in the Pacific Theater during World War II (including Okinawa). He recorded three confirmed enemy kills and two “suspicious” American deaths in his company. After the war he returned to Oklahoma, resumed Klan activity, and joined the Blackwell police force in 1947. He earned numerous commendations while engaging in systematic corruption: prison-labor exploitation, extortion, and civil forfeiture. He held respected positions in the Elks Club and VFW and remained popular among colleagues and locals despite his record. He married a second time and immediately began extorting his wife’s family. The family died in an electrical fire. His wife fled to Chicago and was later found dead of officially “natural causes” (body recovered on Kostner Avenue); Coyle is implied to have killed her. Promoted to Sergeant, he married a third time. He shot this wife multiple times in the head (ruled suicide). Within a year her relatives also died under increasingly elaborate “suicides.” Coyle later confirmed he killed all three wives; two were named Irene and June. Murkoff surveillance noted him standing in open fields watching lightning storms on five separate occasions. He maintains a sexual fixation on electricity—pressing his baton to his body for pleasure—and many corpses and mannequins in his environments show signs of sexual assault involving the weapon or electrical wires. Childhood memories he references include watching a lightning-struck cow burn while his father drank beer, and his mother forcing him naked into a bathtub with live electrical equipment. Recruitment In February 1956, Murkoff Collections operative Clyde Perry met Coyle at a bar on Route 177 under the pretext of offering a bribe. Coyle immediately saw through the cover, noted he had been followed, drank heavily, and assaulted Perry—breaking two fingers, leaving extensive bruises, and causing bloody urine. Perry described feeling like a mouse toyed with by a cat and believed Coyle could have killed him. Despite the attack, Perry strongly recommended Coyle for PROJECT LATHE, citing his charisma, effectiveness, and suitability. Coyle was not recruited from prison or an asylum; he was taken directly from active law enforcement. He entered the Experimental Population during the first iteration of PROJECT LATHE around 1956. He quickly dominated other subjects and was elevated to Prime Asset. Further experimental procedures intensified his pathology. By the main events of The Outlast Trials at the Sinyala Facility under Dr. Hendrick Joliet Easterman, he functions as the controlling force of Trial environments themed around police authority and punishment. Appearance and Behavior as Prime Asset Coyle primarily dominates the Police Station (“Thin Blue Line”) and Courthouse environments, later expanding into the Prison Farm. He patrols aggressively, checks hiding spots, and forces open locked doors and barricades faster than ordinary Grunts. His electrified baton and backpack emit distinctive blue sparks and crackling sounds (augmented by cigarette smoke), making him detectable in darkness and slightly extending his detection range. He is highly vocal—louder and more frequent than other Prime Assets—delivering continuous rants about law, guilt, authority, communism, and his personal code of justice. On contact he seizes Reagents and delivers a powerful electric shock that deals heavy damage and disables Rigs for 30 seconds. Downed Reagents face an electrocution execution that can be interrupted by teammates. He possesses higher stun resistance than standard Grunts but remains vulnerable to Stun and Blind Rigs. Electrical grid traps appear throughout his maps; they cycle on a timer and can be disabled by throwing a brick or bottle at the control panel. Notable trial behaviors include: Kill the Snitch: First seen torturing The Snitch on monitors. Electrocutes an Ex-Pop to death on camera (beating the head until it bursts). Cuts power, hunts in the darkened underground garage, and suffers a visible breakdown if the Snitch is successfully executed. Other Police Station content (Cancel the Autopsy, Sabotage the Lockdown, Release the Prisoners, Teach the Police Officer, Eliminate the Past, Seize the Narcotics): Variable patrol patterns focused on generators, security rooms, or insertion gates. Courthouse trials (including Vindicate the Guilty): Interacts with courtroom theatrics and the False Judge, prioritizes nearest targets, and grows violently protective of his version of justice. Locksock the Warden (Prison Farm): Introduced receiving oral sex from The Warden (an obese man fitted with a Scold’s Bridle who serves as his submissive sex slave). Wears a campaign hat. Becomes enraged when interrupted, later attempts to protect The Warden during the final execution sequence, and threatens to make a new Warden from the Reagents. He remains conflicted between attachment to the current Warden and willingness to replace him. He has collaborated with Mother Gooseberry in Prime Time events. Documents record an earlier attack by Heavy Ex-Pop Henrietta Grubbs (later repurposed as The Jaeger); Coyle inflicted severe injuries. An early interview notes his preference for “authority over control.” Psychology and Later Documentation Coyle is a charismatic narcissistic sadist, white supremacist, misogynist, and authoritarian who equates “innocent” with “guilty with an excuse.” He frames violence as righteous justice or divine intervention (lightning as “the finger of God”). Murkoff conditioning has further eroded his grip on reality: he experiences lost time, difficulty distinguishing real from unreal, and intense sexual arousal that disrupts concentration. The secret Primary Sources document “In the Walls” (located in the Shower Surveillance room during Locksock the Warden after specific access steps involving detonators, levers, The Warden’s body, and an animal padlock) shows a heavily drugged, barely coherent Coyle writing in near-illegible, phonetic spelling. He reports hearing a woman’s voice in the walls of “the station” (almost certainly Amelia Collier). He categorizes his dead wives Irene and June as real/not-real and complains they continue “complaining.” He rants about Murkoff scientists (“Whitecotes”) pumping him with stimulants (bennies/Benzedrine), grinding his teeth, tasting his own blood, and being forced to work on “fruits to squish.” Amidst the arousal and hallucinations he attempts to maintain “investigative discipline,” notes staff anxiety, and records the voice promising “Hope” and “Soon,” accompanied by a breeze from the wall. Coyle’s environments, dialogue, and personal writings consistently reinforce themes of corrupt institutional power, punishment as both profit and control, sexualized violence, and electricity as tool, fetish, and symbol of justice. He remains one of the most vocal, relentless, and psychologically detailed Prime Assets in the Sinyala Facility, embodying Murkoff’s deliberate weaponization of real-world authoritarian sadism within the Trials.