COEUR d'ALENE - It was May 4 of last year, and it was the first time Mike and Marilyn Haenke had ever invested in gold and silver.

They had done research, and part of their research recommended they buy it locally. So they did.

That's how CoiNuts in Coeur d'Alene entered the picture. CoiNuts and its owner, Kevin E. Mitchell, ended up ripping the Haenkes off for $50,000.

The Haenkes planned to make the investment for their two grown daughters, both of whom suffer from disabilities and are unable to independently maintain a regular income. The Haenkes wanted to do what they could to provide for their daughters in the future.

"And Kevin Mitchell has taken that away from us - from them actually," Marilyn said at her home Monday. Her daughters, Michelle, 39, and Misti, 36, still live at home.

The Press has reported recently that dozens of former CoiNuts customers have been swindled out of gold, coins and money at the shop, which had been open until July last year at 296 W. Sunset Ave., just off U.S. 95.

Kevin E. Mitchell, 47, of Hayden Lake, hasn't been charged, and he has not returned messages seeking comment.

Reflecting back, Marilyn said she had a bad feeling as she wrote the check for the valuables. She was very reluctant.

"I just had a sense that something is wrong," she said. "I looked at (Mitchell) and I said, 'I don't feel good about this at all.'"

The plan was for her to pay $50,000, and the valuables would arrive within a month. All she would leave the store with, however, was a handwritten invoice. She kept thinking about how hard her father had worked to save the money.

To put her mind at ease, in the middle of the transaction, Mitchell explained that he's a man of God and recited some lines from the Bible about the value of gold and silver.

"We looked it up later, and we couldn't find what he was saying," she said.

She shook as she left the shop.

Months went by and Mitchell kept promising the Haenkes the gold was on its way. Then, in July, the Kootenai County Sheriff's Department shut CoiNuts down.

By chance, Marilyn and Mike Haenke had gone to CoiNuts the day it was shut down, thinking they would check on their promised metals. They saw patrol cruisers in the parking lot as they pulled up.

"I just said (Mike), 'I think we're in for it,'" meaning they had been swindled, Marilyn said.

She said Mitchell was casually standing outside the shop, smoking a cigarette, as deputies worked inside the closed store. Oddly, Mitchell still promised to deliver on their gold and silver. He went a step further, asking the Haenkes for more money.

He explained the shutdown, she said, with some mumbo jumbo story about an investor "who pulled his money out."

The supposed investor had been doing something illegal with his taxes, she was told.

"(Mitchell) just said a bunch of garbage," she said.

Quickly, they went to the Coeur d'Alene Police Department to file a report. Soon they were able to talk with a detective handling the case.

"He said there were other people ahead of us," she said. "He said there was a growing group of people against Kevin Mitchell."

She said she also spoke briefly with a Kootenai County deputy prosecutor, who wasn't able to share any information.

She called the Coeur d'Alene Police Department four or five more times and didn't receive any call back, she said.

"I said, 'Could you please call me because I'd like to have an update of what's going on,'" she said.

Finally, she reached someone. Not a detective, but a lower-level representative of the police department.

"She just said that this action is growing so large that it's going to take a long time to go through," Marilyn said. "It's going to be a slow process," she was told.

That conversation was in late summer, and it was her last with police.

"It was like talking to the wall here," she said.

The Haenkes then contacted Coeur d'Alene Mayor Sandi Bloem by letter in December.

In the letter, Marilyn explained the major blow to the family's savings. She told the mayor the money was to provide their daughters with money when Marilyn and Mike are gone.

Marilyn wrote: "I cannot express enough to you how disturbing this is to me as a mother who has dealt with children with disabilities."

She added, "This is a huge blow to what has already been a lifelong heartache."

Also, she expressed concern that the police department knew of Mitchell's activities "since 2010."

She wrote: "While knowledgeable, our police took no action. Consequently, and unfortunately, I unsuspectingly walked into the fraud (on) May 4, 2012."

Marilyn asked the mayor to find out what Police Chief Wayne Longo's department is doing.

Coeur d'Alene Police Sgt. Christie Wood said Monday police worked the cases and forwarded the information on to prosecutors.

In January, Bloem called Marilyn.

"She was appalled at the situation," Marilyn said.

Bloem was going to contact prosecutors and get back to Marilyn. They haven't talked since.

The Haenkes have been awarded $59,000 in a default judgment in 1st District Court in Kootenai County. But that's not worth much if authorities can't find Mitchell's assets.

Marilyn asked to read a statement, which she wrote and hopes Mitchell receives:

"Kevin Mitchell cannot take our hope and joy, because that's in the Lord. And while he is morally and spiritually corrupt, we hold no malice toward him. However, he needs to get on his knees and ask God to forgive him, and to make restitution to everyone he has defrauded."

If he can't pay everyone back, she added, "Then he needs to be incarcerated, and get off the street so people would be protected from him."

She also wanted Mitchell to know specifically who he has hurt in her family.

Her daughter, Misti, through birth trauma, was left with learning disabilities. She was home-schooled.

Michelle came down with viral encephalitis at age 18.

"If you look up encephalitis it's pretty nasty," Marilyn said. "That's something that crosses the blood-brain barrier."

Michelle has suffered for years with seizures, which prevent her from working. She has memory problems.

"I know God will take care of them," Marilyn said of her daughters. "But we were trying to do our very best to make things easier along the way."

Marilyn was very low after getting ripped off. Her daughters have already been through so much, she said.

She said Mitchell didn't know the investment in gold and silver was for Michelle and Misti.

"He will now," she said.