Biography

Lou Ellen "Lulu" Couch was born in 1963. Couch grew up in the projects of South Seattle, Washington with her siblings who included her youngest biracial brother Frankie. A tough and butch, yet still caring and tender tomboy lesbian, Lou Ellen served as a mentor and protector to many teenage runaways living on the hard streets of Seattle. Couch was prominently featured in the acclaimed documentary Streetwise as well as in the book Street Child: A Memoir by Justin Reed Early, who knew Lou Ellen when he was a homeless youth. (Couch was also the inspiration for the character of Bullet in the TV series The Killing.) Lou Ellen died on December 12, 1985 after she was fatally stabbed in the heart during a fight with a homeless man in an arcade in downtown Seattle. She was only twenty-two years old.