Killer Faye Copeland MO RIP Natural Causes

[softheart]

Dec. 31, 2003

Missouri

Convicted Killer Faye Copeland Dies

CHILLICOTHE, Mo. - Faye Copeland, a convicted killer once considered the
nation's oldest woman on death row, has died at a nursing home where she
had been released on medical parole, the Missouri Department of
Corrections said Tuesday. She was 82.

Copeland was convicted and sentenced to death along with her husband for
the murders of five transients as part of a late-1980s' livestock swindle
at their farm near Chillicothe. She was the oldest woman on death row
until a federal court commuted her sentence in 1999 to life in prison.

Copeland suffered a stroke in August 2002 that left her partially
paralyzed and unable to speak. She was paroled a couple of weeks later to
nursing home in her hometown. Copeland died Sunday at the Morningside
Center nursing home from what Livingston County coroner Scott Lindley
described Tuesday as natural causes.

Authorities contended Ray and Faye Copeland used transients, some from the
Victory Mission in Springfield, in a scheme to buy cattle with bad checks,
then killed the men and buried them in shallow graves. Faye Copeland's
defense during trial was that her husband committed the killings without
her knowledge and that she was bystander who was the victim of battered
woman syndrome.

But jurors found Faye Copeland's guilty after prosecutors presented a
handwritten list of farm helpers in her writing. She had written the names
because Ray Copeland was illiterate. Twelve of the names had scrawled X's
by them. Five of those men turned up dead, and prosecutors believed three
others who were missing also died.

Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo., who before he was elected to the U.S. House
helped prosecute the Copelands in separate trials, said in 1999 that the
list of names showed Faye Copeland was more of an accomplice than she
claimed.

Copeland had pressed for her release since she was imprisoned. In 1995, a
petition bearing 3,000 signatures was sent to the governor stating that
Copeland would not be a threat to society if she was released. Then in
1999, another petition was forwarded, claiming Copeland had no problems in
prison and that she was old and needed to be released and brought home.

Ray Copeland, who prosecutors say shot the victims, died in 1993 at age 78
at the Potosi Correctional Center while awaiting execution.

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Source : Associated Press.

[lovinbilly4ever]

gosh thats sad
but, at least she was able to live out the last days of her life--not in prison.

[KRIS_NC]

IT IS SO SAD. SHE IS AT PEACE AND DIED OF NATURAL CAUSES OUTSIDE OF A PRISON,NOT AT THE HANDS OF AN EXECUTIONER

[QQin4meboo]

at least she wasnt murdered !

the shame in alot of this , is there are folks on death row , that have grown old and lived , while newer ones are being killed already ! should the time line be a lil different ? or more ,across the board ? especially with all the folks being freed , dna and special orginizations , ect !

[gigglez1979]

I was suprised reading this, I think because I was locked up with her. Anyways' I just wanted to post that when I met her she was quiet and seemed locked inside herself. I never really had a chance to talk to her, but thought there was always more to her than we all saw.

[babygirl350]

Originally Posted by gigglez1979

I was suprised reading this, I think because I was locked up with her. Anyways' I just wanted to post that when I met her she was quiet and seemed locked inside herself. I never really had a chance to talk to her, but thought there was always more to her than we all saw.

It must have been a big shock to you then to learn of her death. May she forever sleep with the angels now and be at peace.