Ray and Faye Copeland: America's Oldest Serial Killers

Published Aug 20, 2024, 7:00 AM

Ray and Faye Copeland were husband and wife serial killers and the oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States. Their known victims include at least five farmhands -- more men are still considered missing and likely also murdered, though their remains have not been found. This is a story about nearly a dozen hired laborers who disappeared from the Copeland farm in the 1980s. 

Welcome to Criminalia, a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. Hey, before the show starts today, we have a little bit of fun news to share.

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We have been working very diligently for the past many months on creating something that a lot of you have been asking for, and that is a book of cocktails and cocktails that are told right alongside the stories that.

We talk about, plus additional ones that we have not talked about.

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Ray and Fay Copeland were husband and wife serial killers and the oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States. Their known victims include Dennis Murphy born in nineteen sixty two in Normal, Illinois and killed in October of nineteen eighty six. Wayne Warner from Bloomington, Illinois, killed in November of nineteen eighty six. Jimmy Harvey born in nineteen sixty one in Springfield, Missouri, and killed in October of nineteen eighty eight. John Freeman born on January sixth, nineteen sixty two in Boonville, Indiana, and killed in December of nineteen eighty eight. And Paul Cohort born on September thirtieth, nineteen sixty eight, in Dardenelle, Arkansas, and killed in May of nineteen eighty nine. More men are still considered missing and like also murdered, though their remains have not been found. This is a story about nearly a dozen hired hands who disappeared from the Copeland farm in the nineteen eighties. Welcome to Criminalia, I'm Maria Tremarchy and.

I'm Holly Frye. Ray Copeland was an aging farmer whose neighbors in Moorsville, Missouri, population one point thirty had always viewed him as a quote menacing odd ball. They reported that he yelled at waitresses. The owner of the local cafe described him as quote real bity and snappy. Others in town said they'd personally witnessed him intentionally run over dogs with his vehicle. He made his neighbors uneasy. Most thought that he abused his wife and children, and most kept their distance. But in addition to his temper and behavior, they also told authorities that he regularly hung out around places where drifters and vagrants could get a meal in a bed for the night, and he knew that he made them job offers. He was also known to pick up hitchhikers to work as hired hands on his farm.

Ray had a long history of criminal activity, and he'd spent quite a bit of time incarcerated. He was born in Oklahoma in nineteen fourteen. He dropped out of school when he was nine years old, and that was in the fourth grade, and was described by friends of the family as stubborn and insubordinate. Before the age of twenty, he had started committing petty crimes to help his family make ends meet during the Great Depression. Sometimes he stole livestock, primarily hoggs, once stealing and selling his own father's livestock, But his favorite criminal activity was writing fraudulent checks. He was arrested for forgery. In fact, he was arrested and jailed several times for it. In nineteen thirty nine, Ray was arrested and sentenced to one year in jail for forging government checks, kind of a step up the ladder of check for us.

He met Faye Della Wilson in nineteen forty, shortly after his release from jail after that arrest and incarceration, and they married and had several children. Their primary income was Ray's ongoing offense of writing and cashing bad checks, which was also intertwined with cattle theft. Will explain so hold that thought. Ray was jailed several times while his children were young, and the family moved from town to town. In nineteen sixty seven, they bought a small farm with forty acres of land in Mooresville, Missouri, their final home, but Ray's criminal past followed them there too. Specifically, Ray was barred from livestock auctions. Auction houses refused to sell cattle to him because he was known for writing bad checks to make those purchases.

In the nineteen seventies, seemingly having spent more time behind bars than at home, Ray started thinking about it new way to buy cattle with bad checks. His scheme had been that he hired transient workers as farm hands, and part of their job was to sign his checks as proxies at live auctions, and when those checks bounced for insufficient funds, he would deny. He wrote them, I mean, look the signatures and the handwriting, they don't even match his. And Ray would sell the animals before anyone caught on about the check fraud. But after one worker, a man named Gerald Perkins, was loose lipped about the scam after being caught, it was Ray who ended up spending two years in prison for check forgery. Perkins had given him up that scheme was over, sort of. He made some modifications, and we'll lay that out in just a minute, because first we're going to take a break forward from our sponsors. When we're back, we will talk about an anonymous tip that turned the authorities onto possible crimes at the Copeland Farm.

Welcome back to Criminalia. Let's talk about raised new scheme and one hired hand who got away with his life and then tipped off authorities to possible hobicides on the Copeland farm.

By the mid nineteen eighties, Ray was fine tuning his fraud scheme. Over three years, local police had been tracking a string of bad checks passed by transients transiances who had turned out had all worked at Copeland's farm. During the same time, cattle houses in rural Missouri found themselves plagued with a fraud problem. There were several men who had purchased cattle with checks that were returned due to insufficient funds, but when police tried to find those men, they appeared to have just vanished. When questioned about the men, Ray stated he knew nothing about what happened to his farm hands when they left the farm. After all, he hired transient workers, and by nature, they moved along, and it just so happened that Raid never hired a farm hand who had a family or who would be missed if he suddenly disappeared.

Local authorities felt something suspicious was going on, but they had no proof until August of nineteen eighty nine. On August twentieth, nineteen eighty nine, at seven thirty pm, the Nebraska Crime Stoppers hotline logged an anonymous tip. A male caller accused Ray Copeland of murdering the men that he hired as farm hands. The caller stated that he'd moved from Missouri to Nebraska to escape Ray, and had, while in Missouri witnessed events that made him fear for his life and perhaps the lives of others. He explained that he'd worked on the Copelands farm and there he'd seen a skull and several human bones buried on the land. He continued that initially he was unaware of the illegal activities happening there, but he was since sure there were illegal activities happening, and then he hung up. That man turned out to be fifty seven year old Jack McCormick, a transient worker who was wanted for writing bad checks because he was a drifter and in recovery from alcohol addiction. Nebraska police initially didn't think very much of the man's claims. They just didn't think he was trustworthy. But after even just a shallow dive into the deep criminal pool of the farmer in question Ray Copeland, they then notified Missouri authorities about the tip.

When Missouri police asked about checks that had bounced at auction houses written by people working for him, Ray told them that they had bounced checks to him too, and what did that prove authorities first shrugged it off because though there was a spike in check fraud, Ray's story sounded maybe plausible. But Jack McCormick had more to say than just his anonymous tip. He had details. He told authorities that when Ray hired him, he brought him to the bank to open a checking account with a small amount of money. Ray's new scheme was in place, and it worked like this. He and his hired hand would attend cattle auctions and bid exorbitant prices on livestock. His hired hand would write a check, and together the pair would leave with the livestock they allegedly purchased. By the time the checks bounced for insufficient funds, Ray had already resold the cattle, and the man who'd signed the check was nowhere to be found. And it was a fraud scheme he pulled off over and over. Between nineteen eighty six and the summer of nineteen eighty nine, a dozen men who'd worked for Ray Copeland accumulated a total of thirty two thousand dollars through phony bank accounts, and then those men vanished.

It didn't seem strange to Jack the scam or the disappearances until one night when Ray called for help with a raccoon in the barn. Entering the barn, Jack found himself with a rifle pointed at his head. He left with his life after promising that he would leave Missouri and that he would never speak of his time at the farm. It was risky and frankly out of character for Ray to believe him and let Jack go. He just did not count on Jack's billing the beans.

Said Ray to detectives when they arrived at his Mooorsville farm after the crime stopper's tip quote, you'll find nothing on my place, but they did. Missouri investigators spent months gathering evidence in addition to McCormick's statements to secure a search warrant. On the morning of October ninth, nineteen eighty nine, Sheriff Leland O'Dell, along with reported upwards of forty officers, several back hose and teams of bloodhounds, arrived at the Copelands farm. A week into their crime scene investigation, they had turned up nothing, but then on October seventeenth, they discovered multiple bodies buried in shallow graves, each with a twenty two caliber bullet to the back of the head, shot at close range.

The following week, investigators also began a search of the neighboring farm where Ray frequently worked for extra money, and they found a grizzly scene in a barn there. It took several hours to remove two thousand bales of hay, which were stacked to the ceiling, but that effort was worth it because investigators discovered a body wrapped in black plastic beneath the barn floor. It was a man who had also been killed by a single gunshot to the back of the head. He was later identified as Wayne Warner. Near the end of their search in the investigators made one final discovery. The body of Dennis Murphy was discovered in an old well not very far from where Warner's body had been found, and he too had been killed by a single bullet to the back of the head. When questioned about Ray, the neighboring farm owner told reporters quote, he's dependable, a very hard working guy. Very surprising to me that he had time to get into mischief.

The bodies were badly decomposed, and dental records were difficult to obtain for the missing men, as none of them had regular dental care. But one thing was clear. They all had been killed by the same weapon, a twenty two caliber Marlin rifle. Authorities found that bolt action rifle inside the Copeland home, and, according to reports by the Kansas City Star, ballistics testing confirmed it was the weapon used to murder the victims. On that bombshell of evidence, We're going to take a break for a word from our sponsors, and when back, we'll talk about what happened when Ray and his wife, Fay, went to trial for murder.

Welcome back to Criminalia. There were questions, at least initially, about how much Ray's wife knew about or was involved in the check writing slash cattle scam and the murders that took place on their land. Let's talk about where Fay was in this homicidal scene.

Prosecutors were quick to offer Fay a deal. If she told investigators where more bodies might be found, they would only charge her with conspiracy to commit murder rather than first degree murder, and she would serve just a few months in jail for her cooperation. Fa though claimed to have no knowledge of any of the murders, and her defense during her trial was that her husband committed the killings without her knowledge. In court, she stated she was an innocent bystander who was the victim of battered woman syndrome now known as intimate partner violence. Ray, she said, was a brutal man and that he was both physically and verbally abusive to her and their children. She claimed she had been too terrified of her husband to question or to resist.

Said Faye, quote, I begged Ray time and time again to please stay out of trouble. We had our home and everything paid for. We were on Social Security, So why would he turn around and mess all that up just like he has? Fay explained in an episode of Forensic Files, that was an American documentary television program that used evidence and interviews to help solve real crimes. That quote, we were just everyday people. I was taught from childhood on that you marry and stay with him. Husband was the boss.

But there was one item recovered from the house that challenge this image Fay had projected of an unknowing spouse. A ledger containing a list of names in Fay's handwriting. Twelve of the names had large x's by them, and they matched the names of the men wanted for passing bad checks at cattle houses. Five of those names were of men who turned up dead on the farm, and prosecutors believed at least three others who were missing had also been killed by Ray Copeland. The prosecution concluded Fay had full knowledge of what was going on and was a co conspirator.

Investigators also found something else that's quite alarming and truly grim. Clothing that did not belong to Ray was in the Copeland home, and Fay had made a so called trophy quilt that was sown from the clothing of the murdered men.

They were tried separately. Fay, aged sixty nine, was first to stand trial on November one, nineteen ninety for the murders of deabt Nnis Murphy, Wayne Warner, Jimmy Harvey, John Freeman, and Paul Cohart. According to articles published in the Saint Louis Post Dispatch, Fay's defense was that her husband had committed the killings without her knowledge. She told the court she was a victim of battered woman syndrome. However, she could not explain away the ledger or the quilt. The jury felt she was likely abused by Ray, but also stated she was culpable and she should be held accountable for these murders. They found her guilty on all five counts, and the judge sentenced her to death by lethal injection for four of those. She received life without parole for the fifth murder. During her sentencing, Fay, it was reported, cried.

The next morning, a sheriff transporting Ray to a Kansas City hospital for a mental health evaluation, asked him what he thought about the outcome of his wife's trial. The conversation went like this quote. You hear about the verdict. Ray, Now what happened? Well, they found your wife guilty and recommended execution for her. Ray. Well, those things happened to some you know, Ray responded, and Ray never asked about Fay again.

Ray's trial took place the following year. Prosecutors had Ray evaluated at a Statementtal hospital more than once. They wanted him incarcerated, and they wanted to avoid his skirting prison through an insanity defense. Determined sane on March seventh, nineteen ninety one, seventy six year old Ray went to trial. After weeks of testimony and the cold hard facts of the ballistic test results presented by the prosecution, in court, a jury found him guilty on all five counts of first degree murder, though authorities continued to believe that number was likely as high as twelve. When he was sentenced to death by lethal injection, Ray mumbling said quote, I'm okay.

Ray died two years later of natural causes at age seventy eight at the Potosi Correctional Center while awaiting execution on death row.

Fay was not executed either. Her death sentence was overturned on appeal, though not her conviction. She instead served a life sentence for each murder. Fay argued for her release during the entire time she was incarcerated. Kenny Holshoff, United States representative from Missouri's ninth congressional district, stated in nineteen ninety nine that the list of names of the men who'd been killed was without a doubt evidence Fay was more of an accomplice than she claimed she'd been. Holshoff, before he was elected to the House of Representatives, had helped prosecute the Copelands. According to a court document regarding the appeal of her conviction, Fay admitted she had often conversed with the farm hands that she she handled. Bank transactions, and later told those banks she did not know who the men were when the checks bounced.

It was reported by the Columbia Daily Tribune that Fay loved to work in the prison greenhouse every day. Two weeks after her sentencing, she Gaven interviewed to Lee Kavanaugh of the Kansas City Star, and the following is excerpted from that interview. Quote. I couldn't have flowers at home. He didn't like me to be tending to anything other than him. As long as I was with him, or working the cattle or the tractor, that was okay. But flowers, no, he didn't like them, she continued. Quote. I was raised to love my husband and support him no matter what. The man is the head of the family. The Bible says it should be that way. It wouldn't do to say if Ray was mean to me or not. Yes, he did mess up my life, but that's not to say that I wasn't a good wife to him. I was never mean to him. Maybe we'd have gotten along better if I I knocked the shit out of him a few times and a little more of face. Thoughts included quote. I've often thought since maybe this was for the best. Where did I go wrong? If I went wrong, I know one place was getting married at all. But he was my life for many, many years. I didn't know nothing else. Will I get out? I may go out feet first, but I'll get out of here someday.

In August two thousand and two, at the age of eighty two, they was released on medical parole and sent to Morningside Center nursing home after suffering a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and unable to speak. She died the day before New Year's Eve of two thousand and three. While neither of the pair was actually executed, Ray and Fay, respectively, hold the distinction of being the oldest couple ever sentenced to death in the United States.

Though will likely never know why. According to a report in the two thousand Russian Journal of Psychiatry, most elderly murderers demonstrate a close relationship between pre snile or senile disorders and social psychological factors, and in more than half of these cases there is clear evidence of psychopathology. Another study conducted also in two thousand, but by the Medical Correctional Authority, found that most of those sent to prison for the first time at age sixty or older were there because they had committed crimes of passion, though they may not have been in the right mindset. Ray and Fake Hopeland's murders of their hired hands were not crimes of passion. They were crimes to hide well other crimes. Their son, Alviolee Copeland, speaking briefly with the Associated Press, had tried to secure his mother's release since she was imprisoned, and he was quoted saying, quote, there's no way in the world mom could have done what they said she had done. But in regards to his father, al stated quote, he was guilty. I have no qualms about that. What a story.

I was alive during this story, and I have to tell you I don't remember really hearing about it.

I don't either, and I don't know if it's just because this also happened when I was alive, but at a time when I was like in college and a young adult starting my life, and I may have just been not paying attention to such things.

But we don't usually have stories where I'm like, I know crime stoppers are in their files because I remember these shows.

Yes, are you ready to make it a double Yes?

I am.

This story is grizzly and it's sad. Don't worry, I'm not gonna make a cocktail called trophy quilts. I'm not that grim. That's not where I'm at right now. It's one of those things that I could tell throughout this season is probably gonna happen. I'm gonna find whatever seems like the happiest note of it and try to go from there. This is a drink that's called Phase Flowers because I was really struck by this idea that she had turned to gardening in prison. I have read other stories of people who in prison find themselves really falling in love with horticulture, and I always find that fascinating. I'm sure it feels like a hopeful act to grow things. It's also like meditative. That's why I like to grow things. I'm not very good at it, but I always try so. For this drink, it did seem the most right to pick the most upbeat detail I could. And this story is also a cousin of a drink called a Gin Daisy, so there's a floral theme to it. And I shall see the ingredients follow suit. So into your shaking tin with ice, you will put a half ounce of lemon juice, a half ounce of hibiscus syrup, a half ounce of elderflower liqueur, and an ounce and a half of gin. And I encourage you to choose a very floral gin if you can. I have one that's honeysuckle in rows. But if you can't find a floral gin, you can make your own by doing a tea infusion on it. Just find an herbal tea that has flowers like cam a meal or hibiscus or something else lavender, et cetera, and just let it steep. It doesn't need to steep very long. It tends to infuse alcohol really quickly. I usually do four ounces to a tea bag or the equivalent. If you do a loose tea, let that sit for thirty minutes, give it a couple of shakes, take out the teas, or strain it. If you have them as loose leaves. Great, you have infused gin. This is also a good way to just up your cocktail game. We've done it on the show before, but I want to encourage people find those teas that you think are interesting and infuse things like particularly gin and vodka with them, because then when you make drinks for your friends at home. They think you are a fancy pants when really you're like, I just shook a jar on the counter. It's really not a big deal, but it makes a great So you will have shaken all of these ingredients together with ice, Strain it over fresh ice, top it with just a kiss of club soda or a little ginger ale if you want to make it a little sweeter, and really keep it in that sweet floral zone. This is such a lovely drink. It's an easy, classic feeling drink. Even though we're leaning heavily into flowers. I also if you do have flowers around your house that are edible, always check. I cut one of my zinias and just plopped it in there, and it looked super pretty and made it look very floral ly, very soothing. So to make it a mocktail, you are gonna do that trick that I said about infusing things with tea. You're gonna get your tonic really flat and infuse like four ounces of a tonic with floral tea. Obviously you'll have extra you can use it in something else or just drink it by itself with a syrup or whatever, and then you'll use elderflower syrup instead of liqueur, and then you're golden. You have made face flowers and hopefully you can shrug off the of some of the aspects of this.

Oh, I know, I'm assuming I'm going to love a floral drink.

We whipped over it very quickly because I was so icked out by the idea of someone running over dogs on purpose. This is clearly a person who, for whatever reason, was very broken. So let's find the flowers and soothe ourselves, whether that is with your cocktail or your mocktail. I will always, I think, in a story like this, try to find something pretty about it. Not about the story, but a doorway out.

That is our season.

Where's the doorway? We need an escape patch. So we are so thankful that you spent this time with us talking about this and thinking about drinks that might relieve the yick of listening to such stories. We will be right back here next week with another tale of a criminal duo, or maybe a trio and a drink to go with it. Criminalia is a production of Shondaland Audio in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from Shondaland Audio, please visit the iHeartRadio, app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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