Few serial killer couples carry a crime streak past retirement age. That claim to fame belongs to the American Gothic Killers, Faye and Ray Copeland. Their story is a demented one, driven by the want to make an easy buck, even if that money was made at the expense of other people’s lives. That’s really what it came down to. Money was the motive for most of Ray’s crimes, though this killer was thought to have a sadistic side as well.
Ray Copeland was a twisted man willing to do terrible things for seemingly no reason. One business owner from the town where Copeland lived before his arrest stated that Ray would swerve out of his way to run over dogs in the street. But what about Faye? She had to have been better, right? Well, maybe. There’s evidence to suggest she had a sick side as well.
Before He was a Killer, Ray Copeland was a Scam Artist
Ray Copeland wasn’t the most educated individual. Having grown up in poverty, Ray was only in the fourth grade when he quit school. And though Ray’s parents were poor, evidence suggests they spoiled Ray, going to the ends of the Earth to ensure he had whatever he desired. These factors may have led to Copeland’s early involvement in crime, which began in his twenties during the Great Depression.
Ray’s crime streak started at home. He stole pigs from his father’s farm and fraudulently cashed government checks sent to his brother. By the end of the ‘40s, he’d been accused of stealing horses as well. As time went on, Ray was arrested numerous times for cattle theft, something that would become his bread and butter. There might be money in ranching, but as far as Copeland was concerned, cattle theft was easier. One could skip the raising, the feeding, the medicating, the breeding, the birthing, and go straight to the selling of stolen livestock hassle-free.
Copeland’s drive for easy coin would eventually lead the future killer to develop a cattle theft scheme at auctions that mixed two of his favorite crimes: livestock thievery and writing bad checks. The plan was simple. Ray would bid on the cows he wanted, pay with bad checks, and then sell the cattle for cash before the checks were run. The auctions couldn’t recover the stolen bovine if they were no longer in Ray’s possession, and an overdrawn bank account meant nothing to Copeland since he had cash in hand. When the locals caught on, Ray and Faye could. It was a fool-proof plan until the arrest warrants poured in.
Ray Copeland's Livestock Scam Evolved
By the time Ray and Faye Copeland settled down in Mooresville, Missouri, they couldn’t buy livestock. Word had spread, and the public didn’t trust them. We wouldn’t be surprised if banks would refuse them accounts either. The notorious cattle scammer was left without cattle. Things had to change. The Copelands had to level up their scam. If auctions would no longer sell them livestock, they’d simply have to find someone to do the buying for them.
The perfect dope in their plans needed to possess a few key qualities: First, they had to be from outside the area so they wouldn’t be recognizable. Second, they’d have to be broke enough to follow Ray’s scheme. Third, they needed to be temporary. And, lastly, they couldn’t have close ties who’d look for them if they happened to disappear. Ray’s new plan required a drifter.
The new plan came with a new structure similar to the last. Ray would still buy cattle with bad checks and sell them before the checks bounced, but this time, they wouldn’t be his checks. Instead, Ray Copeland would set his new farmhand, a vagrant of one variety or another, up with a checking account. The farmhand would be the one who bid on the cattle and paid with bad checks. Copeland would then pay him when the cows sold. If the authorities started snooping into the new farmhand’s bad checks, Ray could send them on their way. Unfortunately, many of Copeland’s farmhands would be dead before they could stick their thumbs out
Ray Copeland and His Wife Faye Copeland Killed at Least Five People
Paul Jason Cowart, John W. Freeman, Jimmie Dale Harvey, Wayne Warner, and Dennis Murphy are the names of the five drifters whom Ray and Faye Copeland killed. These poor souls thought they’d collect a paycheck and move on. Some likely thought they’d found a permanent job at $20,000 per year. None of them believed a farmhand job would cost them their lives.
When Ray Copeland was ready to end a contract with his employees, he did so with a .22 caliber bullet to their heads. As far as we know, this killing spree happened during the ‘80s, ending in 1989 when authorities finally caught Ray and Faye Copeland. If the Copelands killed before that, no one knows about it.
As Crimes of the Centuries by Steven Chermak Ph.D., Frankie Y. Bailey points out, the Copelands were thought to have killed at least 12 people throughout their years of cattle scams, but only the bodies of five were ever found. Like many serial killers, these two targeted the least fortunate of our society, those without homes or income. It’s easier to draw your victims in with false promises when they’re down bad and easier to get away with murder when nobody is looking for your victim. In the end, however, it was a member of the least fortunate who brought the Copelands’ crime streak to a halt for good.
Ray Copeland Botched an Attempted Murder, Ending the Copelands’ Murder Spree
The authorities had suspected something was amiss at the Copeland farm a few years before Ray and Faye Copeland were caught. Ray had a history of theft and check fraud, and now a string of bad checks were popping up at local auctions under different names. The police weren’t blind, but they didn’t have enough evidence to prove these checks had ties to their local cattle thief. When the authorities showed up to question Ray about his employees’ bad checks, he feigned ignorance, claiming the vagrant workers had each taken off after bouncing checks to him as well.
Ray felt a sense of safety. He’d managed to remove himself from crime by removing the men who could expose him. That is until the Crime Stoppers hotline received an anonymous tip about human remains on the Copeland farm in 1989. See, Ray Copeland had finally messed up. How, you ask? He allowed one of his farmhands to live.
Jack McCormick was arrested in Oregon in September of 1989 for the bounced checks he’d written on Ray’s behalf in Missouri. As a former worker on the Copeland farm, he didn’t hesitate to flip on his former boss and spill every detail he knew about the cattle theft operation. It had only been a month since Ray Copeland put a .22 to McCormick’s head while he helped the murderer track down a troublesome raccoon in the barn, and Ray felt no loyalty for the man who’d almost killed him. Of course, the vermin hunt had only been an excuse for the Copelands to rid themselves of yet another unfortunate co-conspirator.
Ray was either a man with an easily swayed demeanor or McCormick had a Jedi mind trick up his sleeve because, when faced with the deadly barrel, he managed to talk Ray into letting him go alive. This proved to be the Copelands’ downfall since it was McCormick who would phone in the tip about a human skull and leg bone found on the Copeland farm, kicking off the investigation that uncovered the murdered drifter-farmhands.
Thanks to McCormick’s statement, the Copelands were arrested for swindling. During Ray’s questioning, according to the New York Daily News, he told authorities, “You’ll find nothing on my place,” which held a grain of truth. There were several pieces of incriminating evidence on the Copeland farm but none that were human remains. Without bodies, there was no proof of murder. According to the case report from Faye’s appeal in 1996, investigators found clothing and luggage belonging to the Copelands’ victims – things easily explained away by fickle employees who hurriedly skipped town. Authorities also found a hidden list of names that included three with Xs next to them, later identified as three of the Copelands’ victims. The bodies themselves, however, were somewhere else.
Tips from the locals led investigators to nearby farms where Ray Copeland had either periodically worked or otherwise conducted business. The remains of Jimmie Dale Harvey, Paul Cowart, and John Freeman were discovered in shallow graves inside the barn of one farm. The corpse of Wayne Warner was found beneath thousands of tons of hay bales at a different farm. Finally, authorities discovered the remains of Dennis Murphy, a former business associate of Ray Copeland’s, in the open well of a close-by farm, chained to a 40-pound block of concrete. Every victim had been shot in the head with a .22 caliber.
Faye Copeland Used Their Victims’ Clothing to Make a Quilt
There was more than enough evidence to convict Faye and Ray Copeland for murder and scamming livestock auctions. Their ties to their victims were obvious, the rifle used in the killings was discovered in their home, a ledger of the victims’ names was already in police possession, several personal items from their victims were found on the Copeland property, and their swindling operation had been exposed by a former employee. Despite all of this, Faye Copeland adamantly claimed she had no involvement in the murders until her death.
Faye’s legal representation backed her, arguing that Ray Copeland was the sole perpetrator and that if Faye had been involved at all, she did so under duress. According to her lawyers, Faye was simply suffering from “battered woman syndrome,” a victim of her husband’s uncontrolled violence. A few pieces of evidence swayed the courts in opposition to these claims. The most disturbing of which was the quilt Faye Copeland stitched out of their murder victims’ clothing.
Faye Copeland, wife to a known scam artist and a supposedly innocent woman, cut squares from dead men’s clothing and sewed them into a bedspread. The courts didn’t buy it, and neither do we. Let’s say the world hypothetically believes Faye was innocent. The quilt would still be weird, wouldn’t it? Embracing under the warmth of a blanket made from the clothing of former employees, ones who’d inexplicably disappeared, would be enough for most of us to reconsider our normalcy.
Faye and Ray Copeland Were the Oldest Couple to Face Death Row
In the end, both Ray and Faye Copeland were found guilty on five counts of murder. They were sentenced to death on three of those counts. Faye Copeland was convicted in 1990 at the age of 69, while Ray Copeland was convicted in 1991 at 76 years old, making the Copelands the oldest couple in history to face death row. Even so, neither husband nor wife would be executed.
Ray wasn’t in prison long before he died of old age in 1993 at 78 years old. Faye lasted longer. Through multiple appeals, her death sentence was finally commuted to life in prison without parole in 1999. Faye would go on to taste freedom again in 2002, as the Edwardsville Intelligencer points out, but not under pleasant circumstances. See, prisoners can be expensive. Food, medical treatment, and boarding get costly on their own. The last things a prison wants to add to the list are a death investigation and burial costs.
Faye Copeland suffered a debilitating stroke a month before her release. She was old, partially paralyzed, and knocking on death’s door. The state granted her parole, likely to save a few bucks, and she lived out the next year in a nursing home before she followed her murderer husband to the grave. And while any threat of this elderly couple’s killing streak ended with their deaths, they may have left victims behind that were never accounted for.
