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 a need for easy cash – even at the expense of other people’s lives.
That’s really what it came down to for the Copelands. Money was the motive for most of Ray’s crimes, though Mooresville locals believed he enjoyed killing for killing’s sake.
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. Evidence suggests Faye Copeland may have had a sick side as well.
Before He was a Killer, Ray Copeland was a Scam Artist
Ray Copeland wasn’t the most educated man. He was only in the fourth grade when he quit school. His parents were poor, but evidence suggests they spoiled Ray. Growing up in poverty with minimal education led Ray to a life of crime.
Ray’s crime streak started at home during the Great Depression. He stole pigs from his father’s farm and cashed the government checks sent to his brother. By the end of the ‘40s, farmers were accusing Copeland of stealing horses as well.
Police arrested Ray Copeland numerous times for cattle theft. This was the criminal’s bread and butter. There was money in ranching, but cattle theft was easier. Copeland could skip the raising, feeding, medicating, and breeding. All he had to do was sell the stolen livestock, hassle-free.
Copeland’s drive for cash eventually led him to a scheme that mixed his favorite crimes: Livestock thievery and check fraud. The plan was simple. Ray would bid on cows at auction and pay with bad checks. Then, he’d sell the cattle for cash before the checks bounced.
The auctions couldn’t recover the bovine if they were no longer in Ray’s possession. All they could do was overdraw his bank account. That meant nothing to Copeland, who had cash in hand. When the locals caught on, Ray and Faye would skip town. It was a foolproof plan until the arrest warrants poured in.
The Faye and Ray Copeland Livestock Scam Evolved
By the time Ray and Faye Copeland settled in Mooresville, Missouri, they couldn’t buy livestock. The public had heard of Ray’s crimes and didn’t trust them.
The notorious cattle scammer was cattleless. The Copelands had to level up their scam if they wanted to continue. To do that, they needed to find someone whom the auctions would sell to.
The perfect pawn needed a few key qualities: First, they had to be unrecognizable. Second, they’d needed to be broke. Third, they had to be temporary. And, lastly, it was crucial that no one would look for them. The Copelands’ new plan required a drifter.
This new scheme was similar to the last. Ray would still buy cattle with bad checks and sell them before the checks bounced. This time, however, his vagrant farmhands would be the ones writing the checks.
Ray would set his drifter up with a bank account and have him bid at auctions. The drifter would pay; Copeland would sell. Then, Ray would pay the farmhand in cash. If the authorities snooped around, they couldn’t prove Ray’s involvement. He’d simply send the drifter on his way. In truth, Ray would kill many of his farmhands before they could stick their thumbs out.
Faye and Ray 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 believed they’d found their dream 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 the head. As far as we know, this killing spree happened during the ‘80s, ending in 1989. If the Copelands killed before that, no one knows about it.
As Crimes of the Centuries by Steven Chermak, Ph.D. and Frankie Y. Bailey points out, authorities suspect the Copelands killed at least 12 people throughout their years of cattle scams. However, they could only find the remains of five.
Like many serial killers, Faye and Ray Copeland targeted the least fortunate of our society. This made it easy for them to draw their victims in with false promises. It also made it easy to get away with murder, since nobody missed their victims. In the end, though, it was a member of the least fortunate who brought the Copelands’ crime streak to a halt.
Faye and Ray Copeland Botched an Attempted Murder
The authorities suspected the Copeland farm had secrets years before they caught the killer couple. Ray had a history of check fraud, and 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 Ray was the one behind the checks. When the authorities showed up to question Ray, he feigned ignorance and pushed all blame on his workers. He even went so far as to claim they’d bounced checks to him as well before disappearing.
Ray felt a sense of safety. He’d managed to remove himself from the crime by removing the men who could expose him. That is, until an anonymous tip slid across the Crime Stoppers desk in 1989. Apparently, there were human remains on the Copeland farm. Ray Copeland had messed up. He allowed one of his farmhands to live.
Police arrested Jack McCormick 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 Ray and spill every detail he knew about the Copelands’ operation.
It had only been a month since Ray Copeland put a .22 to McCormick’s head after tricking the farmhand into helping him “track down a troublesome raccoon” in the barn. The vermin hunt, in truth, was Ray’s attempt to rid himself of another employee, and McCormick felt no loyalty for the man who tried to kill him.
The Killing Spree Ends for Faye and Ray Copeland
Ray was either easily swayed or McCormick was a master manipulator because the latter talked Ray Copeland into releasing him alive while face-to-face with the killer’s .22-caliber. This mistake was the Copelands’ downfall.
McCormick was the one who anonymously reported the tip to Crime Stoppers about a human skull and leg bone found on the Copeland farm. He was also the one who spilled the beans about Ray’s cattle scam. And that statement was enough for authorities to arrest the Copelands on swindling charges.
When authorities questioned Ray, according to the New York Daily News, he told them, “You’ll find nothing on my place.” This held a grain of truth. There was circumstantial evidence on the Copeland farm but no human remains.
According to the case report from Faye’s appeal in 1996, investigators found clothing and luggage belonging to the Copelands’ victims – things employees possibly left behind when they skipped town. Authorities also found a hidden list of names, three of which had Xs next to them. Authorities would later identify these Xs as three of the Copelands’ victims.
Tips from locals led detectives to nearby farms where Ray Copeland had either worked or conducted business. Investigators found the remains of Jimmie Dale Harvey, Paul Cowart, and John Freeman in shallow graves inside the barn of one farm. They found the corpse of Wayne Warner beneath thousands of tons of hay at a different one.
The last body authorities discovered was that of Dennis Murphy, whom Ray Copeland killed in 1986. Murphy was a former business associate of Ray’s. Police found his remains in an open well of a close-by farm, chained to a 40-pound block of concrete. Ray had shot each of his victims with the same .22-caliber rifle.
Faye Used Their Victims’ Clothing to Make a Quilt
The evidence against Faye and Ray Copeland was plentiful. The state would have no problem convicting the couple for murder and scamming.
- They had professional ties to their victims.
- The rifle Ray used in the killings was in their home.
- They had a ledger with victims’ names X’ed out.
- Several of the victims’ personal items were in their guestroom.
- McCormick had detailed their swindling operation.
Despite all of this, Faye Copeland adamantly claimed until her death that she hadn’t been involved in the murders.
Faye’s legal representation backed her, arguing that Ray Copeland was the sole perpetrator of the crimes. Supposedly, Faye had only involved herself under duress. According to her lawyers, Faye was just another woman suffering from “battered woman syndrome.” She was allegedly as much of a victim of her husband’s uncontrolled violence as those he murdered.
A few pieces of evidence swayed the courts to find her guilty, the most disturbing of which was a quilt Faye Copeland had stitched from the 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. Under the best circumstances, the quilt would be weird. Under the worst, it would lead to a murder conviction.
The Copelands Were the Oldest Couple to Face Death Row
In the end, judges found both Ray and Faye Copeland guilty of five murders and sentenced them to death on three of those counts. The courts convicted Faye Copeland in 1990 at the age of 69. They convicted Ray Copeland a year later when he was 76 years old. This makes the Copelands the oldest couple in history to face death row. Even so, the executioner would never come for them.
Ray died of old age in 1993. Faye lasted longer. After multiple appeals, a judge commuted her death sentence 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.
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. In 2003, she followed her husband to the grave. And though the Copelands no longer pose a threat to society, they may have left victims behind that authorities will never discover.
