Mind of a Serial Killer - Ray and Faye Copeland Pt. 2

Episode Date: January 13, 2025

After one of Ray and Faye Copelands' intended victims managed to escape their clutches, the police began to investigate this seemingly-harmless elderly couple. But they quickly discovered that Ray and Faye were far more dangerous than they seemed. Not only had the Copelands committed murder -- they were serial killers. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House Original. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok @crimehouse for more true crime content. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Crime House. We've all heard the phrase, you can't teach an old dog new tricks. By the time Ray and Faye Copeland hit their elder years, it definitely seemed like this idea applied to them. Ray was going to keep scamming cattle auctions no matter how many times he got caught, and Fay would stick by his side come hell or high water. While those aspects of their lives never changed, the Copeland's did add a terrifying new trick to their repertoire. Murder. And by the time the authorities realized just how dangerous Ray and Faye actually were,

these elderly serial killers had already unleashed unimaginable terror on their quiet little farm. The human mind is fascinating. It controls how we think, how we feel, how we love, and how we hate. And sometimes the mind drives us to do something truly unspeakable. This is Mind of a Serial Killer, a Crime House original. Every Monday we'll be taking deep dives into the minds of history's most notorious serial killers and violent criminals. At Crime House we want to express our gratitude to you, our community, for making this possible. Please support us

by rating, reviewing, and following Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And to and following Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback truly matters. And to enhance your Mind of a Serial Killer listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode ad-free. And instead of having to wait for each episode of a two-part series, you'll get access to both at once, plus exciting bonus content.

I'm Vanessa Richardson. And I'm Dr. Tristan Ingalls. As Vanessa takes you through our subject stories, I'll be helping her dive into these killers' minds as we try to understand how someone can do such horrible things. This is the second and final episode on Ray and Faye Copeland, the oldest serial killers

ever sentenced to death. Last week we looked at how their lives, marked by poverty and crime, eventually led to serial murder. In today's episode, we'll dive further into the twisted details of the Copeland story, we'll discover what deadly mistakes the couple made that led to their arrest and sentencing. And as always, we'll be asking the question, what makes a serial killer? Get groceries delivered across the GTA from real Canadian Superstore with PC Express. Shop online for super prices and super savings.

Try it today and get up to $75 in PC Optimum Points. Visit superstore.ca to get started. From 1986 to 1989, Ray Copeland killed at least five people, and his wife, Faye, was part of it. Their victims were unhoused farmhands the Copelands had roped into their cattle fraud scheme. Once these men had served their purposes, Ray would murder them with his.22 caliber rifle. But in August of 1989, 74-year-old Ray Copeland did something surprising. He let one of his potential victims, Jack McCormick, go. Jack was able to outsmart Ray and flee the state of Missouri in a stolen car. He then

drove all the way to Nebraska. Once he felt safe enough to stop, Jack made an anonymous phone call to the Nebraska Crime Stoppers Hotline. He told them all about Ray's cattle fraud scam. More importantly, he said that something truly horrifying was happening at the Copeland farm. Ray was using, killing and burying fellow drifters somewhere deep on his 40-acre property. And in those remote corners, their decaying bones could be seen sticking out of the brush. It was a shocking revelation, but the question was, would anyone believe him? That last line is so important. Unhoused individuals, much like those in poverty who aren't unhoused, are marginalized.

And marginalized groups are at a greater risk of discrimination and disparate treatment from law enforcement. They're wrongly stigmatized as all being mentally ill or struggling with addiction or violence, and so therefore they're not taken as seriously as other populations and they minimize their credibility. Not to mention, he's reporting an elderly man doing very heinous things. So there's two layers of biases here. So maybe Jack did decide to make this anonymous call to police because he was afraid that he wouldn't be believed, but I think it's more likely that he did so to ensure that

Ray did not learn where he was. Generally, when you make a police report, you provide your contact information contact information including your address but not when it's done anonymously. So given the links he went to after escaping Ray to ensure that he was safe before calling the police I think it has more to do with his fear of Ray than anything but really only Jack would know that. Well thankfully in any case the Nebraska police took Jack's accusations very seriously. But before any official measures were taken, they needed more information. So the Nebraska authorities contacted Gary Calvert, the chief deputy of Livingston County,

Missouri, where the Copeland's farm was located. Deputy Calvert had a reputation for being tough on crime and very thorough. When he got the call about the Copeland farm, he immediately started digging into Ray's history. It wasn't long before Calvert realized Ray wasn't the decent, hardworking old man he portrayed himself as. Calvert discovered that Ray Copeland had a lengthy criminal record for fraud and petty crime. Not only that, but there was an extensive paper trail of bad checks written by Ray and his employees at various cattle auctions.

But when Calvert tried to contact those employees, they were all missing. Considering that Jack McCormick was correct about Ray's catalogtion scam, Calvert wondered if Jack's other accusation was also true, that Ray was a murderer. This is what I was mentioning earlier about how police suspected them, but they weren't really able to do anything. The simple fact that Ray had a history of check fraud, and now all of his employees who happen to be missing also have check fraud. I feel like that warranted more investigation the same way that Deputy Calvert is putting that together now. But also there are some possible biases that happened here when they did initially knock on Ray's door, or with his victims even, that an elderly man is more likely to be victimized

than to victimize. That's a bias that we often see. And statistically, that's true. So, elderly people are a population at an increased risk of being targeted. And this may be why Ray was underestimated or overlooked in some ways, not just by police, but by his farm hands. So, Ray's an example that age did not hinder him in his criminal activity, at least until now. However, Gary Calvert felt about Ray. He knew they had to keep looking

into the accusations against him. His investigation caught a break when the authorities finally tracked down one of the Copeland's workers. It was none other than Jack McCormick. Later in the summer of 1989, Jack was arrested in Oregon for one of the bad checks he wrote on Ray's orders. After he was arrested, the police realized that Jack was the anonymous tipster who told them about Ray's crimes. This was big news for Deputy Calvert and his team. If Jack's accusations were true, then he could lead police to the bodies buried on

the farm. And with physical evidence, police could arrest the Copeland's on the spot. Once Jack was brought back to Missouri, he told police that he'd seen what he believed to be leg bones and skulls in brush piles on the Copeland farm. He surmised that farmhands like him were being killed after they were no longer useful. Investigators had Jack draw them a map of the Copeland property. He pointed out the spot where he saw the human remains. Now, Gary Calvert and his team had a huge paper trail of Ray's fraud scheme, an eyewitness in custody, and the promise of physical evidence on the Copeland farm.

That was enough for Calvert to secure a search warrant for the Copeland residents on October 9, 1989. Later that morning, police vehicles pulled up to their property. Hearing the ruckus, Faye Copeland opened the front door of their farmhouse. She muttered to the officers that Faye wasn't around and attempted to shoo the police away, but when Deputy Calvert showed her the search warrant, she was forced to step aside. This was a pivotal moment for Faye. She knew all about Ray's crimes, or at least the nonviolent ones. Every time he was arrested, she stayed loyal to him.

This was her chance to escape from Ray for good, to tell the authorities what she knew and help put a murderer behind bars. But to do that, she would have to betray her husband, which she wasn't prepared to do. When Faye was questioned by the officers, she insisted that she and Ray were innocent of any crimes. So I think at this point with Faye that it's important we discuss the possibility of a trauma bond between her and Ray. So a trauma bond is a deep emotional connection that develops over time from a cyclical pattern of abuse.

Usually the abuser has periods of extreme emotional, physical, or sexual abuse that are contrasted with intermittent displays of affection, and this was likely occurring between the two of them. The trauma bond ties them to their abuser in such a way that they refuse to leave or refuse to deviate in their loyalty to them. Severe cases of this are documented and diagnosed as Stockholm Syndrome, and the connection is so strong that it takes a strong support system, resources, and or counseling to fracture that bond enough for the survivor to see it for what it is and get out. Faye doesn't have a strong support system. She doesn't have access to resources. She's

isolated there with Ray and she certainly is not going to be going to counseling, especially if Ray could help it. So it would not be surprising to see her remain in staunch support of her husband, even in the face of murder and law enforcement at her doorstep. Whether Fay was trauma bonded to Ray or not, though she likely was, she continued to insist that neither of them had done anything wrong.

But when an officer found a check that was signed by Jack McCormick in Faye's purse, she was arrested on the spot. It wasn't proof of murder, but it was enough to charge her with fraud and for the police to arrest Ray for it as well. Three months after Jack's escape from the Copeland's farm, the killer couple was on their way to facing justice. After Fay was arrested, Deputy Calvert went into town. Once Calvert found Ray, he was immediately arrested. Like Fay, Ray was detained at the Livingston County Police Station on fraud charges.

It was a good start to the investigation, but Deputy Calvert and his team still had their biggest challenge ahead of them, provingold Ray Copeland and his 68-year-old wife, Faye, were arrested on fraud charges. But Deputy Gary Calvert and his fellow investigators thought the Copelands had done more than try to pass off bad checks at cattle auctions. They believed Ray and Faye were stone-cold killers. After Ray was arrested, investigators tried to get him to confess to murdering his unhoused farm hands. They interrogated him for hours, but he wouldn't break. Finally, in a last

attempt to draw out his crimes, police told Ray they'd spoken to his former employee, Jack McCormick. While Ray did confess to hiring Jack, he denied holding him at gunpoint. Ray also said he never scammed any cattle houses. Meanwhile, Fay continued to maintain that she and Ray were innocent of any wrongdoing. But when the Copeland's children were told that Ray was arrested, they weren't surprised to hear he was in custody. They were all adults and living on their own at this point, but the Copeland's six kids

had grown up seeing their dad go in and out of prison. They had taken the physical and emotional abuse Ray doled out, too. So while it wasn't surprising that he was in custody, they could hardly believe Faye had been arrested as well. One of the Copeland's sons, Al, was convinced his mother was innocent. He went to the station to try to help, but when Al spoke with Faye, he found her behavior suspicious. Faye allegedly told him to go to the farm and remove all of her quilts from the house. Al thought it was a strange request. He had no idea the quilts were stitched together from the dead farmhand's clothes.

And as prosecutors would later argue, was evidence of Faye's complicity in the murders. So even though Al didn't know why Faye was asking for this, and even though he loved his mom, he refused to do it. He didn't want to get into any trouble with the law himself. Faye was furious. This wasn't the mother Al knew. She wasn't exactly the cuddly type, but she rarely exploded like that. Her reaction made Al even more certain she was involved in Ray's crimes.

There are so many ways that family or friends can be manipulated into obstructing justice, whether knowingly or not. And this example with Al is a good one, but thankfully he maintained a boundary and did not get involved, maybe listened to his gut. But other ways of doing this would be providing whether knowingly or unknowingly, an alibi for their loved one. I've experienced situations in practice in which the offender has enlisted their loved

one to pick up something or drop something off that was illegal in nature, but it was concealed enough that they were unaware what it contained, and they did not question it because it was their parent or loved one directing them. And also, the episodes we did on Amelia Dyer, if you remember, she used her children to bolster her baby farming business. They were unknowingly being exploited in her crimes. It happens often, and it's unfortunate. So after Al refused to help Faye retrieve the quilts, police scoured the Copeland farm. They were able to find ample evidence of the cattle scams inside the main house. That solidified the fraud charges.

But police still had to find more evidence if they wanted to charge the Copelands with murder. Police officers spent days combing through the brush with dogs and special equipment. Deputy Calvert and his team were determined to leave no stone unturned. As the police dug holes all over the Copeland property, the local media was alerted to the activity. Soon, news of the cattle scams and rumors of something more sinister swept through Livingston County. After several more days of searching, Deputy Calvert thought he finally found something. It was a collection of small bones. Calvert immediately had them tested. But it was another false start. Forensics

discovered that none of the remains were human. By this point, investigators started to worry that Jack McCormick had lied about what he saw on the farm. Maybe Jack was trying to steer police away from his own part in the cattle scams by telling a more sensational story about the Copelands. Maybe years of substance abuse, run-ins with the law, and homelessness had turned him into an unreliable narrator. But the investigators weren't ready to give up just yet, and continued to follow Law and homelessness had turned him into an unreliable narrator. But the investigators weren't ready to give up just yet, and continued to follow every

lead they could. After interviewing many of Ray's neighbors, they discovered that he not only worked on his own farm, but on several other properties as well. On October 17, 1989, eight days after the Copeland's arrests, police searched a property close to the Copeland farm, specifically around a barn that Ray Copeland was known to use. It was the same barn where Jack McCormick claimed he was nearly shot to death by Ray a few months earlier. Police probed around the foundation of the barn and came across several

sections that seemed softer than others. So they grabbed some shovels and started digging. Between 18 and 24 inches down, they discovered some old shoes. Further down, they found several men's bodies wrapped in plastic. The bodies were taken to a local mortuary. Forensics discovered that all of the men died from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Further evidence suggested that the killings were done elsewhere, then the bodies were dragged to the barn and buried.

The victims were eventually identified as 21-year-old Paul Jason Cowart from Dardanelle, Arkansas, 27-year-old John W. Freeman from Tulsa, Oklahoma, and 27-year-old Jimmy Dale Harvey from Springfield, Missouri. All of these men were unhoused workers who had mysteriously disappeared. And they were all employees of Ray Copeland. One week later, investigators found the body of a man named Wayne Warner. His remains were wrapped in plastic and buried beneath a different barn Ray Copeland was known to use. An autopsy revealed that Wagner was also killed from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head. Ray's method of killing, like I mentioned earlier, is consistent, and it's more of an execution style of killing.

He has a method of shooting his victims in the back of the head. So this indicates to me that it's not personal, but rather transactional. His victims have served their purpose and are no longer needed. This also tells me that he is not necessarily getting satisfaction or gratification from his killings, not in the way many of the more notorious serial killers do. And the fact that he didn't start until he was 72 years old also supports this idea? The elaboration I'm about to give is graphic, so this is just a warning.

But if Ray was getting gratification from his killings, I would expect to see more tormenting first. For example, psychological gratification comes from watching the victim realize that their life is in danger, watching them trying to fight back and plead. When Jack did that, Ray broke his method. I don't think that means he has empathy. I just think that it means his murders were simply necessary in his mind for his greater good. And again, their business, their transactional. And not only were they transactional in business, but using the same weapon in the same way,

it was effective. It was quick. And that made it easier for him." Whatever Ray's reasons were, it was clear that he used only one weapon to kill. Ballistics tests concluded that bullets found in the victim's bodies were from a.22 caliber rifle. Police immediately went back to the evidence they'd collected from the Copeland residence, which included Ray's gun collection. They went through each of the weapons until they found the exact rifle that matched the bullets.

There was no doubt they'd found the murder weapon. Also inside the Copeland home, police found a list of men that were employed on the farm. It seemed to be written in Faiz handwriting. There was a big letter X next to 12 of the names. Five of the men whose names were next to that X were dead. The investigators wondered if the others were too. Finally, police found the quilt Faye had sewn, made from pieces of clothing from several of the missing men.

This is still very perplexing to me when it comes to Faye, because on the surface, making that quilt out of the clothing of the victims sounds a lot like a trophy. And what we know about trophies is that it's a personal item taken from a victim by a serial killer with the intention of having ongoing psychological, physical, or sexual gratification. It's a reminder to them. However, in this case, this feels different.

Faye was not the person doing the killings and, as far as we know, was not orchestrating or even suggesting that Ray kill his farmhands. I think she's doing it simply to please Ray. I talked about it earlier as being something that maybe she did to help memorialize them and allow her to avoid guilt and keep her empathy, but now I'm wondering if this was a different kind of trophy. It's more something that symbolizes her trauma bond and her loyalty to him. It's truly hard to say without knowing more about her than the little we have learned here, but I do feel like it was sort of a symbolic safety blanket to her and showing it to her husband

if this is how obedient I am, this is how loyal I am, this is how invested I am. I've got you. That's the sense I get out of this. Whatever that quilt was, to Fay, it was yet another piece of evidence in the mounting case against the Copeland's. But Deputy Calvert and the police weren't taking anything for granted. They did one more sweep of the farm, along with any nearby properties Ray frequented. The very last discovery was a body at the bottom of a well. It belonged to 27-year-old Dennis Murphy, who may have been their first victim. Unsurprisingly, he died from a single gunshot wound to the back of the head as well.

Based on the list with the exes, police were convinced there were seven more bodies yet to be found, but they could be anywhere. At this point, only the Copelands could tell them where they were. But Ray wasn't talking. If Deputy Calvert was going to get the information he farm in October of 1989, they offered Fay a plea deal. If she told them where the rest of the victims were buried, they would only charge her with conspiracy to commit murder, not first-degree murder.

As such, she would likely only spend a few months in prison for her cooperation. But Faye refused. No matter how much the police pressed her, Faye continued to insist she didn't know anything about the murders. But something had changed. While Faye didn't say her husband was a murderer, she did tell the police about the abuse she'd suffered at his hands While Faye didn't say her husband was a murderer, she did tell the police about the abuse she'd suffered at his hands. Faye told police that throughout their marriage, Ray became increasingly violent toward her. Then when the children were all moved out, the abuse hit its peak. But even though she endured horrible things from her husband,

Faye stayed in her marriage. She remained loyal to Ray out of obligation, and because she had nowhere else to go. However, investigators refused to believe she was completely innocent. Based on the evidence they had gathered, they were certain she knew everything Ray was doing, and was helping him do it. And so both Fay and Ray were arraigned on five counts of first-degree murder. Prosecutors wanted to avoid an insanity plea from Ray, so their first order of business was to send him to a state mental hospital for evaluation. The defense filed a motion

to try the cases separately, thinking Faye might have a better chance if she were tried on her own. The motion was accepted, and Faye's trial began first, on November 1, 1990. Faye's lawyers made the argument that Faye was suffering from battered woman syndrome, and she was just another one of Ray Copeland's victims. Mm. So, firstly, I don't think that Ray would have met the legal standard for insanity. I don't see any indication that he was not able to discern right from wrong during the commission of any of these crimes, especially since he went to great efforts to hide the bodies and keep the police away. I understand why they were worried about that

to some degree given his age. It's important that there is a mental health evaluation and rule out any cognitive issues like dementia or anything else that could be contributing to his behaviors, but I think it's safe to say that he would not have been found legally insane in this case. Secondly, I'd just like to say that battered woman syndrome is not a clinical diagnosis

in the DSM. Battered women's syndrome is more of a legal term since it's been used as a legal defense since the 1970s. I personally don't like this term because I think it's demeaning to survivors when we refer to them as battered. What I can tell you is that battered women's syndrome is the signs or symptoms that are displayed by a woman who has suffered persistent violence, such as psychological, physical, or sexual violence, by her male partner. The battered woman defense has been used in court to argue that the woman's only means of escaping life-threatening abuse is to kill

for their husband or their partner. In court, the focus is on the impact of the intimate partner violence and the woman's perception of that threat. Faye has been a victim of intimate partner violence for her entire marriage, and even after her children moved out, she reported it had gotten worse. And this isn't surprising, since when children leave the home, intimate partner violence could potentially increase because there are less distractions or buffers, which is sad to say because these are children, but it's unfortunately true.

Whether or not Faye did suffer from battered woman syndrome, it couldn't be argued in court. Unfortunately for Faye, illegal technicality prevented a psychologist from offering her analysis. In the end, the jury found Faye guilty of all five counts of first-degree murder. In April of 1991, she was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Upon hearing the verdict, Faye broke down into tears. When Ray heard about it, he simply shrugged, saying, well, those things happen to some people, you know. According to his team, Ray never mentioned his wife again. According to his team, Ray never mentioned his wife again. His own trial had started about a month earlier, on March 7, 1991.

After a few weeks of ballistics tests and testimonies, 76-year-old Ray was convicted on all five counts of first-degree murder. After the verdict was announced, his only response to his defense team was to mumble, I'm okay. Wow, so this just proves to me that Ray views everything in his life as transactional, and he truly did not care if he was caught at this stage in his life. And Faye, on the other hand, I think that now that she has been broken away from that cycle of abuse, the entrapment of the poverty,

the realization of what she has done and what she's endured has really hit her now, or is about to hit her. Now she has to face her consequences. And I imagine there would be a lot of cognitive dissonance or denial to continue because accepting the reality would be too difficult for her. It would mean she would have to acknowledge regret for her entire life and even her death. She might not have the strength or resolve to acknowledge this fully. He's also so emotionally detached and he's so just indifferent. Yeah, I'm not surprised that he hasn't spoke about her again because I think he also viewed her as a transactional member of his life.

Following the trials, both Ray and Faye Copeland became the oldest serial killers to sit on death row. After waiting on his execution for two years, Ray died in prison. Faye's attorney filed an appeal on her behalf, but it was unsuccessful. She served almost nine years in prison before a U.S. district court judge overturned her death sentence in 1999. Faye's model behavior and contributions to the prison made it clear she wasn't a present danger to anyone.

And so her sentence was downgraded from the death penalty to life in prison. I can see her being a model prisoner given that her whole entire life has been to be obedient and to follow the rules of Ray. So I can see that her need to please is showing itself while she's incarcerated as well. Weeks later, Fay agreed to give an interview to the Kansas City Star newspaper. She opened up about herself, Ray, and the case in a way she hadn't with anyone before. Faye began by telling the reporter that even early on in their marriage, she couldn't do things that made her happy. For instance, she couldn't have flowers at home because Ray didn't like her to be tending to anything other than him.

Faye went on to say that even though Rey was cruel to her, she didn't think it was entirely purposeful. Yes, he did mess up her life, but she understood him and his hardships. So she did what she felt was her duty and stayed by his side. Once again, just showing that Ray has her there for a purpose and that purpose only, to do what he wants. But after spending almost a decade in prison for crimes she claimed only Ray had committed, Faye's empathy was gone. She told the reporter that she regretted always taking it on the chin with Ray. Faye asserted that maybe he would have respected her more if she actually stood up to him once

in a while, or even better if she had quote, knocked the shit out of him a few times. Faye maintained that she knew nothing about the murders. She concluded the interview by saying that the one place she went wrong was getting married at all. Ray was all that mattered to her for many, many years. She didn't know anything else. When the reporter asked if Faye thought she would ever get out of prison, she said, I may go out feet first, but I'll get out of here someday. first, but I'll get out of here someday." I imagine that this change in her loyalty to Ray is likely coming from the fact that after they were convicted, he never spoke of her again. I'm guessing he never spoke

to her again either, even in letters. After so many years of being loyal to him, to his criminal activities, to raising his children and protecting his secrets, that has to have affected her deeply. I imagine Faye just doing everything she can every day to make Ray happy. That was her life, to keep the peace in the home. She can't have anything that makes her happy. She has to do everything that he wants. Her purpose is for him all to avoid abuse and to gain his favor, only to realize he never cared anyway. That none of it mattered. And it makes sense why she is projecting the blame onto him and distancing herself from her role in these murders. It's sad. It is. After Faye's interview, there was a lot of sympathy for her.

Tom and Jeanette Block, founders of the Missourians Against State Killing, petitioned the public to get Faye released for time served. For a brief moment, it appeared as if the court might revisit Faye's case. The Missouri Attorney General and members of the public advocated for Fay's release as well. But none of that came to fruition. In 2002, 82-year-old Fay Copeland suffered a stroke. She was paroled and sent to a nursing home back in Arkansas, where she grew up. On December 30, 2003, Fay died of natural causes. The bodies of the remaining men who disappeared from the Copeland's farm have never been

found. Thanks so much for listening. We'll be back next time as we discuss the mind of another serial killer. Mind of a Serial Killer is a Crime House original powered by PAVE Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media at Crime House on TikTok and Instagram. And don't forget to rate, review, and follow Mind of a Serial Killer wherever you get your

podcasts. Your feedback truly makes a difference. And to enhance your listening experience, subscribe to Crime House Plus on Apple Podcasts. You'll get every episode of Mind of a Serial Killer ad-free, Shapiro, directed by Stacy Warenker, written by Meredith Allen, edited by Alex Benedon, fact-checked by Sarah Tardif, and included production assistance from Paul Libeskind and Sarah Carroll. Mind of a Serial Killer is hosted by Vanessa Richardson and Dr. Tristan Engels.