True Crime All The Time - David Copenhefer

Episode Date: September 9, 2019

David Copenhefer was born into a life of wealth and privilege near Dayton Ohio. But, as an adult, David realized that he couldn't make the kind of money that he wanted to, at least not legally. How far was David willing to go to the kind of money he wanted? Was he willing to commit murder?Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the case of David Copenhefer. David was put on trial for the murder of John Calkins when he was in his early twenties but was acquitted by a jury of his peers because the case hinged on circumstantial evidence. Copenhefer later moved to Pennsylvania but found out that he couldn't things happen there the way he wanted to either. So, he plotted out an elaborate kidnapping for ransom plot. But, when the woman he kidnapped, 37-year-old Sally Weiner, turned up dead the police began to zero in on him.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 147 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in True Crime. Mike Gibson, Givie, how are you? I'm good, man. How about you? I'm doing great. Yeah. I am ready to record a couple of episodes.

Awesome. First is True Crime all the time. And then right after that, we roll into True Crime All the Time Unsolved. We're efficient. Very efficient. Yeah. Well, you do have to come to my house. So, hey, I tell everybody it's a studio.

It is a studio. You'll be saying how, after all this time I've been saying studio. It's a studio that's in my basement. I think I've said that before. I don't make any bones about it. I'm not a rich man. I don't have my own studio offsite. No.

We just don't have it. Just got up great to my chair. Oh, don't start with the chairs. Don't start. All right. We have some new Patreon supporters. So let's do those first. We had Cassie Huntsaker.

Hey, Cassie. Amanda Snoddy. Snoddy. Melanie Foster. Hey, Melanie. Sierra. I like Cierras. That's a nice name. Catherine Wahee. Hey, Wahi. Emily Frivel. Favelle. Faye Rau. What's going on, Faye? Becky Slack. She's slacking. Kaylee Kelly. Kaylee. Erica. Thanks, Erica. Cheryl Elman. Hey, Cheryl. Francis Porter. What's going on, Francis?

Nick Reynolds. Thanks, Nick. Callisto Aris. Calisto sounds like calypso? Maybe. I don't know where you're going. The problem is you don't know where you're going and the words are coming out of your mouth. I'm thinking celestial. Celestial.

Celestial. Celestial. Is that like stars? Yeah, celestial. Sparkly. Yeah. You got it. There was also a tea, I think.

Jerry Jensen. Hey, Jerry. Erica. What's going on, Erica? Samantha. Hey, Samantha. Ronald. Martin.

Hey, Ronald. Tiana Weaver. What's going on, Tiana? Greg and Meg Anderson. Hey, Meg and Greg. Tammy Seidel. What's going on, Tammy? Tracy Scott.

Hey, Tracy. Kelsey Sullivan. Kelsey. Jilliana Gabriels. Hey, Gabriel's. And Brandon, thank you. So we appreciate all that new support. And if we go back into the Vault Gibbs, this week we selected Jeffrey Bolak.

Hey, Jeffrey, I think he's French. Been with us a long time. Yeah. Or at least his name, originating. from that area of the world. I think he's French. He may not be French himself. Today he's French.

We appreciate all the long-term Patreon support. Gibbs, you and I just got finished last Saturday putting out our very first Patreon-only, full-length episode on video. Yeah, it was really, because we did that, took a picture, took a picture, took a picture, and had to move my hands each when they stop art or something. Stop motion. motion? Yeah. It was our first, what we did. We did stop motion. So it took like five hours to put out five minutes. We recorded it 14 weeks ago. Took that long to edit and put it out. Now it's out there.

But it was well received. People seemed to really like it. We had some PayPal support as well. We had Samantha Goebel. She which not Jill Bell? It could be. That was a good beer back in the day. You've been right. You've been right. Lauren Crocksford. Hey, Lauren. Kelly France. Thanks, Kelly. And Donna Weaver. What's up, Donna. So love it. Appreciate it. We do.

Gibbs, right now on T-Cat Unsolved, we have an episode out on the unsolved murder of a girl named Michelle Norris. We do. This is a case in Rhode Island. Yeah. And I think it's the first case we've done in the ocean state. I believe it is. So make sure you check that out.

Also check out our new podcast called The Reviews Are In. And they are. They're in. They're in. They're funny. They are. We make fun of them. Our latest episode was the Banana 571 from Hunsler.

I was going to bring it in today. I should have banana slicer. It was a banana slicer. Right. Why in the world anybody would need a banana slicer when a butter knife more than does the job? I don't know. Are you just wondering, am I going to get you that for Christmas now? And I'm still wondering why you have one.

Hey, I'm going to bring it in and you're going to be like, that's the best thing. Ever. I doubt it. I highly doubt it. All right, Gibbs. Are you ready to fire up another episode of true crime all the time? I am. So what we have.

So what we have is what I believe is a very interesting episode for you all or y'all, as some of us might say. Well, are you looking at me, y'all? No, I say it too all the time. This is a story about a man named David Copenhover. And I think it's interesting for a number of reasons. first of all, because part of it occurs near our hometown of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton Strong. Yeah. And then we'll make our way to Pennsylvania.

The second part of what makes this story so intriguing is that Copenhagen was charged with and acquitted of a murder here in Ohio. Then he moved to Pennsylvania, set up shop, you know, took his wife, took his kid, and ended up kidnapping a woman and killing her. So, you know, the question is, did he really commit this first murder in Ohio? And the question that we always ask, how many other murders were there? True. That nobody even knows are connected to him.

Big shout out to Lana Hyatt for her assistance with writing and research for this episode. And also gives a listener, Michelle Hawke, Kelly, who is an attorney, she had some direct knowledge and assisted with this case. Awesome. Thanks. Michelle's one of our listeners. I said she was an attorney, but she was also the attorney that represented David Copenhover in his preliminary hearing.

So really, that's amazing. Yeah. To be able to get that type of insight. Yeah, that local connection too, you know, with the podcast, but with this case, just the whole tie-in, got to love it. Yeah, we do have a lot of listeners that have professional type jobs where they can offer information. As far as I know, this is the first time, at least beforehand, we knew about a listener, a fan that had a direct connection with the case and was able to tell us about it.

Yeah, Michelle's represented me in a few things. If she hasn't, she may very well may in the future. So let's get into it. This is like a lot of the cases that we've had recently. Not a lot of information on David Copenhefer's childhood, on his background. It's basically not there. And Gibbs, I think there's something to the fact that when you're not talking about a serial killer or a killer of some note, you're going to have that.

Right. When you talk about Dahmer or Eileen Warnos or, you're, You know, any Ramirez son of Sam. Right. Well, they've been written on extensively. Their childhoods, their backgrounds, it's all been dissected. But David Copenhover is not a household name in the world of true crime. It doesn't make this case any less fascinating.

It just means we don't know every little thing about him before we get to the murders. Right. What is known is that he grew up in Troy, Ohio. Yeah, just up the road from me. Very close to where you live. He was born in 1947 into a pretty prominent family. His mom, Doris, chaired the Miami County Republican Party. She actually ran for a seat in the Ohio House of Representatives in 1972, and she lost.

She was a publicist for a milk marketing group, which I imagine you might find quite a bit of that here in Ohio. Oh, yeah. We have a lot of cows. and by proxy a lot of milk. Kind of go hand in hand. They kind of do. David's father founded a company called the Copenhagen Heifer meat company in 1963. His dad died in 1967.

His mom later sold the meat company in 1975. Again, not that much on David Copenhefer. You know, what did come out was that this was a kid that was attracted to collecting guns at an early age. He did have a few juvenile offenses on his record, but nothing is an adult up until the time, you know, of the murders that we're going to talk about. Right. But one thing's for sure.

You know, David grew up in a life of privilege, right? He had money. His parents had money. He probably got everything he ever wanted. I do think as far as background goes, that's important because one of the things that we'll get into as we talk about his known crimes, his suspected crimes is that they seem to have been motivated by money. Yeah.

So what happens when you grow up with this life of privilege and then you're out on your own and you're not able to strike it rich? You're not able to make it big on your own. How does that work? You grew up accustomed to a certain lifestyle. That's the problem, right? Because you're used to it. And most people won't allow themselves to slide back.

You know, if they do, they don't like it there. And they're fine a way to get back to where they were either legally or illegally. Well, and I was going to say, if you do it legally, right, through smarts and hard work and all that, great on you. Yeah. If you want to take the shortcut, which is what a lot of people do that we profile. on true crime all the time, bad things are going to happen. And not great on you. Not great on you. Because you said great on you. Bad on you. Is that a saying? Or can we make it a saying? I think it's a saying now. You said it. So we talked about his parents, right? They were entrepreneurs.

They had political ambitions. This is something that David picked up on. In 1970, he tried to manage a gubernatorial campaign for Roger Cloud. I think he was hoping that if cloud won, there would be something in it for him, especially in the form of some contracts. Yeah. And that's not unusual. Look at. Already diving into the real politics out there. The real side of politics.

Yeah. Right. So he was in the computer repair business. He thought, man, I'm going to get the contracts to work on repair all the state's computers. Yeah. But. Big money.

Cloud didn't win. That brings us up to 1971 and the unsolved case of John Cawkins. John came from a conservative family. His mother was a teacher at a Catholic school. His sister was a nun. And for a time, John attended a seminary. So he had thoughts. He had designs on going into the priesthood. Right. But he didn't stay there long. He had a change of heart. He joined the Air Force and he served for four years before being honorably discharged in 1970. Makes sense. We have a huge base here. We do. We do. So after he was discharged, he took advantage of his military benefits, right? He went in pretty young. He didn't go to college. So he went to ITT Technical Institute here in Dayton, Ohio, where he studied computer repair.

I don't think any of us of a certain age can ever wipe from our memory the ITT commercials. Oh, man. I don't know if they're still playing them. Maybe they are. I don't watch commercials anymore now that they have DVRs. But back in the day, you couldn't watch a show without seeing the story of someone who, through ITT, was able to go on to bigger and better things. And I'm sure a lot of those stories really have.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Leading big teams at some big company. Yeah. So this is what John did. This is also where he met David Copenhover, who at the time was 24 years old living in the Dayton suburb of Kedering, just right down the street from where we are sitting right now. Famous city. It also happens to be where Rob Deirdek, the host of Ridiclessness is from. Among other people. And you, you know, well, that's one of my favorite shows. That's why I point him out. Absolutely. There's a lot of famous people from Kettering. You've got his poster on your one. I gravitate towards Rob Deerdeck because I like ridiculous. He is funny. In January of 1971, Copenhover went to ITT to interview four students for a job. John Cawken at that time was 24 years old,

the same age as David Copenheifer. He was also the only applicant over the age of 21. Because he had been in the military. Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. The rest of these students were younger. They probably went right out of high school. But not John because he served four years in the military. So David hired John on the spot.

And the job was described as an associate's position where, you know, John would answer calls. He would run errands. He would basically do whatever David needed. done. Yeah, this was my list today. Go do it. The four applicants were allegedly told in their interviews that the people they met during the course of the job, if they were to get the job, and everything that happened in the course of this job, they should just forget any of it ever happened. That's a strange thing to say in a job interview. Really strange. That's some real clandestine type stuff. Now, I know it's something that you're very familiar with. You've been engaged in a number

of these types of operations. I always ask you about them. You never divulge the information. You know, I can't talk about it. I know. That's what you always say. But I think the one thing that's for sure is that this job seemed to morph into more than what you would consider an office job. because David Copenhefer must have approached him very early on with the idea of partnering up on a computer business venture. So John started working with David on January 4th, 1971. So Gibbs, there was apparently no time wasted in getting this guy started. The interviews were said to have happened in January. This guy starts work on January 4th.

Well, it's really fast. Yeah. Yeah. Not much time could have elapsed. Can you start today, sir? It almost sounds like he may have started the next day. During this same week, John purchased a 1970 Opel GT. Now, I don't know if you know what that is, Gibbs.

Trying to remember what it looked like. It's a pretty cool looking little two-seater sports car. Okay. I'm not sure where they're made. I can't remember for the 1970s. I'll say that. Okay. Yeah, for the 70s.

70s had some real stater. thinkers when it came to the aesthetic look of cars. You're not going to go there again, are you? Well, I'm not going Ford Fiesta, if that's what you're thinking. We'll make sure, you know, still getting hate mail. Back then, this Opel GT sold for just over $3,000. So how much do you think that would be today? Oh, man.

We haven't done that in a while. Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, be. 34,000. $34,000, I like it. Yeah. Now, the second question is, how much do you think? think a 1970 Opel GT is worth today, the average. Mint condition?

No, average. Average. That's tougher because you got to take in the stinkers with the pristine. And I just watched an auto auction the other day. It was playing at the bar, and I looked up, and the car went for $2.1 million. Wow. Why are you at a bar watching an auto auction? I was sitting there eating dinner.

Oh, okay. I looked up and I was like, does that car go that high? And it did? and I thought, man, you know, it was a rare Mustang, very rare. But I would say average conditional pull 70. About 10, 12,000. I mean, I don't think it's a sought-after collector car. I'm just trying to remember who the manufacturer was.

Yeah, I don't know. For some reason, I want to say that it was foreign, but Ford had a hand in it somehow, Ford, Opel? That name rings a bell, but I could be way off. top of the line about 20 grand really if you had one that was in really good condition they're not that they're not that sought out i guess it depends how many were made that here that's what it's going to come down to well the other thing is we're not talking about a Lamborghini this was a car that had a 1,077 cc engine oh that's about two-thirds of what my harley has that's like my weed eater

yeah a really nice gas-powered weed eater yeah It produced a whopping 67 horsepower. Oh, now that I know that. That was a 1970 sports card. I'm going eight grand. Now, one very interesting thing that David did at the time that he hired John was he took out some travel life insurance policies on John. The total amounts of all the different policies he applied for Gibbs, they were upwards of half a million dollars. Yeah.

Back then. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money today. That is a hell of a lot of money in 1971. I mean, I got more on you than that, but okay. Yeah, but in today's dollars, right? Yeah, today's dollars. The kicker is in all of these policies except for one, David was set to be the sole beneficiary. Strange that your employer, quasi-business partner is the sole beneficiary of your life insurance policy. But also, I don't know if John even knew that David took these out. I don't know. That wasn't fully explained. Did you know I took the one out on you? I didn't. I was not aware of that. My life lock did not catch it. And I'm ticked. I'm going to call them. I mean, as soon as we're done here. I knew you were kind of wondering why I wanted your urine that day. But that's why we talked

about that episode about, you asked me for urine. I gave, I give you urine. The blood was a harder to get, but we got that little scuffle, your nose bled up. You didn't see me put the vial underneath it, but it all worked out. The exception to these policies, right? I said all but one. The one exception, John's father was to be the beneficiary. So my thought is, Gibbs, you have to throw them off a little bit, right? You can't make yourself the sole beneficiary of every single one of these policies. Yeah, got to mix it up a little bit. I'll throw one in there that would go to John's dad.

Yeah. On Thursday, January 7th, John rented a car. In about 10 minutes after he rented this car, police know that it was parked in a parking garage because they later found a parking ticket on the car to help them establish the timing. This is going to be huge as we go along in the story. Yeah. The next night, January 8th. John had plans with his fiance, with his parents, as well as a neighbor couple.

But he couldn't keep these plans. He got a call from David where David told him, you know what? I need you. We got to do something. This was around 7.30 p.m. So John headed out to the Ponderosa Steakhouse in Fairborn. Man. I missed the Ponderosa.

The good old Ponderosa days. We don't have any of those around here anymore. I think they finally closed the one and angle it up. They've all gone the way of the dodo. Yeah, man. Now, the waitress at the Ponderosa would later say that Caulkins was with two men. And these are two men whose identities have never been confirmed.

This was around 8 p.m. And this is the last time, Gibbs, that anyone, except for John's killer, would see him a lot. Around 10.45 that night, There were four high school girls. They're driving down mud run road. They saw a body on the side of the road. And then they saw a car speeding down the road.

But you know what? These are four high school girls. They thought that somebody drunk. I'm not getting out to mess with them. They didn't stop to investigate. And I don't know if I would want my high schooler driving along late at night on a what is probably a pretty rural road. I'm not that familiar with Mud Run Road, but I don't know if I'd want them to stop. Well, it's too many bad things could happen. At least today, they'd have a cell phone.

That's true. They could call and they're really adventurous because of the world of YouTube and everything. They would probably get out and videotape the whole time. You know what? It's sad. That's probably what my kids would do. And it would turn out to be a dead body. Yeah. And they would think, oh, this is funny. This is a drunk guy. He's on the side of the road. I do think one thing that's important. Later on, these girls would note that when they saw the body, it was perpendicular to the road, both legs straight out and both shoes on the body. Like someone laid him in position? Seems like it.

Yeah. It seems like it. But then the next morning, it's about 7.30 a.m., the body of John Hawkins was found by a man on his way to work. that's a rough morning. I'm just trying to get to work, but I think that's a dead body. Yeah, let me stop and look. I got to stop and figure this out.

It is a dead body. One of the big issues was that the body was not in the same place as where the girls described seeing it the night before. By this point, it was almost parallel to the road. One leg was doubled at an angle underneath the other leg and one of the shoes was missing. So this is kind of the start of some strange goings-on.

Yeah, maybe somebody hit it late in the night and did a little thump-dy-thump and didn't know what they did. That's true. Yeah. Somebody could have got out of the car, said me, look at this and said, oh, I don't want to be part of this and move the body. There is going to be talk about the body being run over. So let's start with how John was killed. He was shot nine times with a 38 revolver at close range. That's overkill.

A little bit. Yeah. Because I know for a fact, in 1971, there was no revolver, and I don't believe there even is today that holds nine rounds. You know, most revolvers hold six. There's some that holds seven. That means somebody fired six shots, opened up the, cylinder, dumped the casings, reloaded, and fired three more shots.

They really wanted to make sure he was dead. It's almost like, did you really need the other three shots? Yeah. I know that sounds horrible to say, but I think it's valid in response to your thought of overkill, because it really does seem like overkill. I get it. If you have a gun that holds nine, maybe you empty the clip, you're making sure that someone's dead and then you leave.

But to fire six shots from a 38, if that didn't kill them and then you reload and fire more it, I think it says something. Yeah, I mean, whatever happened to the days of tap tap tap, you know? Head chest, head chest. Is tap tap kind of like double tap? Maybe. You talked about John possibly being run over. Police thought he was.

But one of the reasons why they thought this was that they found some. reflective road marking paint on John's clothing. They also found some marks on his face and chest resembling, you know, tire tread marks. That's brutal. That is brutal. Especially if it happened before the person was dead. Yeah, you know, maybe that was the cause, right?

Maybe somebody hit and did a little hit and was ready to run, but felt like he needed to put the person out of their misery by shooting them. nine times. Yeah, there's a lot of things we'll talk about. But this reflective paint, it's a contentious point. Many people have said over the years, there was no such reflective paint anywhere on mud run road. Might be today.

There wasn't in 1971. Now, I don't know that to be a fact. I just know that there are a lot of people that have said that throughout the years. Yeah. And if that's the case, then you have to ask the question, where did it come from? Well, yeah. And then you're thinking, did he get hit somewhere else? And then was he moved to that location to throw people off?

They finally found the rental car on January 10th. Right. So a couple of days after they found the body of John Calkins. When they compared the tire marks on John's body to the tires on the rental car, they said it was a very close match. And don't forget, we're talking about 1971 here. I don't know exactly all the forensic. techniques they had at their disposal.

Right. No doubt, it's not what they have today. I'm just trying to think what the, uh, probably the average rental car was back then. Probably had a lot of them on the road. Rental car companies back then went with a very small selection. Selection. Sure. And they always went with the most popular, uh, vehicles out on the, you know,

showroom currently at the time. But there's no doubt this rental car was a key piece of evidence to police. The trunk key. was found on John's body. So I don't remember Gibbs. I wasn't alive in 1971. I know you were driving by that time. You had your license.

Did they have a separate key for the ignition in the trunk? They did. I do not remember that. Yeah. Yeah. Even at five years old, I knew that in 71. Because you were driving at five years old.

Yeah. But that wasn't it for the car. The car also had blood on some of the pants. panels, especially around the right rear wheel. And when they tested it, it did match John's blood type. But again, back then, I don't know how much more they could do. Right. There's no DNA. Right. They could tell you that the blood type matched. I don't know how much more. Also in the trunk of the car, they found a briefcase matching one that belonged to David Copenhover. And inside the briefcase, There were some documents pertaining to the life insurance policies that we talked about.

There was also apparently a four-page manuscript written in David Copenhefer's handwriting, and the prosecution would later make a big deal out of this. They would claim that this was the start of a novel that David wrote in the first person, because in it, the writer is confessing to a shooting. So they're basically saying, hey, this guy killed John. And then he started to write a book about it. Yeah. Now, what Copenhover would say is that the briefcase had a 38 pistol in it.

And he gave it to John Hawkins on the night of January 7. But here's the other thing that authorities figured out about the rental car. Because remember, presumably it had been parked in this parking garage since about 10, minutes after John rented it. Oh. Based on the parking ticket. Sure. Timing.

But they figured out it had been driven about 125 miles since it was rented. Easy trick. As what? Shown in Ferris Bueller's Day Off where you play with the odometer or? Oh, no. Easy trick to get a extra parking ticket shown that you were there when you really weren't there. Hmm.

You know. So that's what you, that's, you're going with that theory. Well, it's one of the things that. You know, we all know how to do that, right? Yeah. Well, the one thing we do know is that you cannot drive 125 miles in 10 minutes. That's impossible. And end up in a parking garage and get a ticket.

The other interesting part about the car is that the ignition key was never found. So I mentioned that they found the trunk key on John's body. No ignition key. Well, if John rented the car, why didn't he have the key? So police are starting to zero in on David Copeland. and Heifer. And they got a warrant to search his vehicle. Inside his vehicle, they found both an original and a carbon copy of a partnership agreement made between Copen Heffer and Caulkins in relation to this computer business that I talked about. But here's what's so strange about it. The carbon

copy was signed. But the original was not. That seems like very hard to do. Strange. If you think about the way that carbon copies are supposed to work, it's supposed to be an exact copy of the original. During the trial that would happen later on, a handwriting expert testified that he believed Cawkins was deceived by a different document that had the carbon underneath it. He signed that. That carbon, you remember that carbon used to be called? NCR paper man. Was it? Yeah.

I knew it was made there or at least locally is what we called it. Yeah, I don't know how many people across the country called it that, but. Never know. NCR was a big deal back in the day. It was huge, man. Nobody's going to know, but they're local to us. Yeah. A lot of our fathers, grandfathers, a lot of people in Dayton worked at NCR throughout the years.

Just remember the cash register was invented here. They also helped crack the German Enigma Code during World War. too. They did at NCR. Fine little factoid. You learn stuff all the time. But getting back to this carbon copy, I think that is very fascinating. And I don't think it's that hard to do, right?

To trick somebody into filling out one piece of paper, but then signing something else and then you slip the carbon underneath that. voila. You got their signature on this piece of paper. I can imagine it happened a lot back in the day. Okay, so we fast forward to May 1971. A secret indictment is brought by a grand jury naming David Copenhover as a chief suspect. He's going to go to trial, right, for the murder of John Cochens.

The trial Gibbs lasted 22 days, which to me doesn't sound like a long time. No, not really. At the time, it was the longest trial in the history of Green County. Really? in 1971. They had never had a trial that lasted that long. Man, it was newsworthy there. Although, I imagine back in the day, the murder rate in Green County was not all that high. No, because that was basically just farmland.

There's a lot of rural areas. I can't imagine it's that high today. During the trial, it came out that the man whom Copen, Heifer, and Caulkins were to meet the night of January 9th, was a guy by the name of Rick Stevenson, who allegedly agreed to pledge $5,000 to this computer business that Hawkins and Copenhefer were establishing. Now, what David would later say was that he went to this meeting. He was at the hotel until 930, but neither John nor this Rick guy ever showed up. It also came out at trial that two months before the murder of Hawkins, Copenhefer was denied an applicant. for a bank credit card.

And according to Bank of America, it was because he had too much debt already. Right. So now we're getting into the area of motive, money. Yeah. And that's the picture that prosecutors painted that David Copenhover set up this fake business as a ploy to kill John Hawkins. Nothing else. There wasn't anything more to it.

Because that's the one thing we haven't talked about, right? David Copenhefer goes to ITT to interview some guys about a job. Right. And then it was almost like all of a sudden they are going to become partners in a computer business. That seems strange to me. It definitely seems a lot of strange to me. With the guy that you have just met who either recently graduated from ITT or hadn't even graduated yet. Yeah, that you're going to move them into a partner role.

Yeah, very, very strange. You're going to open up a business and put your livelihood on the line with this person that you really don't know. Yeah, so it's either a scam or you just don't have any money in your way of getting this person to work for you is saying, hey, I don't have the capital yet, but I'm going to make you partner. We'll build it together. We'll build it together. Through sweat equity. And I'm going to do it in my garage. And it's going to be this thing called Apple.

Apple. That sounds like Apple. luckily when apple was coming up Steve Jobs did not kill Wozniak or else we'd be covering it on true crime all the time we would have been and everybody would know Steve Jobs for something way different than his legacy is today so back to the prosecution

they're saying the motive was money that's the reason for the life insurance there never was any real computer business but this was a tough trial. This was a tough 22 days for the prosecution. Unfortunately, some of the evidence that was, you know, gathered during the investigation was lost. There was a pair of glasses found near John's body that disappeared. There was a pad of paper found in his car that disappeared. Now, I don't know if that would have changed the outcome of the trial or not. Who knows? But add on top of that, the fact that the prosecutor's, the fact that the prosecutor's, you know,

had no witnesses. They had no ballistics, right? Because they didn't have the gun. They were fighting an uphill battle, armed with basically nothing else but a bunch of circumstantial evidence. Which is a self-sale. It is sometimes, depending on the jury. Well, at that time, Green County would definitely would have been a very conservative jury. Yeah, I agree with you there, 100%.

my thought is these are a lot of farmers people that live out in rural areas you're going to have to prove to them that David Copenheifer killed John Cawkins they want to see it they want to know it they're probably not just going to take your word for the fact that he did it right that's my that's my thinking the defense pointed all of these things out right all of the things that we were talking about. They have no real evidence. Everything's circumstantial. Okay, you're saying that the motive is, is money, but you're not proving it. They also pointed out that Copenhagenhefer went to the police station voluntarily seven times during the investigation. His defense attorney said that his client also asked for a gunshot residue test to be formed by police, but it was never done. So we talk about

juries a lot, right? Depending on the makeup of that jury, I could easily see somebody sitting there saying, well, why would this guy go to the police station seven different times? He didn't have to. He talked freely. He tried to get them to do a gunshot residue test. They wouldn't do it. Well, but we also know that guys like that also feel like they're smarter than the detectives, the police, and that they can, they can. could go to these places, they could sit down and talk to the police and act like, you know, wasn't me, but how can I help you? And try to figure out what the police know about the case currently.

And maybe in this case, Gibbs, he was smart enough to do it. Possible. Like I said, I think a jury could possibly look at all these things and say, why would he do that if he was guilty? Now, you and I know a lot of guilty people do a lot of strange things. A lot of strange things. So after hearing all the evidence and deliberating, the jury acquitted David Copenhefer of all charges. And what happened as a result of this acquittal, you know, one of the insurance policies that was approved paid out.

I think you got like $50,000. Good chunk of change, man. It's a good chunk of change, especially in, you know, 1971. But think about it this way. If this guy really killed John Hawkins. And then somebody later paid him $50,000 essentially for killing John Hawkins. Yeah. That's tough to stomach.

But a jury heard all the evidence and they said, you know what? We can't find him guilty. So one of the papers that I was reading Gibbs was our home paper, the Dayton Daily News. They covered this case. They must have had a sketch artist in the courtroom. You know, there were a couple of artists. articles where they drew caricatures of both David and his wife at trial. Basically, they said David showed no emotion at all the entire time.

But it's his wife that I really found fascinating. Yeah. When they drew her sketch, I swear it looked like the girl from the ring. Really? Oh, my gosh, it was scary. Wow. They did not do her any favors. I don't really know what she looks like.

but there's no way she looks like the girl from the ring. That's pretty rough, man. Is it funny how far we've come, though, where we get two papers a day? And now they can't hardly sell papers. They're trying to give it away just so you take it so they can sell advertising. And the next generation won't even know what a daggone paper is, man. It's just I pull it up on my phone. My Alexa tells me what it is in the morning.

Yeah. Still something about flipping through some pages, though, man. I think, yeah. Like if I get a magazine, yeah, I could get the digital version. Sure. I don't want the digital version. I want to hold it in my hands. I want to turn the pages. It will skim through it. Well, I mean, I'm talking about like, for me, I'm talking about financial magazines. You're talking about Playboy and furry magazine. I am not. Furry monthly. Is it monthly only now? Did they cut back? Would you think it was furry weekly? Yeah. All right. So let's get back to David. Copenhefer. He's acquitted of this murder, stayed in Ohio for a little while. He was married and eventually

had a son. He had a string of jobs. He worked for an auto industry supplier for a while. He even managed a grocery store. Then he had a job at a tech company. But it was in 1987 after losing this job at the tech company that the family moved to Corey, Pennsylvania. And it just so happens that they followed the pastor of their church. Oh. So their pastor was called out to this church in Corey. And the family said, you know what? We're going to be part of that.

We're going to be part of that. We're going to join that church. We're going to follow you. Yeah. So they got to Corey. This is a town of about 7,000 people. And I've seen it written different ways. I've seen where they live just outside of Corey.

But by all accounts, it's pretty nice place to live. The family attended church, like I said, and this is where they met Harry and Sally Weiner. Both the Winer's and the Copenhagenheifers, I guess Gibbs participated in this thing called marriage encounter. This is or was, I don't know if it still exists, a national organization where couples attended weekend sessions. They were designed to strengthen their marriages. So, you know, if I'm a killer, all right, I'm a killer. All right. I'm a killer. killer. But damn it, I'm going to make this marriage work. Yeah. And if I got to go to this workshop or this seminar or whatever it is, probably, uh, the ice man probably taught those courses. He might have.

You know, this is how you still keep your family together. And keep things interesting at the same time. Exactly. Keep that spark lit. It's important. So let's talk about the winers. Harry was the manager of the Corey office of Penn Bank. Harry had a history with David Copenhefer. David tried to take out a number of loans at Harry's Bank every time his request got denied. So at one point he tried to take out $25,000. He wanted to open up this card and bookshop there in town. He also tried to take out a business loan for a RACs fast food restaurant. Do you remember Rax?

I do remember Rax. That was my very first job. Was it? You worked there for two hours. two hours and they said you know what Mike Gibson you are not racks material you are not worthy to wear this beanie or whatever they call that thing you have to wear on your head pretty much he didn't like how I didn't button the shirt all the way up to the neck and I was like I'm not doing that well then you don't need to be work here I said I don't need to be working here it was the 70s too

I mean it was Saturday night fever you had to open the collar you had to unbutton and show the chains and the chest hair. You got hair like that. You got to let it out, man. You got to. But they don't like that at the racks. But I did like eating at the racks. I liked racks a lot.

I actually liked racks better than Arby. It was the first place that one of the first places had a salad bar and one of the first places, I'm pretty sure for a long time that had the baked potato bar. So. Solid bar and a baked potato bar in a fast food restaurant. How could you go wrong? Well, they did because they went out of business. They did go out of business.

But David. kept getting turned down for these loans. Harry said that he had to turn David down because David could not provide sufficient financial information. And on top of that, he didn't have any business experience with what he was trying to do. He had never run a bookstore. Right. He had never run a fast food restaurant. A lot of times the banks don't like to just say, hey, you know what? here's $25, $50, $100,000. Gee, no, go do you. Yeah.

Yeah, they're not going to risk it, man. No. So believe me, I... They are risk-adverse. I tried to open to Chick-fil-A the other day, man. They looked at me like I was crazy. I said, but I know it's going to work. Do you know how much Chick-fil-A calls?

Well, that was the problem. It's astronomical. I know, man. Now, there's a thought, Gibbs, that this might have been a hinge moment for David. The one thing I forgot to mention, when David and his family left, Ohio. Their house burned down. May have been an accident. It may not have been. Okay. Possibilities. But he got a check from that. Yeah. They rebuilt the house. He got some kind of settlement, whatever. Okay. For whatever reason, he didn't want to cash the check. Hmm. Even though Harry said, you know,

cash that check, put it in the bank. That'll give you some additional assets. Maybe you can get the loan. Right. He didn't want to do that for some reason. Okay. Strange. But he was able to get the loan finally, just not from Harry's PIN bank. So yeah, go somewhere, work a little harder. He went somewhere else, gave them, you know, his line, they bought it. They gave them the money he needed to set up what he called Corey Books and Cards. This was a bookstore that he set up in essentially the nicest strip mall in Corey,

was downtown. It was within walking distance of the police station. It was also within walking distance of Penn Bank. This all leads us to June 16th, 1988. Sally Weiner, the wife of Harry, she got a call that was allegedly from a congressman's office. And on this call, she was asked to meet with the person on the line to discuss arrangements. I guess they were going to present her husband Harry with some type of civic award. Okay. That was the line that was conveyed to her. I'm using the word line.

Yeah. Because we're going to find out it was a lot. But, you know, as a wife or even as a husband, if your spouse is set to receive a prestigious award, okay, that's awesome. What do you want me to do? The very next day, Sally, kissed her husband and children goodbye. This was around noon.

And she set out to meet with this person that had called. This was the last time she was seen a lot. Hours later, Harry got a phone call. And on the phone call, a recorded message from his wife said, Harry, I've been kidnapped. They're holding a machine gun to my head. It went on to talk about a demand for ransom money, specifically from the bank where Harry worked.

So he was directed to get a duffel bag from the parking lot. And in the duffel bag, there were some additional instructions as well as some threats as to what would happen to his wife if he didn't follow through with this thing. So we've got a full-blown kidnapping and ransom. This is when you call in Mel Gibson to get your loved one back. Yeah. I mean, who better than a star. that played in a movie called Ransom.

That's about it right there, man. Though, I do have a few other favorites. So what do you do? Gibbs, as a husband, when you find out that your wife has just been kidnapped. Yeah. Depends how much you like her. Well, that is true.

Yeah. Let's assume that Harry loved his wife, which I believe he did. He got on the phone immediately, started making calls. He called the vice president at his bank. He called the banks, security office, which you know is paramount when you work for a bank. He also called the local

police. The state police, he even called the FBI. Yeah. This guy was not messing around. So he called everybody he should have. He called in the cavalry. He said, you know what? I need help. Send me everybody you got. Send Jason Bourne. Yeah. Send Channing Tatum. Not Magic Mike, Channing Tatum. He was in that movie where he saved the president. What was that movie? Oh, okay. Why, I knew you liked him. I just didn't know. I was like, that's why I specifically said, do not send Magic Mike Channing Tatum.

Yeah. We need action hero. We got your boy in there. Don't worry. We got him in there. Save the White House that one movie. All right. I'm going to go with Matt Damon on the, you know, whatever his role was. Jason Bourne. So you can remember Matt Damon, but you can't remember the person's name I just said,

which was Jason Bourne. I did it at the minute right there. came back to me. You know, got to work with me here. You know how my mind is. I might, to be honest with you, I might call in Jack Reacher. I don't know if you've seen the Jack Reachers. Jack Reacher is one of my favorite characters. I'm not crazy about Tom Cruise playing him, but I've read all the Jack Reacher books. I don't know if there's a bigger badass out there than the fictional Jack Reacher. The problem is he's supposed to be like 6-6-240. Yeah. And he's played by 5'3 Tom Cruise. I know. I have a problem.

with that. Yeah, I don't know. Jack Reacher, John, John Wick. John Wick. That's a good one too. So I think the main thing gives is he wants to comply, right? With the demands from the kidnapper. Yeah. He wants to get his wife back unharmed. The problem is he never gets the additional information from the kidnapper to be able to comply with the ransom demands, right? This was supposed to be a whole elaborate thing. Go here and you'll get the next set of instructions. That'll lead you here. Right. He never got the next part. It stopped. To even lead him on the journey. And it was on June 19th. The body of 37 year old Sally Weiner was found in an area about five miles north of her home by a farmer who was out checking his fence line. She was shot in the back of the head with a very specific type of.

ammo. And I had to look this up, Gibbs. It was called Blue Tip Glazer ammunition. And I don't think this is the type of ammo that just anyone would have had laying around back in 1988. Right. This was fairly new for the time. It was designed to fragment, break up once it entered the body, which made it, you know, much less likely to exit. Yeah, it's going to do what it's supposed to without harming people around. Yeah. Yeah, you know, like the old full metal jacket. You hear that all the time.

That'll go right through somebody and rip through somebody else behind them. And then hit other people, go through drywall. You know, some of the, the bullets that police use today, they are designed to do exactly what they're supposed to do. Right. Without endangering the lives of people around them. I read somewhere that this may have been originally designed with. with the air marshals in mind.

So in the event that they had to fire their weapon on a plane, it wouldn't go through their intended target and hit like four or five other people. Yeah, or a hole in the... Fuselage and then the plane's going down. Yeah. But I don't know how true that is. Well, that's the great thing about saying it on this podcast

because somebody will go out and tell you. You are totally wrong. It was not designed for the air marshal. So first police had a kidnapping. They had a ransom. Now they have a dead body. It didn't take them very long to begin to look at David Copenhagenhefer as a suspect. Now, first off, they knew that he had been denied for a number of loans at Harry's bank.

And this had caused their relationship to kind of sour. At one point, the police noticed a sign in David's bookstore. Okay. Usually not too big a deal. Right. The problem is the sign in the bookstore had the same type of border that the ransom note had on it. Not good. No, good at all.

And then David did what a lot of people do and you and I can never figure it out. He actually went to the house of a state police officer and offered up his assistance in the investigation. He didn't even go down to the police station. I'm just going to go right to the house and say, hey, buddy, friend, pal. I know where this guy lives. I'm just going to go and say, you know what? I'm here, man. I think I can help you if you need me to.

If you need help, I'm your guy. Yeah. Well, we know he likes that, right? I mean, back in Dayton, he was checking on things there quite frequently. We also know mostly from serial killers that they like to talk to police. They like to insert themselves into the investigation. They like all that stuff. The problem is David didn't know that he was already the chief suspect in the murder of Sally Weiner.

And very quickly, you know, he was arrested with kidnapping at first. They were able to get warrants and search David's home as well as his office. In Gibbs, they struck the provincial. mother load. Yeah, that's what happened. The granddaddy of evidence. It was literally like Jed shooting at some food. Yeah. And up through the ground came a bubbling crude. That's what happened. Sally Mae still there? Ellie Mae. Ellie Mae. You don't even know your fictional characters. Come on, man. Sally Mae's the student loans. That was a staple of our childhood. It really was. So we have to get into what they found. They found a bunch of weapons in his home. Two, that according to ballistics,

they said could have been the murder weapon. They found the very same type of ammo that was used to kill Sally Weiner, the ammo that we talked about. Yeah. Not something that I believe they would have found in everybody's home. The tire treads on his van were very similar to some tracks found near Sally's body. They found some crate paper, a metal rod, and some duct tape, all of which they were able to match to materials that were used in the commission of this crime. Some of it was used in the ransom part. A metal rod was used to hold down one of the ransom notes, like the additional information.

Yeah. If you think about a scavenger hunt sort of thing, that's what this is. this guy had set up. The problem is the scavenger hunt never got underway because he didn't provide the here's where you go next clue. Yeah, you got to give him the clue so they can get there. And he never did it. But he's a starter, not a finisher. I think you're right about that. And then at David's bookstore, they actually found some drafts of the ransom note as well as drafts of the ransom directions in a trash can. So not the smartest book on the shelf, is he?

No, it's like he was sitting around in his store, starting to write this ransom note, got halfway through and said, nah, I want to change it up a little bit. Wad that up. I'll throw it in the trash can. See, I burn everything I write. Grocery list, burn it. Post-it note to myself, I burn it. You don't want people to find out that you like Nutella or what is it?

Exactly. I burn it right away. The deal with the... It's a problem at work. Well, because your grocery list consists of plastic gloves, plastic bags, trash bags. Plastic. Bleach. It's got some really strange things to buy every single week. You know, got to stock up.

And to keep in the trunk of your car. I think all of it is strange. So that's bad enough, right, that they found these drafts. They also were able to match David's fingerprints to both the... ransom note as well as the drafts that they found the trash can. I mean, you mentioned it, mother load. They found everything they needed. But then they took a deep dive into David's computer. And this was a huge deal. You got to remember, right, this is the late 80s. Yeah. This case was really one of the first to utilize the science of computer forensics. I mean,

today they've got that down, you know, to a T. Oh, yeah. But in the late 80s, that was brand new at the time. I don't know. They had the patience for it back then. Well, for as long as it took to download a webpage. Yeah. So this is what they found. They found that David Koppenhefer deleted a bunch of files.

Now, we all know today, right, that when you delete a file off your computer, it's not really gone. Nothing is ever really gone. Once it's out there, it's out there, man. your 11, 12-year-old niece could probably come in right now and find some things that I deleted two years ago. Probably. But a trained computer forensic person could find everything. Oh, yeah. Things that you wouldn't want anyone to know.

Especially me. I know that. No, I'm talking about you. Oh, yeah. I have no skeletons to hide. I don't know what your furry picture collection looks like, but yeah. Yeah. Okay.

You're safe, mister. So these files that he thought he deleted, they're still living, right, in the hard drive. And when they were finally able to get these, they, you know, they retrieved them. There was a 22 point plan, Gibbs, essentially outlining the entire kidnapping scheme. See, right there you went wrong, 22 points, way too many points to follow. You need three points and that's it, right? Isn't that what you always tell me? Keep it simple.

That's the second chapter of your. book. Three points and nothing more. Gotta keep it simple, man. So from this 22 point plan, they had the entire blueprint. It outlined what he wanted to do. He intended to kidnap Sally, have her tape this message to Harry and then kill her before leaving the bag with the ransom note and making the call to her husband. He had copies of the ransom notes on the computer.

He had changes that he had made to the ransom notes. He even had his script that he had written out for the phone call that he made to Sally. Wow. About this whole your husband's getting a civic award. Need to get together. Blah, blah, blah. Kind of a dialogue on what the call to Harry should say. He had all of the locations of the hidden notes.

Right. So go here, go here, go here. Yeah. That's what he used the metal rod for. That's what he used some of these things that they found to keep them in place. Right. So they wouldn't fly away. Yeah.

Makes sense. Now, they already had a ton of evidence against this guy, but this had to seal the deal. Right? You're not walking away from this. I mean, I think a prosecutor is feeling really good about himself or herself. Yeah. Now, one thing that Copenheifer in his attorney. would do, they would try to argue about the search, saying it was illegal. They had violated

his right to privacy by retrieving these files that he thought he had deleted. So essentially making the argument that, okay, if they were still on there and you found them, great. Right. But I deleted these. So they're no longer. So once I delete them, you can't just come in and scrape them from the hard drive. Yeah. You violated my privacy. Well, you kidnapped a woman and killed her. Yeah, you violated her. But we say this all the time gives. What else do they have? I mean, right at that point, you're grasping at straws. You're trying anything that you can think of to get even a portion of this mountain of evidence excluded. Sure. Because right now it's going to bury your client. Oh, like I said, the prosecutor's smiling big time. Yeah, the prosecutor,

probably slept so well, didn't have a care in the world. Oh, yeah. Now, I say that, and my assumption is all prosecutors are worried at every second of every day. Sure. That their case is going to fall apart. But like you said, you had to go into this feeling really good. There's no doubt about it. On July 19th, Copenhefer was indicted on charges of homicide.

Remember, a month prior, he was arrested for kidnapping. now after they have sifted through all this information, they're more than comfortable to charge him with the murder of Sally Weiner. And this is where one of our listeners comes in. We have a listener, Michelle Hawke Kelly, who actually represented Copenhever during a preliminary hearing. That was the extent of her involvement. She didn't go any further than that. And one thing that she relayed was that, And talking to him, you know, he said, they don't have anything on me. I think she was pretty surprised. It was when the evidence against Copenhagen Heffer started to come out. She did not end up representing him past that preliminary hearing.

But there was some interesting information about death row attorneys in Pennsylvania. As it relates to this area that we're talking about, you know, there were only four people in and around that town, I believe. that we're qualified to represent someone in a capital murder case. You have to have a certain amount of qualifications, right? You have to have taken a certain number of felony cases to trial. Right. To even qualify to represent someone in a death penalty case. And that makes sense.

No, it does because it literally is life and death. So we're not going to spend a lot of time talking about the trial. We've detailed out all of the evidence. They spent a lot of time, you know, walking the jury through each and every piece of that. One thing that did happen during the trial, there was a lot of speculation on whether or not Sally Weiner suffered, as well as when she actually died, like her time of death. Well, like she had to suffer. The way I understood it is she was executed, shot in the back of the head. Right.

So you would have limited suffering. based off with that, you would think. You would think in most cases when somebody is killed like that, it's pretty instant. But guess what? There's nobody to ever ask because they're dead. That's true. Did you suffer during that two seconds there before you died? They can't tell you anything about it.

There was some disagreement on Sally Weiner's time of death. There was a pathologist who testified. She died sometime between midnight on Friday. and 2 p.m. on Saturday. Well, that's a 14-hour window. The big window. But the other thing that this pathologist testified to was that it was possible that her brain stem was not completely destroyed by the gunshot. So this gets back to whether or not she suffered.

The pathologist said it was possible that she was a lot for some time after being shot. Now, she might have been in a coma, but she was alive. A forensic entomologist used insect evidence to say that Sally Weiner died between 5 and 8 p.m. on Friday. Yeah, that's kind of interesting because we just talked about that last week on the unsolved case. Yeah, we talked about Bill Bass and his body farm. But it's interesting, these differing opinions on time of death, because David had an alibi. from 5 p.m. Friday on. He was at the bookstore. But the prosecution said, you know what,

he could have shot Sally, got to the bookstore, no problem. Yeah. Right. You're saying five to eight, he could have shot her at 450 and been at the bookstore by five. I don't know. There's so much battle, right, in a trial like this, especially a death penalty trial. But there was so much evidence. I mean, it was overwhelming. The state called over 50 witnesses. They had over 300 different exhibits. And they put forth evidence of David's financial situation explaining why it was the motive for the kidnapping and murder of Sally Weiner. And I go back to what we talked about in the very beginning, right? This guy came from money. His parents had money. He grew up accustomed to a certain lifestyle. Well, he got to be an adult. He was working at a grocery store, an auto parts supply

company. He wasn't making the kind of money he wanted to make. No. He couldn't make it happen. So my thought is he had to keep coming up with these ideas, the money making ideas that happened to be illegal. And at least in the case of Sally Weiner involved. murder. Right. Maybe in the case of John Hawkins as well. It's a strong possibility for sure. I think it is. The jury had everything they needed, though I don't, I don't think there was any doubt about that. They deliberated for about five hours. And in May of 1989, they convicted David Copenhover of first-degree murder, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, attempted robbery, attempted theft by extortion and terroristic threats.

Wow. That's quite a laundry list. A huge list. And you know what that gets you? Get you the electric chair. He was sentenced to die by the electric chair. Which is not related to the electric slide. Or the electric company, which I used to watch as a kid.

The electric company. You remember the electric company? It was kind of like the little brother to Sesame Street. Mm-mm. I was probably older at that point. You were. You were probably working at racks. Probably was.

By the time, at the time I was watching the electric company. But I know you do the electric side. You were one of those. Oh, I can do the electric side. You're out there. I may put it on video and put it up on Patreon. That would probably be a lot of people happy. So as we wrap up this case, you know, I do think there are a lot of people that believe deep down that David Copenheifer murdered John Cox.

The cases are somewhat similar. right in the fact that they involve essentially a scam i don't know if you want to call kidnapping and ransom a scam but a way to try to get money that you don't deserve and in the process you don't care who gets hurt but we know he killed sally whiner yeah i don't know if we'll ever know for sure if he murdered john cockins no i don't think we will i really that's one i don't think we'll ever know about. Now, something happened the same year that he got convicted, which I found fascinating. David's wife, Patricia, also went on trial. She was convicted and sentenced to one to two years in prison for intimidating a witness. Really? Yeah. But not just any witness. Get this,

Gibbs. The witness was a felon at the prison where David was. This guy was set to test. testify against David at the trial. David's wife used ads in the classified section. This is some real Hannibal Lecter, Red Dragon kind of communication stuff going on. She also sent cards and letters to this guy to try to intimidate him into not testify. And I read this and I was like, really? This is a hardened felon. How scared is this guy going to be? of a classified ad where you are threatening him right behind bars he's behind bars that's what i always said about on social media you know people that try to bully other people on social media they can talk to talk all they want because they're sitting behind you know a little screen oh sure but you know

if they were in face-to-face with you they'd never say that stuff if they did it you know it'd be the only time they say it yeah i mean social media is great if people would use it in a good Sure, responsible. The problem is it gives rise to things like that. People think, you know what? I can say whatever the hell I want. Yeah. There's no repercussions.

Something that you wouldn't say to someone's face because they probably knock your teeth in. Exactly. You have no problem saying on social media because like you said, you're hiding behind a screen. Yep. So I just found that fascinating that this man's wife did, you know, time and prison for trying to intimidate a convicted felon. Yeah. She had some, uh, cahonas. You better not

testify or else. Yeah, if you testify, I'm going to, well, I don't know what I'm going to do, but it's going to be big, Mr. And I'm sending you this message through the classified ads. Yeah. So watch for it. Because I will also send you a recipe for my pecan pie. Yeah, because everybody loves it. David Copenheifer died of natural causes at the age of 65 on death row. That's what they always say. Natural causes, by the way. Maybe it was the Pecan pie. Might have been. Or the pecan pie. Maybe it was the felon that his wife tried to intimidate. We don't know. More likely that. What I did think was interesting was at the time of his death, he was only one of two men on death row in Pennsylvania. Doesn't seem like a lot. Doesn't. You and I

do a lot of cases. We do a lot of cases in Texas. Yeah. Texas's don't mess around though. And maybe that's why I think it's not a lot because, you know, there's only two people on death row at the time in Pennsylvania. Yeah. Texas has already put two people to death this month. Yeah. And it's the fifth. They don't mess around. They don't. They don't. So I don't know, Gibbs. What do you think? You think he killed John Hawkins? Yeah, I actually do. Yeah. I think most people do. Yeah. I think what is tough about this case is it wasn't like he went to Pennsylvania and killed Sally Weiner six months later or even the next year. Right. It was what, 16, 17 years later? Oh yeah. Pretty good gap. So then it makes you wonder if he did do both. Both. Did he do anything in between? Right. What happened during those

16 years? You're telling me he was just good husband, good father, went to church. But the The bookends of his life were these two heinous acts. I just don't know. I doubt it. Seriously. Maybe he'll, maybe he pulled a BTK where he kind of just went on a hiatus for a little bit. But that's it.

That's the case of David Copenhefer. We got some voicemails, Gibbs. You want to check those out? Always. Hey guys. My name is Chantal and I'm calling from Euccott-Pontime, which is in England, UK. I don't have a Eucastal accent, though. I'm actually from down south in the UK originally.

when England originally. I just wanted to give you a brief case, I guess, that would be cool to look into. So it's about a girl called Alice Ruggles, and she was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, who was a soldier called Harry Dylan, and she was murdered in a place across the river from where I live, in a place called Gateshead. And that's just, I can pretty much see Gateshead from my flat, and I live in Newcastle-Pontine.

It's just separated by water. and he was a very jealous ex who just couldn't let go of her, so he decided that it would be a good idea to kill her. So I thought this would be a really interesting case, especially to wear across the pond from where you guys are. So I'm hoping one day that you will cover it. And also I'm just going to say that I am not team anybody, I'm afraid, so I love you both equally.

And I've only just discovered your show recently, probably in the last month. So I've got over 100 podcasts they'll get through, and I'm really excited to get through them. So I just want to say that you guys are doing a really good job. And this is my favorite true crime podcast ever. So thank you very much. Wow, we love that. Yeah, from over the pond.

From across the pond. And we will definitely write that name down and do some research. Check it out. Kind of sound like she could have been from Ireland, a little bit of Irish. To me, she had a very muted accent. And I hear that from all countries. Yeah. From every country.

You have the accent that is very, very pronounced. Right. Or multiple accents. Sure. You know, for us here in the States, I always think of it as either, you know, when you're down south, that's pretty pronounced. It can be. Sometimes way up north. Minnesota can be pronounced. Right. Then you kind of get in the middle where I think it's hard to tell where everybody's from. I was kind of thinking Irish, though. That's what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking that at all. But she's only getting her feet wet. So the whole, I'm not team anything. we got time there for that to change. It doesn't need to change. No, it doesn't. You don't have to have everybody in your corner. You neither. Hi, Mike and Gibby.

This is Megan calling from Houston, Texas. I wanted to let you know that we are best friends. You just don't know it yet. So I'm a former neuroscience researcher. Now I'm a stay-at-home with two very small boys. I listen to you all day, every day. and most of the time you are my only adult interaction sometimes for days on end, except I talk to you, but you don't really talk back to me.

So it's a weird relationship I know, but I can very confidently call you my best friend. Well, that's all I have for you. Keep doing what you're doing. Bye, guys. You know the best part about that is that she said adult conversation. She met both of us. I'm surprised that she threw me in that mix. Yeah, she could have gone first.

adult conversation gives it's kind of like talking to my kids no i know that's pretty cool though you know to go from being a neuroscience researcher is that what she said uh or a nurse researcher no it was neuroscience what is she researching nurses i don't know i don't know neuroscience uh to go from that to raising two kids it's awesome right being a being a staying at home mom a lot of people love that. Should we talk about that she's talking to herself out loud? No, she's not. She's talking to us.

We're not there. She's still talking to us. I know. And I'm, I love it. Oh, yeah, it's great. I wish we could get to the point where podcasts were more interactive and

we could actually talk back to you. Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can't even get through my emails. I was going to say, you can't even be on social media very long, let alone do that.

I'm trying. I have so many emails. I feel bad. because there are people that have emailed me a long time ago. Oh. It's getting to the point where I'm trying to whittle them down, but I feel bad. You just need not to sleep one night and go through them all. Just, yeah, just don't sleep one night.

Hi, it's Terry from Louisville again. I called a couple weeks ago. And I understand, uh, Gibney wasn't sure I was pronouncing the city name, right? The only thing I have to say to that is with, uh, also I am definitely, uh, cards fan. and I'm an U of L alma mater, but I support Kentucky and anything Kentucky does, well, not anything, but overall. So just wanted to clear that up. And I hope you all are doing well.

I think you're great. Keep your own time ticking. Bye-bye. Oh, my gosh, I love that voicemail. When I first listened to it, Gibbs, a laugh, a chuckled out loud. So first of all, what hat am I wearing right now? Yeah, you got your UK on. I'm wearing my UK hat.

And a UK shirt. So what made me love? laugh was, all right, you're going to say, you're not sure this one, and I think I remember stressing it. You're saying that this woman who lives in Louisville is pronouncing it incorrectly. Yep. She goes, woof. Yep. That's one of my favorites of yours. Most people pronounce it wolf. You pronounce it, woof. I get to kick him. She just like did it and kind of dropped the mic. She did. She could have ended the, the voicemail right there. Yeah, actually, really. And, And it would have been a mic drop.

She's too nice for that. Hey, Mike and Gibby. It's Kelly calling here from Toronto, Canada. Yeah, I just started listening to your podcast a couple weeks ago. I'm working from the last episode back to number one. And I love you. You guys are great, entertaining, hilarious. I listen to you at work.

And the quality of my work has gone downhill significantly since I sort of listen to you. But, I mean, I'm being entertained. So I think that's the main thing. So I just wanted to say thank you. And if you'd like, I can send you guys a couple of kilograms of our fine Tim Horton's coffee here. Just give me the okay. And I'll get that off to you. And thanks again.

Keep your own time. Check it. So Gibbs, I do think being entertained is the key. Yeah. I'm not sure his boss will concur with that. Especially knowing that he's a neurosurgeon. He's a nurse researcher. He's a nurse researcher.

Then you talk about Tim Horton. So I'm not sure what a kilogram is. I'm not good at the conversions. Yeah. But you know, Tim Hortons has, from Canada, invaded the entire United States.

Oh, yeah. I don't know if it's everywhere. My wife goes to Tim Hortons almost every morning. There's one right around the corner from our house. I think they really, but I never turned down coffee. Yeah,

yeah, yeah, sent it because Mike will drink it up. But yeah, Tim Hortons, I think either Wendy's bought them or they bought Wendy's. Oh, I didn't know that.

I didn't know that. Yep. Is that why Wendy's went downhill so fast? All right. Sorry. Wendy's, if you want a sponsor, I'll take that back. Yeah. You know, back in the day when Dave ran it, man, he ran it good.

He did. He did. We had mailbag. Just one thing. Okay. And it's from our good friend, Jamie McLaughlin Bearden. Oh, Jamie, yeah. We saw her twice this year.

We saw her in Chicago. Yeah, she's great. She sent me one of the big Harley metal challenge coins, which I love. They're so cool. I have maybe five or six of them. They're my all-time favorites. So Jamie, Kim and Chicago is trying to get a hold of you. I keep forgetting them to mention that.

Hey, Kim. So you're going to use the podcast to say that. There you go, Kim. All right. With that, we better get out of here. So that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby. Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.