May 2, 2020 • 40 mins
Shapearl receives a Facebook message from someone with crucial information, but police dismiss the tip. On Halloween night 2018, there’s a similar murder in the neighborhood where Courtney was shot. Shapearl and Alison decide to tell detectives what they know.
A co-production of Topic Studios, The Intercept, the Invisible Institute, and iHeartRadio, in association with Tenderfoot TV.
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Host: Shapearl Wells
Producers: Alison Flowers and Bill Healy
Story Editor: Sarah Geis
Associate Producer: Ellen Glover
Executive Producer, Invisible Institute: Jamie Kalven
Executive Producers, Topic Studios: Maria Zuckerman, Christy Gressman and Leital Molad with Special Thanks to Lizzie Jacobs
Supervising Producer, The Intercept: Roger Hodge
Sound Design: Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw
Mix Engineer: Michael Raphael
Theme Song: “Everybody’s Something,” Chance the Rapper
Additional Reporting: Sam Stecklow, Annie Nguyen, Kahari Blackburn, Rajiv Sinclair, Henri Adams, Matilda Vojak, Dana Brozost-Kelleher, Frances McDonald, Diana Akmakjian, Andrew Fan, Erisa Apantaku and Maddie Anderson.
Translation Support: Benny Hernandez Ocampo and Emma Perez
Fact Checking: Nawal Arjini
Original Music: Eric Butler and Nate Fox of the Social Experiment
Special thanks to Chaclyn Hunt, Maira Khwaja, Andrew Fan, Anwuli Anigbo, Trina Reynolds-Tyler, Sukari Stone, Erisa Apantaku, Craig Futterman, Rick Rowley, Yanilda Gonzalez, Forrest Stuart, Mariah Garcia, Sarah Kinter, Shannon Heffernan, Aaron Moselle, Alan Mills, Vidura Jong-Bahadur, Jason Schumer, Justin Williams and the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation Media Center, Matt Topic, Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, David Bralow and Julie Wolf.
Theme song “Everybody’s Something” by Chancelor J. Bennett and DJ Ozone with compositions by Roger Karsher, Chuck Magione and James Yancey of Universal Music Publishing Group and Slum Village (R.L. Altman III, Titus Glover/Baatin, J Dilla); recording artist/performance by Chance the Rapper, appearing courtesy of himself and Chance the Rapper LLC.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
What you're about to hear is the work of investigative
journalism that explores one woman's search for answers in her
son's death. The views and opinions in this podcast do
not reflect those of I Heart Media previously on Somebody. Okay,
so you heard two satisfires on the block. So when
I found out what had happened the first day that
was reached out to local game bangers, none of them
(00:22):
took admitts to it. This whole thing is just get
stranger and stranger by the minute. And so I have
theories in my head. But somebody covering with Somebody. My
name is Chaparral Wells. This is a story of my son, Courtney,
a young black man in a fancy car who wound
up with a bullet in his back in front of
(00:43):
a Chicago police station. And it's the story of my
search for the truth. This is somebody everybody, somebodys every day,
no bid. So there's this thing that I haven't told
(01:18):
you about yet. I didn't even tell Allison in the
Invisible Institute for a long time because when it happened,
I was told it wasn't important. But it turns out
it was. When I first met with police just a
few days after Courtney was shot. I told him about
a tip I got on Facebook. It was from a
(01:41):
guy who went by Randall Connieham like the football player.
The note went like this, good morning, I have to stay.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I just wanted to
see if this info may help you. I was coming
home from the gym back. This guy, Randall lived in
Belmont Craigen, and the night Courtney died, he saw three
(02:05):
guys and the Grand Marquis who tossed a pistol. He
called nine one one twice. He sent me photos along
with the message, mug shots and a photo of the
Grand Marquis that showed his license plate. I thanked him
and brought it all to police. They called the police.
(02:33):
They told us that they already knew about that, and
that it was not related. Research and it's not related,
so this was a separate incident. Correct. They said it
wasn't connected at all. But I still wanted to give
them all the information Randall gave me. Anyway, he gave
me names of the two people that that he saw
(02:57):
in that vehicle. You um and uh, yeah, that's all correct. Okay,
that's all correct. So it's the caller calls in immediately
(03:19):
and this is well after your son was was shot.
It Detective a Model said Randall's nine on one call
was way after Courtney shooting. To me, they were like,
you know whatever, lady, we've already decided that this is
not credible. We're gonna take your information, but we're not
gonna do anything with it. I moved on because I
(03:41):
was grieving. I had to finish bearing my son. I
was planning Courtney's funeral, and at the time I was
still thinking police shot my son, And when detectives dismissed it,
I thought, well, maybe they're right. But I later came
to find out from those nine one one call logs
(04:02):
that Randall's first call wasn't way later than courtney shooting.
It was thirty seven minutes after Courtney was shot. So
when the first nine one one callers husband Edgar saw
some gangsters in his alley and a Grand Markeys, it
reminded me of Randall's tip. Allison and I we went
(04:23):
back and looked at the picture of the car Randall
sent me on Facebook two years earlier, and there was
a Grand Marquis and the license plate started with Z
four four. Edgar had remembered the first two digits, and
when I went back to the police report about Elena,
(04:46):
it said that she saw a license plate starting with
C four four, C and Z. You know, they sound
a lot of like So the witness accounts matched up
in the police never connected the dots. We needed to
(05:12):
talk to this Facebook tipster, Randall Cunningham, face to face
to find out who he really was and see what
else he knew about what happened that night, any details
that could help us. My name is Allison. I got
your number from chapperl Wells, the mother of Courtney. We
(05:37):
texted and went to an address we found for him.
No one was home, so we left a note. That night,
we got a call back from Randall's uncle, who had
found the note. He put us in touch with Randall,
so we made plans to meet Randall said we could
catch him after a showing of Black Panther. Bill and
(05:58):
I waited for Randall in the food court of a
suburban Chicago mall over pretzels and smoothies. Black Panther is
a long movie. Finally he came out. Did your uncle
tell you we tried to reach you? At his and
then I was like, why are Why are the FEDS
at the door. So I kind of thought that you
(06:19):
guys were Feds. I'm like, what's going on here? But
he told me it was related to the case, and
I'm like wow. He told us that even though he
called nine one one twice, he still wanted to reach
out to Chapparral directly. So, um, Mr Copeland's mother on
the news, and I felt terrible, you know, and I figured, well,
why if you know, if there's this type of information out,
(06:39):
why wouldn't I want to try to reach out. We
asked him to walk us through what he saw when
he was driving home that night. From the beginning, I
was coming home from an export, Jim. It was pretty
late at night. Um, As I was coming home, I
noticed individuals in the street and I almost hit him.
So I kind of looked at him and I could
(07:00):
tell he was gang affiliated colors and his hat was
cocked and he kind of threw a sign at me,
and I'm like, well whatever. The guy who threw the
gang sign looked like he'd been running, like something had happened.
Randall went to turn onto his street when he noticed
a car just sitting there a Grand Marquis. Short time later,
the car starts moving. Randall parked and ran to his apartment.
(07:21):
He looked out a window and saw that the Grand
Marquis had driven up the block, then backed up, and
then up the block again, and then reversed and lit
it again like they were I don't know what was
going on, if they were intoxicated or whatever. Randall called
the cops were on their way. Then he saw a
guy get out of the car. It was the same
(07:43):
one who had just thrown gang signs at him, and
two more guys got out of the car. They quickly
they tossed a weapon and scurried away. So Randall called
nine one one again. You probably wouldn't put two and
two together, um, and they quickly ditched the pistol. I
heard like a loud thud, you can hear like a
metal clink, sound like get thrown to the ground. Uh,
(08:07):
So I actually went out to try to recover it.
I didn't know if the hell came over me. I'm
a concealed carry holder, so I figured, well, let me
go see what this is. And there's kids on the neighborhood,
so you know, I didn't want to. I didn't want
a kid to find it. But before Randall could get there,
one of the guys came back to retrieve what they threw,
and I know it was a pistol because the way
they were holding it it was shiny. And uh, I
(08:29):
told the cops, hey, this was the description of the individuals,
which direction they fled and which way they went and whatnot.
The cops went up the block to get the guys.
The gun was gone, but Randall did find an iPhone.
I actually went through it and uh there's a couple
of videos of them drinking in a car um and
then there was a video of them flashing a revolver.
(08:51):
One was a revolver, the other gun was like a
nine millimeter. Randall offered to give the phone to police.
They contacted me and they told me, hey, you know
what's going on, and they were kind of brief about
what they you know, what they wanted, and then they
hung up and then they called back again and I'm like, yeah, well,
do you want me to come to the station or not?
And they were like, well no at this time no.
(09:12):
Uh So that was that and the police never followed up,
and then Randall lost the iPhone in a move. We
asked him about those mug shots from his Facebook message.
How did he know who these guys were? Somebody that
I knew in the neighborhood. Um, I knew one of
the individuals in the car. So yeah, I kind of asked, well,
(09:34):
what had happened? And they said they were questioned and
then they were they were pretty much released. They never
he said, he doesn't know the guys personally, but he
does know of them. I'm not getting affiliated and never
believed in gangs or none of that, but I did
believe in, you know, getting crimes figured out and solved
and you know, making sure justice has served. So, um,
you know, there's one more thing you need to know
(09:54):
about Randall. He's a Chicago police officer. Who oh, Allison,
when you told me that Randall was a cop, I
was shocked, but you know, I was grateful more than anything,
(10:14):
because this information was vital. Didn't make sense once he
found out he was a cop. I thought that, well,
if he wasn't a cop, he was definitely trying to
be one because he knew exactly what the words to
say and and he knew what to give me. So
the night Courtney died when Randall called this end to nine.
(10:35):
When one he was still a civilian. He was just
a guy in the neighborhood reporting what he saw. But
now he's been a cop for more than two years,
so we were a little surprised that he was still
willing to talk to us. I mean, I was just
so grateful for anybody to give me information. The fact
that he was a cop. It made me have some
(10:57):
type of hope that all cops aren't bad. You know.
I wish there were more Randalls on the Chicago Police force.
I mean, what if he had never come forward. Without
him coming forward, we wouldn't be able to connect the
dots corroborate what Edgar and Elena said about the car
(11:18):
and the guys inside it. But the frustrating part is
it has taken us over two years to get here.
All of this should have been known on day one,
and it turns out it was all right there on
the police radio the whole time point because we're sitting
(11:38):
in the silver Grand Murkey has gone under the car.
When we asked the city for all the police dispatch
in Courtney's case, we got about an hour of tape
back the first twenty five minutes had Courtney flagging down
Officer block for help, his license plates, his name male,
(11:59):
his name is Chicole, and Elena calling in. Once you
get a shot started Fullerton along Long and Fullerton Color
heard two shots on the block. I got no description.
But then later in the radio tape there's this for
thirty five minutes. When we asked why this was believed out,
(12:23):
the city told us again that it was unrelated. We
pushed back and had to wait months to get the
full tape, and when you listen to it, come find
out it's completely related. A mercury tinted windows, reoccupants circling
a black twice and then reversed. It may have a
(12:44):
flat tire, it's double part by the fire. Hydrants demand
black bread jacket on the corner, flashing gang signs. So
once again it's up to us to investigate. We really
wanted to know more about these gangsters Randall saw did
in this gun. Two of the men actually were arrested
(13:04):
up the block the night my son was killed. Point
backcoties were sitting in the silver ground Murkey because he
drove Vine and appeared to based to a gun under
the curve. They have since recovered or whatever was thrown
under there, and they're walking north round. The dispatcher's relaying
Randall's nine one one call to the police. She says,
two male Hispanics wearing black hoodies were sitting in a
(13:26):
granmar key. It appears they threw a gun of the car,
which they've since recovered, and they're walking northbound. That's too possible,
fucking westbound on Belton, And then the officer says, got
two possibles walking westbound on Belding toward Larmie. The police
arrested two men who were charged with a parole violation
(13:47):
for associating with game member, which basically me they were
just hanging out with each other. They were released the
same day, and the third guy commands blackbread Jacket in
the corner, flashing signs he got away. We decided not
to reveal their names because no one has been charged
(14:09):
in connection with Courtney's case, and we don't know who,
if any of these guys shot Courtney. What we do
know is that the police should have followed these leads.
But when we dug around, we found out that all
three men Randall saw that night are members of the
Stylers gang. All of them have been convicted of gun
offenses and all have done time. They all have really
(14:34):
long rap sheets. But this is the Facebook video of
one of the men who was arrested that night. So
(14:54):
love it's not at the time of Courtney's death, he
was on parole for armed robbery sinsons. And the man
that Randall saw a flashing gang size, he's the one
that got away. He's been arrested sixteen times since. Randle
(15:15):
and Edgar identified the same type of car, but we
wanted to see if they'd identify the same men inside
the car too, So we decided to do something the
police had never done, a double blind photo lineup. We
put together a big stack of mug shots to show Edgar.
We included the mug shots randallson to Chaparl and men
(15:35):
who look similar to them, plus some random mug shots too,
And because Edgar remembered someone in the vehicle with long hair,
we included almost neighbor and other men with long hair.
By Elena, Hi, are you right baby? Back here? I
(15:57):
went over to Elena and Edgar's again, Chapel stayed back.
We didn't want Edgar to feel any extra pressure to
make an identification. And thank you. I want sorry. We
got set up in their living room. If it's you know,
(16:17):
very unlikely that you'll be able to identify anyone, so
there's absolutely no pressure to do it. Just if I
brought along one of our summer reporting fellows, Matilda. The
lineup was double blind because neither Edgar nor Matilda knew
who was who in the mug shots. We didn't want
to influence Edgar to pick out certain people. Elena stuck
(16:37):
around to translate, Okay, gonna send alright, so I'll have
you both look at them, and Matilda is gonna go through.
I left the room and they went through the photos
one by one. Who Edgar said, this one looks like
(17:02):
him a little bit. Maybe it looks like yeah, bit
at the photo after photo, No, he said no, He
said no. Then he turned to the next photo, and
right away he stopped, well, he thinks that one it
(17:28):
is because long hair. He landed on the guy with
the long hair, almost neighbor who lived by the church.
That one I think is one of them. Edgar picked
out two other mug shots. He was less sure about these,
but one of them was one of the guys arrested
that night. Up the block from rand Okay, that's all
(17:50):
we had. Thank you very much. Just keeps going and going.
You know, we're just trying to help the families by answers.
So Randall and Edgar's accounts we're matching up more and more. Okay,
thank you, take care of h We felt like we
(18:19):
were getting close to finding out who shot my son,
so we reached out to Courtney's friend June again because
we wanted to see if he can talk to some
of his gang contexts. We were trying to figure out
if June knew any of the guys and the mug shots.
When June asked around for us, he told us it
was like opening Pandora's box. One day, two gang chiefs
(18:41):
showed up at his door. They said, you've been asking
a lot of questions. After that, June changed his number
and moved. When we caught up with him again months later,
he said he didn't want to have an ear to
the streets anymore. He wanted to have an ear to
the stock market because he was all about his cigar business.
He was done dealing information with June out of the picture.
(19:12):
We chased a differently the car we wanted to track
down that Grand Marquis, but it wasn't registered to anyone anymore.
We did find out who owned the Grand Marquis when
Courtney was killed. Her first name was Crystal. We didn't
know anything about her except for her address. So we
(19:32):
hit the road, so that's it's not that far. No,
she's pretty close, but within a mile on the way.
We talked about Courtney, like we always do. He always
said he was gonna be famous. I don't think this
is what he wanted to be famous for, but he
had this this ominous feeling that that he was going
(19:56):
to die young. You know. I think he had some
fears anxiety because his father and his grandfather also died
of heart issues. We're going where so just take a
little further anyway. The last anxiety attack he had was
probably about six weeks before he died, and He's like,
(20:17):
I think I'm having a heart attack. And I'm like, Courdney,
you're not having a heart attack. If you're having a
heart attack, you wouldn't be able to sit here and
tell me to take you to the doctor. So he
was like, I just keep seeing myself dying because I
knew it. I knew what it was. I knew he
was having a panic attack. I told him, you do
(20:37):
what I told you to do, which is pray. We're
all here on borrow time. Cordney, you know, not thinking
in six weeks my son will be dead. That was
the last serious, serious conversation that I had with Coordiney
before he died. Crystal Street was lined with matching brick
(21:08):
two flags. We didn't want to freak her out, so
we left the recorder behind. We walked up to her
building and rang the doorbell for her apartment. We waited.
We were about to walk away when a woman came out.
It was Crystal. We showed her a picture of the
(21:29):
Grammar key. She said, yes, that used to be her car.
We told her about Courtney's murder and that witnesses pointed
to this car. She said she got rid of that
car before on Craigslist. We showed her the mug shots
of the guys. She says she didn't know any of them.
We were bummed. We had hoped she could tell us more.
(21:52):
We thanked her and got back into the van. Well,
I definitely think she's lying. I think she does no
more than what she's saying, and um she wants to
make sure that it's not traceable back to her. I
(22:14):
think when you showed at the pictures that really threw her.
What do you think, Elsa, I don't know. She seemed
genuinely caught off guard and surprised, you know, But I
don't know. Chaparral was right, Crystal was lying to us.
(22:39):
A few weeks later, we were digging around in some
court documents and we saw Crystal was listed as the
girlfriend of the guy who got away from the cops
that night. They even have kids together. We found some
photos of him on Facebook. One of the pictures shows
him at a grave site with one of the two
stylers arrested the night Courtney died. Now we had evidence
connecting them to each other and the car. We hadn't
(23:06):
heard from Randall in a while until one morning, November one,
he texted me, did you hear what happened on Long
and Belding. Female executed in front of her kids and
friend over a car be safe in that neighborhood. My
stomach dropped. It was the same corner where Courtney was shot,
(23:29):
and the car was a BMW. It was all over
the news. This is just absolutely heartbreaking. The victims family
says she was out celebrating Halloween and was tricker treating
with her twin sister and two nieces when a masked
man jumped into their car and forced them to drive.
Police want to find out why a young woman was
(23:50):
murdered by a masked man who forced his way into
the car. We win live at District Police Station in Belmont,
Craigan with more. The gunman made them drive several blocks
before he shot and killed one of the women on
the same street where the gangsters and the grandmar key
tossed the gun. The gunman took off running to black
(24:12):
Hawk Park, Styler's territory. Okay, are you there, ye, come here.
I got on the phone with Chaparral right away. Have
you seen the news today? Yeah? You know that that
shooting right back Courtney, right yeah, exactly right by Courtney.
It was Belden and long right past the church. I'm
(24:33):
looking at the law some like, oh my god, yeah,
this is like, why is here? I told her it
was a BMW two. Are you serious? This is like,
just sent my PTSD right off stood way open now.
I'm sorry. We discussed whether we should go to the
police with what we knew that they don't have that
(24:53):
information about Elsa. I know they have it, but they
don't they don't understand its significant. But I just it
doesn't feel like they did the kind of detective work
at Ethan because I'm thinking, like, if if you know,
I know my son was gone, but if other girl
have to die, you know what I'm saying. It's always
(25:14):
been about preventing things from happening to other people. For me,
if this is the same person, I'm hoping that they
were actually follow up. In the end, we decided we
had a responsibility to come forward if there was any
chance our findings could help them solve this woman's murder.
I really didn't want to meet with those jokers again,
(25:36):
but I sucked it up. Maybe this time if I
came in with two white journalists, they'd actually listen to me.
That was the detective model. So we called us that
something up. Lichal and one of the supervisors from here
will be contacted. A few days later, me Alison and
(25:57):
Bill were sitting down with Sergeant Mitchell and the detective
A Model. They agreed to meet us only if I
didn't record, but the meeting was on the record. What
did you think about the police, stipulating that you couldn't record,
and I wish we would have recorded. I do. I
promise you I wanted to, I really did. We met
(26:24):
for about two hours in the same conference room as before,
but no one walked out on me this time. Sergeant Mitchell.
He wore a tie and was red faced, as ever.
Detective a Model wore a pull over. He barely took
any notes. Here's what happened. We brought in two huge
binders of documents and we told police what we knew.
(26:47):
So we walked them through our evidence. Allison started by
showing them a map. We highlighted the corner of Belding
and Long by the church where the neighbors heard the
shots that night. We told him we believe this is
where Courtney was shot because his friends from broken Glass
on the street and others. They saw skid marks, and
(27:08):
is where Courtney usually parked because he'd received tickets there before.
At this point they said we weren't telling them anything
they didn't already know, but we kept laying out the
scene for them. Anyway. We explained that right before the incident,
we believe Courtney was parking his car. He was on
his phone, texting Alma, Facebook messaging his friend. He was distracted.
(27:33):
That's when someone shot him. Courtney turned and ducked, getting
hit in the back. When Courtney sped off towards the
police station, a Grand Marquis quickly drove around the block,
cutting through Elena and Edgar's narrow alleyway with the windows
rolled down, giving Edgar a good look. Two years later,
(27:54):
Edgar still remembered the car and the first few digits
of the license plate. At this point, we showed police
the two mugshots Edgar picked out in the double blind
lineup the man with the long hair on his neighbor
and a second guy, a member of the Stylers gang
who was arrested that night. And that's when the detectives
(28:16):
said to each other that they needed to talk to Edgar.
Then we kept going with the play by play. Right
after my son arrived at the hospital, Randall spotted the
Grand Marquis on his block and called. When the guys
heard the police coming, they tossed the gun under the
(28:38):
car nearby and took off on foot. But before police
could retrieve the gun, someone came back for it. Two
of the guys were arrested. Up the block in release
without questioning. The third one got away. We gave police
his name, We gave them a copy of Randall's Facebook
(29:00):
such about the Grand Markets license plate, the weapon, the
mug shots. That's when one of the detectives said, you
never told me this, but I did remember. I even
have it on tape. I also have some information that
I received from another Facebook person. Randomly. They told me
(29:21):
that the night of U the shooting, there was a
Okay car, it looks like a Grand Market. I have
that plate number like plenty to number. They said that
they were looking out their window and they saw them
throw a gun under the truck. Under the truck, they
(29:44):
called the police. Okay. None of us were surprised about
how detectives acted during this meeting. Detective A Model said
he's seen the video of Courtney outside of the station.
That much I already knew, But what surprised me was
he said he didn't think Courtney was being combative. I
(30:07):
didn't know what to make of this. No one had
their story straight. Was this a cover up? Or are
they just this damn incompetent. At the end of our meeting,
they told us they were going to assign new detectives
to the case and work these new leagues. We all
hopped in Bill's car in the parking lot to regroup
(30:29):
to bite my tongue. So many times I felt that
they were a little bit evasive when they talked about
the two being arrested that night and why they couldn't
it was a murder. Why wouldn't you want to investigate them?
They are known game members there, They have a long
rap sheet, So tell me why you couldn't pull them
(30:50):
in for a question and for this murder. Why why
wouldn't you do that? That didn't makes sense to me
because they're already arrested. And then you also had that
nine one one caller who was give me you a
description of suspects that he's seen in the neighborhood who
threw a gun underneath a car. So this is when
they talk about we don't have enough evidence, we don't
(31:12):
have enough probable calls to pull them over. Hell, you
get pulled over before busting light in Chicago and they
question you, They take you off your car, they handcuff you,
they do all types of stuff. So you're telling me
that you don't have enough evidence or enough probable calls
that's bullshit. And I wanted to reiterate to them that
you know, in so far as they were frequently saying
(31:36):
that these are leads, not evidence. This is circumstantial, and
it's sort of like, yeah, I know, I am coming
to you because another woman was killed in a BMW
on that corner. Like I'm not saying that this is
solid evidence ready to go to court. I am saying
that this is what I know about the case, and
(31:56):
it's more than what you know about the case. Bill
noticed something during the meeting. I had turned my face
away because I was crying, and I didn't want the
detective to see where you're crying out of frustration. I
was crying because my son is still dead. At the
(32:19):
end of the day, my son dead. So it's just
like I must have been. I'm finna get emotional now,
so forgive me, you know, because I'm like, you know,
every time I get closer, I get a step back.
And sometimes I'd be like, Okay, you have to stop.
You have to stop for yourself, for your health, but
(32:40):
you have to stop for your kids, for your husband.
Because this, this whole murder has it's like a ticking
time bond that just like it's floating in my life
and you're trying to take the millions of pieces and
put them together, and so parts of me will never
ever the whole. It's an emotional strength on my family,
(33:05):
my husband, my my marriage, it's all of this. So
the last couple of days, I've just been going through it.
We needed to step away. I hoped that the police
would finally do their jobs. I think that right now,
based on us leaving them with the information that we
(33:26):
left them with, that that they're just gonna appease us
by passing us off to some new detectives. Nothing is
going to happen. They're not going to interview, they're not
gonna follow up, they're not going to even investigate anything
other than what they've already done. My son will still
be a co case in Chicago whom all right. So,
(34:06):
so it's been more than a year since we sat
down with detectives Chaparral. What's happened in the last year.
Absolutely nothing. You hear crickets. They haven't called me, haven't
given me any updates, haven't contacted any of the witnesses
that we gave them. I haven't heard a peep from
(34:28):
police We've checked in with Edgar Randall, Elena, all of
these witnesses and they haven't contacted them. Press three or
to speak to an operator, press zero. Please speak after
the town. Hi, Detective Bouch. My name is Chaparral Wells.
(34:48):
I'm the parent of Courtney Copeland. I was calling to
get a status update on his case. He was murdered
on March four. A couple of weeks later after I
left this message, Allison actually ran into another detectives on
Courtney's case, detective a model. She bumped into him at
Sesame Street Live. She was there with her family and
(35:12):
a model was working security. She said hello and reminded
him about the case. Two weeks later, a model called me.
I was at church. I swells this detective a model
over an area north. I was wondering to give me
a call back at your earliest convenience. I called him
(35:33):
back as soon as I got home. Then I hopped
back on the line with Alison. Okay, Hey, okay. So
basically his call was based on him wanting to all
of a sudden, you put Corney case in the cold
case file and make it a profile on their website.
(35:53):
What does that mean? So he wants to put Courtney
photo and everything on to the website, stated that they're
looking for information. Yeah. Did. He said he had not
talked to Edgar yet, he ain't talked the air girl.
He basically admitted that he ain't talked the air girl
(36:13):
and what about Um, so they basically didn't follow up
on our leads over the last year and now they're
wanting to all of a sudden put it in the
cold case unit. M hmm, well, um, how are you feeling?
I felt like he was going smoke because it was like, Oh,
I'm thinking about your son's case and I've been trying whatever. Dude,
(36:37):
I'm like and he was like, well, well, if you
want to meet with me again and we'll go over everything,
I'm like, yeah, I mean we already gave them everything.
And I was trying to tell him. I said, that's
why we were wondering why didn't you speak to a
later subject, because I said, I basically told him, I
said that information matched Elena club and said a grandma Keith.
(37:01):
Randall said a grandma Keith, And I said it wasn't
that far in between from the initial students. So for
a year and you ain't did nothing. When I watched
the news, I keep seeing over and over again, whose
(37:22):
life matter in whose cases matter enough to solve? No
matter how many times I meet with police, my son
murder still doesn't seem to matter to them. But this
whole thing is so much bigger than who pulled the
trigger on my son. It's so much bigger than Courtney's case.
(37:44):
Things don't have to be this way, and there's so
much more I've got to do. Everybody, so by every day,
(38:04):
no bide these nothing. Somebody is a co production of
The Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios, and I Heart Radio,
and association with Tenderfoot TV. I'm chakral Wells. This podcast
(38:26):
is produced by Alison Flowers and Bill Heally. Sarah Guice
is our story editor. Ellen Glover is our associate producer
for The Invisible Institute. Jamie Calvin is executive producer for
Topic Studios. Maria Zuckerman, Christie Gressman and Letal Mallard are
executive producers. Special thanks to Lizzie Jacobs for The Intercept.
(38:50):
Roger Hodge, Deputy Editor, is supervising producer. Sound designed by
Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw. Our theme song Everybody's Something
is by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the podcast
by Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler.
Additional reporting by Sam Steclo, Annie When, Kahari Blackburn, Rajie Sinclair,
(39:15):
Henry Adams, Matilda Voyat, Dana brosos kellerher Francis McDonald, Diana Archmagian,
Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and risa Apintaku. Translation support by
Benny Hernandez Occampo and Emma Perez. Fact checking by Noah
Are Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic,
(39:40):
David Bralow, and Julie Wolf. We want to hear from you.
Email us at info at Somebody podcast dot com or
leave us a voicemail at seven seven three to seven
zero zero one to one. To learn more about this
case and for links to addition no materials, go to
(40:01):
our show page at Somebody podcast dot com. You can
also find a list of everyone we want to think
there so many people helped us along the way. M
What you're about to hear is the work of investigative
journalism that explores one woman's search for answers in her
son's death. The views and opinions in this podcast do
not reflect those of I Heart Media previously on Somebody. Okay,
so you heard two satisfires on the block. So when
I found out what had happened the first day that
was reached out to local game bangers, none of them
(00:22):
took admitts to it. This whole thing is just get
stranger and stranger by the minute. And so I have
theories in my head. But somebody covering with Somebody. My
name is Chaparral Wells. This is a story of my son, Courtney,
a young black man in a fancy car who wound
up with a bullet in his back in front of
(00:43):
a Chicago police station. And it's the story of my
search for the truth. This is somebody everybody, somebodys every day,
no bid. So there's this thing that I haven't told
(01:18):
you about yet. I didn't even tell Allison in the
Invisible Institute for a long time because when it happened,
I was told it wasn't important. But it turns out
it was. When I first met with police just a
few days after Courtney was shot. I told him about
a tip I got on Facebook. It was from a
(01:41):
guy who went by Randall Connieham like the football player.
The note went like this, good morning, I have to stay.
I'm very sorry for your loss. I just wanted to
see if this info may help you. I was coming
home from the gym back. This guy, Randall lived in
Belmont Craigen, and the night Courtney died, he saw three
(02:05):
guys and the Grand Marquis who tossed a pistol. He
called nine one one twice. He sent me photos along
with the message, mug shots and a photo of the
Grand Marquis that showed his license plate. I thanked him
and brought it all to police. They called the police.
(02:33):
They told us that they already knew about that, and
that it was not related. Research and it's not related,
so this was a separate incident. Correct. They said it
wasn't connected at all. But I still wanted to give
them all the information Randall gave me. Anyway, he gave
me names of the two people that that he saw
(02:57):
in that vehicle. You um and uh, yeah, that's all correct. Okay,
that's all correct. So it's the caller calls in immediately
(03:19):
and this is well after your son was was shot.
It Detective a Model said Randall's nine on one call
was way after Courtney shooting. To me, they were like,
you know whatever, lady, we've already decided that this is
not credible. We're gonna take your information, but we're not
gonna do anything with it. I moved on because I
(03:41):
was grieving. I had to finish bearing my son. I
was planning Courtney's funeral, and at the time I was
still thinking police shot my son, And when detectives dismissed it,
I thought, well, maybe they're right. But I later came
to find out from those nine one one call logs
(04:02):
that Randall's first call wasn't way later than courtney shooting.
It was thirty seven minutes after Courtney was shot. So
when the first nine one one callers husband Edgar saw
some gangsters in his alley and a Grand Markeys, it
reminded me of Randall's tip. Allison and I we went
(04:23):
back and looked at the picture of the car Randall
sent me on Facebook two years earlier, and there was
a Grand Marquis and the license plate started with Z
four four. Edgar had remembered the first two digits, and
when I went back to the police report about Elena,
(04:46):
it said that she saw a license plate starting with
C four four, C and Z. You know, they sound
a lot of like So the witness accounts matched up
in the police never connected the dots. We needed to
(05:12):
talk to this Facebook tipster, Randall Cunningham, face to face
to find out who he really was and see what
else he knew about what happened that night, any details
that could help us. My name is Allison. I got
your number from chapperl Wells, the mother of Courtney. We
(05:37):
texted and went to an address we found for him.
No one was home, so we left a note. That night,
we got a call back from Randall's uncle, who had
found the note. He put us in touch with Randall,
so we made plans to meet Randall said we could
catch him after a showing of Black Panther. Bill and
(05:58):
I waited for Randall in the food court of a
suburban Chicago mall over pretzels and smoothies. Black Panther is
a long movie. Finally he came out. Did your uncle
tell you we tried to reach you? At his and
then I was like, why are Why are the FEDS
at the door. So I kind of thought that you
(06:19):
guys were Feds. I'm like, what's going on here? But
he told me it was related to the case, and
I'm like wow. He told us that even though he
called nine one one twice, he still wanted to reach
out to Chapparral directly. So, um, Mr Copeland's mother on
the news, and I felt terrible, you know, and I figured, well,
why if you know, if there's this type of information out,
(06:39):
why wouldn't I want to try to reach out. We
asked him to walk us through what he saw when
he was driving home that night. From the beginning, I
was coming home from an export, Jim. It was pretty
late at night. Um, As I was coming home, I
noticed individuals in the street and I almost hit him.
So I kind of looked at him and I could
(07:00):
tell he was gang affiliated colors and his hat was
cocked and he kind of threw a sign at me,
and I'm like, well whatever. The guy who threw the
gang sign looked like he'd been running, like something had happened.
Randall went to turn onto his street when he noticed
a car just sitting there a Grand Marquis. Short time later,
the car starts moving. Randall parked and ran to his apartment.
(07:21):
He looked out a window and saw that the Grand
Marquis had driven up the block, then backed up, and
then up the block again, and then reversed and lit
it again like they were I don't know what was
going on, if they were intoxicated or whatever. Randall called
the cops were on their way. Then he saw a
guy get out of the car. It was the same
(07:43):
one who had just thrown gang signs at him, and
two more guys got out of the car. They quickly
they tossed a weapon and scurried away. So Randall called
nine one one again. You probably wouldn't put two and
two together, um, and they quickly ditched the pistol. I
heard like a loud thud, you can hear like a
metal clink, sound like get thrown to the ground. Uh,
(08:07):
So I actually went out to try to recover it.
I didn't know if the hell came over me. I'm
a concealed carry holder, so I figured, well, let me
go see what this is. And there's kids on the neighborhood,
so you know, I didn't want to. I didn't want
a kid to find it. But before Randall could get there,
one of the guys came back to retrieve what they threw,
and I know it was a pistol because the way
they were holding it it was shiny. And uh, I
(08:29):
told the cops, hey, this was the description of the individuals,
which direction they fled and which way they went and whatnot.
The cops went up the block to get the guys.
The gun was gone, but Randall did find an iPhone.
I actually went through it and uh there's a couple
of videos of them drinking in a car um and
then there was a video of them flashing a revolver.
(08:51):
One was a revolver, the other gun was like a
nine millimeter. Randall offered to give the phone to police.
They contacted me and they told me, hey, you know
what's going on, and they were kind of brief about
what they you know, what they wanted, and then they
hung up and then they called back again and I'm like, yeah, well,
do you want me to come to the station or not?
And they were like, well no at this time no.
(09:12):
Uh So that was that and the police never followed up,
and then Randall lost the iPhone in a move. We
asked him about those mug shots from his Facebook message.
How did he know who these guys were? Somebody that
I knew in the neighborhood. Um, I knew one of
the individuals in the car. So yeah, I kind of asked, well,
(09:34):
what had happened? And they said they were questioned and
then they were they were pretty much released. They never
he said, he doesn't know the guys personally, but he
does know of them. I'm not getting affiliated and never
believed in gangs or none of that, but I did
believe in, you know, getting crimes figured out and solved
and you know, making sure justice has served. So, um,
you know, there's one more thing you need to know
(09:54):
about Randall. He's a Chicago police officer. Who oh, Allison,
when you told me that Randall was a cop, I
was shocked, but you know, I was grateful more than anything,
(10:14):
because this information was vital. Didn't make sense once he
found out he was a cop. I thought that, well,
if he wasn't a cop, he was definitely trying to
be one because he knew exactly what the words to
say and and he knew what to give me. So
the night Courtney died when Randall called this end to nine.
(10:35):
When one he was still a civilian. He was just
a guy in the neighborhood reporting what he saw. But
now he's been a cop for more than two years,
so we were a little surprised that he was still
willing to talk to us. I mean, I was just
so grateful for anybody to give me information. The fact
that he was a cop. It made me have some
(10:57):
type of hope that all cops aren't bad. You know.
I wish there were more Randalls on the Chicago Police force.
I mean, what if he had never come forward. Without
him coming forward, we wouldn't be able to connect the
dots corroborate what Edgar and Elena said about the car
(11:18):
and the guys inside it. But the frustrating part is
it has taken us over two years to get here.
All of this should have been known on day one,
and it turns out it was all right there on
the police radio the whole time point because we're sitting
(11:38):
in the silver Grand Murkey has gone under the car.
When we asked the city for all the police dispatch
in Courtney's case, we got about an hour of tape
back the first twenty five minutes had Courtney flagging down
Officer block for help, his license plates, his name male,
(11:59):
his name is Chicole, and Elena calling in. Once you
get a shot started Fullerton along Long and Fullerton Color
heard two shots on the block. I got no description.
But then later in the radio tape there's this for
thirty five minutes. When we asked why this was believed out,
(12:23):
the city told us again that it was unrelated. We
pushed back and had to wait months to get the
full tape, and when you listen to it, come find
out it's completely related. A mercury tinted windows, reoccupants circling
a black twice and then reversed. It may have a
(12:44):
flat tire, it's double part by the fire. Hydrants demand
black bread jacket on the corner, flashing gang signs. So
once again it's up to us to investigate. We really
wanted to know more about these gangsters Randall saw did
in this gun. Two of the men actually were arrested
(13:04):
up the block the night my son was killed. Point
backcoties were sitting in the silver ground Murkey because he
drove Vine and appeared to based to a gun under
the curve. They have since recovered or whatever was thrown
under there, and they're walking north round. The dispatcher's relaying
Randall's nine one one call to the police. She says,
two male Hispanics wearing black hoodies were sitting in a
(13:26):
granmar key. It appears they threw a gun of the car,
which they've since recovered, and they're walking northbound. That's too possible,
fucking westbound on Belton, And then the officer says, got
two possibles walking westbound on Belding toward Larmie. The police
arrested two men who were charged with a parole violation
(13:47):
for associating with game member, which basically me they were
just hanging out with each other. They were released the
same day, and the third guy commands blackbread Jacket in
the corner, flashing signs he got away. We decided not
to reveal their names because no one has been charged
(14:09):
in connection with Courtney's case, and we don't know who,
if any of these guys shot Courtney. What we do
know is that the police should have followed these leads.
But when we dug around, we found out that all
three men Randall saw that night are members of the
Stylers gang. All of them have been convicted of gun
offenses and all have done time. They all have really
(14:34):
long rap sheets. But this is the Facebook video of
one of the men who was arrested that night. So
(14:54):
love it's not at the time of Courtney's death, he
was on parole for armed robbery sinsons. And the man
that Randall saw a flashing gang size, he's the one
that got away. He's been arrested sixteen times since. Randle
(15:15):
and Edgar identified the same type of car, but we
wanted to see if they'd identify the same men inside
the car too, So we decided to do something the
police had never done, a double blind photo lineup. We
put together a big stack of mug shots to show Edgar.
We included the mug shots randallson to Chaparl and men
(15:35):
who look similar to them, plus some random mug shots too,
And because Edgar remembered someone in the vehicle with long hair,
we included almost neighbor and other men with long hair.
By Elena, Hi, are you right baby? Back here? I
(15:57):
went over to Elena and Edgar's again, Chapel stayed back.
We didn't want Edgar to feel any extra pressure to
make an identification. And thank you. I want sorry. We
got set up in their living room. If it's you know,
(16:17):
very unlikely that you'll be able to identify anyone, so
there's absolutely no pressure to do it. Just if I
brought along one of our summer reporting fellows, Matilda. The
lineup was double blind because neither Edgar nor Matilda knew
who was who in the mug shots. We didn't want
to influence Edgar to pick out certain people. Elena stuck
(16:37):
around to translate, Okay, gonna send alright, so I'll have
you both look at them, and Matilda is gonna go through.
I left the room and they went through the photos
one by one. Who Edgar said, this one looks like
(17:02):
him a little bit. Maybe it looks like yeah, bit
at the photo after photo, No, he said no, He
said no. Then he turned to the next photo, and
right away he stopped, well, he thinks that one it
(17:28):
is because long hair. He landed on the guy with
the long hair, almost neighbor who lived by the church.
That one I think is one of them. Edgar picked
out two other mug shots. He was less sure about these,
but one of them was one of the guys arrested
that night. Up the block from rand Okay, that's all
(17:50):
we had. Thank you very much. Just keeps going and going.
You know, we're just trying to help the families by answers.
So Randall and Edgar's accounts we're matching up more and more. Okay,
thank you, take care of h We felt like we
(18:19):
were getting close to finding out who shot my son,
so we reached out to Courtney's friend June again because
we wanted to see if he can talk to some
of his gang contexts. We were trying to figure out
if June knew any of the guys and the mug shots.
When June asked around for us, he told us it
was like opening Pandora's box. One day, two gang chiefs
(18:41):
showed up at his door. They said, you've been asking
a lot of questions. After that, June changed his number
and moved. When we caught up with him again months later,
he said he didn't want to have an ear to
the streets anymore. He wanted to have an ear to
the stock market because he was all about his cigar business.
He was done dealing information with June out of the picture.
(19:12):
We chased a differently the car we wanted to track
down that Grand Marquis, but it wasn't registered to anyone anymore.
We did find out who owned the Grand Marquis when
Courtney was killed. Her first name was Crystal. We didn't
know anything about her except for her address. So we
(19:32):
hit the road, so that's it's not that far. No,
she's pretty close, but within a mile on the way.
We talked about Courtney, like we always do. He always
said he was gonna be famous. I don't think this
is what he wanted to be famous for, but he
had this this ominous feeling that that he was going
(19:56):
to die young. You know. I think he had some
fears anxiety because his father and his grandfather also died
of heart issues. We're going where so just take a
little further anyway. The last anxiety attack he had was
probably about six weeks before he died, and He's like,
(20:17):
I think I'm having a heart attack. And I'm like, Courdney,
you're not having a heart attack. If you're having a
heart attack, you wouldn't be able to sit here and
tell me to take you to the doctor. So he
was like, I just keep seeing myself dying because I
knew it. I knew what it was. I knew he
was having a panic attack. I told him, you do
(20:37):
what I told you to do, which is pray. We're
all here on borrow time. Cordney, you know, not thinking
in six weeks my son will be dead. That was
the last serious, serious conversation that I had with Coordiney
before he died. Crystal Street was lined with matching brick
(21:08):
two flags. We didn't want to freak her out, so
we left the recorder behind. We walked up to her
building and rang the doorbell for her apartment. We waited.
We were about to walk away when a woman came out.
It was Crystal. We showed her a picture of the
(21:29):
Grammar key. She said, yes, that used to be her car.
We told her about Courtney's murder and that witnesses pointed
to this car. She said she got rid of that
car before on Craigslist. We showed her the mug shots
of the guys. She says she didn't know any of them.
We were bummed. We had hoped she could tell us more.
(21:52):
We thanked her and got back into the van. Well,
I definitely think she's lying. I think she does no
more than what she's saying, and um she wants to
make sure that it's not traceable back to her. I
(22:14):
think when you showed at the pictures that really threw her.
What do you think, Elsa, I don't know. She seemed
genuinely caught off guard and surprised, you know, But I
don't know. Chaparral was right, Crystal was lying to us.
(22:39):
A few weeks later, we were digging around in some
court documents and we saw Crystal was listed as the
girlfriend of the guy who got away from the cops
that night. They even have kids together. We found some
photos of him on Facebook. One of the pictures shows
him at a grave site with one of the two
stylers arrested the night Courtney died. Now we had evidence
connecting them to each other and the car. We hadn't
(23:06):
heard from Randall in a while until one morning, November one,
he texted me, did you hear what happened on Long
and Belding. Female executed in front of her kids and
friend over a car be safe in that neighborhood. My
stomach dropped. It was the same corner where Courtney was shot,
(23:29):
and the car was a BMW. It was all over
the news. This is just absolutely heartbreaking. The victims family
says she was out celebrating Halloween and was tricker treating
with her twin sister and two nieces when a masked
man jumped into their car and forced them to drive.
Police want to find out why a young woman was
(23:50):
murdered by a masked man who forced his way into
the car. We win live at District Police Station in Belmont,
Craigan with more. The gunman made them drive several blocks
before he shot and killed one of the women on
the same street where the gangsters and the grandmar key
tossed the gun. The gunman took off running to black
(24:12):
Hawk Park, Styler's territory. Okay, are you there, ye, come here.
I got on the phone with Chaparral right away. Have
you seen the news today? Yeah? You know that that
shooting right back Courtney, right yeah, exactly right by Courtney.
It was Belden and long right past the church. I'm
(24:33):
looking at the law some like, oh my god, yeah,
this is like, why is here? I told her it
was a BMW two. Are you serious? This is like,
just sent my PTSD right off stood way open now.
I'm sorry. We discussed whether we should go to the
police with what we knew that they don't have that
(24:53):
information about Elsa. I know they have it, but they
don't they don't understand its significant. But I just it
doesn't feel like they did the kind of detective work
at Ethan because I'm thinking, like, if if you know,
I know my son was gone, but if other girl
have to die, you know what I'm saying. It's always
(25:14):
been about preventing things from happening to other people. For me,
if this is the same person, I'm hoping that they
were actually follow up. In the end, we decided we
had a responsibility to come forward if there was any
chance our findings could help them solve this woman's murder.
I really didn't want to meet with those jokers again,
(25:36):
but I sucked it up. Maybe this time if I
came in with two white journalists, they'd actually listen to me.
That was the detective model. So we called us that
something up. Lichal and one of the supervisors from here
will be contacted. A few days later, me Alison and
(25:57):
Bill were sitting down with Sergeant Mitchell and the detective
A Model. They agreed to meet us only if I
didn't record, but the meeting was on the record. What
did you think about the police, stipulating that you couldn't record,
and I wish we would have recorded. I do. I
promise you I wanted to, I really did. We met
(26:24):
for about two hours in the same conference room as before,
but no one walked out on me this time. Sergeant Mitchell.
He wore a tie and was red faced, as ever.
Detective a Model wore a pull over. He barely took
any notes. Here's what happened. We brought in two huge
binders of documents and we told police what we knew.
(26:47):
So we walked them through our evidence. Allison started by
showing them a map. We highlighted the corner of Belding
and Long by the church where the neighbors heard the
shots that night. We told him we believe this is
where Courtney was shot because his friends from broken Glass
on the street and others. They saw skid marks, and
(27:08):
is where Courtney usually parked because he'd received tickets there before.
At this point they said we weren't telling them anything
they didn't already know, but we kept laying out the
scene for them. Anyway. We explained that right before the incident,
we believe Courtney was parking his car. He was on
his phone, texting Alma, Facebook messaging his friend. He was distracted.
(27:33):
That's when someone shot him. Courtney turned and ducked, getting
hit in the back. When Courtney sped off towards the
police station, a Grand Marquis quickly drove around the block,
cutting through Elena and Edgar's narrow alleyway with the windows
rolled down, giving Edgar a good look. Two years later,
(27:54):
Edgar still remembered the car and the first few digits
of the license plate. At this point, we showed police
the two mugshots Edgar picked out in the double blind
lineup the man with the long hair on his neighbor
and a second guy, a member of the Stylers gang
who was arrested that night. And that's when the detectives
(28:16):
said to each other that they needed to talk to Edgar.
Then we kept going with the play by play. Right
after my son arrived at the hospital, Randall spotted the
Grand Marquis on his block and called. When the guys
heard the police coming, they tossed the gun under the
(28:38):
car nearby and took off on foot. But before police
could retrieve the gun, someone came back for it. Two
of the guys were arrested. Up the block in release
without questioning. The third one got away. We gave police
his name, We gave them a copy of Randall's Facebook
(29:00):
such about the Grand Markets license plate, the weapon, the
mug shots. That's when one of the detectives said, you
never told me this, but I did remember. I even
have it on tape. I also have some information that
I received from another Facebook person. Randomly. They told me
(29:21):
that the night of U the shooting, there was a
Okay car, it looks like a Grand Market. I have
that plate number like plenty to number. They said that
they were looking out their window and they saw them
throw a gun under the truck. Under the truck, they
(29:44):
called the police. Okay. None of us were surprised about
how detectives acted during this meeting. Detective A Model said
he's seen the video of Courtney outside of the station.
That much I already knew, But what surprised me was
he said he didn't think Courtney was being combative. I
(30:07):
didn't know what to make of this. No one had
their story straight. Was this a cover up? Or are
they just this damn incompetent. At the end of our meeting,
they told us they were going to assign new detectives
to the case and work these new leagues. We all
hopped in Bill's car in the parking lot to regroup
(30:29):
to bite my tongue. So many times I felt that
they were a little bit evasive when they talked about
the two being arrested that night and why they couldn't
it was a murder. Why wouldn't you want to investigate them?
They are known game members there, They have a long
rap sheet, So tell me why you couldn't pull them
(30:50):
in for a question and for this murder. Why why
wouldn't you do that? That didn't makes sense to me
because they're already arrested. And then you also had that
nine one one caller who was give me you a
description of suspects that he's seen in the neighborhood who
threw a gun underneath a car. So this is when
they talk about we don't have enough evidence, we don't
(31:12):
have enough probable calls to pull them over. Hell, you
get pulled over before busting light in Chicago and they
question you, They take you off your car, they handcuff you,
they do all types of stuff. So you're telling me
that you don't have enough evidence or enough probable calls
that's bullshit. And I wanted to reiterate to them that
you know, in so far as they were frequently saying
(31:36):
that these are leads, not evidence. This is circumstantial, and
it's sort of like, yeah, I know, I am coming
to you because another woman was killed in a BMW
on that corner. Like I'm not saying that this is
solid evidence ready to go to court. I am saying
that this is what I know about the case, and
(31:56):
it's more than what you know about the case. Bill
noticed something during the meeting. I had turned my face
away because I was crying, and I didn't want the
detective to see where you're crying out of frustration. I
was crying because my son is still dead. At the
(32:19):
end of the day, my son dead. So it's just
like I must have been. I'm finna get emotional now,
so forgive me, you know, because I'm like, you know,
every time I get closer, I get a step back.
And sometimes I'd be like, Okay, you have to stop.
You have to stop for yourself, for your health, but
(32:40):
you have to stop for your kids, for your husband.
Because this, this whole murder has it's like a ticking
time bond that just like it's floating in my life
and you're trying to take the millions of pieces and
put them together, and so parts of me will never
ever the whole. It's an emotional strength on my family,
(33:05):
my husband, my my marriage, it's all of this. So
the last couple of days, I've just been going through it.
We needed to step away. I hoped that the police
would finally do their jobs. I think that right now,
based on us leaving them with the information that we
(33:26):
left them with, that that they're just gonna appease us
by passing us off to some new detectives. Nothing is
going to happen. They're not going to interview, they're not
gonna follow up, they're not going to even investigate anything
other than what they've already done. My son will still
be a co case in Chicago whom all right. So,
(34:06):
so it's been more than a year since we sat
down with detectives Chaparral. What's happened in the last year.
Absolutely nothing. You hear crickets. They haven't called me, haven't
given me any updates, haven't contacted any of the witnesses
that we gave them. I haven't heard a peep from
(34:28):
police We've checked in with Edgar Randall, Elena, all of
these witnesses and they haven't contacted them. Press three or
to speak to an operator, press zero. Please speak after
the town. Hi, Detective Bouch. My name is Chaparral Wells.
(34:48):
I'm the parent of Courtney Copeland. I was calling to
get a status update on his case. He was murdered
on March four. A couple of weeks later after I
left this message, Allison actually ran into another detectives on
Courtney's case, detective a model. She bumped into him at
Sesame Street Live. She was there with her family and
(35:12):
a model was working security. She said hello and reminded
him about the case. Two weeks later, a model called me.
I was at church. I swells this detective a model
over an area north. I was wondering to give me
a call back at your earliest convenience. I called him
(35:33):
back as soon as I got home. Then I hopped
back on the line with Alison. Okay, Hey, okay. So
basically his call was based on him wanting to all
of a sudden, you put Corney case in the cold
case file and make it a profile on their website.
(35:53):
What does that mean? So he wants to put Courtney
photo and everything on to the website, stated that they're
looking for information. Yeah. Did. He said he had not
talked to Edgar yet, he ain't talked the air girl.
He basically admitted that he ain't talked the air girl
(36:13):
and what about Um, so they basically didn't follow up
on our leads over the last year and now they're
wanting to all of a sudden put it in the
cold case unit. M hmm, well, um, how are you feeling?
I felt like he was going smoke because it was like, Oh,
I'm thinking about your son's case and I've been trying whatever. Dude,
(36:37):
I'm like and he was like, well, well, if you
want to meet with me again and we'll go over everything,
I'm like, yeah, I mean we already gave them everything.
And I was trying to tell him. I said, that's
why we were wondering why didn't you speak to a
later subject, because I said, I basically told him, I
said that information matched Elena club and said a grandma Keith.
(37:01):
Randall said a grandma Keith, And I said it wasn't
that far in between from the initial students. So for
a year and you ain't did nothing. When I watched
the news, I keep seeing over and over again, whose
(37:22):
life matter in whose cases matter enough to solve? No
matter how many times I meet with police, my son
murder still doesn't seem to matter to them. But this
whole thing is so much bigger than who pulled the
trigger on my son. It's so much bigger than Courtney's case.
(37:44):
Things don't have to be this way, and there's so
much more I've got to do. Everybody, so by every day,
(38:04):
no bide these nothing. Somebody is a co production of
The Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios, and I Heart Radio,
and association with Tenderfoot TV. I'm chakral Wells. This podcast
(38:26):
is produced by Alison Flowers and Bill Heally. Sarah Guice
is our story editor. Ellen Glover is our associate producer
for The Invisible Institute. Jamie Calvin is executive producer for
Topic Studios. Maria Zuckerman, Christie Gressman and Letal Mallard are
executive producers. Special thanks to Lizzie Jacobs for The Intercept.
(38:50):
Roger Hodge, Deputy Editor, is supervising producer. Sound designed by
Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw. Our theme song Everybody's Something
is by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the podcast
by Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler.
Additional reporting by Sam Steclo, Annie When, Kahari Blackburn, Rajie Sinclair,
(39:15):
Henry Adams, Matilda Voyat, Dana brosos kellerher Francis McDonald, Diana Archmagian,
Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and risa Apintaku. Translation support by
Benny Hernandez Occampo and Emma Perez. Fact checking by Noah
Are Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic,
(39:40):
David Bralow, and Julie Wolf. We want to hear from you.
Email us at info at Somebody podcast dot com or
leave us a voicemail at seven seven three to seven
zero zero one to one. To learn more about this
case and for links to addition no materials, go to
(40:01):
our show page at Somebody podcast dot com. You can
also find a list of everyone we want to think
there so many people helped us along the way. M
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