Teen Charged With Killing Her Father Says He Told Her To Shoot Him
July 26, 2012 at 7:48 am by imonfireDAMMIT
Troy, NY – Police arrested 17-year-old Trinity Copeland for fatally shooting her father in the head with a rifle after the two argued over the unauthorized use of a credit card. In a statement to police, Copeland claims her father told her to do it.
Trinity’s father, 47-year-old Harland Copeland, had been drinking when he approached his daughter over some unauthorized debit card charges. Her father complained to the police about the charges, stating he knew where they were made but not who made them. He told Trinity police were going to look at the surveillance tapes from that day.
Knowing that they would see it was her that took the ATM card, Trinity confessed to the $154 in purchases. The reaction she received was a little more then she was bargaining for. She says her father told her that she could kill him or he’d kill her then himself.
“I was telling him I was sorry. I told him that I wanted to tell him before he saw it on video,” she said in the statement. “He was like, ‘Don’t want to hear it.’ He told me that he was gonna kill me. He was holding the gun and pointing it at me. My heart was pounding. He said after he killed me he was going to kill himself because he wasn’t going to go to jail for me misbehaving.”
She told police she pleaded with her father to change his mind but ultimatly it came down to either killing her father or him killing her. Trinity went on to say that he told her to put on some gloves and open a window to make it look like an intruder commited the crime.
“He was like, ‘I’m not going to say it again.’ I was like, ‘Why do I have to kill you, why do I have to kill you?’ He said either way he was going to die and he was giving me a way out.”
“He said do it,” she told police. “I told him that I loved him and that I was sorry. Then I did it. I shot him.”
Trinity shot her father as he lay on the couch, then grabbed her father’s phone to call the cops. Trinity has been charged with second-degree murder. Troy Police Capt. John Cooney said they have no reason to doubt Copeland’s story and that the evidence, including her statement, supported a second-degree murder charge.
Come on Trinity, of all the times to obey your father you choose this one?
Tags: Crime, Domestic Violence, Harland Copeland, Murder, New York, Parenticide, Shooting, Trinity Copeland
