EDMOND, Okla. – The medical examiner’s office has released its findings on the death of an Edmond woman, who was found dead in her home in October.
Shortly after 1:45 a.m. on Oct. 24, Edmond police were called to a home after a woman was found not breathing. When paramedics arrived on the scene, they determined that 36-year-old Kimberly Copeland was already dead.
Court documents claim that Copeland’s husband, Caleb Ray Copeland, told investigators that his wife was drunk when he came home. However, police were suspicious of Copeland after they say his version of events started to change.
“We started to find some big discrepancies in the story that was even just told earlier in the night to patrol officers. Mr. Copeland wasn’t truthful about the amount of alcohol she consumed. He said she consumed an entire box of wine and he threw it away. We found that box of wine placed obscurely on top of a cabinet, that was about half full — if not more — so that didn’t match up. And then the story just really started changing from there,” said Jenny Wagnon, with the Edmond Police Department, told News 4.
Copeland admitted to taking his wife’s vital signs at least four times between 9 p.m. and 1 a.m., using a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. He said he knew his wife was in cardiac arrest by 1 a.m.
“We were able to determine he was monitoring her regression through the evening and waited a significant amount of time before calling 911,” Wagnon said.
According to an arrest warrant affidavit, investigators believed that Copeland gave his wife a lethal dose of an anti-depressant drug in her wine and watched her slowly deteriorate, waiting to call for help after she stopped breathing.
Copeland was ultimately arrested and charged with one count of first-degree murder.
Now, the Oklahoma State Medical Examiner’s Office is releasing more information about Kimberly Copeland’s death.
According to the medical examiner’s report, investigators determined that Kimberly Copeland died from “combined acute amitriptyline and ethyl alcohol toxicity.”
The report states that Copeland did not have any trauma to her body, but that her death was unnatural.
However, the manner of death is listed as “undetermined.”
“The reported circumstances before the time of death are complicated in nature. It is unclear how the amitriptyline came to be ingested by the decedent. There are reported possibilities of intentional ingestion, accidental ingestion, and unknowing ingestion. These possibilities cannot be distinguished at this time, based upon the available information,” the medical examiner’s report read.
