State v. Coplen

TIMMONS-GOODSON, Judge.

Patsy E. Copien (“defendant”) and Richard Martin (“the victim”) lived together in a mobile home in the Oscar Long Subdivision of Leland, North Carolina. On 6 May 1996 at approximately 10:30 or 11:00 p.m., Betty Harper (“Harper”), a neighbor, heard defendant call for help. Defendant informed Harper that she had gone to the store to buy beer for her husband and that when she returned home, she found his body lying in a pool of blood.

Harper owned a .38 caliber Tahitian Tiger revolver which she had loaned to defendant approximately six months before the victim was shot.…