Nightmare In Napa

Newly-Released Evidence Helps Cops Crack Halloween Double-Murder

(CBS) 
Arlene knew the man well. Police had arrested Eric Copple, 26, the husband of Adriane’s best friend Lily.

“When I learned who it was, I was shocked and I was overcome with grief,” says Arlene.

Knowing that the police believe Lily’s husband was the killer only brought back thoughts of the gruesome murders

How did the police finally identify a suspect? And one who was under their noses the whole time? It turns out Eric Copple went to them. It was a Tuesday night, after all of the detectives working the case had left for the day.

Copple showed up at the police station with his wife and other family members.

“Eric Matthew Copple was interviewed and made admissions that link him to this crime,” Police Chief Richard Melton said.

Napa police always said they would look at the inner circle, the people in closest proximity to the victims, but they never even interviewed Copple. Police say they left phone messages for him, which he ignored.

Police believe Copple thought he was about to be caught.

Copple smoked cigarettes, which all his friends knew, but the police had waited 10 months to tell the public that they were looking for a killer who smoked. When Copple heard the police say the killer smoked the same unusual brand as he did, he turned himself in and reportedly confessed.

So did police drop the ball?

“We would have ultimately contacted him. We would have obtained a DNA sample,” the police chief said.

When they finally obtained a DNA sample, police say, they had a match.

Eric, who worked as a land surveyor, had no arrest record. Police won’t say whether he used drugs or had a psychiatric condition.

Arlene says she and her daughter were both fond of him.

Adriane would tell her mother stories about Eric that Adriane and Lily thought were funny. “Lily would comment on how obsessive-compulsive Eric was. “In other words, a neat freak. It’s the classic, if you would just move something, he would go back and just quietly move it right back,” says Arlene.

But there’s nothing Arlene can think of that suggested Eric was dangerous.

Arlene worries she will lose the friendship with Lily that pulled her through her grief: “I’m crying for her, and worried I might lose her. She might be afraid I would blame her, which I don’t.”

When Lily did her interview with 48 Hours a year ago, she told us she couldn’t imagine the killer would go unnoticed.

Eric Copple was in the room during our interview as Lily talked about how Adriane must have fought her killer. “She was a scrappy girl. I hope she hurt him,” Lily said at the time.

And now, after so many months of focusing on Leslie as the killer’s primary target, and thinking Adriane died trying to defend her, the families now wonder if this was about Adriane.

“It seems logical now that because of Adriane’s close relationship with Lily and with Eric, that she would be the target,” says Arlene.

And Arlene apologizes to Leslie’s family. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry it’s someone on Adriane’s list, you know,” she says. “We’ll have to see what happens, though.”

“It hurts me that she is feeling any guilt about it,” says Leslie’s mother Cathy. “He was a sick person."

The police won’t say what Eric’s motive was but Cathy doesn’t expect to ever understand it anyway. “She was just beginning her life. She had been through so much and she was just beginning to realize her full potential,” she says.

Cathy’s terrified to hear the details of what happened to Leslie that Halloween night, expecting it will all come out at Eric’s trial.

“I don’t look forward to knowing how my daughter died. I just know that I’ve been told it’s a vicious murder. It’s hard to live with that,” says Cathy.

It’s an emotion Adriane’s mother understands well. She says, “Each piece that I gather causes so much pain. I can’t understand how it could have happened. But I see the devastation it has left in its wake.”

“Each piece that I gather causes so much pain. I can’t understand how it could have happened. But I see the devastation it has left in its wake.”

One long year later, police can now claim they solved the Halloween murders in Napa.

But why did it happen? The answers may not becoming anytime soon. Because in spite of the confession police say he gave them, Copple has decided to plead not guilty. Prosecutors haven’t announced yet whether they will seek the death penalty.

Eric Copple is expected to stand trial next year. Since Eric’s incarceration, one of his visitors has been his wife Lily.