Decade later, Nancy Cooper murder still riveting in Cary
Ten years ago Saturday, a man walking his dog in Cary stumbled across a woman's dead body in a drainage ditch, launching a criminal case that still captivates Cary.
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Nancy Cooper, a 34-year-old mother of two, had reportedly gone jogging two days earlier but never returned home. Hundreds of volunteers combed the Lochmere section of Cary during those two days before her body was found in a cul-de-sac of an unfinished subdivision about 3 miles from the Cooper home. She had been strangled.
Police quickly zeroed in on Cooper's husband, Brad Cooper, as her killer, noting the couple's strained marriage and questions about his actions after her disappearance.
Brad Cooper was arrested three months later, but his trial didn't get started until March 2011. The trial stretched on for 36 days and included testimony about money squabbles, extramarital affairs and an online search of the area where Nancy Cooper's body was later found.
Jurors convicted Brad Cooper of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. But the state Court of Appeals overturned the verdict two years later and ordered a new trial, ruling that the trial judge erred by not allowing key defense testimony to be presented.
While awaiting retrial, Brad Cooper pleaded guilty in September 2014 to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison.
Intertwined with the criminal case, Brad Cooper and Nancy Cooper's family fought for custody of the couple's two daughters. His guilty plea cleared the way for Nancy Cooper's twin sister to adopt the two girls, who now live in Canada with the rest of her family.
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