A jury has reached a verdict in a Columbus child molestation case. Here’s what happened.
A Columbus jury reached a verdict Thursday in the aggravated sodomy and child molestation case against Jeffery Leonard Copeland Sr., accused of molesting a 14-year-old boy he brought to Columbus from Meriwether County.
The jury, after an hour of deliberation, found Copeland guilty of one count of enticing a child for indecent purposes and one count of aggravated child molestation, and not guilty of a second count of aggravated child molestation.
The jury started deliberating at 1:22 p.m., and announced it had a verdict at 2:27 p.m. Thursday.
Jurors heard a day of testimony Wednesday before District Attorney Mark Jones and defense attorney Michael Garner made their closing arguments Thursday morning. Jones said the verdict shows the jury believed the boy’s testimony, though Garner alleged it was “rehearsed,”
“There was a child that testified convincingly, and there was corroboration from a nurse examiner of what the child was saying, and there was other corroboration with documentary evidence,” Jones said. “I think that’s what did it.”
Copeland, 40, was not the only suspect charged in the case, but his codefendant Keairis Burrell Hollingsworth died in custody before the trial. The 30-year-old had chest pains in the Muscogee County Jail on July 7 and was taken to Piedmont Columbus Regional, where he died July 12, authorities said.
The allegations
Investigators said Copeland was celebrating his 38th birthday on July 18, 2019, when he and Hollingsworth were to take the teen boy and his siblings on a trip to Tennessee. The children’s mother insisted they maintain contact via cell phone so she’d know they were OK.
But when a daughter called in about an hour to say they’d arrived at a motel, she knew they hadn’t gone to Tennessee, and insisted Copeland bring the kids home.
Police said Copeland and Hollingsworth brought the children to Columbus to bike on the Chattahoochee RiverWalk. They stayed at the Motel 6 on Veterans Parkway downtown, where both men had sex with the boy in their room while the other children, ages 10 and 13, were in another, detectives said.
A nurse with the Children’s Treehouse child advocacy center here later examined the boy, and said she found evidence consistent with the sodomy the victim described.
Jones emphasized in his closing argument that Copeland had a gun with him, though he was not accused of threatening anyone with it. “So what does that mean?” Jones asked jurors. “It means he’s in control of the situation.”
He asked the jury to prove such conduct is not permitted here: “You don’t bring a kid to Columbus, take him on the riverwalk, and then do what they did,” he said.
Garner stressed that police here confiscated all the towels and bedclothes from the motel room to test them for DNA evidence, and found nothing. “There was nothing in there but proof to show he’s innocent,” Garner said of his client.
Garner also argued Copeland’s bringing children here on his birthday to commit sexual assault was implausible: “Do you think he raped his kid on his birthday in Columbus?” he asked the jury. “What kind of stupidity is that?”
He noted also that Copeland’s indictment said the crime occurred at a Motel 6 on Victory Drive, not at the Motel 6 downtown. “If you convict him on this, God help you,” he told jurors.
Jones said he had to prove only that the offense happened in Columbus, not at a specific spot.
After Thursday’s verdict, the district attorney said Copeland is facing more than 50 years in prison.
Judge Arthur Smith III set Copeland’s sentencing for 9 a.m. Oct. 7.
This story was originally published September 30, 2021 at 4:44 PM.