Local One-Man Murder and Crime Spree

New Details Emerge in Case Against Samuel James Cooper


Posted: Nov. 28, 2007
Updated: Today at 12:17 p.m.

Raleigh ? Samuel James Cooper's alleged crime spree appeared to have
accelerated in the seven weeks leading up to his arrest last Wednesday,
according to court documents and new information obtained by WRAL News.

The 30-year-old convicted felon was arrested a week ago at a Domino's Pizza
distribution center in Garner after he allegedly robbed a nearby Bank of
America.

That arrest started a chain of events that investigators say links Cooper to
deaths in five unsolved murders dating to May 2006 and a string of other
violent crimes, including armed robbery and home invasion. (See a list of
crimes with that Cooper has been charged, so far.)

Wednesday, a day after he was charged with murder, Rockingham County
authorities charged Cooper with two counts of attempted first-degree murder
in connection with a Nov. 4 home invasion in Reidsville. Investigators say
he shot two people in the head.

"Both are considered very lucky to be alive," Capt. Perry Brookshire with
the Rockingham County Sheriff's Office said. "I think he has actually said
that he thought he had killed both of them. And he's made a comment that he
normally does kill the individuals."

Cooper is also a person of interest in another Rockingham County home
invasion from early October, when two more people were shot.

Additionally, sources tell WRAL that investigators are linking him to more
than a dozen armed robberies in the Raleigh area.

On Tuesday evening, Raleigh police charged a woman somehow connected with
Cooper in two robberies last month.

Regina Nicole Swan, 20, of 2817 Wade Avenue, is charged with two counts of
robbery with a dangerous weapon and is accused of stealing $3,385 from a
Raleigh Food Lion and $955 from a Bojangles', according to arrest warrants.

Cooper had not been charged in those robberies as of Wednesday evening, but
a notation on a court document reads: "These robberies at issue were done wi
th Samuel Cooper."

Swan was in the Wake County Jail under a $250,000 bond Wednesday. Cooper was
in the Wake County Jail without bond for the murder charges and was under a
$1 million bond for the Rockingham County case.

It is unclear how Swan and Cooper are connected, but sources tell WRAL that
Swan might be a former or current girlfriend of Cooper. They also say she
dances at a strip club on Capital Boulevard called Foxy Lady ? a place
Cooper apparently frequented.

The club's owner would not talk with WRAL Wednesday about the case or
confirm whether Swan works there, but he did meet there with Raleigh police
detectives. When asked by WRAL if they were there to talk about the case,
investigators directed questions to the police department.

Neither Raleigh police nor the Wake County Sheriff's Office has talked about
the case since they announced the charges against Cooper on Tuesday, and
they said they don't expect to do so because of the "complexity" and ongoing
investigation of each homicide.

Nor have they explained how they linked Cooper to the cases or what led them
to charge him in the slayings of Ossama "Sam" Haj-Hussein, 43, LeRoy
Jernigan, 41, Timothy David Barnwell, 34, Ricky High, 48, and Tariq Hussain,
52.

WRAL has learned from unnamed sources, however, that Cooper confessed to the
crimes while in custody and that forensic tests on a gun seized by police
tie him to all five cases. The arrest of Cooper's father on a felony weapons
charge was a factor in Cooper's confession, sources say.

Prosecutors later dropped the charge against the elder Cooper.

"There are a lot of tools in the crime-fighting arsenal," local attorney and
former prosecutor Karl Knudsen said.

State Bureau of Investigation agents would not talk about the Cooper case,
but said spent bullets and shell casings can hold clues that can be as
powerful as fingerprints at a crime scene.

"(Detectives) don't have any witnesses, or they have witnesses who are
giving conflicting accounts of what took place ? so, when a weapon's
recovered, it may be the only thing to tie an individual back to that
scene," said SBI special agent Peter Ware, who oversees the SBI's firearms
unit. (Watch more about how the SBI helps solve crimes.)

Ware said the firing pin markings on a shell casing and the microscopic
grooves formed when a bullet travels through a gun barrel can tell agents
what kind of weapon was fired.

As for Cooper's apparent confession, once the court appoints a public
defender in a case, police are barred from pressing a suspect for more
information, Knudsen said. It doesn't stop the accused from talking,
however.

"As long as it's clear that that person has initiated the contact with the
law enforcement, there's not a problem," he said.



http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/2096797/


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