The Tipster

theories in my head. But somebody covering with Somebody. My name is Chaparral Wells. This is a story of my son, Courtney, a young black man in a fancy car who wound up with a bullet in his back in front of a Chicago police station. And it's the story of my search for the truth. This is somebody everybody, somebodys every day, no bid. So there's this thing that I haven't told you about yet. I didn't even tell Allison in the Invisible Institute for a long time because when it happened,

I was told it wasn't important. But it turns out it was. When I first met with police just a few days after Courtney was shot. I told him about a tip I got on Facebook. It was from a guy who went by Randall Connieham like the football player. The note went like this, good morning, I have to stay. I'm very sorry for your loss. I just wanted to see if this info may help you. I was coming home from the gym back. This guy, Randall lived in Belmont Craigen, and the night Courtney died, he saw three

guys and the Grand Marquis who tossed a pistol. He called nine one one twice. He sent me photos along with the message, mug shots and a photo of the Grand Marquis that showed his license plate. I thanked him and brought it all to police. They called the police. They told us that they already knew about that, and that it was not related. Research and it's not related, so this was a separate incident. Correct. They said it wasn't connected at all. But I still wanted to give

them all the information Randall gave me. Anyway, he gave me names of the two people that that he saw in that vehicle. You um and uh, yeah, that's all correct. Okay, that's all correct. So it's the caller calls in immediately and this is well after your son was was shot. It Detective a Model said Randall's nine on one call was way after Courtney shooting. To me, they were like, you know whatever, lady, we've already decided that this is

not credible. We're gonna take your information, but we're not gonna do anything with it. I moved on because I was grieving. I had to finish bearing my son. I was planning Courtney's funeral, and at the time I was still thinking police shot my son, And when detectives dismissed it, I thought, well, maybe they're right. But I later came to find out from those nine one one call logs that Randall's first call wasn't way later than courtney shooting.

It was thirty seven minutes after Courtney was shot. So when the first nine one one callers husband Edgar saw some gangsters in his alley and a Grand Markeys, it reminded me of Randall's tip. Allison and I we went back and looked at the picture of the car Randall sent me on Facebook two years earlier, and there was a Grand Marquis and the license plate started with Z

four four. Edgar had remembered the first two digits, and when I went back to the police report about Elena, it said that she saw a license plate starting with C four four, C and Z. You know, they sound a lot of like So the witness accounts matched up in the police never connected the dots. We needed to talk to this Facebook tipster, Randall Cunningham, face to face to find out who he really was and see what else he knew about what happened that night, any details

that could help us. My name is Allison. I got your number from chapperl Wells, the mother of Courtney. We texted and went to an address we found for him. No one was home, so we left a note. That night, we got a call back from Randall's uncle, who had found the note. He put us in touch with Randall, so we made plans to meet Randall said we could catch him after a showing of Black Panther. Bill and I waited for Randall in the food court of a

suburban Chicago mall over pretzels and smoothies. Black Panther is a long movie. Finally he came out. Did your uncle tell you we tried to reach you? At his and then I was like, why are Why are the FEDS at the door. So I kind of thought that you guys were Feds. I'm like, what's going on here? But he told me it was related to the case, and I'm like wow. He told us that even though he called nine one one twice, he still wanted to reach

out to Chapparral directly. So, um, Mr Copeland's mother on the news, and I felt terrible, you know, and I figured, well, why if you know, if there's this type of information out, why wouldn't I want to try to reach out. We asked him to walk us through what he saw when he was driving home that night. From the beginning, I was coming home from an export, Jim. It was pretty late at night. Um, As I was coming home, I noticed individuals in the street and I almost hit him.

So I kind of looked at him and I could tell he was gang affiliated colors and his hat was cocked and he kind of threw a sign at me, and I'm like, well whatever. The guy who threw the gang sign looked like he'd been running, like something had happened. Randall went to turn onto his street when he noticed a car just sitting there a Grand Marquis. Short time later, the car starts moving. Randall parked and ran to his apartment.

He looked out a window and saw that the Grand Marquis had driven up the block, then backed up, and then up the block again, and then reversed and lit it again like they were I don't know what was going on, if they were intoxicated or whatever. Randall called the cops were on their way. Then he saw a guy get out of the car. It was the same one who had just thrown gang signs at him, and two more guys got out of the car. They quickly they tossed a weapon and scurried away. So Randall called

nine one one again. You probably wouldn't put two and two together, um, and they quickly ditched the pistol. I heard like a loud thud, you can hear like a metal clink, sound like get thrown to the ground. Uh, So I actually went out to try to recover it. I didn't know if the hell came over me. I'm a concealed carry holder, so I figured, well, let me go see what this is. And there's kids on the neighborhood, so you know, I didn't want to. I didn't want

a kid to find it. But before Randall could get there, one of the guys came back to retrieve what they threw, and I know it was a pistol because the way they were holding it it was shiny. And uh, I told the cops, hey, this was the description of the individuals, which direction they fled and which way they went and whatnot. The cops went up the block to get the guys. The gun was gone, but Randall did find an iPhone.

I actually went through it and uh there's a couple of videos of them drinking in a car um and then there was a video of them flashing a revolver. One was a revolver, the other gun was like a nine millimeter. Randall offered to give the phone to police.

They contacted me and they told me, hey, you know what's going on, and they were kind of brief about what they you know, what they wanted, and then they hung up and then they called back again and I'm like, yeah, well, do you want me to come to the station or not? And they were like, well no at this time no. Uh So that was that and the police never followed up, and then Randall lost the iPhone in a move. We asked him about those mug shots from his Facebook message.

How did he know who these guys were? Somebody that I knew in the neighborhood. Um, I knew one of the individuals in the car. So yeah, I kind of asked, well, what had happened? And they said they were questioned and then they were they were pretty much released. They never he said, he doesn't know the guys personally, but he does know of them. I'm not getting affiliated and never believed in gangs or none of that, but I did believe in, you know, getting crimes figured out and solved

and you know, making sure justice has served. So, um, you know, there's one more thing you need to know about Randall. He's a Chicago police officer. Who oh, Allison, when you told me that Randall was a cop, I was shocked, but you know, I was grateful more than anything, because this information was vital. Didn't make sense once he found out he was a cop. I thought that, well, if he wasn't a cop, he was definitely trying to be one because he knew exactly what the words to

say and and he knew what to give me. So the night Courtney died when Randall called this end to nine. When one he was still a civilian. He was just a guy in the neighborhood reporting what he saw. But now he's been a cop for more than two years, so we were a little surprised that he was still willing to talk to us. I mean, I was just so grateful for anybody to give me information. The fact that he was a cop. It made me have some type of hope that all cops aren't bad. You know.

I wish there were more Randalls on the Chicago Police force. I mean, what if he had never come forward. Without him coming forward, we wouldn't be able to connect the dots corroborate what Edgar and Elena said about the car and the guys inside it. But the frustrating part is it has taken us over two years to get here.

All of this should have been known on day one, and it turns out it was all right there on the police radio the whole time point because we're sitting in the silver Grand Murkey has gone under the car. When we asked the city for all the police dispatch in Courtney's case, we got about an hour of tape back the first twenty five minutes had Courtney flagging down Officer block for help, his license plates, his name male,

his name is Chicole, and Elena calling in. Once you get a shot started Fullerton along Long and Fullerton Color heard two shots on the block. I got no description. But then later in the radio tape there's this for thirty five minutes. When we asked why this was believed out, the city told us again that it was unrelated. We pushed back and had to wait months to get the full tape, and when you listen to it, come find out it's completely related. A mercury tinted windows, reoccupants circling

a black twice and then reversed. It may have a flat tire, it's double part by the fire. Hydrants demand black bread jacket on the corner, flashing gang signs. So once again it's up to us to investigate. We really wanted to know more about these gangsters Randall saw did in this gun. Two of the men actually were arrested up the block the night my son was killed. Point backcoties were sitting in the silver ground Murkey because he drove Vine and appeared to based to a gun under

the curve. They have since recovered or whatever was thrown under there, and they're walking north round. The dispatcher's relaying Randall's nine one one call to the police. She says, two male Hispanics wearing black hoodies were sitting in a granmar key. It appears they threw a gun of the car, which they've since recovered, and they're walking northbound. That's too possible, fucking westbound on Belton, And then the officer says, got

two possibles walking westbound on Belding toward Larmie. The police arrested two men who were charged with a parole violation for associating with game member, which basically me they were just hanging out with each other. They were released the same day, and the third guy commands blackbread Jacket in the corner, flashing signs he got away. We decided not to reveal their names because no one has been charged in connection with Courtney's case, and we don't know who,

if any of these guys shot Courtney. What we do know is that the police should have followed these leads. But when we dug around, we found out that all three men Randall saw that night are members of the Stylers gang. All of them have been convicted of gun offenses and all have done time. They all have really long rap sheets. But this is the Facebook video of one of the men who was arrested that night. So love it's not at the time of Courtney's death, he

was on parole for armed robbery sinsons. And the man that Randall saw a flashing gang size, he's the one that got away. He's been arrested sixteen times since. Randle and Edgar identified the same type of car, but we wanted to see if they'd identify the same men inside the car too, So we decided to do something the police had never done, a double blind photo lineup. We put together a big stack of mug shots to show Edgar.

We included the mug shots randallson to Chaparl and men who look similar to them, plus some random mug shots too, And because Edgar remembered someone in the vehicle with long hair, we included almost neighbor and other men with long hair. By Elena, Hi, are you right baby? Back here? I went over to Elena and Edgar's again, Chapel stayed back. We didn't want Edgar to feel any extra pressure to make an identification. And thank you. I want sorry. We

got set up in their living room. If it's you know, very unlikely that you'll be able to identify anyone, so there's absolutely no pressure to do it. Just if I brought along one of our summer reporting fellows, Matilda. The lineup was double blind because neither Edgar nor Matilda knew who was who in the mug shots. We didn't want

to influence Edgar to pick out certain people. Elena stuck around to translate, Okay, gonna send alright, so I'll have you both look at them, and Matilda is gonna go through. I left the room and they went through the photos one by one. Who Edgar said, this one looks like him a little bit. Maybe it looks like yeah, bit at the photo after photo, No, he said no, He said no. Then he turned to the next photo, and right away he stopped, well, he thinks that one it

is because long hair. He landed on the guy with the long hair, almost neighbor who lived by the church. That one I think is one of them. Edgar picked out two other mug shots. He was less sure about these, but one of them was one of the guys arrested that night. Up the block from rand Okay, that's all we had. Thank you very much. Just keeps going and going. You know, we're just trying to help the families by answers.

So Randall and Edgar's accounts we're matching up more and more. Okay, thank you, take care of h We felt like we were getting close to finding out who shot my son, so we reached out to Courtney's friend June again because we wanted to see if he can talk to some of his gang contexts. We were trying to figure out if June knew any of the guys and the mug shots. When June asked around for us, he told us it was like opening Pandora's box. One day, two gang chiefs

showed up at his door. They said, you've been asking a lot of questions. After that, June changed his number and moved. When we caught up with him again months later, he said he didn't want to have an ear to the streets anymore. He wanted to have an ear to the stock market because he was all about his cigar business. He was done dealing information with June out of the picture. We chased a differently the car we wanted to track down that Grand Marquis, but it wasn't registered to anyone anymore.

We did find out who owned the Grand Marquis when Courtney was killed. Her first name was Crystal. We didn't know anything about her except for her address. So we hit the road, so that's it's not that far. No, she's pretty close, but within a mile on the way. We talked about Courtney, like we always do. He always said he was gonna be famous. I don't think this is what he wanted to be famous for, but he had this this ominous feeling that that he was going

to die young. You know. I think he had some fears anxiety because his father and his grandfather also died of heart issues. We're going where so just take a little further anyway. The last anxiety attack he had was probably about six weeks before he died, and He's like, I think I'm having a heart attack. And I'm like, Courdney, you're not having a heart attack. If you're having a heart attack, you wouldn't be able to sit here and

tell me to take you to the doctor. So he was like, I just keep seeing myself dying because I knew it. I knew what it was. I knew he was having a panic attack. I told him, you do what I told you to do, which is pray. We're all here on borrow time. Cordney, you know, not thinking in six weeks my son will be dead. That was the last serious, serious conversation that I had with Coordiney before he died. Crystal Street was lined with matching brick two flags. We didn't want to freak her out, so

we left the recorder behind. We walked up to her building and rang the doorbell for her apartment. We waited. We were about to walk away when a woman came out. It was Crystal. We showed her a picture of the Grammar key. She said, yes, that used to be her car. We told her about Courtney's murder and that witnesses pointed to this car. She said she got rid of that car before on Craigslist. We showed her the mug shots of the guys. She says she didn't know any of them.

We were bummed. We had hoped she could tell us more. We thanked her and got back into the van. Well, I definitely think she's lying. I think she does no more than what she's saying, and um she wants to make sure that it's not traceable back to her. I think when you showed at the pictures that really threw her. What do you think, Elsa, I don't know. She seemed genuinely caught off guard and surprised, you know, But I don't know. Chaparral was right, Crystal was lying to us.

A few weeks later, we were digging around in some court documents and we saw Crystal was listed as the girlfriend of the guy who got away from the cops that night. They even have kids together. We found some photos of him on Facebook. One of the pictures shows him at a grave site with one of the two stylers arrested the night Courtney died. Now we had evidence

connecting them to each other and the car. We hadn't heard from Randall in a while until one morning, November one, he texted me, did you hear what happened on Long and Belding. Female executed in front of her kids and friend over a car be safe in that neighborhood. My stomach dropped. It was the same corner where Courtney was shot, and the car was a BMW. It was all over

the news. This is just absolutely heartbreaking. The victims family says she was out celebrating Halloween and was tricker treating with her twin sister and two nieces when a masked man jumped into their car and forced them to drive. Police want to find out why a young woman was murdered by a masked man who forced his way into the car. We win live at District Police Station in Belmont,

Craigan with more. The gunman made them drive several blocks before he shot and killed one of the women on the same street where the gangsters and the grandmar key tossed the gun. The gunman took off running to black Hawk Park, Styler's territory. Okay, are you there, ye, come here. I got on the phone with Chaparral right away. Have you seen the news today? Yeah? You know that that shooting right back Courtney, right yeah, exactly right by Courtney.

It was Belden and long right past the church. I'm looking at the law some like, oh my god, yeah, this is like, why is here? I told her it was a BMW two. Are you serious? This is like, just sent my PTSD right off stood way open now. I'm sorry. We discussed whether we should go to the police with what we knew that they don't have that information about Elsa. I know they have it, but they

don't they don't understand its significant. But I just it doesn't feel like they did the kind of detective work at Ethan because I'm thinking, like, if if you know, I know my son was gone, but if other girl have to die, you know what I'm saying. It's always been about preventing things from happening to other people. For me, if this is the same person, I'm hoping that they

were actually follow up. In the end, we decided we had a responsibility to come forward if there was any chance our findings could help them solve this woman's murder. I really didn't want to meet with those jokers again, but I sucked it up. Maybe this time if I came in with two white journalists, they'd actually listen to me. That was the detective model. So we called us that something up. Lichal and one of the supervisors from here

will be contacted. A few days later, me Alison and Bill were sitting down with Sergeant Mitchell and the detective A Model. They agreed to meet us only if I didn't record, but the meeting was on the record. What did you think about the police, stipulating that you couldn't record, and I wish we would have recorded. I do. I promise you I wanted to, I really did. We met for about two hours in the same conference room as before, but no one walked out on me this time. Sergeant Mitchell.

He wore a tie and was red faced, as ever. Detective a Model wore a pull over. He barely took any notes. Here's what happened. We brought in two huge binders of documents and we told police what we knew. So we walked them through our evidence. Allison started by showing them a map. We highlighted the corner of Belding and Long by the church where the neighbors heard the shots that night. We told him we believe this is where Courtney was shot because his friends from broken Glass

on the street and others. They saw skid marks, and is where Courtney usually parked because he'd received tickets there before. At this point they said we weren't telling them anything they didn't already know, but we kept laying out the scene for them. Anyway. We explained that right before the incident, we believe Courtney was parking his car. He was on his phone, texting Alma, Facebook messaging his friend. He was distracted. That's when someone shot him. Courtney turned and ducked, getting

hit in the back. When Courtney sped off towards the police station, a Grand Marquis quickly drove around the block, cutting through Elena and Edgar's narrow alleyway with the windows rolled down, giving Edgar a good look. Two years later, Edgar still remembered the car and the first few digits of the license plate. At this point, we showed police the two mugshots Edgar picked out in the double blind lineup the man with the long hair on his neighbor and a second guy, a member of the Stylers gang

who was arrested that night. And that's when the detectives said to each other that they needed to talk to Edgar. Then we kept going with the play by play. Right after my son arrived at the hospital, Randall spotted the Grand Marquis on his block and called. When the guys heard the police coming, they tossed the gun under the car nearby and took off on foot. But before police could retrieve the gun, someone came back for it. Two of the guys were arrested. Up the block in release

without questioning. The third one got away. We gave police his name, We gave them a copy of Randall's Facebook such about the Grand Markets license plate, the weapon, the mug shots. That's when one of the detectives said, you never told me this, but I did remember. I even have it on tape. I also have some information that I received from another Facebook person. Randomly. They told me that the night of U the shooting, there was a Okay car, it looks like a Grand Market. I have

that plate number like plenty to number. They said that they were looking out their window and they saw them throw a gun under the truck. Under the truck, they called the police. Okay. None of us were surprised about how detectives acted during this meeting. Detective A Model said he's seen the video of Courtney outside of the station. That much I already knew, But what surprised me was he said he didn't think Courtney was being combative. I didn't know what to make of this. No one had

their story straight. Was this a cover up? Or are they just this damn incompetent. At the end of our meeting, they told us they were going to assign new detectives to the case and work these new leagues. We all hopped in Bill's car in the parking lot to regroup to bite my tongue. So many times I felt that they were a little bit evasive when they talked about the two being arrested that night and why they couldn't it was a murder. Why wouldn't you want to investigate them?

They are known game members there, They have a long rap sheet, So tell me why you couldn't pull them in for a question and for this murder. Why why wouldn't you do that? That didn't makes sense to me because they're already arrested. And then you also had that nine one one caller who was give me you a description of suspects that he's seen in the neighborhood who threw a gun underneath a car. So this is when they talk about we don't have enough evidence, we don't

have enough probable calls to pull them over. Hell, you get pulled over before busting light in Chicago and they question you, They take you off your car, they handcuff you, they do all types of stuff. So you're telling me that you don't have enough evidence or enough probable calls that's bullshit. And I wanted to reiterate to them that you know, in so far as they were frequently saying

that these are leads, not evidence. This is circumstantial, and it's sort of like, yeah, I know, I am coming to you because another woman was killed in a BMW on that corner. Like I'm not saying that this is solid evidence ready to go to court. I am saying that this is what I know about the case, and it's more than what you know about the case. Bill noticed something during the meeting. I had turned my face away because I was crying, and I didn't want the

detective to see where you're crying out of frustration. I was crying because my son is still dead. At the end of the day, my son dead. So it's just like I must have been. I'm finna get emotional now, so forgive me, you know, because I'm like, you know, every time I get closer, I get a step back. And sometimes I'd be like, Okay, you have to stop. You have to stop for yourself, for your health, but you have to stop for your kids, for your husband.

Because this, this whole murder has it's like a ticking time bond that just like it's floating in my life and you're trying to take the millions of pieces and put them together, and so parts of me will never ever the whole. It's an emotional strength on my family, my husband, my my marriage, it's all of this. So the last couple of days, I've just been going through it. We needed to step away. I hoped that the police

would finally do their jobs. I think that right now, based on us leaving them with the information that we left them with, that that they're just gonna appease us by passing us off to some new detectives. Nothing is going to happen. They're not going to interview, they're not gonna follow up, they're not going to even investigate anything other than what they've already done. My son will still be a co case in Chicago whom all right. So, so it's been more than a year since we sat

down with detectives Chaparral. What's happened in the last year. Absolutely nothing. You hear crickets. They haven't called me, haven't given me any updates, haven't contacted any of the witnesses that we gave them. I haven't heard a peep from police We've checked in with Edgar Randall, Elena, all of these witnesses and they haven't contacted them. Press three or to speak to an operator, press zero. Please speak after the town. Hi, Detective Bouch. My name is Chaparral Wells.

I'm the parent of Courtney Copeland. I was calling to get a status update on his case. He was murdered on March four. A couple of weeks later after I left this message, Allison actually ran into another detectives on Courtney's case, detective a model. She bumped into him at Sesame Street Live. She was there with her family and a model was working security. She said hello and reminded him about the case. Two weeks later, a model called me. I was at church. I swells this detective a model

over an area north. I was wondering to give me a call back at your earliest convenience. I called him back as soon as I got home. Then I hopped back on the line with Alison. Okay, Hey, okay. So basically his call was based on him wanting to all of a sudden, you put Corney case in the cold case file and make it a profile on their website. What does that mean? So he wants to put Courtney photo and everything on to the website, stated that they're

looking for information. Yeah. Did. He said he had not talked to Edgar yet, he ain't talked the air girl. He basically admitted that he ain't talked the air girl and what about Um, so they basically didn't follow up on our leads over the last year and now they're wanting to all of a sudden put it in the cold case unit. M hmm, well, um, how are you feeling? I felt like he was going smoke because it was like, Oh,

I'm thinking about your son's case and I've been trying whatever. Dude, I'm like and he was like, well, well, if you want to meet with me again and we'll go over everything, I'm like, yeah, I mean we already gave them everything. And I was trying to tell him. I said, that's why we were wondering why didn't you speak to a later subject, because I said, I basically told him, I said that information matched Elena club and said a grandma Keith. Randall said a grandma Keith, And I said it wasn't

that far in between from the initial students. So for a year and you ain't did nothing. When I watched the news, I keep seeing over and over again, whose life matter in whose cases matter enough to solve? No matter how many times I meet with police, my son murder still doesn't seem to matter to them. But this whole thing is so much bigger than who pulled the trigger on my son. It's so much bigger than Courtney's case. Things don't have to be this way, and there's so

much more I've got to do. Everybody, so by every day, no bide these nothing. Somebody is a co production of The Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios, and I Heart Radio, and association with Tenderfoot TV. I'm chakral Wells. This podcast is produced by Alison Flowers and Bill Heally. Sarah Guice is our story editor. Ellen Glover is our associate producer for The Invisible Institute. Jamie Calvin is executive producer for

Topic Studios. Maria Zuckerman, Christie Gressman and Letal Mallard are executive producers. Special thanks to Lizzie Jacobs for The Intercept. Roger Hodge, Deputy Editor, is supervising producer. Sound designed by Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw. Our theme song Everybody's Something is by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the podcast by Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler.

Additional reporting by Sam Steclo, Annie When, Kahari Blackburn, Rajie Sinclair, Henry Adams, Matilda Voyat, Dana brosos kellerher Francis McDonald, Diana Archmagian, Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and risa Apintaku. Translation support by Benny Hernandez Occampo and Emma Perez. Fact checking by Noah Are Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen, Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic, David Bralow, and Julie Wolf. We want to hear from you.

Email us at info at Somebody podcast dot com or leave us a voicemail at seven seven three to seven zero zero one to one. To learn more about this case and for links to addition no materials, go to our show page at Somebody podcast dot com. You can also find a list of everyone we want to think there so many people helped us along the way. M