Sword and Scale - Episode 250

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

Amber Lynn Coplin was a 30-year-old mother of four getting her life back on track and living happily. But on November 13 of 2014, her teenage son came home to find her dead. It was obvious right away who had done this to Amber, but the full extent of how she had been murdered and what her killer had planned would create shock waves of disgust through the Pacific Northwest and beyond.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5895676/advertisement

I wouldn't even want to try and go back and count the number of times that I've had a gun to my head. I'd actually hear that click and you'll never forget that sound. Follow in her defense from the Globe and Mail, an eight-part series investigating Helen Nazlin's conviction for killing her abusive husband. That's in her defense. Find it wherever you get your podcasts. Inher Defense is a new podcast from the Globe and Mail about how Helen Nazland went from domestic violence victim to convicted killer. Follow Inher Defense. That's Defense with a C wherever you get podcasts. Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

There was one more note. There was she had a piece of artwork. It was like a silly little canvas thing on the wall about family and something and he written on that, you killed me first. I can't believe this. It is season 10 and there are 250 episodes of sword and scale. Show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. That's a lot of dead people 1.0-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1.5-1-1.5-1.5-1.5-1-1.5-1-1.5-1.5-1-1.5-1.5-1.5- Jackpot City is the home of all things Casino. We built a world class lineup of classic Casino games, such as Roulette and Blackjack,

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We all have dreams and goals in life. Big things we can visualize for ourselves and our futures. But these big dreams come with even bigger shoes to fill. The higher you aim, the more you will have to step up to the plate. Even the most organic roles, like that of a parent, have certain expectations attached to them. Just like the world around you will expect certain things when you reach your goals, you have to expect the same for yourself. Becausecomings, and you are doomed to stay stagnant forever. A middle school boy named Bryson Coplin had a strange feeling while in class 1 November morning in 2014.

He had a dark, sickening pit in the stomach. Bryson lived with his mother, 30-year-old Amber Lynn Coplin, and the two shared a small duplex in Port Orchard, Washington. Bryson tried texting his mother, but she wasn't responding. Bryson called his dad to pick him up from school. Bryson's father, Paul, picked him up and took him back to Amber's house. Amber and Paul had four boys together and they were recently separated. Bryson had chosen to live with his mother while his brother stayed with Paul.

Bryson's dad dropped him off and hugged him goodbye, letting him know to call if he needed anything. Bryson went inside the house. He called his mom's name, but no response. He figured she was at work. Bryson took a shower and tried to take a nap, but when he woke up, the feeling was still there. So Bryson got up and walked toward his mom's room. That's when he noticed a foul odor, seeping from under the door. And he went in the room and found his mom.

He said that the blinds were drawn and he went in and the blankets were pulled up over her. And their driver's license was over her. I think there was a pillow on her head and the driver's license was over her pillow and he just left and he called his dad. This is prosecutor I own George. My name is I own George. I'm Chief of Staff at the Kids Up County Prosecutors Office. I own was the lead prosecutor in this case. We know now there was a lot of markings and things in the room that he left behind. I don't... Bryson didn't report seeing that stuff.

He just left the room and called his dad. And so then his dad came over and went back into the house. Bryson had found his mother, Amber, dad in her bedroom. He was naked, but the covers had been pulled up to her neck. A pillow had been placed over her head, and her driver's license was put on top of it. Whoever did this had left some messages in the room. And we know now what he wrote on the blinds was bad news, and the note on her face on the driver's license was dead. Well, that was was bad news and the note on her face on the driver's license was dead.

Well that was the bad news. He wanted Bryson to come home and see the blinds that said bad news and dead. He wanted him to find him, which is the greatest tragedy I can find. Amber's killer knew that Bryson would come home and find his mother this way. He knew the heartache this murder would cause her son. The police soon arrived and cleared out the small duplex, Amber was pronounced dead at the scene. In fact, she had been dead for hours. Her bedroom was a mess.

Amber's purse and its contents of makeup, keys, and paperwork had been expelled all over the floor. Clothes had been tossed around. Sheets were ripped off the bed. The tiny room looked like a tornado had torn through it, and left Amber's naked, dead body in the middle. We have a medical examiner determined she had significant bruising.

She had suffered blunt force trauma to her head. So she'd been struck either determined potentially her head beaten against the headboard, the wall, or you know, of blunt trauma object, hit her. She had been, she her hyaluric bone was broken, which we know from one of the medical examiner that we retained as well as the detectives experience is consistent with manual strangulation. We also had a ligature wrapped around her neck. The evidence indicates it was wrapped twice around because there was the way the pressure marks were, so wrapped around twice. It was wrapped twice around because the way the pressure marks were so wrapped around twice. Amber's murder had been aggressive and savage. Her killer had left not only confession notes on the walls of her bedroom, but also online. On November 4th at 2.56pm, an anonymous poster logged into the website 4chan, whom we all know and love.

Sarcasm, the poster started uploading pictures of Amber's naked, dead body. Amber's head was tilted back and her mouth was propped open, like a marionette. The anonymous poster wrote, it turns out it's way harder to strangle someone to death than it looks in the movies. Four minutes later, he typed again. She fought so damn hard. He posted another photo.

This time, the angle was further back, and viewers could see Amber's entire exposed, lifeless body on her bare mattress. Then the killer added, son will be home from school. He'll find her, then call the cops. I just wanted to share the picks before they find me. I bought a BB gun that looks realistic enough. When they come, I'll pull it out, and it'll be suicide by cop. I understand the doubts. Just check the fucking news. I have to lose my phone now. Then the poster went dark and the update stopped. It's evil. And the thing that always struck me is that

it's a very physical act to do what he did. And I know from the evidence that Amber fought. She fought, but she did it quietly. And I've always believed that she was trying to save her son, that she didn't want to wake him up, that she didn't want him to be on. Because that's the other thing. Investigators had determined that Amber had been killed

the night before her son founder. This means that he had been in the house just a few feet away while some monster strangled and beat his mother to death, then posted pictures of the entire gruesome act online. Bryson was right there the whole time and he had no idea. The room that he had is a little house, a little duplex and the bedroom he had shared a wall with his mom's room. So he was just one wall between the room that they were in. So when he was in his room, we knew later,

while he was in his room playing his game, his mom was being killed in the neighboring room. And he figured this all out. So we have this child who ultimately knew what happened and he could never really say the words but you know he was a smart person he knew what happened. As I own said Amber fought but she did it quietly. Even her next door neighbor told the local media she didn't hear a sound. I hear them banging you know closing

cupboards they're washing dryer but I've never ever heard fighting. As police took Bryson and his father Paul down to the station, they continued to search Amber's duplex. The only sign of a struggle appeared to be in Amber's room. Everything was in order. There was no forced entry, no strange trails of blood or mess in any other areas of the house. Whoever had done this had gone as quietly as they came. An Amber's killer had also taken off in her car. News of Amber's gruesome murder spread all over the small port orchard community. Other residents in the apartment complex were also shaken by the news. Yeah, I don't understand. She was a mother and so pretty. It's hard to think about.

I was shocked. I thought this was a safe neighborhood at school's close by and so it was pretty sad. It wasn't just the murder, but the graphic pictures that had been posted online that upset the public so much. Just the post pictures I might e-wrote. It makes the crime a hundred times or worse. The fact that Amber's killer strategically uploaded these photos to Forchan was a big deal and sparked tons of outrage in the blogosphere, whatever the fuck that is, and social media. Forchan is a dark place already. It's notorious as a hunting ground for creeps to search for

celebrity nudes, revenge porn, and other unsavory things a little too legal for the dark web. When Amber's killer began uploading the graphic photos of her murder, the comments came flooding in. Most users joked about why strangulation looks easier in the movies while another suggested tying the victim's hands and feet together first. You know that saying we have around here people are shit? It's based on things like Forchan. Because when you add anonymity and strip away any accountability, you allow people to show their true colors. And on Forchan, they most certainly will.

A few of these users also asked for timestamps. Some bragged that they could have done a better job. Some threw in the word, Faggot, just for fun. Fortun is really the bottom of the barrel. It's Reddit without a soul. The truth was that there was only one person who could have posted these photos on fortune. We all know who it was. It was the guy who did this to Amber. And he was on the run in her car.

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from the government of Alberta Amber Coplin had been brutally murdered in her bedroom in Port Orchard, Washington, while her teenage son was sleeping in the room next door. Her killer had then posted gruesome photos of her naked body on the website 4chan and confessed to her murder. Then he took off in Amber's car. Her son Bryson had told police that Amber's boyfriend, 32-year-old David K-Lac, had been over the night before and that he had heard them arguing. He recounted for us later that the night before his mom and Kaleck had been arguing, his mom had come and knocked on the door.

I don't recall exactly the time, 10 o'clock or so, and asked for a sleeping bag because Kaleck was going to sleep on the couch and he'd come out and handed them the sleeping bag and just assumed that David was going to sleep on the couch and he went back to bed. He was in his room just playing on his Xbox or something. David Kaleck stayed at Amber's house with her and Bryson. David was a painter, so he and Bryson often got ready in the mornings together. While Amber slept in for her 12-9 shift selling insurance for state farm. The morning after Amber's murder,

Bryson said things were different. They had a routine in the morning. He would get up and go to school. He usually wouldn't see his mom in the morning. He might see David K-Lac, but he said he got up that morning. K-Lac wasn't there. His mom's bedroom door

was shut, which wouldn't be unusual. Bryson didn't think much of all of this until he got home and found Amber dead in her bedroom. It was now obvious that David had done this. It couldn't have been anyone else. No one in Amber's life was too crazy about David, especially her best friend, Wendy Nelson. My nickname for him was douchebag, Dan. I didn't ever call him by his real name.

I said, how do you know? I just think I sucked off of Amber. Amber had started dating David or douchebag Dan after she and her husband Paul stopped living together. Wendy remembered the whole affair because she and the Coplin family were still neighbors at the time. Was she seeing David when she was living across the street? At the very end, before she left. OK. She moved. she left. Okay.

She moved, she left with him. She did like that Hail Mary and gave up everything and took off across the country with him. And where did they go? To his parent's house. They let, he, they live on the East Coast. Okay. I wanna say Virginia Coast. Okay. I want to say Virginia Beach.

Okay. And that was for years ago. Okay. Wendy said that Amber had known David since high school. And after her separation from Paul, Amber was swept away by David. And the two took off on a nine-month road trip. Though the romance started well, things soon took a turn for the worse.

That's where he was first, physically abusive to her. He knocked her out out there and his, her, his mother witnessed it actually. I remember her telling me this. Do you know if the police were calling regards to that as? Yes, I believe I remember her telling me that. It's when he punched her in the face and he knocked her out. Do you know if and there was a thing in the swimming pool or he tried to drown her? Okay. Do you know if any there was a thing in the swimming pool or you tried to drown her. Okay. You know, if any criminal charges, whatever, no. I remember her telling me these things and it's like, oh, we were, we had all been drinking. It's like, really? That doesn't matter. Amber and David returned to Washington from their trip, and Wendy said that's when Amber's feelings for David changed.

She came back and realized what her priorities were. You know what? She had her first kid. She was pregnant at 15. And she didn't get a childhood, a teenage year or any time you do all that crazy stuff. And then after having the kids and stuff, break up with the husband, this guy walks in. Okay, let's do it. And she took off. Left these boys with her dad, and she had regretted it from the day she came back. And she's worked her ass off to change that, to make up for that nine months. Amber felt horrible for leaving her kids and exiting the role of mom to live out her

youth. She got back to Port Orchard, found a job in insurance sales, rented a house, and slowly began to build back trust with her family. Soon her oldest son Bryson moved in. Even though they broke up for a bit after their trip, David found his way back into Amber's life, and then moved into her place. The couple was generally happy, but they would bicker and fight.

Amber's father and stepmother witnessed violence between the couple. So her stepmom had a lot of contact with me through the case and shared a lot of stories about Amber and her relationship with Kaylack. And they weren't good. Amber had visited dad and stepmom and there had been violence in the home when she was visiting there

you know stepmom related to me episodes where you know they tried to kick him out of the house and just there had been domestic violence in the home and they'd visited so I got a picture through the family of of domestic violence and bad history there and it happens in life and that doesn't it doesn't always lead to murder you know there's bad history there. It happens in life, and that doesn't, it doesn't always lead to murder. You know, there's bad relationships. They knew that K-LiK had alcohol issues, but Amber had alcohol issues. There was a history there, and the family was aware of it, and I don't think they really liked him in her life,

but you can't choose who your children partner with. Nobody in Amber's life supported her relationship with David. But still, as I own said, domestic violence doesn't always lead to murder. And Amber's murder was a calculated, vile, humiliating, escape. This wasn't a drunken fight that went too far. was a calculated vile humiliating escapade. This wasn't a drunken fight that went too far. David took his time, not only to slowly strangle her and brag about her murder on Forchan,

but I own believes that he did a lot more than that. If you look at the photographs that he posted of her online, he poses her body. She's completely naked, but she's not marked when he poses the pictures online. When Amber was found, the investigators noticed not only the things David had scribbled around the room, like bad news, dead, and she killed me first. But he'd also written on Amber's body.

And he has the body posed in such a way he's put pillows or something behind her shoulders and her head so that her neck is thrown back. So you can see the look at your mark on her. Those are the ones that he posted on 4chan and her mouth is open and you can see she has, she's wears dentures. So on those photographs that are posted on 4chan, she's completely naked but her body is clean and unmarked and the dentures are in her mouth. David had posted three images of Amber on 4chan along with his confession and plan.

And when the investigators went in, they have a device that's called a total station, but it can like photo depict the entire room so you can go in and manipulate the room so you can stand in any position and recreate and go around the room. I have three-dead, three-dead dimensional thing and reinsert everything and you can, when we did that, we tried to recreate where and how the position he had to be in to take the photograph that he took of her. And the only way given her position on the bed, when he took the photos of her that he posted on 4chan, the position she was on the bed, the only way he could have taken that photo would have been into the very corner of the bed,

which would have cornered him in the very corner of the room, kneeling on top of her with her head down beneath him. So he was kneeling in the corner with her underneath him, with her head like between his knees thrown back with her mouth open. David took his time. He quietly moved her body around the room, propping up blankets and pillows so he could get the right angle for his sick, disgusting photo shoot. And then he wrote on her body. And he bit her breasts and he wrote A.D. And there was debate, you know, by the doctors,

whether the bite marks are actually eight after she died or before she died. And he wrote on her body. It was hard to read some of the things he wrote, but, you know, I think that you can see if he read everything that she and her girlfriend jokingly used to call him douchebag Dan and it looked like that's what he'd written

douchebag Dan on her body, but you know, he wrote things on her, so he marked her body, he defaced her. In the full body photo, so unfortunate, Amber was placed diagonally across the bed. But when her son found her the next day, she was straight in a normal sleeping position. The defacement, the photos, the notes on the wall, this was all planned. When her body is found, she's placed straight in the bed.

Her dentures are gone. They're strewed across the floor. I think one is tangled in her hair, one is on the floor, and her body is written all over with the markings. So something happens to her between. We also ultimately found trace evidence of semen on her dentures, and so that's why we added the charge of sexually violating human remains. We believed that he'd had oral sex with her, and that's why the dentures ultimately came out, and that's what he did after he had taken the photos. David left Amber's body for her son to find.

Then he took off in her car heading south toward Oregon. But we tracked him down the corridor because he took her credit card with him. He got gas, he bought vodka and orange juice at one place. He went into a pawn shop and sold his computer. We had video of him doing that. After ponding his computer, David stopped at Walmart. Why do they always stop at Walmart? What is it about Walmart and murder? I don't get it. And we had video of him in there.

He went in, he bought a, like a BB gun that looked like a real gun and we had video of him in there. Then he went out into the parking lot of the Walmart and we had video from going into his car there and he stayed there for, I don't remember the exact time now, but at the time that he was in the Walmart, parking lot is the time that we got the postings on 4chan.

Jugging is vodka and orange juice. David sat in his car and uploaded the photos. He had carefully crafted of amber onto 4chan, and then left his confession. He had a plan, and he followed through with a plan, and hours later it was posting what the plan was. And then he kept driving. Went to a, we have him in a bar in Portland that night.

People said oh he was really friendly. Seemed to have a girlfriend that he talked about. After the bar David got an Amber's car and kept driving. Along the way he texted friends before ditching his phone. And then he had communications with people. He said you're going to see me in the news. He had a couple community. A friend contacted him and was trying to get some money back that he odor and she said, he said, sorry, not gonna do it. I've done something bad. I mean, he had communications with people on

the way. Then, thing has got a little crazy. When in Multnomah County, he had, there was a pursuit with the police down there. They saw him engage in a pursuit that they called off. And then he spent the night out in the woods there. He went into an abandoned homeless camp. David set up shop at an abandoned homeless camp. He continued drinking and he took some tazadon, tazadon? I don't know.

You're all gonna tell me I said it wrong anyway, so whatever. He laid out the BB gun and waited. After the chase, he figured the cops would soon find him and he could die the way he had professed on 4chan, suicide by cop. But the police never came. In fact, no one came. Not even the homeless guy whose camp it was. On the corner of this smelly mattress at the camp, he wrote, Dave's last stand. Then he found some paper in a rubber-made container and penned yet another confession note. I killed Amber Coplin.

I strangled her with my hands, then a shoelace. I did it because I was drunk and she pissed me off. Running from the cops was fun. But David got bored and lonely out there on the smelly mattress without his computer or his phone or 4chan or the cops or anyone. He also had to run out of booze and the pills hadn't kicked in yet. So he decided to call it. He came out of the woods. There was an officer, there was a transit station down there, and there was an officer parked in a car

just monitoring the station, and he said, somebody came out of the woods and approached him and said, I think there's a warrant for me and want to turn myself in. The media, as well, is the police in Oregon. We're shocked. Well, it's very bizarre. As you know, there's been quite the manhood form today and a lot of Portland officers

out looking for him. We had some reports of him being in the Portland area and very unheard of for something like this to happen, but we're glad that it didn't. It's a good ending to this. David was arrested and taken into custody. Rapped in a blanket and coming down off all the alcohol and chrasodone, he looked half dead in the interrogation room. This man brutally killed his girlfriend and left a trail of confessions all over the Pacific Northwest.

He wasn't hiding from what he did. He was bragging about it. The police expected a confession, an answer as to why, but David shocked them again. David, you understand he's right? So explain to you. Now in those rights of money, do you wish to continue speaking with the style? No, that'll do your right. Okay. David wanted a lawyer. It made no sense. The news of Amber's death and the forechan killer had spread all over the internet and

legacy media. These pictures of Amber were circulating and her children had seen them. Amber's estranged husband, Paul, was afraid of what seeing them would do to their boys. I worry about in the future somebody trying to use what they have of those photos left over to hurt the children somehow. That's one of my biggest fears. Paul struggled with the idea that these horrible pictures of the mother of his children were out there for all to see and there was no way to get

them taken down. The fans and family, they don't remember her like the rest of the world does and that's what all we care about because we know better. She was a good mom. She's a loving wife and wonderful sister. You mean, anything good words, they're all there. Amber was a good mom, a loving friend and a beautiful girlfriend. But something happened between her and David that no one knew about except for Wendy.

Wendy had an idea as to why David had killed her best friend. I feel like I'm betrayed. God, this is far. Well, we're trying to do right by Amber. Okay. And the only way that we can do right by her is to do the best investigation we can and bring the person responsible for harming her and killing her to justice.

And we we don't want for you to person responsible for harming her and killing her to justice. And we don't want for you to feel like you're violating her confidence, but you knew her best. You're the last person to possibly have spoken to her. You knew what was going on in their relationship. And so anything that you can tell us to help us catch the person who killed her is not betraying her. It's helping her. She was pregnant. Fire him.

You know how far along she was. She was not very pregnant. But You know how far along she was. She was not very pregnant, but she knew she didn't want to have any more kids. Me and her had already had this discussion. She was getting fixed. She got pregnant if you breathe donor. Next to Amber's dead body, beside her bed, some of her drawers had been emptied. Amongst the mess of undergarments, credit cards, and body lotions were two positive pregnancy tests on a sheet of paper from the Kitsap Public Health District regarding her pregnancy. beautiful baby. She has four boys. They are getting a little mob anymore.

Do you, did Dave know that he Amber is pregnant? Yeah, he knew. And he wanted to have this kid because he did think you could have any kids, and he wanted this baby. And he was, he wanted her to have this baby. Why didn't you think he was going to be a baby? Because he was 32 years old and none of the people he's been with have ever gotten pregnant. And none of that. And does he seduce dad?

Ha ha. What was Amber with anybody else during? No, she was with Dave. Did she not want the baby? No. She finally had a good job when she's moving up. She started at state farm. And she's moving up, she started at state farm and she's... I just can't believe this.

I see her. I'm sorry. Amber had her first kid when she was 15. She had already raised four boys and was finally getting her life in order. Her relationship with David was hardly stable. David drank too much. They drank too much. Amber told Wendy that bringing a baby into this volatile relationship was Amber told Wendy that bringing a baby into this volatile relationship was not a smart idea. Because he was supposed to leave. She said she told him he had two weeks. And originally, he had told her if she had an abortion, he was leaving. That was it. He was angry. David was adamant about keeping the child. She looked like the plan B thing is how she ended the pregnancy.

We had a few drinks here. That's Sunday for the Siob's game. When we went back to the house, they were aggressive. They, I was in, I was so uncomfortable sitting in the room with them. aggressive. Amber terminated the pregnancy, but only told Wendy about it. That weekend, they were watching the Seahawks game with David, and tensions rose when David questioned why Amber was drinking alcohol. Amber and David started fighting in front of Wendy.

But he backed off and sat down and then when she walked out, I filled in the cover story and I said, she's drinking because she's upset she lost the baby. So I was filling in the cover story for her because obviously she was drinking me the husband. And that's kind of where it started, it's doing. I am positive that's where it's seen from. This side could not be a dad in any way.

You know, you can't be a dad if you think it's a kid who hurts someone. Right. Amber and Wendy were the only ones who knew the truth about what happened. And that's the other reason I told her just not to say anything, take the plan, believe me, you had him scared. I know that's the one kind of shady and everything, but he's already aggressive and whatever. Well, I mean, it was for safety point. That was what I said. What? And I could see her being aggressive back and like throwing it in this face. I can totally see that.

He is bigger and stronger than you. I have seen it this way. I'm totally not as powerful as it may be. Emily, you couldn't tell Amber anything. She had to come to the conclusion on her own though. May I share? Bushed. It was all starting to make sense now.

Maybe their fight was about the baby, and as Wendy said, maybe Amber threw the loss in David's face. Or maybe David started rummaging through her drawers and found the paperwork from Planned Parenthood. Nobody knew for sure how he found out the truth, but I own and her team were sure that the abortion was the motive. So we think part of his anger was he was mad at her that he had an abortion and he wrote you killed me first related to the abortion. David was locked up and he wasn't saying a word.

Ione and the team at the Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office had a factually strong case filled with written confessions and DNA evidence. This should have been a slam dunk, but when it rains, man, it pours, especially in the Pacific Northwest. And David's trial was going to be a real shit storm. The David Kaleck had viciously murdered his girlfriend, Amberlin Coplin, and her home after he found out she had aborted their baby. David strangled Amber, sexually abused her corpse, then posted graphic photos of her murder on Forchan.

Then he took off in her car with a plan to die. But things didn't unfold the way he expected, and he eventually just turned himself in. Now David was facing first-degree murder and prosecutor Ione George and her team in Kitsab County had to bring some justice for Amber and her family. Though the case was strong for the prosecution, the defense had a plan. Here's I own George again. In the state of Washington, you have speedy trial rights. If you're in custody, you have a right to trial within 60 days. And that was the defense strategy in this case.

So he was his attorney, defense attorney, who had been a prosecutor in our office for many years and then went to the Office of Public Defense. So someone that we knew and had worked with, his defense strategy was to push to trial and go to trial in 60 days, thinking that, you know, he could get it to trial before the state was ready to go. We had, I mean, you can see the evidence. We had overwhelming evidence of this person, but a lot of it was technical evidence. It was a smart defense strategy. The prosecution had a ton of time stamps, IP addresses, toll booths, and phone cards to sift through.

We had to prove that he was the person who had posted those photographs, but we couldn't get into the phone. We didn't have the ability to prove that. You know, I told you, ultimately, that we could show He had posted those photos when he was sitting in the parking lot of Wal-Mart but that took a lot of search warrants and technical grinding through the evidence to get those IP addresses and match them up and that took a lot of work to get that fine-tune

Detail evidence to prove that it was him and those addresses matched up to those times and match him up to get that fine-tune detail evidence to prove that it was him and those addresses matched up to those times and match him up to prove that that was him posting that evidence that takes time to piece together that kind of evidence and get the testimony together on that and his attorney was smart and knew that we were gonna be hard pressed to put that stuff together that quickly. You know DNA evidence unlike television it doesn't happen down the end of the hallway overnight. It takes time to get that to the crime level and get it done. David had left DNA, but it had to be processed and proven. Remember Amber was killed on the evening

of November 3rd, 2014. David posted the images to 4chan on November 4th. He was caught then arraigned on November 7th. The trial was set for January 5th. In the grand scheme of a murder trial this is huge. That was barely any time at all. What had happened on this case at the front end was the prosecutors assigned to the case had sent all the evidence out for testing. They'd sent the DNA evidence out, they'd sent the phone out to get it tested. We had that note written there, but we had to prove that he had written the note. He was going to tell us he wrote the note, so they'd sent it out for a handwriting expert to do. The victim had bite marks on her and they wanted to get

a forensic dental examination done to match up and say he's the one who bit her. They were just trying to get all of the evidence together. All the evidence was out for testing. By mid-December, the prosecution was overwhelmed and nothing was ready. They would surely lose this case without an extension. So they went to the judge and asked for a continuance. You know, he has a right speedy trial, but we have a right to prosecute our case, and the court agreed and moved the trial beyond the speedy trial deadline. That's when I own received a call during her Christmas vacation at home and took the lead in prosecuting Amber's case. That's about when I got the call at home and said, when you come back in, will you please help out with this trial? Because we think we're going to have some issues.

But David's defense lawyer was not happy with the continuance and he fought it. Hard. Meanwhile, the county was still processing the DNA evidence and the FBI had David's cell phone, but they still couldn't get into it. It was the Christmas holidays. Everyone was working from home, if at all. There were some small updates to the status of the evidence, but the prosecution made a crucial mistake and submitted an old affidavit to the court, neglecting to relay the changes.

This may not seem like a big deal, but in litigation land, every dot on the eye and every cross on the tea counts. After all that, the defense found out we had heard updates and we hadn't told the court, so they moved to dismiss the case for prosecutorial misconduct for not advising the court. And that's kind of snowballed the whole thing at that point then. The whole case kind of turned into a nightmare because then the defense said that we had withheld information from the court and the trial should be dismissed based on

prosecuting to almost conduct. It was clear that David's defense lawyer was not going to take this lying down. It was difficult because we were dealing with a case that was so overwhelmingly strong, fact-wise, but dealing with very, lying down. Who was doing what then what was the evidence in the case and that was very problematic? The defense was going for the jugular It was all getting so intense between the lawyers then the defense attorney

died This started things all over again And a new legal team entered the picture on David's behalf again. And a new legal team entered the picture on David's behalf. The defense came up with a new defense. They decided they wanted to present a diminished capacity defense, so then they needed to retain an expert. A diminished capacity defense is exactly what it sounds like. Yeah, his legal defense was a diminished capacity, which is that he didn't have the ability to form the criminal intent.

He couldn't pre-meditate. David was a serious alcoholic, and he clung to that narrative as an excuse for what he did to Amber. Here's an interview he did from prison with a YouTube show called Killers Crawl Space. Hello, I'm there. My name is Nate Lacks. I was born in 1981. I grew up in the kids' house county in Washington, St. David. David recounted the day he killed Amber. I know I started my day with a screwdriver because I always do.

And that'll, you know, if you things and make it so that it could work. I don't remember any of the files that I actually did during that day. I had worked. I used to remember getting home. I know I had to stop by a convenience store on the way home because I got an 18-pack ice house and I was drinking that while I was waiting to go to the grocery store to grab another half-calaureate vodka I just don't remember buying but I know that I know that I had because I knew I were drinking that night and after that I don't remember the Uber come home I don't remember us doing Uber comes home. I don't remember if you could do an 80 kind of an RUM.

I have a little bits and pieces of like flashes of memories. It don't make any sense because they feel like they're out of sequence with other stuff. His defense was, he didn't remember it. I mean, his defense was I'm essentially not accountable because I was in a blackout stage and I don't know what I was doing to say that I was on alcohol and I don't remember, I don't know, is so offensive to me. The blackouts are a crazy thing, man,

because I've heard from a lot of people that, you know, all memories are supposed to trickle back over time and just in that and get nothing to ever see. I remember peanut and bar in Portland, joker around with somebody, and that was of course later that night. To premeditate is more than a moment in time. You don't have to go out and plan it. You have to think it through more in a moment in time.

And we said for the homicide, clearly he thought for more than a moment in time. He used his hands and tried to kill her, and he couldn't do it. So he went and he got another tool, the ligature, and strangled her. I remember like a flash was having my hands around her neck. Right? I don't remember the act to actually be strangled I remember like a flash just having my hands around her neck, right? I don't remember the act to actually be strengthened anybody.

So it's weird for me to look back on something like that. It's weird for me to just see that. And what our judge determined was, well, he had a substance abuse disorder and the substance abuse disorder prevented him from stopping drinking. And because of that, he had to drink. And because he had to drink, the drinking illness, wait into the mental health guidelines that you're, so that the guidelines that you use to determine, you know, okay, what level is your depression, what level is your anxiety, do you have social anxiety disorder, are you bipolar, you know, that kind of stuff at one level or either the manual that they used for that.

Alcoholism got put into that manual for the first time ever and it was completely ignored during the entire case. Similarly to this interview, I own said that at trial David took zero responsibility for his actions. We got a sentencing aggravator for the egregious lack of remorse. David still claims that he has no memory of posting the images to 4chan. I don't remember doing that at all. which is kind of crazy because they have a good day show during trial, they show the video of walking out of Walmart, which is I guess right before I posted those videos. I don't remember ever going into Walmart, let alone coming back out of Walmart, but I could tell just by the way

that I was walking, that I was really, really drunk. And because he was in the toxic state, he couldn't form the intent. And we said, well, he had the ability to write the things out and say, this is what I'm going to do. And then his son is going to find him. And he did. There was a plan. He was able to say, I tried to kill her, but I couldn't do it. So I got another tool. He could form that plan. He could get in the car and drive from point A to point B, there's a plan. He could go top on his computer, we talked to the people at the pawn shop, they understood him, he could clearly do that, he could sell a computer, there's a thought process he could do, he could flee from the police, there's a thought process, he could do, he could buy his vodka,

there's a thought process, he could go, let's say I'm going to go get a gun and shoot it out with the police, clearly he could form intent and follow through and have's a thought process. He could go, say, I'm gonna go get a gun and shoot out with the police. Clearly, he could form intent and follow through and have a logical thought process. David blamed everything on his alcoholism, his anger, his depression, his rage. But in jail, he wasn't waking up to a screwdriver every morning. Much less so. Bloody Mary. And yet...

You know, he committed another offense when he was in jail. We prosecuted him for attempted murder. There was another inmate in the jail who had known Amber. He'd been a roommate of her. He was kind of a little pipsqueak of a guy. And he was walking by Kaleck's cell and he kept taunting him through the jail cell door and Kaleck knew he knew he was going to go away in prison and he didn't want to be taunted and I think the little guy accused

him of being a childmolester. I don't know what he did, but he accused Kaleck of the murder. He was angry about Amber. David waited until the time was right, then he formulated a plan to get Amber's former friend. When the guy that was taunting him was on his time out. He was in an upstairs tier cell, so his door was open. Kaylack put a playing card in the lock of his cell door. And so when this guy was on time out,

K-Lac was able to get out of his cell. He went up to that guy's cell, closed the door. Once the door is closed, you can't get out. Pulled him out of his bum, considered bashing his head into the steel sink. I think everybody gets very first time in time. When I'm sober, I deal with it in a completely different way than I do. One of me, you know, when I'm sober, I can go, okay, you know, I gotta look at this from the side just saying, you know, what's going on here, What's my part in it? I really tried to be in a little bit cool about it. I really try to resolve my anger the right way. It doesn't always work out the way, but I try to.

The other guy happened to get his thumb on the call button. So it did a call for the jail staff. Jail staff went in there by the time they got there. Kaleck had the guy in a throat lock trying to choke him out. We charged him with attempted murder, first degree burglary, and unlawful imprisonment. With all the complications, David's trial took years before it actually happened. But it was a success. David Kaleck was charged with first-degree murder in the death of Amber Lynn Coplin. He was sentenced to 82 years, and he will sit in jail blaming his alcoholism and having a pity party until the day that he dies. He's not happy with his sentence, by the way. Naturally, he thinks

it's unfair. I can't even remember doing scenes and excessive stuff. He was evil. He did heinous things. He ruined these children's lives. He's frightening. I don't understand the capacity to do what he did. And that's one of the things I tell a jury when I'm presenting a case like this. You don't understand.

And thank goodness you can't understand. You shouldn't understand. You don't want to understand You don't do things like this you can't understand why things like this are done Thank God you can't David K. Lack was an angry drunk who killed Amber Coplin out of rage Whether he was angry about the abortion or not will never know. Regardless, it doesn't matter.

David, by the way, has never confirmed this. Only he knows his true motive. What we do know is that he intentionally humiliated Amber. He killed her with his bare hands and made sure that her death was broadcast online for anyone and everyone to see. He showed off her body in its most vulnerable state, and he admittedly left it that way for her eldest son to find. For that act alone, he will always be pure evil. Amber's son could barely recount the events with Ione and her team. He had been destroyed by what he saw and by what he knew happened beyond his bedroom wall. He didn't want to talk to us, you know, and not that I can blame him, but we had a lot of meetings just bringing him in and saying hello and talking and just he wouldn't say a word to us.

He was clearly very, very impacted by this and just did not want to talk about what had happened and I always suspected he just He felt so bad that he'd never heard it. He didn't he couldn't stop it. He hadn't stopped it, you know He was there. His mom was dead and he didn't He didn't stop it, but he couldn't have. David K. Lack couldn't accept his own shortcomings. Maybe he really wanted to be a father, but he just wasn't father material. When the opportunity to fulfill his dream of parenthood came, Amber and the other people

around him didn't believe that he could step up to the role. And why do you think that is, David? Why do you think that is? Was it because they were all wrong and you were right? I know you can't hear me right now, by the way, because, you know, you're in prison. David looked at his drinking as something that he was a victim of, not something he could control and change.

The same went for his rage towards women. He wallowed in self-pity and continues to do this as he sits in his little miserable prison cell. Wherever the hell that is. David committed a calculated vicious and disgusting murder that he refuses to take any responsibility for. Amber's children and the rest of her family will forever miss the mother, sister, and daughter they cherished because one man was too sick and too selfish to accept the reality of his own fucking life. Thanks for joining us. If you like this sort of thing, you can get a lot more of it at www.sourenscale.com-plus Stay safe.

Hi! Um, okay, this is so random, but this morning I was like reading, slash-watching, all the drama I get to call it, it was like podcast one and my one and that drama is calling Thompson who like stole allegedly stole millions of dollars from all these podcasters and I immediately thought of you which is kind of creepy but I just got of you and how you decided like think you're on app and kind of do your own thing and like how you produce it all and do all your, I don't know, podcasts, tips. And I just wanted to say good job for doing that. And like, good job for going your own way and not listening to anyone and kind of paving

your own path. And I know we had like technical issues and we had to wait sometimes for the app and all the other shit that went with it. But it worked it and I'm so glad that you weren't affected by all the other shit that went with it but it was worth it and I'm so glad that you weren't affected by all of it and that you just get you know, brought it like everybody else and I'm just glad that you're not hurting right now like them and yeah so you should just be proud of yourself and just doing what you're doing not like you're gonna listen or like you need

our opinion anyway but we love you your podcast is amazing you're gonna listen or like you need our opinion anyway, but we love you. Your podcast is amazing. You're amazing and glad you're not affected. Okay, bye.