A look at “David McCoy indicted in Courtney Spraggins murder” A fired police officer has been indicted for allegedly murdering his pregnant girlfriend. The defendant, David McCoy, 29, faces three counts of capital murder, according to a WHNT report. One count was for allegedly shooting and killing Courtney Spraggins, 26, when she was in her car on Jan. 7, 2022. A second count of murder was for allegedly killing her and her unborn child. The third count was for killing a child under 14 — in this case the unborn child.
Spraggins was seven months pregnant when she died, her family told WGNO.
David McCoy murdered his pregnant girlfriend Courtney Spraggins, authorities said. (Mugshot: Huntsville Police Department)David McCoy indicted in Courtney Spraggins murder
Her mother described a fractured, long-distance relationship between the young woman, a North Carolina resident, and McCoy, who worked for the Huntsville Police Department in Alabama. The couple met on Tinder. Spraggins, the mother of two young children, dropped by to visit McCoy when she visited her kids in Georgia.
“After her visitation with her children, on her way back to North Carolina, she would go to Alabama to spend — maybe I am being facetious here — 5 seconds with this guy,” her mother Kimberley Walter said. “He never spent a lot of time with her.”
The relationship involved an initial pregnancy, but Spraggins suffered a miscarriage.
Walter claimed there was one incident in which McCoy, who was unhappy about the pregnancy, took Spraggins out to a cornfield while armed with his gun and said he was going to die by suicide.
Distressed, Spraggins moved in with her parents in Maryland, but McCoy convinced her to return.
“I saw all the red flags,” Walter said. “I was like don’t go.”
Huntsville police reportedly said that Spraggins at first joined McCoy in Huntsville on Dec. 17, 2021, after quitting her job. But he allegedly told her he “needed more time.”
Authorities claim that when Spraggins texted him about what she was supposed to do, he wrote, “a bullet to the head sounds good to me.”
McCoy allegedly was already engaged to another woman. But he eventually told Spraggins to return and that he could take care of her, authorities said.
Instead, the day Spraggins arrived on Jan. 7, 2022, McCoy shot her in the head, authorities said.
Investigators claim McCoy told shifting stories about what happened, and whether he even knew Spraggins, though eventually he allegedly confessed that he “did it.”
Mail addressed to Spraggins and also ultrasound pictures were in his patrol car, authorities reportedly said.
Huntsville police fired McCoy, who was off-duty during the shooting. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
“First, let me say to the family of Ms. Courtney Spraggins how deeply saddened and shocked we are as a community and a police department that this murder has taken place,” Huntsville Police Chief Mark McMurray said last year. “We extend to you our sincerest condolences and want to assure all of you that this does not represent our police officers or our community of Huntsville. Our commitment to you is for full accountability and that justice will be served.”
A GoFundMe campaign raised $12,190 of a $15,000 goal.
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