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Former YPD cop charged with neglecting sister’s care before she died
YOUNGSTOWN
Barbara Copeland Court Documents
Document
Former YPD Officer Barbara Copeland has been indicted for the horrible, reckless neglect of her sister, Mary Fields, who died Oct. 15 of a stroke with dehydration and malnutrition as contributing factors, weighing a mere 70 pounds.
A former city police officer is indicted on a charge of failing to properly care for her ailing sister, who resided with her on the city’s North Side and weighed a mere 70 pounds when she died.
A Mahoning County grand jury Thursday indicted Barbara F. Copeland, 60, of Cordova Avenue, on a fourth-degree felony charge of failure to provide for a functionally impaired person.
The charge carries up to 18 months in prison and up to a $10,000 fine, upon conviction.
The single-count indictment says Copeland recklessly failed to provide treatment and care necessary to maintain the health or safety of her 67-year-old sister, Mary Louise Fields, resulting in serious physical harm to her.
The indictment says the offense occurred on or about Oct. 15, 2015, which the coroner’s report says was the date of Fields’ death.
The 911 call reporting Fields’ death came from Atty. Kim Akins, who was waiting outside the home with Copeland when police arrived, according to the coroner’s report.
Neither Akins, nor Copeland, could be reached for comment.
Copeland did not provide emergency responders with information concerning the identification, living circumstances or medical history of Fields, paramedics told coroner’s investigators.
The coroner’s office ruled Fields’ death natural, listing a stroke as the cause of death, with malnutrition, dehydration and mental illness as contributing factors.
The coroner’s report said Fields’ body was found on a bed inside the cluttered residence with skin ulcers, with brown and red fluids on the sheets and mattress under her.
Her feet rested in feces, with insect activity around them, the report said.
A medical alert device encircled her neck.
The house had no running water.
Lab tests found no drugs in Fields’ body fluids.
No medical records were available for her at St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital or at ValleyCare Northside Medical Center.
Copeland, a community police officer assigned to the city’s 3rd Ward, resigned in November 2015 after 151/2 years on the force.
Police Chief Robin Lees said Copeland resigned before an internal affairs investigation could be conducted and before the cause of Fields’ death was known.
However, he said city police detectives investigated the matter, as they would any “unattended death” or case of someone dying alone or under mysterious circumstances.
When their probe was finished in January, they gave the results to the prosecutor’s office, Lees said.
Michael J. Yacovone, the assistant county prosecutor who presented the case to the grand jury, said he concluded that the facts of the case, including Fields’ cause of death being a stroke, supported the charge of failure to provide for a functionally impaired person.
A manslaughter charge would have required the prosecution to prove that Copeland’s neglect of her sister caused her sister’s death, he explained. “The facts did not fit the elements,” of a manslaughter charge, he said.
Yacovone said he did not want to comment further on details of the case. “I don’t want to try the case through the media,” he added.
Copeland is scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Oct. 11 in the courtroom of Judge Shirley J. Christian of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.
A relative described Fields’ eating habits as “irregular and very particular,” and said Fields didn’t eat balanced meals at regular meal times. The relative said Fields would only consume specific brands of snack foods, namely Spam, Cheez-It crackers, Welch’s grape juice and Planters peanuts.