Speaker 1: What You're about to Hear is a work of investigative
Speaker 1: journalism that explores one woman's search for answers in her
Speaker 1: son's death. The views and opinions in this podcast do
Speaker 1: not reflect those of I Heart Media. Previously on Somebody,
Speaker 1: did the people you work with now that you guys
Speaker 1: were romantically involved. No, A lot of people were very
Speaker 1: very that weren't. He lived in a really rough neighborhood.
Speaker 1: We heard two gunshots and a car drive off. You
Speaker 1: want to know what you are Did you see anybody running?
Speaker 1: How many shots? None of that stuff was asked, Like
Speaker 1: down the street from where I live, this guy like
Speaker 1: he's you know, he's a game member. He has really
Speaker 1: long hair, like down't pass his waist. They had said
Speaker 1: there was some Hispanic guys running around in that neighborhood,
Speaker 1: and so they had claimed as a possibility that maybe
Speaker 1: they had confused them for somebody else. So I had
Speaker 1: to follow that leaders wrong. I believe that somebody knows something,
Speaker 1: somebody saw something, and it just takes a lot of
Speaker 1: courage from somebody to tell what they saw. My name
Speaker 1: is Chaparral Wells. This is the story of my son, Courtney,
Speaker 1: a young black man in a fancy car who wound
Speaker 1: up with a bullet in his back in front of
Speaker 1: a Chicago police station. And it's the story of my
Speaker 1: search for the truth. This is somebody, everybody, somebody every day.
Speaker 1: Don't bide the snugging. That's right, h Y. We buried
Speaker 1: Courtney at the cemetery called Burt Oak. We have a
Speaker 1: family plot there. As you can see, these are some
Speaker 1: of the graves. Burt Oak was originally the only cemetery
Speaker 1: where black people could be buried in Illinois. It's also
Speaker 1: the cemetery where Emmett Till is buried. It's where my
Speaker 1: grandma is buried too, And this is where Bren and
Speaker 1: I buried. Are two angel babies, a set of twins
Speaker 1: in Every time I come here, it's in disrepair. The
Speaker 1: ground itself is crumbling and there's weeds everywhere. The grass
Speaker 1: is high, there's trash. You can't be sad because you
Speaker 1: you saw dogs, angry because the way it looks. I've
Speaker 1: had it out a few times with the groundskeepers. You
Speaker 1: didn't even have this much gred when we came here
Speaker 1: last time. Sometimes we have to redo it a being
Speaker 1: as d They're nice guys, but I have to keep
Speaker 1: it real with them about the conditions of the cemetery.
Speaker 1: It's horrible. Look at this, Look at that, look looking
Speaker 1: looking I'm sorry that no, no, no, you probably know
Speaker 1: by now. I'm not afraid of confrontation, because nobody should
Speaker 1: have to go here and look and be embarrassed. When
Speaker 1: you come and to a great site to breath, it's
Speaker 1: already a difficult situation. Look at today, you want to
Speaker 1: chop my head on the line. You're gonna be hugging me.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but y'all know, y'all got me a little heated.
Speaker 1: I'm a little heated when it comes to my baby,
Speaker 1: I get a little heated. Is personal. It had almost
Speaker 1: been two years since Courtney died. Two years I found
Speaker 1: out there was a deadline, a statue of limitations for
Speaker 1: me to sue the city for how they treated my son.
Speaker 1: So I got some new lawyers to take the case
Speaker 1: to court. They argued that police caused delays by taking
Speaker 1: Courtney into custody and handcuffing him, and that they conspired
Speaker 1: with the fire department to prepare misleading reports to cover
Speaker 1: up their actions. I wanted justice, and I wanted those
Speaker 1: officers on the record. I wanted them to be forced
Speaker 1: to testify, and I wanted the city to see that
Speaker 1: treating a young black man as a criminal instead of
Speaker 1: a victim has consequences. There was one other thing that
Speaker 1: I needed to do on his second anniversary. I was
Speaker 1: going to hold a protest outside the police station. We
Speaker 1: were gonna go there and light candles with Courtney's friends
Speaker 1: and our whole family. It's good do a short Facebook.
Speaker 1: It's kind of a difficult moment for me right now.
Speaker 1: I tried to do this last year, but I just
Speaker 1: wasn't strong enough to do it. But I feel that
Speaker 1: his spirit would be there and so that he would
Speaker 1: know that he's not alone right now. And I hope
Speaker 1: that you can come out and just light a candle
Speaker 1: for him. God bless. I was going to do all
Speaker 1: of this in the middle of the night, at the
Speaker 1: exact same time as Courtney pulled up to the station
Speaker 1: and called trying to get help. I was gonna drive
Speaker 1: the BMW that Courtney drove from my house and Cistero
Speaker 1: to Belmont Craigan, just like Courtney did. I was gonna
Speaker 1: drive down Alma Street, cut through the alley, pull up
Speaker 1: by the corner of the church just like Courtney did.
Speaker 1: It was like for me, I couldn't be there when
Speaker 1: it happened. I always felt like some type of guilt
Speaker 1: for not being there. So for me, I had to
Speaker 1: take that journey with him so that that way he
Speaker 1: knows that his mom was there. Leading up to the anniversary,
Speaker 1: Courtney's friends started posting old videos and tributes, and so
Speaker 1: my timeline was flooded with memories of Courtney. There were
Speaker 1: tons of photos of Courtney in his car Baybay every day.
Speaker 1: Million dollars, a million dollars. Oh my god, Babay, I
Speaker 1: think that I want to say that she's my fourth child,
Speaker 1: even though she's a vehicle. Over the last two years,
Speaker 1: Baby had been through a lot. My mom had an
Speaker 1: accident in Baby. How did it get in an accident?
Speaker 1: She was trying to change lanes and so when she
Speaker 1: changed lanes, she didn't see the other car and so
Speaker 1: they ran right into the car. And when she told
Speaker 1: me that she crashed the car, I hung up on her.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask her what she okay, because I figured
Speaker 1: she's okay because she calling me, But I just I
Speaker 1: couldn't talk. I didn't leave the bed for three days
Speaker 1: as much as I want to let it go, I can't.
Speaker 1: It was like they stay. Fund was like, well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna sell awful parts, and part of me I felt
Speaker 1: like they're just like taking my son and just selling
Speaker 1: my awful parts. I was like, no, I need the
Speaker 1: call back. So I had found two mechanics, one to
Speaker 1: do the interior work and then one to do the
Speaker 1: body work of the vehicle. And it was a lot
Speaker 1: of money to get her restored. But once she was
Speaker 1: as good as new, I got a new license plate
Speaker 1: for Babe court thirty four. Now we were ready to
Speaker 1: take this drive. While Chaprole was getting ready for the
Speaker 1: second anniversary of Courtney's death, we were busy reporting. Turns
Speaker 1: out Courtney wasn't the only one to call one after
Speaker 1: he'd been shot March four, three minutes and three seconds.
Speaker 1: Someone else called nine one one that night to a
Speaker 1: neighbor who reported hearing shots fired. Police interviewed her about
Speaker 1: a month after Courtney died, to watch the hell, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm coming to us, but you know there were there
Speaker 1: was a shooting right here, long long How many shots
Speaker 1: to here? Ma'am? Like the neighbor's name was Elena. She
Speaker 1: made that nine one one call about six minutes after
Speaker 1: Courtney's nine one one call saying he'd been shot. Okay,
Speaker 1: anybody seeing who was doing the shooting? No, but right now,
Speaker 1: I was coming to with my bad room. When I
Speaker 1: was took get on mama house. She said she heard
Speaker 1: two shots and I was parking with the carcass I
Speaker 1: real best, but we're not really earty. There was like
Speaker 1: two rasted. Okay, so you heard two shots fired on
Speaker 1: the block? Yeah, okay, I'll send someone over to check
Speaker 1: it out. Okay, thanks, you're welcome. Chapar wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to her, but her name and number were redacted from
Speaker 1: the police report, so none of us knew who she was.
Speaker 1: But a few months later, when we got the nine
Speaker 1: one one call from the city, we found her number.
Speaker 1: It was very in the metadata that came with the
Speaker 1: call recording, so we got in touch. At the time
Speaker 1: Courtney was shot, Elena lived in the neighborhood, but she
Speaker 1: moved out because of the violence. These days, Elena and
Speaker 1: her family live in a garden apartment on the west
Speaker 1: side of the city, a couple of miles from Belmont Craigan.
Speaker 1: She and her husband, Edgar, have two kids, an eight
Speaker 1: year old girl who loves to jump into adult conversations
Speaker 1: and giggle and a little baby boy look big guy.
Speaker 1: Just it's like she's a good big sister. She seems
Speaker 1: like she's the boss, though she's just a Moline. We
Speaker 1: asked her about March four. Here's what she remembers. Elena
Speaker 1: was parking a block from the church where Courtney would
Speaker 1: park when she heard the two shots. She was helping
Speaker 1: her daughter out of the car. I heard that should
Speaker 1: a graph her and I put him inside until a
Speaker 1: car again. She called her husband, Edgar, on the phone,
Speaker 1: to come out and wait for her in their alley.
Speaker 1: That's when she saw Courtney's car speed past her and
Speaker 1: turned towards the police station. Were you scared at any point? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was because that was with my better she was.
Speaker 1: She was trying. Has that ever happened before? No? Not.
Speaker 1: After the shots, she froze, but when she heard a
Speaker 1: police siren, she decided it was safe enough to leave. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Elena and her daughter walked towards home, where Edgar was
Speaker 1: waiting for them. She saw a car speeding down the alley.
Speaker 1: Edgar saw it too, He was closer and had a
Speaker 1: better view the window was down. Some guys inside she
Speaker 1: described them as gangsters, had his hands and said that
Speaker 1: jacket and he was the car stopped. The guys inside
Speaker 1: stared at Edgar. He had his hands in his pockets
Speaker 1: and he didn't want to move them because he was
Speaker 1: worried the guys might think it was a gun. His
Speaker 1: hands in his pocket, okay, and so the guys thought
Speaker 1: that maybe he had something. So I remember the car.
Speaker 1: He knows that car it was. But Elena told police
Speaker 1: she thought she saw a camera. When we spoke to her,
Speaker 1: she said she doesn't really know cars, but that her husband, Edgar,
Speaker 1: remembers the make and model. Seemed like Edgar was the
Speaker 1: witness we really needed to talk to. Do you think
Speaker 1: your husband might remember what the men looked like? Even
Speaker 1: though Edgar might have been able to identify these guys,
Speaker 1: police never even tried to speak with him. How long
Speaker 1: did they stay with it. It's funny minutes and they
Speaker 1: didn't talk to Edgar, okay, And they never talked to him.
Speaker 1: When we told Elena we were working with Courtney's mom,
Speaker 1: she wanted to know more and actually she's going to
Speaker 1: be out there in front of the police station on
Speaker 1: Saturday at the same time. We told her about the vigil.
Speaker 1: We'll try to see if Coogle right here, I'm bren. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna try to see if so. Psycho tu what
Speaker 1: I saw and everything she would think she's it was
Speaker 1: the keys to BMW. On March four, Bill and I
Speaker 1: met Chapel at her house. It was around midnight. She
Speaker 1: was wearing a red Justice for Courtney Copeland t shirt,
Speaker 1: getting ready, serving coffee. Her family was starting to congregate.
Speaker 1: Jas mc grab the other baby. I think Brett already
Speaker 1: got one in the car and Jasmine tep. Brent lock up, Okay,
Speaker 1: lock up. Brent and their teenage daughters, Kaylin Jasmine were
Speaker 1: bundling up two little babies, faith in Sahara. Chapelle had
Speaker 1: started fostering them in the fall. Now they were six
Speaker 1: months old. Shapell was getting their bottles ready. You got
Speaker 1: her past by stay ye va benefits for those who
Speaker 1: qualifying can today at seven or eight six eight. I
Speaker 1: don't know nothing about this class. What about it? There
Speaker 1: it is? Chappelle and Bill took off together. I followed
Speaker 1: behind you said you feel like you have to do this?
Speaker 1: Why I put yourself through it? Because I feel like
Speaker 1: I've been hiding from it. O Courtney comes and he
Speaker 1: does that final snapchat in front of our house, and
Speaker 1: then I guess that's what he was talking to him,
Speaker 1: and he decided to go over there. And it's like,
Speaker 1: what if you had it just went to bed, you know,
Speaker 1: And it's just like that one second, one second changed
Speaker 1: his whole life. It was a pretty short drive that
Speaker 1: time of night. It only took about fifteen twenty minutes.
Speaker 1: This is almost black, so this is the exact way
Speaker 1: that he would come. We went through the alley to
Speaker 1: where Courtney would park, just up by the church chapel.
Speaker 1: Stopped the car. This is where we believe Courtney was shot.
Speaker 1: So they when they found glass. They found glass by
Speaker 1: the fire hydrant, which is a little bit ways. I
Speaker 1: drove over to the police station, pulled up in that
Speaker 1: left turn lane. I stopped the car right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the street, just as Courtney had done two
Speaker 1: years earlier after getting shot. Across from the police station,
Speaker 1: friends and family had started gathering, lighting candles, setting up
Speaker 1: picture frames. It was cold, you could see your broth.
Speaker 1: I didn't get out of the car for several minutes.
Speaker 1: I just needed to sit there and think about my
Speaker 1: son about what he must have been feeling there on
Speaker 1: the ground. I was just trying to put myself in
Speaker 1: his position and what he would have said to police.
Speaker 1: In that moment, police came out from the station. They
Speaker 1: started to surround me. They asked me to move out
Speaker 1: the road, and I just simply lost it. I'm not
Speaker 1: moving Leave me long. I am not moving it. No, no,
Speaker 1: I am not moving it. I'm staring right here. Leave
Speaker 1: me a long, Please leave me long. Now, you did
Speaker 1: what did my sons say? What did he say? What
Speaker 1: else did he say? Y'all were talking to Hilp. Me'all
Speaker 1: was talking to him. He was talking to y'all, lor
Speaker 1: to Cavra. What did you say? What did he say?
Speaker 1: He was shot? The ambulance came here and started taking
Speaker 1: This is when I realized who I was talking to.
Speaker 1: Sergeant Ronan. You was on the I got it when
Speaker 1: you was, when I got the report, when you came
Speaker 1: on the scene. He was on the same before them,
Speaker 1: And that's got y'all was around him, y'all around. He
Speaker 1: was the supervisor the night Courtney died. He was there
Speaker 1: that night. He was right there in that very spot.
Speaker 1: My family was holding me up, and I just wanted
Speaker 1: Sergeant Ronan to see my pain, to see that my
Speaker 1: son's life mattered to somebody, y'all to helping me, y'all
Speaker 1: to do nothing, because you imagine a mama seeing that
Speaker 1: my son begging for help. What happened. That's what happened
Speaker 1: to my baby. That's what happened to my child. That's
Speaker 1: what happens. My son is on the ground. Remember, this
Speaker 1: is the guy. We looked into, scores of complaints against him,
Speaker 1: like false arrest, planting evidence, using racist you're trying to
Speaker 1: help me, that's what I'm saying. I did that, my uncamp,
Speaker 1: she asks Ronan, who handcuffed Courtney. I don't know who
Speaker 1: we would put up that. I don't Again, unfortunately, this
Speaker 1: is two years ago. I mean, I wish I had
Speaker 1: better for you. But as far as we did this
Speaker 1: to your son, that's the detectives that follow up on that.
Speaker 1: So nobody working on it. Nobody's working out, and nobody
Speaker 1: can he did another black. Nobody cares you gotta do
Speaker 1: anything yet, I don't know he has met the black killers.
Speaker 1: Let me know if you don't came the y'all me,
Speaker 1: my son come up to y'all s he's not, and
Speaker 1: then here haircuffs. Has that possible again, ma'am, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened before I got that trying
Speaker 1: to help him, That's what I saw. It went on
Speaker 1: and on like this for several minutes, right in the
Speaker 1: middle of the street. And then a white shirt another
Speaker 1: officer pulled Ronan away from the scene, and Ronan he
Speaker 1: just left. He told all the other officers to leave
Speaker 1: as well. Things calmed down in our protests and the vigil.
Speaker 1: It went on, and then out of the corner of
Speaker 1: my eye, I saw Elena, the woman who called nine
Speaker 1: one one. She showed up. She was standing with her
Speaker 1: family at the edge of the park, across from the
Speaker 1: police station. You feeling, they called very calls your kids
Speaker 1: out here. She's with her two kids and Edgar, her husband.
Speaker 1: Everyone was shivering. We ran and got Chapral. We wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure they had the chance to meet Why.
Speaker 1: I'm just sorry you why the two investigation, you know,
Speaker 1: because then nobody else going to help us, so we
Speaker 1: had to try to fight this ourselves. To know what happened.
Speaker 1: When I saw Elena, I hugged her immediately. I was
Speaker 1: surprised she even showed up for a mother she never
Speaker 1: even met. It was like, Okay, this is somebody that
Speaker 1: has given me some information. She feels my pain, and
Speaker 1: she's connecting me on a mother to mother level. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you coming out because it means a lot to
Speaker 1: a chance to talk to you. But yeah, they would
Speaker 1: never talk to me. Before I went back to the vigil,
Speaker 1: we hugged each other again, Thank you so much. Bill
Speaker 1: and I stayed with Elene and Edgar to talk. We
Speaker 1: needed to know what Edgar could remember seeing that night?
Speaker 1: Would your month? Would you mund chance sitting for me
Speaker 1: if you tell us what you saw the night? So
Speaker 1: he put on his jacket and he tried to go
Speaker 1: down to he could he go down? He saw that
Speaker 1: there was a car coming through the alley. Profest. He
Speaker 1: didn't stop. And here's what Edgar remembered. When he got
Speaker 1: to the alley, he saw a car coming fast, so
Speaker 1: fast he was afraid it was going to hit Elene
Speaker 1: and their daughter as they tried to cross. You write
Speaker 1: down the license, you you knew he already knew that
Speaker 1: first to receive forty six, Yeah, it was it. What
Speaker 1: kind of car was it? There, what color a Mercury
Speaker 1: Grand Marquis with three guys inside? Did the police ever
Speaker 1: talk to you? Um? No, he never talked to police,
Speaker 1: never talked to Edgar, even though Elina told them he
Speaker 1: saw everything. The police knew then your husband something when
Speaker 1: I when when they went to see me right here? Um?
Speaker 1: I told him that he saw we do No, No,
Speaker 1: they didn't sences him. The alley was narrow, just a
Speaker 1: few feet between Edgar and the driver, and the car
Speaker 1: window was rolled down. They were pretty much face to face.
Speaker 1: And what do they look like? Them? And Edgar remembered
Speaker 1: something else? Do you remember their hair? The better they
Speaker 1: use more hair? Not here h one of the guys
Speaker 1: in the car had long hair. Every Body so bide
Speaker 1: every day, No bode these not no. Somebody is a
Speaker 1: co production of The Invisible Institute, The Intercept, Topic Studios,
Speaker 1: and I Heart Radio in association with Tenderfoot TV. I'm
Speaker 1: chaparrole Wells. This podcast is produced by Alison Flowers and
Speaker 1: Bill he Lee. Sarah Guye is our story editor. Ellen
Speaker 1: Glover is our associate producer for The Invisible Institute. Jamie
Speaker 1: Calvin is Executive producer for Topic Studios. Maria Zuckerman, Christie
Speaker 1: Gressman and Letyle Mallard are executive producers. Special thanks to
Speaker 1: Lizzie Jacobs for the intercept. Roger Hodge, Deputy Editor, is
Speaker 1: supervising producer. Sound designed by Carl Scott and Bart Warshaw.
Speaker 1: Michael Raphael is our mixed engineer. Our theme song, Everybody's
Speaker 1: Something is by Chance the Rapper. Original music for the
Speaker 1: podcast by Nate Fox of The Social Experiment and Eric Butler.
Speaker 1: Additional reporting by Sam Stecklow, Annie When, Cahari Blackburn, Rajef Sinclair,
Speaker 1: Henry Adams, Matilda Voyat, Dana rosos kellerher Frances McDonald, Diana Archmagian,
Speaker 1: Maddie Anderson, Andrew Fan and Risa upon Cool. Translation support
Speaker 1: by Benny hernandez A Compo and Emma for As. Fact
Speaker 1: checking by nol Our Jenny Special thanks to Chris Rasmussen,
Speaker 1: Bennett Epstein, Matt Topic, David Brelow and Julie Wolf. We
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. Email us at info at
Speaker 1: Somebody podcast dot com or leave us a voicemail at
Speaker 1: seven seven three to seven zero zero one two one.
Speaker 1: To learn more about this case and for links to
Speaker 1: additional materials, go to our show page at somebody podcast
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also find a list of everyone
Speaker 1: we want to thank. There so many people helped us
Speaker 1: along the way.