A Long Island man accused of shooting his ex-wife and her boyfriend to death inside their home after warning his teen daughter to get out suffered a spinal cord injury while being held in jail ahead of his court hearings, police said.
A week after Daniel Coppola first faced a judge, the alleged killer did so again Friday from a hospital bed at Stony Brook University Hospital. His attorneys said that he underwent surgery for the spinal cord injury he suffered at Suffolk County jail. The county sheriff's office said it was a self-inflicted injury that happened as Coppola was under suicide watch.
"He suffered an injury while in the jail. The extent of that we’re trying to determine with the doctors," said his attorney, Steven Politi. "I don’t think anyone who has ever been charged with murder is in a positive mental state."
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Word of the injury came as prosecutors upgraded the criminal charges against him to first-degree murder. Prosecutors believe Coppola shooting his Kelly and her boyfriend, 53-year-old Kenny Pohlman, at the St. James home they shared was a premeditated act. The planning was reflected in letters investigators said were found in Coppola’s home.
The sound of gunshots pierced the air in the quiet hamlet after 11:30 p.m. on Aug. 24. Police said Coppola went to the home on Brasswood Road and fired the deadly shots. Pohlman's brother said two shots were fired into the door in order to get inside, before multiple shots were fired upstairs.
"He is a coward. If he wasn’t a coward, he’d go in there and say I am guilty," Pohlman's brother Tom said after Coppola's first court appearance.
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Officers later found Kenneth and Kelly in the house, dead from gunshot wounds. Before Coppola pulled the trigger, however, he called his 15-year-old daughter and instructed her to not be in the house, according to police.
"He reached out to her, told her to get out of the house. He then went into the house and committed these murders," said Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer.
At first, the teen didn't know what her father had done as she sat in the car with him, according to Beyrer. But as they drove his home a few miles away, she put out a cry for help.
"She is communicating with friends via text saying 'I don’t know what my father did. I don’t know how my mother is,'" Beyrer said.
Coppola later threatened to kill himself at his own home, according to police. But after his daughter called 911, police took him into custody without incident.
A week after sounding off angrily about Coppola outside of court, Tom Pohlman told NBC New York on Friday "we haven’t given any thought to the murderer. This week we celebrated Kenny’s life and laid him to rest and are trying to help his children cope with this."
Kelly Coppola’s family also mourned her death Thursday, hours before her ex-husband once more pleaded not guilty to her murder. Suffolk County investigators said Coppola previously went through a contentious divorce with his ex-wife Kelly, 50.
It was not immediately clear how long Daniel Coppola would remain at Stony Brook University Hospital. When asked if their client is paralyzed, his lawyers said that they would need to speak further to his doctors.
If convicted under the new charges, Coppola faces up to life in prison without parole.
