Sarasota Strangulation Murderer Sentenced to 25 Years

SARASOTA, FL — A 48-year-old Sarasota man accused of strangling his girlfriend and then staging the scene to look like a suicide pleaded guilty to second-degree murder this week in connection to the November 2015 death of Jennifer Copeland, 43.

A Sarasota County judge sentenced Brian Wilson to 25 years in the state prison system following his plea entry.

The case against Wilson began to unfold around 2:30 a.m. Nov. 28, 2015, when Sarasota police were called to a home in the 1100 block of Patterson Drive. Officers were told it was a possible burglary in progress. When they arrived, they found Copeland dead inside a garage apartment, hanging from a rope.

The victim’s mother told police her daughter was last seen in the company of Wilson, who was her boyfriend. The woman also told police that “Wilson had shown her a ‘hangman’s noose’ that was hanging high in the rafter of the garage sometime during the afternoon hours Friday (Nov. 27),” a police report said.

The women, the report noted, told Wilson to take it down.

Witnesses later told police that Wilson had admitted to strangling Copeland with his hands and then hanging her to make it look like she committed suicide, the report said. The same witnesses told police Wilson called them for a ride on the night Copeland died and asked them to bring gasoline, the report said.

Wilson, the report said, told the witnesses, “I need the gas to burn down the house because I just killed somebody.”

Two more witnesses also relayed similar stories, the reported noted.

Wilson was charged in Copeland’s murder on Dec. 1 while detained in the Hendry County Jail on unrelated DUI charges. Wilson, the report noted, was charged with DUI while driving a truck stolen out of Sarasota County.

Booking photo courtesy of the Sarasota Police Department