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Former Alabama Cop Indicted For Killing His Girlfriend And Their Unborn Child
Courtney Spraggins became pregnant with the child of former Huntsville Police Officer David McCoy after the pair met on Tinder. Prosecutors say McCoy, who was set to marry another woman, killed Spraggins in January of 2022 because he saw her as a threat.
A former cop in Alabama was indicted on three counts of capital murder for allegedly killing his pregnant girlfriend and their unborn child that they had reportedly already named.
The capital murder charges against former Huntsville Police Officer David McCoy, 29, include one for allegedly shooting dead 26-year-old Courtney Spraggins in her car outside his apartment on Jan. 7, 2022, another for allegedly killing her and her unborn baby, and a third for killing a child under fourteen (also referring to the woman's fetus).
Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty. The next hearing in the case was scheduled for Thursday.
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Spraggins, who was seven months pregnant and a mother to two children when she died, maintained a long-distance relationship with McCoy until her death in January of 2022, traveling from North Carolina after the pair met on Tinder, according to Law & Crime.
McCoy was engaged to another woman who he was scheduled to marry in April when he allegedly shot Spraggins, according to testimony from Special Agent Brittney Hayes with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, according to WGNO. To her knowledge, she said, Spraggins was unaware of McCoy's other relationship.
Hayes said in court that McCoy saw Spraggins as a threat to his planned marriage and his livelihood.
After kicking his pregnant girlfriend out of his house on Dec. 17, of 2021, Huntsville Police said in a press conference, McCoy eventually told her to return so he could care for her. Instead, prosecutors said, he fatally shot her on Jan. 7 of 2022. Spraggins' car was packed with all of her belongings, WGNO reported, suggesting that she was moving in.
The former cop was off-duty at the time of the shooting, police said. He reportedly called his department to inquire whether any reports of shots fired had been lodged, telling dispatchers that he had been roused from sleep by the gunfire of a small-caliber gun, according to the New York Post. He later told dispatchers that the woman had committed suicide, according to WHNT.
When his fellow Huntsville officers arrived at the scene and found the dead woman in her car, the Post reported, McCoy told them that he "[thought he'd] seen her once." He later told investigators that he didn't know her at all.
McCoy even helped police at the crime scene, according to reporting on a preliminary court hearing by local news station WAAY 31, asking for a pair of gloves and telling officers at the scene that he couldn't find the victim's phone or a murder weapon.
Later, investigators would find Spraggins' phone and a gun that wasn't McCoy's service weapon in a closet inside his apartment. Due to 25 attempts at unlocking the dead woman's phone, according to the station, investigators have not yet accessed its contents. Gunshot residue was detected on the former cop's person.
After changing his story several times over five hours of questioning, McCoy allegedly admitted that he "did it."
Police found adequate evidence to charge McCoy with capital murder that evening. Three days after the shooting, Chief Mark McMurray wrote in a statement, the department announced that McCoy was "no longer a police officer or an employee of the City of Huntsville."
McCoy had mail addressed to Spraggins and ultrasound photos of the unborn child in his patrol vehicle, the Post reported. Spraggins had a photo of him in her vehicle, and text messages between the pair helped investigators piece together what led to the alleged shooting.
Around the time McCoy kicked Spraggins out of his Alabama apartment, she had sent him a desperate text asking what she was supposed to do, since she had quit her job in North Carolina to be with him. He reportedly told her that "a bullet to the head sounds good to me."
Spraggins' mother, Kimberley Walter, told Law & Crime that the "red flags" in the couple's relationship were apparent to her long before her daughter was killed.
“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,” Walter said. “He never spent a lot of time with her ... I was like 'don't go.'”
Walter alleged that at one point, McCoy took Spraggins into a cornfield with his gun and told her he would die by suicide. The woman moved in with her parents in Maryland after the distressing incident, but was soon convinced to return to Alabama.
Spraggins became pregnant earlier in her relationship with McCoy, the mother said, but suffered a miscarriage.
The mother-of-two did not have life insurance, according to a GoFundMe initiative organized by the stepmother of her surviving children. Thus far, the fundraiser has raised more than $12,000 toward her burial and funeral service.
