Kristopher Sinclair’s arrest came within hours of Brianye Copeland’s death, but the case took more than a year and a half to reach sentencing.
CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A homicide investigation that began with a morning shooting outside a public resource center and produced an arrest the same day has ended more than 18 months later with Kristopher Anthony Sinclair pleading guilty to killing 27-year-old Brianye Copeland.
Sinclair, 40, pleaded guilty Sept. 8 to second-degree murder and received a prison sentence of 25 to 31 years. The plea closed a case that had initially put him in custody on a murder charge following Copeland’s death on Feb. 7, 2025. Between those two dates, investigators and prosecutors assembled evidence that included witness accounts, surveillance footage, a vehicle tracker, thousands of text messages, a firearm and handwritten material recovered after Sinclair’s arrest. The final hearing also brought more than 50 statements from Copeland’s loved ones into the court record, shifting the proceeding from an investigation of what happened to an accounting of what her death meant.
The first public account was brief. Shortly before 10 a.m. on Feb. 7, Charlotte-Mecklenburg police officers responded to the 400 block of Stitt Road after a report of an assault with a deadly weapon with injury. They reached the parking lot of the Ella B. Scarborough Community Resource Center and found a woman with a gunshot wound. MEDIC pronounced her dead at the scene. Homicide detectives arrived, along with crime-scene specialists, victim-services personnel and other responders. At that point police had not yet publicly identified the woman, and the immediate task was to secure the scene, collect evidence and determine who had fired the shot.
The killing disrupted more than the parking lot. Mecklenburg County closed the resource center while police worked and directed customers to another community resource location. The center provides public services, meaning the shooting unfolded in a place where employees and members of the public were present during normal daytime operations. Investigators soon obtained witness accounts and surveillance material. According to an affidavit later described by local reporters, employees had seen Copeland and Sinclair arguing. Staff sought security help as the encounter became physical. Witnesses described Sinclair standing over Copeland and striking her before she was shot.
Police moved quickly from those accounts to a suspect search. Investigators tracked Sinclair to a nearby apartment complex, according to the affidavit. Witnesses there reported that he had walked into a wooded area and later returned toward his vehicle. Officers arrested him on Feb. 7. The next day, CMPD publicly identified Copeland and said Sinclair had been taken to the Law Enforcement Center in Uptown Charlotte to speak with homicide detectives before being transferred to the Mecklenburg County Sheriff’s Office. Police announced that detectives had charged him with murder while cautioning that the investigation was still active.
The search did not end when Sinclair was placed in custody. A police K-9 was used in the wooded area where witnesses had seen him go. Investigators found a backpack containing his driver license and a five-page handwritten note, according to court records described by WSOC-TV. Portions of the note referred to Copeland and suggested Sinclair expected a confrontation with police after the shooting. Investigators also recovered the firearm linked to the killing from his vehicle, Law&Crime reported. A separate communication was sent to Copeland’s family with a flash drive. The full contents of the written material and drive have not been publicly established in the reporting reviewed for this account.
As investigators examined the history between the two, the case expanded beyond the events visible at the resource center. Prosecutors said Sinclair and Copeland had met on vacation and remained in contact afterward. Sinclair was living in Mableton, Georgia, hundreds of miles from Charlotte. Law&Crime reported that the pair exchanged approximately 15,000 text messages over nearly a year. Prosecutors said Sinclair became obsessed with Copeland and placed a tracking device on her vehicle days before the homicide. That discovery connected the shooting to a period of monitoring and became one of the most significant facts disclosed as the case moved through the courts.
Meanwhile, Copeland’s family began constructing a public record of its own. She had grown up in Evansville, Indiana, where basketball made her well known at Harrison High School. She graduated in 2015 after scoring 1,179 points, placing fifth on the school’s career scoring list, according to her obituary. She also played soccer and competed in track. College took her to Central State University in Ohio, where she played basketball, studied biology and earned a walk-on spot in track and field. After later moving to Charlotte with her family, she continued playing basketball in the Queen City Pro-Am league and continued her education.
Relatives said she was also preparing for a career that combined business and service. Her obituary lists candle and lifestyle businesses, plans for clothing lines, real estate coursework and a North Carolina insurance credential. She had earned an associate degree and was enrolled at UNC Charlotte to continue her studies. Her sister described her as a protector, while her parents described a daughter whose plans repeatedly came back to helping other people. After her funeral in Evansville, the family directed memorial support toward future scholarships and community programs rather than allowing the case alone to define the months following her death.
Those efforts developed while the criminal prosecution remained pending. By the time Sinclair returned to court in September 2026, Copeland’s family had established the BriWay Foundation. The organization was designed to continue her interest in helping young people while also bringing attention to violence against women and domestic violence. That meant sentencing arrived after the family had already spent more than a year turning grief into programs and public remembrance. The hearing did not begin that process; it intersected with work that was already underway.
On Sept. 8, Sinclair admitted guilt to second-degree murder. The plea eliminated the uncertainty of a trial verdict and moved the case directly to punishment. Local reporting based on court documents said the sentence carried a 25-year minimum and a 31-year maximum, with credit for 578 days Sinclair had already spent in confinement. The court also found that Sinclair had knowingly created a great risk of death to more than one person through use of a weapon, had taken advantage of a position of trust in a domestic relationship and had committed the offense while a person younger than 18 was in a position to see it.
The sentencing hearing gave Copeland’s family its most concentrated opportunity to address the court. WSOC-TV reported that 52 victim-impact statements were submitted. Friends and relatives gathered outside the Mecklenburg County Courthouse wearing purple, and some traveled long distances to attend. Brian Copeland said supporters drove as long as 10 or 11 hours while others arrived by plane. Matthews, Copeland’s mother, said the turnout was intended to show what Sinclair’s actions had done to the family. She also criticized the sentence as insufficient because he retains the possibility of release after serving the required term.
Her reaction illustrated what the guilty plea resolved and what it did not. The plea established criminal responsibility without requiring the state to prove the case to a jury. The judgment established a range of years Sinclair must serve under North Carolina’s sentencing system. Neither action could recreate the future described in Copeland’s obituary or in the interviews her relatives gave after her death. The prosecution moved in a straight legal line from arrest to plea to punishment; the family’s experience did not.
Sinclair is serving the sentence imposed for second-degree murder, and no trial remains scheduled in the case. The police investigation that began in a resource-center parking lot has therefore reached its court conclusion. Copeland’s family, meanwhile, continues the BriWay Foundation and memorial work created after her death, carrying the story forward in a direction separate from the prosecution that has now ended.
Author note: Last updated Oct. 20, 2026.