Mandy Locke, Staff Writer
CARY - Nancy Cooper's friends feared she was in harm's way the day she disappeared.
According to a 911 tape released Tuesday, Cooper's friend Jessica Adam called dispatchers hours after Cooper failed to show up to help Adam paint her house July 12. When Adam called Cooper's house to see why she was late, Cooper's husband Bradley Cooper said she'd gone out for a jog with another friend.
"I don't know that he's been physically violent, but I know that there's a lot of tension," Adam told the dispatcher. "So I wouldn't be surprised, I hate to say it ... ," her voice trailing off.
Two days after Cooper vanished, a dog walker found her body in an unfinished subdivision near her Lochmere subdivision home.
Cary police have named no suspects. They've shared little about their investigation; media in the United States and the Coopers' native Canada have hovered over any small movement and speculation in the case.
In the July 12 call, Adam confides to a dispatcher that Nancy Cooper and her husband Bradley were going through a divorce but still living together. Adam sounded panicked and more than once struggled to hold her voice steady as she asked for guidance. She said she didn't know how Bradley Cooper would react to her interference.
Adam said she had called WakeMed hospital to make sure Nancy Cooper hadn't been involved in an accident. Adam said it didn't seem likely that Cooper had just taken off because her car was parked in the driveway and she had left her cell phone at the house.
Adam said it would be unlike Nancy Cooper to not call and reschedule her appointment if something had come up.
Dispatchers assured Adam they'd go by her house and talk to her husband. The dispatcher told her that because Bradley Cooper was the last to see her that he should file the missing person's report.
Bradley Cooper's attorneys accused Cary police on Tuesday of leaking the 911 tapes and enabling the public to rush to judgment against their client.
"Unfortunately, today's leaks appear calculated to do nothing more than inflame already raw emotions," his attorneys, Howard Kurtz and Seth Blum, said in a prepared statement.
Cary officials released the tapes after a News & Observer public records request; 911 tapes are public records, according to state law.
Another 911 tape was also released Tuesday. A dog walker called for help after he noticed Cooper's body near a storm drain in an unfinished part of the Oaks of Meadow Ridge subdivision. The caller, whose name was redacted from the tape, said he noticed the body after seeing vultures swarming around it. He said he did not get a close look, but he assured police that he saw no movement about the body.
Cary police have said that the Coopers were having marital difficulty and that the strife would be part of their investigation. Last week, police searched the home the couple shared in Cary and collected blood or saliva from Bradley Cooper to help capture his DNA profile.
Cooper's family and friends in Canada will host a memorial service today for Cooper.
Her family will return to Wake County to appeal to a judge Friday to let them keep the Coopers' two daughters. Last week, a judge ordered Isabella, 4, and Katie, 2, removed from their father's custody after Nancy Cooper's father and sister argued that Bradley Cooper was mentally unstable and posed a threat to the children.
Bradley Cooper could be called to testify Friday. If called to the stand, though, Cooper could plead the Fifth Amendment, citing his right to not incriminate himself.