Friends asked to back up statements

Friends of Nancy Cooper have been asked to prove everything they have claimed about Nancy Cooper's troubled marriage to her husband Bradley.

According to court records, attorneys for Bradley Cooper have ordered his wife's friends to turn over their diaries, appointment books, phone records, pictures and anything else that might back up statements they made in affidavits filed after Nancy Cooper's death. Friends claimed that Bradley Cooper was emotionally unstable, unfaithful and had been very controlling and demeaning of his wife.

Nancy Cooper disappeared July 12. A walker found her body two days later, dumped in an undeveloped area of a subdivision near her Cary home.

No one has been charged with her death. Search warrants released last week reveal that Cary police were so suspicious of Bradley Cooper that in the days following Nancy's death they searched her husband's computer for research queries on how to dispose of a body.

Bradley Cooper is now embroiled in a custody battle for his two daughters. Nancy Cooper's parents and her sister have secured custody of her two daughters, ages 4 and 2, in a temporary agreement. A judge will be asked to review that custody arrangement at a hearing next month.

More than a dozen friends of Nancy Cooper challenged the subpoenas ordering them to turn over their personal information, saying the requests placed an undue burden and were unreasonable or oppressive.