Judge will not release Cooper warrants

RALEIGH -- Secrecy will continue to shroud the death of Nancy Cooper.

Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens Thursday upheld his order to seal several warrants issued to search places and people police suspect are connected with Cooper’s death.

Attorneys for The News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting Company (WRAL) appealed to Stephens at a hearing Thursday to unseal the public records or consider releasing portions of them.

Cooper, a 34-year-old mother, disappeared July 12. A walker found her body near a storm water drain in an unbuild subdivision near her Cary home. Her husband Bradley Cooper said he last saw her that morning when she went out for a run with a friend.

Police have named no suspects in her slaying.

Stephens said in an order issued late Thursday “that some of the significant information contained in these sealed documents may not be competent and admissible evidence in a trial and is of such a nature as to potentially prejudice the public against any person hereafter accused and is likely to prevent an accused from receiving a fair trial by a fair and impartial jury in Wake County.”

Days after her body was discovered, authorities visited Stephens at home at 2 a.m. to request a warrant to search Cooper’s Lochmere subdivision home, the family’s two vehicles and to collect blood or saliva from Bradley Cooper to capture a DNA profile. Stephens also signed an order sealing the officer’s affidavit and an inventory of anything they might collect there.

Stephens said he’d been concerned about the amount of “heresay” in the officer’s affidavit to obtain a search warrant. Some of the information, he said, would never be admissable in court and could affect any possible defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Stephens acknowledged that he had to weigh competing interests.

“The public’s interest is competing today,” Stephens said.

Early last week, Stephens granted and sealed another warrant to search the office of Bradley Cooper at Cisco Systems in the Research Triangle Park. Last Friday, Stephens granted and sealed another warrant to search another place or person not disclosed on the order.

Stephens said in court that he had been concerned that the release of the warrant would have jeopardized the rights of a possible defendant.

Media attorneys asked the Stephens to determine if every part of the search warrant justified an order to seal. And, if not, to consider releasing that portions that didn’t jeopardize the interests of the state or a possible defendant.

Search warrants are typically made public soon after investigators complete their search.

“We seem to be seeing a proliferation of these orders lately,” said Hugh Stevens, an attorney representing The News & Observer and Capitol Broadcasting Company. Stevens expressed concern that investigators would get in a habit of concealing their work in criminal investigations from the public.

“I’m sure it’s always easier for [police] if everythings secret,” Stevens argued. “But that’s why we don’t have secret police.”

Much of Nancy Cooper’s death has been mysterious to the public. Police haven’t named or arrested a killer or even explained how she died.

On the other hand, the public’s learned intimate details about the young mother’s strained marriage and her failed attempts to leave her husband for a fresh start in her native Canada.

That turmoil was unveiled in a tense custody battle over the couple’s two young daughters. Nancy Cooper’s parents and her twin sister fought for custody of the girls, saying that Bradley Cooper was unfit and posed a danger to his children.

Nancy Cooper’s family will keep the Cooper girls for the next two and a half months — an agreement they reached with Bradley Cooper in a closed door meeting Friday.