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Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. There was one more note. She had a piece of artwork. It was like a silly little canvas thing on the wall about family and something. And he'd written on that, you killed me first. Can't believe this.
It is season 10 and there are 250 episodes of Sword and Scale. A show that reveals that the worst monsters are real. That's a lot of dead people. ♪
The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new Toyota truck. Like a rugged, half-ton Tundra, workhorse by nature, powerhouse by design, the Tundra combines raw capability with premium comfort and advanced tech to fuel your wildest adventures. And with the available i-Force Max hybrid powertrain, you can take electrifying horsepower farther and
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So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals when you visit BuyAToyota.com. Toyota, let's go places. We all have dreams and goals in life. Big things we can visualize for ourselves and our futures. But these big dreams come with even bigger shoes to fill. The higher you aim, the more you will have to step up to the plate.
Even the most organic roles, like that of a parent, have certain expectations attached to them. Just like the world around you will expect certain things when you reach your goals, you have to expect the same for yourself. Because if you can't accept the blame for your own shortcomings, then you are doomed to stay stagnant forever. A middle school boy named Bryson Coplin
had a strange feeling while in class one November morning in 2014. He had a dark, sickening pit in his stomach. Bryson lived with his mother, 30-year-old Amber Lynn Coplin, and the two shared a small duplex in Port Orchard, Washington. Bryson tried texting his mother, but she wasn't responding. Bryson called his dad to pick him up from school.
Bryson's father, Paul, picked him up and took him back to Amber's house. Amber and Paul had four boys together and they were recently separated. Bryson had chosen to live with his mother while his brother stayed with Paul. Bryson's dad dropped him off and hugged him goodbye, letting him know to call if he needed anything. Bryson went inside the house. He called his mom's name but no response.
He figured she was at work. Bryson took a shower and tried to take a nap, but when he woke up, the feeling was still there. So Bryson got up and walked toward his mom's room. That's when he noticed a foul odor seeping from under the door. And he went in the room and found his mom. He said that the blinds were drawn and he went in and the blankets were pulled up over her and...
Her driver's license was over her. I think there was a pillow on her head and the driver's license was over her pillow. And he just left and he called his dad. This is prosecutor Ione George. My name is Ione George. I'm chief of staff of the Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office. Ione was the lead prosecutor in this case. We know now there was a lot of markings and things in the room that he had left behind. I don't
Bryson didn't report seeing that stuff. He just left the room and called his dad. And so then his dad came over and went back into the house. Bryson had found his mother, Amber, dead in her bedroom. She was naked, but the covers had been pulled up to her neck. A pillow had been placed over her head and her driver's license was put on top of it.
Whoever did this had left some messages in the room. Amber's killer knew that Bryson would come home and find his mother this way.
He knew the heartache this murder would cause her son. There was one more note. She had a piece of artwork. It was like a silly little canvas thing on the wall about family and something. And he'd written on that, you killed me first. The police soon arrived and cleared out the small duplex. Amber was pronounced dead at the scene. In fact, she had been dead for hours. Her bedroom was a mess.
Amber's purse and its contents of makeup, keys, and paperwork had been expelled all over the floor. Clothes had been tossed around. Sheets were ripped off the bed. The tiny room looked like a tornado had torn through it and left Amber's naked, dead body in the middle. We have a medical examiner determine she had significant bruising. She had bruises.
She had suffered blunt force trauma to her head, so she'd been struck, either determined potentially her head beaten against the headboard, the wall, or, you know, a blunt trauma object hit her. She had been...
Her hyoid bone was broken, which we know from one of the medical examiner that we retained, as well as the detective's experience, is consistent with manual strangulation. She also had ligature wrapped around her neck. The evidence indicates it was wrapped twice around because there was the way the pressure marks were so wrapped around twice. Amber's murder had been aggressive and savage. Her killer,
had left not only confession notes on the walls of her bedroom, but also online. On November 4th at 2.56pm, an anonymous poster logged into the website 4chan, whom we all know and love. Sarcasm. The poster started uploading pictures of Amber's naked, dead body. Amber's head was tilted back and her mouth was propped open like a marionette.
The anonymous poster wrote, Four minutes later, he typed again. He posted another photo. This time, the angle was further back and viewers could see Amber's entire exposed, lifeless body on her bare mattress. Then, the killer added,
Check the news for Port Orchard, Washington in a few hours. Her son will be home from school. He'll find her, then call the cops. I just wanted to share the pics before they find me. I bought a BB gun. That looks realistic enough. When they come, I'll pull it out, and it'll be suicide by cop. I understand the doubts. Just check the fucking news. I have to lose my phone now. Then the poster went dark.
And the updates stop. It's evil. And the thing that always struck me is that it's a very physical act to do what he did. And I know from the evidence that Amber fought. She fought, but she did it quietly. And I've always believed that she was trying to save her son. That she didn't want to wake him up. That she didn't want him to be harmed. Because that's the other thing.
Investigators had determined that Amber had been killed the night before her son found her. This means that he had been in the house just a few feet away while some monster strangled and beat his mother to death, then posted pictures of the entire gruesome act. Bryson was right there the whole time.
And he had no idea. The room that he had, and it was a little house, a little duplex, and the bedroom he had shared a wall with his mom's room. So he was just one wall between the room that they were in. So when he was in his room, we knew later, while he was in his room playing his game, his mom was being killed in the neighboring room. And, you know, it all...
He figured this all out. So we have this child who ultimately knew what happened and he could never really say the words. But, you know, he was a smart person. He knew what happened. As Ione said, Amber fought, but she did it quietly. Even her next door neighbor told the local media she didn't hear a sound. I hear them banging, you know, closing cupboards, their washer and dryer. But I've never, ever heard fighting.
As police took Bryson and his father Paul down to the station, they continued to search Amber's duplex. The only sign of a struggle appeared to be in Amber's room. Everything else was in order. There was no forced entry, no strange trails of blood or mess in any other areas of the house. Whoever had done this had gone as quietly as they came.
And Amber's killer had also taken off in her car. News of Amber's gruesome murder spread all over the small Port Orchard community. Other residents in the apartment complex were also shaken by the news. Yeah, I don't understand. She doesn't love her and stuff. It's hard to think about. I was shocked. I thought this was a safe neighborhood. There's schools close by and stuff. So it was pretty sad.
It wasn't just the murder, but the graphic pictures that had been posted online that upset the public so much. Just to post the pictures of what he wrote, it makes the crime a hundred times worse. The fact that Amber's killer strategically uploaded these photos to 4chan was a big deal and sparked tons of outrage in the blogosphere, whatever the fuck that is, and social media.
4chan is a dark place already. It's notorious as a hunting ground for creeps to search for celebrity nudes, revenge porn, and other unsavory things a little too legal for the dark web. When Amber's killer began uploading the graphic photos of her murder, the comments came flooding in.
Most users joked about why strangulation looks easier in the movies while another suggested tying the victim's hands and feet together first. You know that saying we have around here, people are shit? It's based on things like 4chan. Because when you add anonymity and strip away any accountability, you allow people to show their true colors. And on 4chan, they most certainly will.
A few of these users also asked for timestamps. Some bragged that they could have done a better job. Some threw in the word faggot just for fun. 4chan is really the bottom of the barrel. It's Reddit without a soul. The truth was that there was only one person who could have posted these photos on 4chan. We all know who it was. It was...
The guy who did this to Amber. And he was on the run in her car. Now the police just had to find him.
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Amber Coplin had been brutally murdered in her bedroom in Port Orchard, Washington while her teenage son was sleeping in the room next door. Her killer had then posted gruesome photos of her naked body on the website 4chan and confessed to her murder. Then he took off in Amber's car. Her son Bryson had told police that Amber's boyfriend, 32-year-old David Kalak,
had been over the night before and that he had heard them arguing. He recounted for us later that the night before his mom and Kalak had been arguing, his mom had come and knocked on the door. I don't recall exactly the time, 10 o'clock or so, and asked for a sleeping bag because Kalak was going to sleep on the couch. And he'd come out and handed him the sleeping bag and just assumed that David was going to sleep on the couch. And he went back
David Kalak stayed at Amber's house with her and Bryson. David was a painter, so he and Bryson often got ready in the mornings together, while Amber slept in for her 12-9 shift selling insurance for State Farm. The morning after Amber's murder, Bryson said things were different.
Bryson didn't think much of all of this until he got home and found Amber dead in her bedroom. It was now obvious that David had done this. It couldn't have been anyone else.
No one in Amber's life was too crazy about David, especially her best friend, Wendy Nelson. My nickname for him was Douchebag Dan. I didn't ever call him by his real name. How do you know him? He's the guy that sucked off of Amber. Amber had started dating David, or Douchebag Dan, after she and her husband Paul stopped living together.
Wendy remembered the whole affair because she and the Copland family were still neighbors at the time. Was she seeing David when she was living across the street? At the very end before she left. She left with him. She did like a Hail Mary and gave up everything and took off across the country with him.
And where did they go? To his parents' house. They live on the East Coast. I want to say Virginia Beach. Okay. And that was four years ago. Okay. Wendy said that Amber had known David since high school, and after her separation from Paul, Amber was swept away by David, and the two took off on a nine-month road trip.
Though the romance started well, things soon took a turn for the worse. That's where he was first physically abusive to her. He knocked her out out there and his mother witnessed it actually.
I remember her telling me this. Do you know if the police were called in regards to that incident? Yes, I believe I remember her telling me that. It's when he punched her in the face and he knocked her out. Do you know if... And there was a thing in the swimming pool where he tried to drown her. Okay. Do you know if any criminal charges were ever filed? No, but I remember her telling me these things. And it's like, oh, we had all been drinking. Yeah.
It's like, really? That doesn't... Amber and David returned to Washington from their trip, and Wendy said that's when Amber's feelings for David changed. She came back and realized what her priorities were. You know what? She had her first kid. She was pregnant at 15. And she didn't get a childhood, a teenage year, or any time you do all that crazy stuff.
And then after having the kids and stuff, break up with the husband, this guy walks in and, okay, let's do it. And she took off, left these boys with their dad, and she had regretted it from the day she came back. And she's worked her ass off to change that, to make up for that nine months.
Amber felt horrible for leaving her kids and exiting the role of mom to live out her youth. She got back to Port Orchard, found a job in insurance sales, rented a house, and slowly began to build back trust with her family. Soon, her oldest son Bryson moved in. Even though they broke up for a bit after their trip, David found his way back into Amber's life.
and then moved into her place. The couple was generally happy, but they would bicker and fight. Amber's father and stepmother witnessed violence between the couple. So her stepmom had a lot of contact with me through the case and shared a lot of stories about Amber and her relationship with Kalak. And they weren't good. Amber had visited dad and stepmom, and there had been violence in the home when she was visiting there. You know, stepmom related to me,
where they tried to kick him out of the house. There had been domestic violence in the home when they visited, so I got a picture through the family of domestic violence and bad history there. It happens in life, and it doesn't always lead to murder. There's bad relationships. They knew that Kalak had alcohol issues, but Amber had alcohol issues. There was a history there, and the family was aware of it, and I don't think they really liked him in her life, but...
Nobody in Amber's life supported her relationship with David. But still, as Ione said, domestic violence doesn't always lead to murder. And Amber's murder was a calculated, vile, humiliating escapade. This wasn't a drunken fight that went too far. David took his time.
Not only to slowly strangle her and brag about her murder on 4chan, but Aion believes that he did a lot more than that. If you look at the photographs that he posted of her online, he poses her body. She's completely naked, but she's not marked when he poses the pictures online.
When Amber was found, the investigators noticed not only the things David had scribbled around the room like "bad news," "dead," and "she killed me first," but he had also written on Amber's body. And he has the body posed in such a way he's put pillows or something behind her shoulders and her head so that her neck is thrown back so you can see the ligature mark on her.
Those are the ones that he posted on 4chan. And her mouth is open, and you can see she wears dentures. So on those photographs that are posted on 4chan, she's completely naked, but her body is clean and unmarked, and the dentures are in her mouth. David had posted three images of Amber on 4chan, along with his confession and plan. And when the investigators went in, they have a device that's called a total station, but it can, like,
depict the entire room so that you can go in and manipulate the room so you can stand in any position and recreate and go around the room. Kind of like a 3D dimensional thing and reinsert everything. And you can... When we did that, we tried to recreate where and how the position he had to be in to take the photograph that he took of her. And the only way... Given her position on the bed when he took the photos of her that he posted on 4chan...
The position she was on the bed, the only way he could have taken that photo would have been into the very corner of the bed, which would have cornered him in the very corner of the room, kneeling on top of her with her head down beneath him. So he was kneeling in the corner with her underneath him with her head like between his knees thrown back with her mouth open. David took his time. He quietly moved her body around the room, propping up blankets and pillows.
so he could get the right angle for his sick, disgusting photo shoot. And then he wrote on her body, and he bit her breasts, and he wrote A.D., and there was debate by the doctors whether the bite marks were actually A. after she died or before she died, and he wrote on her body. It was hard to read some of the things he wrote, but...
You know, I think you can see if you read everything that she and her girlfriend jokingly used to call him Douchebag Dan and it looked like that's what he'd written, Douchebag Dan, on her body. But, you know, he wrote things on her, so he marked her body, he defaced her. In the full body photos on 4chan, Amber was placed diagonally across the bed. But when her son found her the next day, she was straight in a normal sleeping position.
The defacement, the photos, the notes on the wall, this was all planned. When her body is found, she's placed straight in the bed. Her dentures are gone. They're strewed across the floor. I think one is tangled in her hair, one is on the floor, and her body is written all over with the markings. So something happens to her between.
David left Amber's body for her son to find. Then he took off in her car heading south toward Oregon.
But we tracked him down the corridor because he took her credit card with him. He got gas. He bought vodka and orange juice at one place. He went into a pawn shop and sold his computer. And we had video of him doing that. After pawning his computer, David stopped at Walmart. Why do they always stop at Walmart? What is it about Walmart and murder? I don't get it. And we had video of him in there. He went in. He bought a...
like a BB gun that looked like a real gun and we had video of him in there. Then he went out into the parking lot of the Walmart and we had video of him going into his car there and he stayed there for, I don't remember the exact time now, but at the time that he was in the Walmart parking lot is the time that we got the postings on 4chan.
Chugging his vodka and orange juice, David sat in his car and uploaded the photos he had carefully crafted of Amber onto 4chan and then left his confession. He had a plan and he followed through with the plan and hours later was posting what the plan was. And then he kept driving and went to what we have in a bar in Portland that night. People said, oh, he was really friendly. Seemed to have a girlfriend that he talked about.
After the bar, David got in Amber's car and kept driving. Along the way, he texted friends before ditching his phone. And then he had communications with people. He said, you're going to see me in the news. He had a couple of communities. A friend contacted him and was trying to get some money back that he owed her. And he said, sorry, not going to do it. I've done something bad. I mean, he had communications with people on the way.
Then, things got a little crazy. David set up shop at an abandoned homeless camp. He continued drinking and he took some Tazadon? Tazadon? I don't know. You're all going to tell me I said it wrong anyway, so whatever.
He laid out the BB gun and waited. After the chase, he figured the cops would soon find him and he could die the way he had professed on 4chan: suicide by cop. But the police never came. In fact, no one came. Not even the homeless guy whose camp it was. On the corner of the smelly mattress at the camp, he wrote "Dave's Last Stand."
Then he found some paper in a Rubbermaid container and penned yet another confession note. I killed Amber Copland. I strangled her with my hands, then a shoelace. I did it because I was drunk and she pissed me off. Running from the cops was fun. But David got bored and lonely out there on the smelly mattress without his computer or his phone or 4chan or the cops or anyone.
He also, you know, had run out of booze and the pills hadn't kicked in yet. So he decided to call it. He came out of the woods. There was an officer. There was a transit station down there and there was an officer parked in a car just monitoring the station. And he said somebody came out of the woods and approached him and said, I think there's a warrant for me. I want to turn myself in. The media, as well as the police in Oregon,
We're shocked. Well, it's very bizarre. As you know, there's been quite the manhunt for him today and a lot of Portland officers out looking for him. We had some reports of him being in the Portland area and very unheard of for something like this to happen, but we're glad that it didn't. It's a good ending to this. David was arrested and taken into custody. Wrapped in a blanket and coming down off all the alcohol and trazodone, he looked half-dead.
in the interrogation room. This man brutally killed his girlfriend and left a trail of confessions all over the Pacific Northwest. He wasn't hiding from what he did. He was bragging about it. The police expected a confession, an answer as to why, but David shocked them.
David, do you understand each of the rights I've explained to you? Yes. And having those rights in mind, do you wish to continue speaking with us now? Not without a lawyer present. Okay. David wanted a lawyer. It made no sense. The news of Amber's death and the 4chan killer had spread all over the internet and legacy media. These pictures of Amber were circulating and her children had seen them. Amber's estranged husband, Paul...
was afraid of what seeing them would do to their boys. I worry about, in the future, somebody trying to use what they have of those photos left over to hurt the children somehow. That's one of my biggest fears. Paul struggled with the idea that these horrible pictures of the mother of his children were out there for all to see.
And there was no way to get them taken down. The fans and family, they don't remember her like the rest of the world does. And that's all we care about. Because we know better. She was a good mom. She was a loving wife, a wonderful sister. You name it, anything, good words, they're all there. Amber was a good mom. A loving friend and a dutiful girlfriend. But something happened between her and David that no one knew about.
Except for Wendy. Wendy had an idea as to why David had killed her best friend. Were there things that she told you that she didn't want him to know that she was telling you? I knew. Okay. I feel like I'm betraying common sense for her. Well, we're trying to do right by Amber. Okay. And the only way that we can...
do right by her is to do the best investigation we can and bring the person responsible for harming her and killing her to justice. And we don't want
For you to feel like you're violating her confidence, but you knew her best. You're the last person to possibly have spoken to her. You knew what was going on in the relationship. And so anything that you can tell us to help us catch the person who killed her is not betraying her. It's helping her. She was pregnant by him.
You know how far along she was? She was not very pregnant. But she knew she didn't want to have any more kids. Me and her had already had this discussion. She was getting fixed. She got pregnant if you breathed on her. Next to Amber's dead body, beside her bed, some of her drawers had been emptied. Amongst the mess of undergarments, credit cards, and body lotions were two positive pregnancy tests on a sheet of paper
from the Kitsap Public Health District regarding her pregnancy. She has four beautiful babies. She has four boys. No mom anymore. Did Dave know that Amber was pregnant? Yeah, he knew. And he wanted to have this kid because he didn't think he could have any kids. And he wanted this baby. And he was...
He wanted her to have this baby. Why didn't he think he could take it? Because he's 32 years old and none of the people he's been with have ever gotten pregnant. And da da da da. Because he's a douchebag. Was Amber with anybody else during? No, she was with Dave. Did she not want the baby? No. She finally has a good job when she's moving up. She started at State Farm and she's
Amber had her first kid when she was 15. She had already raised four boys and was finally getting her life in order. Her relationship with David was hardly stable. David drank too much. They drank too much. Amber told Wendy that bringing a baby into this volatile relationship was...
Not a smart idea. Because he was supposed to leave. She said she told him he had two weeks. And originally, he had told her if she had an abortion, he was leaving. That was it. He was angry. David was adamant about keeping the child. She took like the plan B thing is how she ended the pregnancy. We have a few drinks here.
Amber terminated the pregnancy but only told Wendy about it. That weekend they were watching the Seahawks game with David and tensions rose when David questioned why Amber was drinking alcohol.
Amber and David started fighting in front of Wendy. But he backed off and sat down and then when she walked up, I filled in the cover story and I said, "She's drinking because she's upset she lost the baby." So I was filling in the cover story for her because obviously she was drinking and he knew that. And that's kind of where it started stewing.
Amber and Wendy were the only ones who knew the truth about what happened. And that's the other reason I told her just not to say anything. Take the plan, please. Tell them you had a miscarriage.
I know that's like kind of shady and everything, but he's already aggressive and whatever. Well, I mean, it was her safety plan. That was what I said to her. And I could see her being aggressive back and like throwing it in his face. I could totally see that. He is bigger and stronger than you.
It was all starting to make sense now. Maybe their fight was about the baby. And as Wendy said, maybe Amber threw the loss in David's face.
Or maybe David started rummaging through her drawers and found the paperwork from Planned Parenthood. Nobody knew for sure how he found out the truth, but Ione and her team were sure that the abortion was the motive. So we think part of his anger was he was mad at her that she had an abortion and he wrote, "You killed me first," related to the abortion. David was locked up and he wasn't saying a word.
Ione and the team at the Kitsap County Prosecutor's Office had a factually strong case filled with written confessions and DNA evidence. This should have been a slam dunk. But when it rains, man, it pours. Especially in the Pacific Northwest. And David's trial was going to be a real shitstorm. This episode is brought to you by Allianz Travel Insurance.
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Hardy Fiber Cement Siding handles conditions that can cause damage to vinyl. From fire to hail, Hardy Siding stands tall through it all, helping trade professionals look their best when they recommend Hardy Siding and Trim. See the proof at JamesHardy.com. David Kalak had viciously murdered his girlfriend, Amberlynn Coplin, in her home after he found out she had aborted their baby. David strangled Amber, sexually abused her corpse,
then posted graphic photos of her murder on 4chan. Then he took off in her car with a plan to die. But things didn't unfold the way he expected, and he eventually just turned himself in. Now David was facing first-degree murder, and prosecutor Ione George and her team in Kitsap County had to bring some justice for Amber Kitsap.
and her family. Though the case was strong for the prosecution, the defense had a plan. Here's Ione George again. In the state of Washington, you have speedy trial rights. If you're in custody, you have a right to trial within 60 days. And that was the defense strategy in this case. So he was his attorney, defense attorney, who had been a prosecutor in our office for many years and then went to the Office of Public Defense.
So someone that we knew and had worked with, his defense strategy was to push to trial and go to trial in 60 days, thinking that he could get it to trial before the state was ready to go. We had, I mean, you can see the evidence. We had overwhelming evidence of this person, but a lot of it was technical evidence. It was a smart defense strategy. The prosecution had a ton of timestamps, IP addresses, toll booths, and phone cards to sift through.
We had to prove that he was the person who posted those photographs, but we couldn't get into the phone. We didn't have the ability to prove that. You know, I told you ultimately that we could show he had posted those photos when he was sitting in the parking lot of Walmart, but that took a lot of search warrants and technical...
grinding through the evidence to get those IP addresses and match them up and that took a lot of work to get that fine-tuned detail evidence to prove that it was him and those addresses matched up to those times and match him up to prove that that was him posting that evidence that takes time to piece together that kind of evidence and get the testimony together on that and his attorney was smart and knew that we were going to be hard-pressed to put that stuff together that quickly
David had left DNA, but it had to be processed and proven. Remember, Amber was killed on the evening of November 3rd, 2014. David posted the images to 4chan on November 4th. He was caught, then arraigned on November 7th.
The trial was set for January 5th. In the grand scheme of a murder trial, this is huge. That was barely any time at all. What had happened on this case at the front end was the prosecutors assigned to the case had sent all the evidence out for testing. They'd sent the DNA evidence out. They'd sent the phone out to get it tested. They...
You know, we had that note written there, but we had to prove that he had written the note. He was going to tell us he wrote the note, so they'd sent it out for a handwriting expert to do. The victim had bite marks on her, and they wanted to get a forensic dental examination done to match up and say he's the one who bit her. They were just trying to get all of the evidence together. All the evidence was out for testing.
By mid-December, the prosecution was overwhelmed and nothing was ready. They would surely lose this case without an extension. So they went to the judge and asked for a continuance. You know, he has a right to speedy trial, but we have a right to prosecute our case. And the court agreed and moved the trial beyond the speedy trial deadline. That's when Ione received a call during her Christmas vacation at home saying,
and took the lead in prosecuting Amber's case. That's about when I got the call at home and said, when you come back in, will you please help out with this trial because we think we're going to have some issues. But David's defense lawyer was not happy with the continuance and he fought it hard. Meanwhile, the county was still processing the DNA evidence and the FBI had David's cell phone, but they still couldn't get into it.
It was the Christmas holidays, everyone was working from home, if at all. There were some small updates to the status of the evidence, but the prosecution made a crucial mistake and submitted an old affidavit to the court, neglecting to relay the changes. This may not seem like a big deal, but in litigation land?
Every dot on the I and every cross on the T counts. After all that, the defense found out we had heard updates and we hadn't told the court, so they moved to dismiss the case for prosecutorial misconduct for not advising the court. And that's kind of snowballed the whole thing. At that point then, the whole case kind of turned into a nightmare because then the defense said that we had withheld information from the court and the trial should be dismissed based on prosecutorial misconduct.
It was clear that David's defense lawyer was not going to take this lying down. It was difficult because we were dealing with a case that was so overwhelmingly strong fact-wise, but dealing with very, very aggressive defense tactics and accusations about our conduct, and the trial became more about accusations about us
who was doing what then what was the evidence in the case and that was very problematic the defense was going for the jugular it was all getting so intense between the lawyers then the defense attorney died this started things all over again and a new legal team entered the picture on David's behalf
A diminished capacity defense is exactly what it sounds like. David was a serious alcoholic.
And he clung to that narrative as an excuse for what he did to Amber. Here's an interview he did from prison with a YouTube show called "Killer's Crawl Space." Hello out there, my name is Dan Kalak. I was born in 1981. I grew up in Kitsap County in Washington State. David recounted the day
He killed Amber. I know I started my day with a screwdriver, because I always do. And that'll, you know, get rid of the sheiks and make it so that I can go to work. I don't remember any of what I actually did during that day at work. I remember getting home.
I know we had to stop by a convenience store on the way home because I got an 18-pack ice house and I was drinking that while I was waiting to go to the grocery store to grab another half gallon of vodka. And I knew we were ever buying, but I knew that I had because I knew we were drinking that night. And after that, I don't remember Amber coming home. I don't remember us getting into any kind of an argument.
His defense was he didn't remember it. I mean, his defense was I'm essentially not accountable because I was in a blackout stage and I don't know what I was doing. To say that I was on alcohol and I don't remember, I don't know, is so offensive to me.
The blackouts are a crazy thing. I've heard from a lot of people that, you know, old memories are supposed to trickle back over time and this and that, and nothing's ever changed. I remember being in a bar in Portland, joking around with somebody, and that was, of course, later that night.
I remember like a flash of having my hands around her neck.
And what our judge determined was, well, he had a substance abuse disorder. And the substance abuse disorder prevented him from stopping drinking. And because of that, he had to drink. And because he had to drink, the drinking prevented him from forming the mental state. Alcoholism.
as a mental illness, not as an addiction, but as a mental illness, went into the mental health guidelines
Similarly to this interview...
Ione said that at trial, David took zero responsibility for his actions. We got a sentencing aggravator for the egregious lack of remorse. David still claims that he has no memory of posting the images to 4chan. No, I don't remember doing that. They showed during trial, they showed a video of me walking out of Walmart, which is, I guess, right now.
And because he was in the toxic state, he couldn't form the intent. And we said, well,
He had the ability to write the things out and say, this is what I'm going to do. And then his son is going to find him. And he did. There was a plan. He was able to say, I tried to kill her, but I couldn't do it. So I got another tool. He could form that plan. He could get in the car and drive from point A to point B. There's a plan. He could go upon his computer. We talked to the people at the pawn shop. They understood him. He could clearly do that. He could
sell a computer, there's a thought process he could do. He could flee from the police, there's a thought process. He could buy his vodka, there's a thought process. He could go say, I'm going to go get a gun and shoot it out with the police. Clearly, he could form intent and follow through and have a logical thought process. David blamed everything on his alcoholism, his anger, his depression, his rage. But in jail...
He wasn't waking up to a screwdriver every morning, much less a Bloody Mary. And yet... You know he committed another offense when he was in jail. We prosecuted him for attempted murder. There was another inmate in the jail who had known Amber. He'd been a roommate of her. He was kind of a...
David waited until the time was right. Then he formulated a plan to get Amber's former friend.
When the guy that was taunting him was on his timeout, he was in an upstairs tier cell, so his door was open. Kalak put a playing card in the lock of his cell door. And so when this guy was on timeout, Kalak was able to get out of his cell. He went up to that guy's cell, closed the door. Once the door is closed, you can't get out. Pulled him out of his bunk and started bashing his head into the steel sink.
I think everybody gets angry from time to time. But, you know, when I'm sober, I deal with it in a completely different way than I do when I'm angry. You know, when I'm sober, I can go, okay, you know, I got to look at this from this thing. You know, what's going on here? What's my part in it? You know, I really try to be political about it. And I really try...
With all the complications,
David's trial took years before it actually happened. But it was a success. David Kalak was charged with first degree murder in the death of Amber Lynn Copland. He was sentenced to 82 years and he will sit in jail blaming his alcoholism and having a pity party until the day that he dies. He's not happy with his sentence, by the way. Naturally, he thinks it's unfair.
He was evil. He did heinous things. He ruined these children's lives. He's frightening people.
I don't understand the capacity to do what he did. And that's one of the things I tell a jury when I'm presenting a case like this. You don't understand. And thank goodness you can't understand. You shouldn't understand. You don't want to understand. You don't do things like this. You can't understand why things like this are done. Thank God you can't. David Kalak was an angry drunk who killed Amber Coplin out of rage.
Whether he was angry about the abortion or not, we'll never know. Regardless, it doesn't matter. David, by the way, has never confirmed this. Only he knows his true motive. What we do know is that he intentionally humiliated Amber. He killed her with his bare hands and made sure that her death was broadcast online for anyone and everyone to see.
He showed off her body in its most vulnerable state, and he admittedly left it that way for her eldest son to find. For that act alone, he will always be pure evil. Amber's son could barely recount the events with Ione and her team. He had been destroyed by what he saw, and by what he knew happened.
beyond his bedroom wall. He didn't want to talk to us, you know, and not that I can blame him, but we had a lot of meetings just bringing him in and saying hello and talking and just, he wouldn't say a word to us. He was clearly very, very impacted by this and just did not want to talk about what had happened. And I always suspected he just...
He felt so bad that he never heard it. He couldn't stop it. That he hadn't stopped it, you know? He was there. His mom was dead and he didn't stop it. But he couldn't have. David Kalak couldn't accept his own shortcomings. Maybe he really wanted to be a father. But he just wasn't father material. When the opportunity to fulfill his dream of parenthood came, Amber and the other people around him
didn't believe that he could step up to the role. And why do you think that is, David? Why do you think that is? Was it because they were all wrong and you were right? I know you can't hear me right now, by the way, because, you know, you're in prison. David looked at his drinking as something that he was a victim of, not something he could control and change. The same went for his rage towards women.
He wallowed in self-pity and continues to do this as he sits in his little miserable prison cell, wherever the hell that is. David committed a calculated, vicious, and disgusting murder that he refuses to take any responsibility for. Amber's children and the rest of her family will forever miss the mother, sister, and daughter they cherished because one man
was too sick and too selfish to accept the reality of his own fucking life. Thanks for joining us. If you like this sort of thing, you can get a lot more of it at swordandskill.com slash plus for a fair price, that is. See you next time. Stay safe.
Hi, um, okay, this is so random, but this morning I was like reading slash watching all the drama, I guess you'd call it, with like podcast one and live one, um,
And that dumbass Colin Thompson who like stole, well, allegedly stole millions of dollars from all these podcasters. And I immediately thought of you, which is kind of creepy, but I just thought of you and how you decided to like think your own app and kind of do your own thing and like how you produce it all and do all your, I don't know, podcast shit. And I just wanted to say good job for doing that. And like, good job for going your own way and not listening to anyone and kind of doing
kind of paving your own path. And I know we had like technical issues and you had to wait sometimes for the app and
all the other shit that went with it but it was worth it and I'm so glad that you weren't affected by all of it and that you didn't get you know frauded like everybody else and I'm just glad that you're not hurting right now like them and um yeah so you should just be proud of yourself and keep doing what you're doing um not like you're gonna listen or like you need our opinion anyway but we love you your podcast is amazing you're amazing and I'm glad you're not affected okay bye
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