- March 10, 2025
In the three weeks between when a jury found William Copeland guilty of attempted first-degree murder and when he sat in court for his sentencing, a faint beard spread across his face.
His friends and family spoke Friday at his sentencing hearing, asking that the 21-year-old be spared from a lifetime sentence. Copeland was denied youthful sentence for the crime.
Copeland, 21, was found guilty last month of attempted first-degree murder, aggravated battery with a firearm and shooting into a building after he shot Accursio Venezia, his girlfriend’s father, in May 2011.
Circuit Judge Raul Zambrano said Copeland’s crime and his extensive record prevented him from giving a sentence based on what those who testified on Copeland’s behalf at his sentencing hearing said: That he was a good person. Assistant State Attorney Mark Johnson, who prosecuted Copeland, said Copeland had been issued several injunctions against more than one girl, which he repeatedly violated.
Zambrano sentenced Copeland to 40 years in prison. Included in that sentence is a 25-year minimum sentence, which he must serve day for day.
The only time Copeland showed any reaction during his sentencing hearing was when his mother, Stacy Becker, spoke. He looked at her from across the courtroom and shook his head slightly from time to time as she spoke of her son’s intermittent relationship with Corina Venezia, with whom has a daughter, who is now 2.
“I just don’t understand what happened,” Becker said. “He’s a good kid. We all change as we grow older … A lot of us did things when we were kids, that we might not have gotten in trouble (for), but we look back at them and know they were wrong.”
Becker said her son told her he didn’t shoot Accursio Veneizia, and she believed him.
Johnson asked Becker whether she ever told Copeland to stay away from Corina Venezia. She said she’d suggested that Copeland stay away from her while he cooled down from arguments, saying that the two “fought like an old married couple” and that she’d thought time apart would do them good.
“Maybe I needed to pay a little more attention to William and Corina’s relationship,” she said. “Something went wrong, and I don’t know what went wrong, but I just don’t want my son’s life to be taken.”
Zambrano asked Becker about a statement she had made in an earlier testimony: That the night of the shooting, she’d told her son to stay home. Becker said this was true.
Even after his conviction, Copeland never wavered from him not guilty plea.
“I’m sorry for the victim’s family,” he said. “I did not do it. I was accused of doing it. I hope everyone can see that.”
Before Zambrano delivered his sentence, he told Copeland people in prison would be asking what he was in for.
“You can tell them, ‘The jury found me guilty of attempted first-degree murder,” Zambrano said. “Or you can tell them, ‘I shot a man.’
Or, you can simply tell them, ‘I didn’t listen to my mother,’ because that is really what led you to the position you are in right now.”
Copeland faced up to a life sentence, with a 25-year minimum sentence.
