Nephew Gets 20 For Stabbing Aunt

A Brooklyn man has been sentenced to 20 years in state prison for repeatedly stabbing his aunt and then setting her Jamaica home on fire after warning her not to sell the house. The defendant had been released from prison less than a week prior to the incident after serving more than ten years on assault and reckless endangerment charges.
&#8220By his own admission, the defendant stood across the street from the crime scene for about ten minutes and cold- bloodedly watched the house become engulfed in flames and did nothing, even though he knew his aunt and other relatives were trapped inside,” said District Attorney Richard A. Brown. &#8220Fortunately, everyone managed to escape the burning inferno that he had created. As more and more firefighters responded to the three-alarm fire, the defendant casually walked over to a local social club where he sat smoking cigarettes and drinking espressos with friends - all the while covered in his aunt's blood.”
The defendant has been identified as Anthony Copeland, 37, who was under parole supervision at the time of the incident. He pleaded guilty on June 5 to second-degree attempted murder and second-degree arson before Queens Supreme Court Justice Gregory L. Lasak who imposed a determinate sentence of twenty years in prison.
According to the criminal charges, the defendant showed up at his aunt's three-story house at 97-27 Sanders Place just before midnight on December 7, 2005, and confronted her in her bedroom about her plans to sell the house. In his plea allocution, the defendant said that when his aunt [Betty Pressley Bethel] refused to show him the deed to the house, he went to the kitchen, grabbed a knife and then returned to the bedroom, where he repeatedly stabbed her in the chest and torso. As she lay on the floor, begging him to stop, the defendant stated that he started to kick her in the face. He then stood over her and said &#8220produce the deed of the house or else this house is going up in flames.” When she did not comply, the defendant smoked a cigarette and, after extinguishing it, set fire to the blanket on her bed. He then walked into the kitchen and turned on the gas stove before exiting the house.