SARASOTA, Fla. (AP) - A man who pleaded guilty to murder after faking his girlfriend's suicide and telling friends about it has been sentenced to 25 years in prison.
The Sarasota Herald-Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/2bNgWJ5 ) that 48-year-old Brian Wilson pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for the death of Jennifer Copeland in 2015.
Prosecutors say Wilson told authorities that his 43-year-old girlfriend committed suicide, but confessed that he'd killed her to three people he knew. Prosecutors say he gave up on the false suicide story after learning that they had all agreed to testify against him.
Officers who responded to Copeland's apartment found her hanging by a rope, but later learned that Wilson had shown Copeland's mother the noose hanging there previously.
He was later arrested in a stolen vehicle after telling friends he was going to Atlanta to "disappear."
