Cooper Sentenced to Life For Starbucks Slayings By Bill Miller Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, April 26, 2000; Page B01 Carl Derek Cooper avoided a possible death sentence yesterday by pleading guilty to killing three people at a Starbucks coffee shop and a host of other crimes for which a judge sentenced him to a life prison term with no chance of parole. Cooper wept in U.S. District Court as he pleaded guilty to carrying out the triple slayings, which took place in July 1997 in Northwest Washington. But he never verbally expressed the slightest remorse, even though the courtroom was packed with dozens of relatives of the victims--grieving parents, grandparents, siblings and others. In a loud, clear voice, Cooper said "guilty" 47 times as Senior Judge Joyce Hens Green painstakingly went through the murder, racketeering, robbery and other charges against him. A 48th count in the indictment was dismissed for technical reasons. As part of a plea bargain signed Monday, Cooper was to get life with no hope of parole. The guilty plea came just one week before Cooper, 30, was to stand trial in what would have been the first death penalty case in the District in nearly 30 years. The last execution of a D.C. prisoner took place in 1957. For prosecutors, the outcome was a certain way to keep a man they described as a career criminal off the streets. For the victims' families, it was a way to avoid a wrenching three-month trial and the possibility of years of appeals. For Cooper, his decision was a way to remove the risk of execution as well as protect his mother and wife from possible prosecution. As part of the plea bargain, prosecutors agreed not to pursue criminal charges against Cooper's wife, Melissa, or his mother, Gwendolyn. They said his wife had purchased a handgun he used in a robbery and that his mother sometimes wrote him checks from her own account in exchange for the cash proceeds of his robberies. Sources familiar with the plea negotiations said Cooper's concern about his family was a major factor in his decision to accept a guilty plea. But so was the weight of evidence against him, assembled by the FBI and police from the District and Prince George's County. "The plea and the sentence today remove from our streets a very dangerous individual for the rest of his life," said U.S. Attorney Wilma A. Lewis. Prosecutors said they had lined up some of Cooper's former associates to testify against him and cited evidence tying him to a long series of crimes. The government's witnesses included Earnest Burwell, 28, of Northeast Washington, who accompanied Cooper on many robberies and had agreed to join him in going after the Starbucks shop. Cooper wound up acting on his own, and Burwell later told authorities about the Starbucks plans and aided police by secretly recording his conversations with Cooper. The agreement brings an end to one of the most highly publicized murder cases in the District's history. The slayings took place July 6, 1997, in the 1800 block of Wisconsin Avenue NW, a usually quiet area where the coffee shop was a magnet for neighbors. Killed were Mary Caitrin Mahoney, 25, the store's manager, and employees Emory Allen Evans, 25, and Aaron David Goodrich, 18. For months, authorities struggled to come up with leads. A tipster eventually led them to Cooper, but it took more than a year of exhaustive investigation before he finally was arrested in March 1999. He later gave police a statement in which he admitted carrying out the killings, along with other crimes. In court yesterday, Cooper confirmed he decided to rob the Starbucks shop on a Sunday night because he figured he would get more cash from the July Fourth weekend's worth of business. He said he went into the store after closing with a .38-caliber semiautomatic pistol and a .38-caliber revolver, announced plans for a robbery and ordered everyone to go into a back office that held the store's safe. Cooper said that he fired a warning shot into the ceiling and that Mahoney then ran from the office and into a hallway. "I told her to go back in the room," he said in court yesterday, as some of the victims' relatives quietly wept. "She started going for the gun. The gun went off. I shot her. The two guys in the room, they started to come out, and I shot them." Cooper said he fled the coffee shop without any money. Although D.C. law does not provide for the death penalty, federal law made it an option in the Starbucks case. In February, Attorney General Janet Reno decided to seek capital punishment, going against Lewis's recommendation. Reno's decision generated much community opposition, with Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.), D.C. Council members and others noting that D.C. voters rejected the death penalty in a 1992 referendum. But once Reno made her decision, prosecutors pushed the case for execution. They said Cooper was responsible for a series of crimes dating to 1993 and routinely turned to violence when victims resisted. The indictment charged him with eight specific incidents, including the June 1993 slaying of security guard Sandy Griffin in Northwest Washington, several robberies or planned robberies of stores and businesses in Maryland and Pennsylvania, and the shooting of Bruce Howard, an off-duty Prince George's County police officer, during an attempted robbery at a Hyattsville park in August 1996. Defense lawyers Steven R. Kiersh and Francis D. Carter approached Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein about the possibility of a plea bargain after they got the prosecution's witness list and a clearer picture of the evidence against Cooper. After Cooper was sentenced, many of the victims' relatives said they were relieved the case had come to a conclusion. They said they were troubled, but not surprised, by his apparent lack of remorse. In describing the Starbucks attack, Cooper never said he was sorry. And despite an invitation from the judge, Cooper declined to speak before his sentencing. He sat blankly at the defense table as prosecutors introduced the victims' families. "You could just detect a demon inside this young man's body," said Rosa Griffin, mother of the security guard who was killed. Lawrence Goodrich, Aaron Goodrich's father, said Cooper's guilty plea was a "much better road" than pushing for execution because of the certainty of punishment. That view was echoed by Mary Annenberg, Mahoney's mother. But a few other relatives expressed misgivings. "To me, spending life in prison is nothing," complained Lynette Evans, 30, whose brother, Emory, died in the Starbucks attack. "It doesn't seem like he has any remorse. He ruined so many lives, the death penalty was there for him." � 2000 The Washington Post Company ##### P.S. 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