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HUNTSVILLE, Ala. (WHNT) — A former Huntsville Police officer has been indicted for capital murder in connection with the shooting death of his girlfriend in January 2022.
David McCoy is charged with shooting Courtney Spraggins while she was inside a car at Weston Ranch Apartments on Jan. 7, 2022. Spraggins was pregnant at the time she was killed.
McCoy is charged with three counts of capital murder, according to the indictment dated March 24. The charges include killing a person inside a car, killing a person and her unborn child and killing a person under 14 — the unborn child.
According to testimony during McCoy’s preliminary hearing, Spraggins was pregnant with McCoy’s child and came to the apartment because she planned to move to Huntsville. McCoy was living with another woman at the time, according to testimony from that hearing.
The apartment complex is located between Nance and Hughes Roads, north of Highway 72 with a Madison mailing address, but is within Huntsville Police jurisdiction.
McCoy lived at Weston Ranch and occasionally worked as a courtesy security officer there, investigators said. McCoy was off-duty at the time of the shooting.
McCoy allegedly told 911 dispatchers the woman, later identified as Spraggins, had committed suicide.
Investigators said Spraggins quit her job in December and arrived in Huntsville on Dec. 17 to move in with McCoy but he told her that he “needed more time.”
At that point, investigators said Spraggins drove from Huntsville to Maryland. She described a text message exchange between the two in December where Spraggins asked him what she was supposed to do. Hayes said McCoy responded, “a bullet to the head sounds good to me.”
Investigators laid out an unusual series of events that led to McCoy’s arrest.
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Eventually, McCoy told Spraggins to come back and that he was ready to take care of her. She arrived in Huntsville on Jan. 7 and McCoy buzzed her into the gate of the complex at 8:04 a.m., according to Hayes.
An ALEA investigator testified McCoy and Spraggins went for a drive in his truck and arrived back at the apartment complex at about 9:40 a.m. She added McCoy told several stories during his eventual police interview. The last version he gave was that Spraggins got out of the truck and got into her car. He apparently told Hayes he didn’t remember how fast the shooting happened, he just remembers running with the gun up to his apartment.
After the shooting, McCoy told investigators he called the HPD non-emergency number asking if they had received any shots fired calls in the area. He had changed clothes and thrown his gun in the closet, according to Hayes. He told the dispatcher he had been awakened by a gunshot from a small-caliber gun. Hayes said in the last version of his story, McCoy said he then got off the phone and went down to look into the gunshot.
When investigators arrived at the scene, they noticed a photo of McCoy in the vehicle. Sources say investigators found text messages on the victim’s phone providing more detail on what led to the incident.
Investigators said the first responding officer and McCoy began to look at the crime scene and found Spraggins shot in the head in the driver seat of her car. McCoy told the first responding officer, “I think I’ve seen her once,” but told other investigators, “I don’t know her,”
Responding officers found a picture of McCoy in the visor of Spraggins’ car and took him in for questioning which lasted five hours. At the end of his interview, McCoy said, “I did it,” according to testimony at his preliminary hearing.
Investigators said McCoy tested positive for gunshot residue and they found a pistol, that was not his service weapon, and Spraggins’ locked phone in a closet in his apartment. Investigators said because of the number of wrong passcode attempts on Spraggins’ phone investigators still cannot get into her phone.
Mail addressed to Spraggins and ultrasound pictures were found in McCoy’s patrol vehicle.
Prosecuters will seek the death penalty for McCoy.
