Kristopher Anthony Sinclair pleaded guilty to second-degree murder Monday and was sentenced to 31 years in prison for killing Brianye Copeland, the 27-year-old Evansville native and former standout athlete whose death last year in the parking lot of a Charlotte community resource center devastated two states. The case, which began with a frantic manhunt through the woods near the crime scene, ended in a Mecklenburg County courtroom more than a year and a half after Copeland was shot to death.
Copeland was killed on February 7, 2025, in the parking lot of the Ella B. Scarborough Community Resource Center on Stitt Road in northeast Charlotte, according to WSOC-TV. Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police arrested Sinclair, then 38, the same day after tracking him to a nearby apartment complex, where a police K-9 found a backpack hidden in the woods containing his driver's license and a handwritten, five-page note. As reported by WFIE, Sinclair pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in Mecklenburg County on September 8, 2026, and was sentenced to 31 years behind bars.
The note referenced Copeland directly and included the lines “I will not harm anyone else” and “When cops show up, I'm going to… hell,” per the same WSOC-TV report. Sinclair was initially charged with first-degree murder and held without bond at the Mecklenburg County Detention Center following his first court appearance on February 10, 2025, before the case was ultimately resolved with the reduced second-degree murder plea.
A Basketball Standout Remembered in Two States
Copeland's death rippled far beyond Charlotte, reaching back to her hometown of Evansville, Indiana, where she graduated from Harrison High School in 2015 as the school's all-time leader in assists and its fifth all-time leading scorer with 1,179 career points, according to her obituary published on Legacy.com. She also competed at the state level in track during high school. Copeland went on to play collegiate basketball and run track at Central State University in Wilberforce, Ohio — the state's only public Historically Black University — where she majored in biology, according to Central State University Athletics.
After her death, Copeland was posthumously inducted into the Greater Evansville Basketball Hall of Fame as part of its Class of 2025, according to the Greater Evansville Sports Hall of Fame. The honor cemented her place among the city's most celebrated athletes, even as her family worked through grief a thousand miles away in North Carolina.
A Foundation Born From Tragedy
In March 2025, Copeland's family established the BriWay Foundation, which works to raise awareness of violence against women and to empower domestic violence victims through advocacy and support services, according to the BriWay Foundation. Per WFIE's reporting, the foundation also helps young people through scholarships and other assistance. The organization stands as the family's answer to a loss that, for them, became inseparable from the broader issue of violence against women.
Charlotte's Homicide Count and the Legal Backdrop
Copeland's killing marked Charlotte's eighth homicide of 2025, compared to 10 homicides recorded by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police during the same period in 2024, according to WCNC. Under North Carolina law, second-degree murder is classified as a Class B1 or B2 felony, with the Class B2 designation applying to reckless or inherently dangerous acts and carrying statutory prison terms of up to 484 months, per FindLaw.
Sinclair's 31-year sentence closes the criminal case, though the loss remains felt in both Charlotte and Evansville — two communities linked by a woman who once ran track and shot baskets in Indiana gyms and later built a biology degree in Ohio before her life ended in a parking lot off Stitt Road.
