An Indiana woman, once the youngest American on death row, was found dead in Indianapolis on Tuesday.
Paula Cooper, 45, was found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound outside a residence in northwest Indianapolis. Cooper had been released from prison two years ago, as HNGN reported, after the Indiana Supreme Court set aside her death sentence and gave her a 60-year prison term instead.
Cooper admitted to participating in the murder of a 78-year-old Bible studies teacher. Cooper confessed that she stabbed Ruth Pelke 33 times with a 12-inch butcher knife in order to rob the woman of $10 and an old car, according to the New York Daily News. The score was divided between four offenders. Cooper was 15 when she committed the crime and 16 when she was sentenced to death.
"I have no idea what was going on in her life. I thought she was doing well from everything I had heard," he said, according to the Daily News. "I had hoped she would travel with us. She had always told me she wanted to help young people to avoid the pitfalls that she had fallen into. She said she knew she had done something terrible to society and she wanted to give back."
