On October 31, 2004, Leslie Ann Mazzara and Adriane Insogna were murdered in their home in Napa Valley, California. A third roommate survived the murders.
In terms of the location of the murders, Napa Valley was a very safe place to live. In the two years prior to 2004, there had not been a single homicide.
Online data indicates that it remains a safe place. The Napa crime rate is 22% lower than the national average. The population in 2004 was around 75,000.
Leslie, Adriane and a third woman, Lauren Meanza decided to move to Napa Valley to focus on their careers.
As some background into the people involved:
Lauren was an accomplished athlete and she had a political science degree.
Adriane was born on December 30, 1977. Her family have said that she was a student athlete and was involved in the Girl Scout movement. She played volleyball, softball and loved volunteering for charity. She was employed as a civil engineer with the city’s sanitation district. She was originally from Calistoga, an area around 45 mins away from Napa. Adriane was said to enjoy living a quiet life and she had plans to visit her sister in Australia. She was dating a man named Christian at the time of her death. Adriane had survived a near-fatal car crash around 1994. After the accident, she got a scholarship to California Polytechnic and that is where she completed her degree.
Lauren and Adriane decided to become roommates and they rented a house in the 2600 block of Dorset Street.
On the day they moved in, Adriane’s friend Ben Katz helped out, and her other friends, Lily Prudhomme and Lily’s fiancee Eric Copple, also went to the Dorset Street home for an impromptu housewarming party. Adriane and Lily were very close and they were planning to goto Australia together. They also enjoyed going to the gym together and some reports indicate that they were co-workers. Lily would later speak to the media and spoke about Adriane’s car accident and how the commemorated the anniversary of it. “We went out and took the day off work,” Lily said, “and celebrated her tenth anniversary of what she used to call, ‘The day she was supposed to die.'”
Later in the summer of 2004, Leslie, a bubbly former beauty queen from South Carolina who worked as a public relations specialist, became their third roommate. Leslie had been raised by her single mother and decided to make the move to California when her mother moved to Berkeley.
“She was spoiled. She was a princess. We knew that. We adored her,” remembers her mother. “When she was a little girl she used to say she wanted to be a mother, a teacher and a nurse. And Miss America before she was 21.”
Leslie had just gone through a relationship breakup and was looking for change. She had been offered a job as a greeter for a winery run by Francis Ford Coppola.
Leslie was described as a ‘heartbreaker’ and she was known for dating multiple men at the same time.
Things seemed to be going smoothly for the three women as roommates. On October 28, 2004, there was a reported argument after Leslie brought home a boyfriend. They apparently had loud sex and it disturbed the other two women. This was the first time any of the three had brought a man home and they ended up discussing the situation and establishing some boundaries that they all agreed to.
On Halloween night, the three women gave candy to trick-or-treaters.
All three were in bed by 11pm. Adriane and Leslie had upstairs bedrooms and Lauren’s room was downstairs.
At around 2am, Lauren was awakened to the home’s security sensor light coming on. Some reports say that she thought that one of the other women had invited a man into the home and that’s why she wasn’t too worried at first. Lauren had a dog, Golden Retriever, Chloe, that slept in the bedroom with her and she has recalled that the dog growled around the time. Then, she heard the sound of breaking glass. She also described hearing ‘a blood curdling terrified scream.’ Lauren warily got out of bed to investigate and she started to go upstairs to see what was going on.
Adriane screamed “Please, God, help me! Somebody help me!”
“She (Lauren) couldn’t quite make out what it was, but then things started to get a little louder. She actually got up and then heard somebody coming down the stairs rapidly,” said police Commander Jeff Troendly.
Lauren stopped when she heard heavy footsteps coming back down the stairs. Lauren was terrified and she ran out of the back door and into the backyard where she hid. She would later say that she heard the sounds of someone climbing out a window and fleeing the scene.
Adriane was still screaming for help so Lauren went back inside and tried to call 911. The home’s cordless phone did not work. Lauren went to check on her roommates and found a bloody mess. Leslie lay in a pile of clothes and she was unconscious, with stab wounds all over her upper body. The pool of blood that she lay in was around 2 inches deep. Adriane was behind Leslie on a bed. She was unable to speak and was bleeding badly.
Lauren has said that she realized both women were either dead or dying. She ran to her car, scared that the intruder may come back. Lauren called 911 from her car. A police officer was patrolling nearby and arrived at the house quickly, but he was too late. Leslie and Adriane were dead.
More than twenty officers scoured the area, looking for anyone suspicious in the area.
Blood had been left behind by the intruder – it was believed that he had hurt himself on broken window glass. Blood was also found on a wallboard and on window blinds in the house. Cigarette butts were found near the house. The information about this evidence was not disclosed for months after the murder. DNA testing indicated that the saliva on the butts came from a Caucasian male. The brand was Camel Turkish Gold. Police would eventually determine that the DNA from the blood matched the saliva found on the butts.
71 pieces of evidence were collected from the home.
The murders marked the first double homicide in the area since 1998.
An investigation determined that the murderer had forced open the kitchen window to gain access to the home. He then went upstairs to attack both of the women. He stabbed them repeatedly.
Leslie was attacked and killed in her sleep. Adriane must have heard the commotion in the bedroom and went to see what was going on. She was then attacked. This is why both women were found in the same location in the home. Adriane had bruising on her body and defensive cuts on her hands.
Luckily for Lauren, he did not attempt to go into any of the downstairs rooms of the home. He left the home by breaking a window and had left behind some of his own blood.
The FBI was called in to help. Within days of the murders, a $100,000 reward had been established for information leading to an arrest and conviction of the murderer.
Women in the area were panicked. Many young, single women worked at the wineries and tourist venues in the area. Police said that they believed the killer would have been known to one or both victims.
“We want the public to have heightened awareness of any new injuries or change in behavior,” said Napa Police Chief Jeff Troendly, “such as missed work, unplanned vacations, events not attended or any unusual anxiety.
“My daughter lives right next door,” said William Bevans. “She is traumatized and so am I. She was ready to move, until she spoke with the chaplain and others in the neighborhood.”
“They were all really nice and very family oriented,” neighbor Rosemarie Jones said of the three roommates.
Neighbor Lee Chapouris said she and her 2-year-old daughter rang the doorbell of the women’s rental residence on Halloween. The young women, wearing jeans and gray sweatshirts, “seemed happy and were having fun” during the early evening Sunday. The women had made treat bags to hand out to all the children.
“Their home is laid out like ours, where you have to walk through the house to get to the stairwell,” she said. “Who ever did this, it seems, would have had to be very intent.”
“It’s a very quiet, sort of ‘Leave it to Beaver,’ kind of neighborhood, where people wave to each other and walk their dogs,” said Annette Barret- Simpson, who lives several houses east of the women’s residence.
Police looked into friends and former/current boyfriends of all the women and tried to determine why they were targeted.
Napa Police Cmdr. Andy Lewis said “We’re trying to get more history on the three roommates — who were their friends, co-workers and associates — to see if there is a possible connection. We want to see if it is something more than a stranger who entered their house.”
Adriane had been dating a man named Christian Le and he was looked into very early on in the investigation. Police went to his home in the middle of the night and got him out of bed.
“I was fast asleep and I opened the door and about five detectives jumped backwards,” said Christian. He saidF officers asked him if he had any weapons in the home. “I said I had one and I asked if I could get it for them. ‘No, no, no. Just point to where it is.'”
Police seized a knife, his bed sheets, clothing and samples of his blood. He was taken in for questioning.
Christian told police that he had seen Adriane on the night of the murders. He said that she had gone to his house but had left at around 10pm to go back to her own home. He also told police that they had been arguing recently and their relationship was rocky. Adriane wanted to Christian to make a commitment to their relationship and he was reluctant to. Adriane had recently told Christian that she had met another man and that if he was not willing to commit to her, she would find someone else.
Christian remained a main suspect in the case until DNA results from the blood found at the scene cleared him. His DNA was not a match and nothing else tied him to the scene.
Two of Leslie’s friends spoke to the media about men that she was dating. They said she was dating a man named Beau, as well as an older man that they would not name.
Katie and Vanessa said that the older man saw some flowers Beau had sent Leslie and was furious. “He had this very dark, evil gaze. I’ll never forget his eyes. Ever,” said Katie.
“He was jealous. I said, you know, ‘Get rid of him,'” said Amy Brown, Leslie’s oldest friend.
Napa police searched through Leslie’s computer and found an e-mail that interested them, from an old boyfriend she had met in Alaska when she was just 20.
“She was the perfect woman. I mean, she’s everything I was looking for, and then some,” said Aaron Davis. He proposed, but Leslie turned him down. And although she broke up with him more than five years ago, Aaron had recently tried to contact her.
“I was going to marry that girl. There’s other women out there, but there’s not another Leslie,” Aaron said.
1300 people were interviewed but police kept coming to dead ends. Authorities collected 218 voluntary biological samples from men who had some form of prior contact with the victims and none of them matched the DNA found at the scene.
Adriane’s friend Lily expressed frustration that the killer was not quickly caught. “Someone must know something,” she said. She believed his behavior had to have been obvious to anyone who knew him. She hoped that in the struggle Adriane had at least hurt him.
Lily also said that everyone had a theory. “There was talk about the girls were doing drugs, and that maybe they owed somebody money.”
Lily also spoke about the deaths of her friends. “I went to the viewing of her body. Looks like she fought pretty hard. She had a lot of bruising. A lot of cuts on her hands. And Adriane hated turtlenecks. Hated them, would not wear them. But she was wearing one in the casket for obvious reasons.”
Lauren was terrified for her safety after the murders. Despite this, she agreed to appear on America’s Most Wanted and other programs to talk about her experience. She asked that her face be hidden but she said that she hoped someone viewing the show would see the segment and it might jog a memory from that night.
“I was in my bed and just opened up my eyes and realized something is not quite right. And then I heard a scream,” said Lauren. “I remember thinking, I need to get out. There was a person up there that may come for me.”
“I just kept saying ‘Oh my God. Oh my God,'” recalled Lauren.
Lauren says she jumped out of bed and stood outside her bedroom door, listening.
Suddenly she heard the killer running down the stairs. “I was terrified. My gut told me to go out the back. I mean, it was the closest way anyway. I remember thinking, ‘I’m opening up the door for this guy to follow me out,'” said Lauren.
11 months after the murders, police released information about cigarette butts that were found at the scene. They made information about the cigarette brand public. Police said they believed the perpetrator may have been a chain-smoker, who stood outside the home, awaiting the opportunity to carry out the attacks.
After the new appeal for information, Eric Copple wrote to his parents and told them that he was planning to end his life as he had been involved in the murders. In the note, he alluded to being jealous about Ariane and Lily’s friendship.
We mentioned Eric earlier in the episode. He attended the housewarming party for the women and he was the partner to Lily Prudhomme, Adriane’s best-friend.
Lauren remembered at the same time that Eric had smoked the brand of cigarettes that had been made public. She called police to tell them.
Police tried to contact both Eric and Lily and were unable to. One month after the cigarette info went public, Eric’s family convinced him to turn himself into the police. He arrived at the police station with Lily and his parents.
He was interviewed by detectives for five hours. Authorities would later tell the media that he had made statements that they viewed as a confession.
Eric was charged with two counts of felony murder, with special circumstances that made him eligible for the death penalty: two murders committed in the same time frame, as well murder committed by the use of a knife.
Police looked more into how Eric had known the victims. He had once worked for an engineering firm that had the Napa Sanitation District as a client. Adriane had been employed by the district for three years at the time she died.
Eric and Lily had been having relationship difficulties at the time of the murders. They broke up at one point and cancelled their initial wedding plans – they had been going to get married in Hawaii. When they called off the wedding, that was when Lily and Adriane had made the plans to travel to Australia.
According to Forensic Files Now, on the night of Halloween 2004, Eric and Lily had argued about their relationship at a party that they had separately attended that night.
The couple would reconcile and they had been married three months after the murders. “We’ve been together almost eight years now. It was time to go ahead and get married,” said Lily.
On their wedding day, Lily said she couldn’t get beyond the fact that there had been no arrest in Adriane’s murder. “Somebody must know something. Somebody would have had to notice their friend acting strange or had bruises. Doesn’t seem like someone could walk away from it acting fine.”
Adriane’s mother had even attended their wedding. She was stunned when she learned Eric had been arrested. “I never felt he was dangerous,” she said. “I never felt a sinister vibe from him.”
Eric attended the funerals of both women.
The media interviewed some acquaintances of Eric though, and some of them had different opinions of him.
He was described as unfriendly and inconsiderate, and one neighbor even called him an “odd duck.”
Everyone who knew Eric said that he was a chain smoker.
On October 14, 2005, Eric pleaded not guilty to all charges. His preliminary hearing was set for November 2005, but it was delayed several times.
Police indicated that Lily had no idea about Eric’s alleged involvement in the murders and that she would not be charged with anything.
When asked about a motive, the district attorney said “We are still trying to understand what led up to this tragedy. Although the motive is a human interest side of this story, it is not an element of the crime. Sometimes people do unthinkable things and we never know why.”
The preliminary hearing finally got underway in May 2006. Lauren spoke in court about the events of the night.
Napa Detective Todd Schulman described how the investigators had found a small area of blood by the broken kitchen window and two cigarette butts in the yard nearby.
Details of what Eric told police also came out in court. He said that he knew he had killed them but that he did not remember any details. He said that he had gone to a party and was drunk. Lily had driven him home and he had passed out. He woke up later that night and got a knife and some zip-ties. He drove to the Dorset Street house. He told police that he did not know why he had taken the items, or why he had gone to the house.
Eric said that he had smoked a cigarette near the garage and that is when the security sensor light had come on. He used the knife to pry open a window. He said he went into the home and went into Adriane’s bedroom. He said he had laid down in a pile of clothing in the room. Adriane woke up and turned on the light, startling Eric. He said he jumped onto the bed and that he thought she had hit him in the face , because he blacked out. He said he later heard sounds coming from the other bedroom and he went in there. He said his eyes had been closed during the whole time and that he did not remember attacking anyone. He said that he ditched the knife and burned his clothing in his backyard when he got home, but he did not remember anything else.
Eric’s attorneys did not deny that the DNA belonged to him or that he had been there that night. They presented a mental illness defense and suggested that they were planning some type of diminished capacity defense. They said that Eric was depressed and suicidal at the time of the murders.
The prosecution argued that the murders had been carried out with preparation and surveillance and that they were not carried out by a half-drunk person who stumbled across the scene randomly.
Eric’s attorneys worked with family members of the victims. They worked out a deal that would ensure the families did not have to undergo an arduous legal process.
On December 6, 2006, Eric pleaded guilty to the murders of Leslie and Adriane. He ended up admitting that he did plan the murders and that he lay in wait outside the house that night.
“I cannot fathom an explanation for my sinful deeds … the terrible agony inflicted upon a great number of people…My relationship with Lily was (in jeopardy) and crashing. It was all like it fertilized the seed of anger in my heart… There was rage inside me. If I had only listened to those who pleaded with me to get the help I needed.”
Adriane’s mother spoke in court about the extent of her daughter’s injuries. “My baby never wore a turtleneck sweater in her life, and yet she had to be buried in one — and still — it could not hide the extent of her wounds.”
Lily also spoke in court, in support of her husband. She spoke of him at the sentencing hearing as someone who had a “gentler side.”
In exchange for the plea, he received a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. He agreed to waive his rights to appeal at all levels and not to speak to the media. If Eric ever violates the deal, his sentence could be reviewed, and he could instead get the death penalty and also be liable for $10 million in wrongful death benefits to the family members and victim memorial funds.
The contents of the suicide note that Eric wrote have never been disclosed and a motive for the murders has never been totally confirmed.
A book about the case, Nightmare in Napa: The Wine Country Murders by Paul LaRosa, mentions that Eric’s moved around a lot because of his father’s career in the military. So maybe he felt desperate for a sense of stability.
The book also discusses an alternate theory that Leslie was the real threat to his relationship. It was theorised that he had made a pass at Leslie and he was afraid she’d tell Lily about it.
Eric is serving his sentence at the Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California.
Lily has remained married to Eric. She still lives in the Napa Valley area. Adriane’s mother Arlene has stayed close with Lily over the years.
Leslie’s mother has spoken about the loss of her daughter.
When you lose a child it’s like a nuclear bomb has dropped. Your world becomes a barren landscape where nothing grows. It’s as if all your landmarks are gone and you don’t know where you are anymore. It’s taken me a very long time to find my way.
She has spoken about why they worked out the plea deal with Eric.
By the time of the sentencing hearing in 2007 my sons no longer felt they wanted the death penalty. We made it clear to the prosecution that we didn’t want to endure a public trial and if they could work out a plea agreement then we would prefer it. At first when we went to court there were two sides and I couldn’t look at Eric’s family across the room but once we started talking about how we could produce the most compassionate outcome for everyone – whilst still getting justice and protecting society – then the mood shifted.
As the media left the court, Rosemary whispered, “Cathy, do you want to meet Eric’s mother.” I was absolutely terrified but when I saw her coming towards me I knew I needed to. She was trembling – more terrified than me. I was stunned by how similar we looked, and thought “Oh my God. I’m her!” Then we just embraced and there was such relief and compassion in that embrace.
I’ve been in the dark for nine years and it’s getting clearer now. Lots of things in life are senseless. There’s so much we can’t explain but we need to be able to love the questions.
SOURCE LIST
https://www.crimescenecleanup.com/napa-ca-halloween-massacre
https://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/LegalCenter/story?id=1187524&page=1
https://www.crimelibrary.org/criminal_mind/forensics/ff310_leslie_mazzara/1_index.html
https://www.areavibes.com/napa-ca/crime
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/NAPA-House-invaded-2-women-killed-Third-2677208.php
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nightmare-in-napa-15-11-2005
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/NAPA-House-invaded-2-women-killed-Third-2677208.php
https://forensicfilesnow.com/index.php/tag/lily-prudhomme