Rasp
Senior Editor
Two versions of this story, I believe the first one is closer to the truth.
Widow takes in black boarder, seals her fate
www.dailypress.com
What went wrong that led from romance to homicide?
"It's sad because she thought she found somebody she could trust," the suspect's niece says.
NEWPORT NEWS - They slow danced at a Father's Day cookout a few weeks back.
They would spend hours talking, laughing and joking. They seemed like an ideal couple, relatives said.
Barbara Norvell, whose husband died in December, and Edward L. Cooper, who recently was released from prison after spending nearly 34 yea
rs behind bars, met at a bus stop in late May, soon began dating, then got engaged, his family said.
Contrary to early reports, Cooper wasn't a homeless man who simply showed up at Norvell's house, the family said.
Norvell knew all about Cooper's past, but decided that everyone deserves a second chance. He moved into her home, on 25th Street in the Southeast area of Newport News, in late May or early June.
But something went horribly wrong.
On June 25, Norvell, 52, was found stabbed to death in her house. Police arrested Cooper, 52, on a murder charge the same day.
Cooper's niece, Cherice Cooper Nicholas, 26, of Newport News, said her family wants to express its deepest condolences for what her uncle is accused of doing.
"She was so excited about meeting him, and it's sad because she thought she found somebody she could trust," Nicholas said. "Everyone in our family is hurt. ... She's somebody who's going to be missed. That he would do that to anybody, let alon
e someone he said he wanted to marry. We just don't understand."
Cooper has spent nearly all his adult life in prison, according to Department of Corrections records.
He was sentenced to prison in 1974, at age 18, in a Hampton robbery and attempted murder case. He got more time for malicious wounding charges while in prison.
He was released in 2002 but sent back to prison after a month, following an incident in which he threw his sister's belongings out of her house, Nicholas said. He was released again in March.
Cooper will appear in Newport News Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court for a hearing on July 23.
Cooper, who is being held at the City Jail, declined to be interviewed. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Robert Pritchard, did not immediately return a phone call.
After he was released from prison, Nicholas said, Cooper was living at a rooming house on Warwick Boulevard in Newport News and working as a cleaner.
Cooper and Norvell met at a
bus stop at Coliseum Crossing in Hampton. She had missed her bus; he had gotten on the wrong bus. They chatted at the bus stop while they waited. He asked her if she had a boyfriend, and she said no.
They got to know each other over the next several weeks, going to church together and talking on the phone.
After he moved in, whenever relatives would talk to Cooper on the phone, they'd hear Norvell in the background, chiming in. He'd always put her on for a quick hello before he hung up.
"You could hear the smile on their faces," Nicholas said
They also appeared to be getting along at the Father's Day cookout, where they danced and were spotted kissing.
Lots of Cooper's relatives met Norvell for the first time that day, and everyone liked her.
"She told me, 'Oh, I was so nervous. I was planning all day to meet everybody," Nicholas said.
While at the cookout, Norvell gave Nicholas a digital camera that hadn't been used since Norvell's husband died.
"I said, 'I can't take the camera,' and she said, 'Yes, you can. You take the camera,' " Nicholas said.
Nicholas said Norvell — whose husband, Floyd S. "Chuck" Norvell, died in December — was flattered that Cooper was paying attention to her.
"She had felt like nobody wanted to be in a relationship with her, and was surprised when he was trying to talk with her and found her interesting," Nicholas said.
Norvell was one of 13 siblings who grew up in the New Orleans area, said her brother George Swenson.
He said the family wasn't surprised that Norvell, who was white, thought nothing of living in a mostly black section of the city.
"We weren't raised to see color," Swenson said. "We were raised on the hard side of the tracks in New Orleans, but we were raised to look at a person's character — not race, not gender, not financial status. And Barbara was an absolute reflection of that."
Cooper's family was happy because she was exactly the kind-hearted kind
of woman they thought he needed.
The relationship also seemed to bring out the best in Cooper, Nicholas said. When a child dropped food during a visit to Norvell's house, he jumped from the couch to clean it up, telling Norvell not to get up.
"He was being very nice, this person we wanted to see," Nicholas said.
She said her uncle was holding down a job, could read and write and didn't have any evident mental health issues.
"It seemed like everything was coming together for him," Nicholas said.
But in the back of their minds, Nicholas said, she and other relatives worried about Cooper and the "way he handles his anger." They were aware of his violent past and knew how he "spazzed out" while previously staying with his sister.
They even confronted them about the issue.
"We asked her, 'Are you sure you know everything about him?' " Nicholas said. Norvell appeared to know about the prior convictions.
"Me and Eddie, we stay up and talk all night long, an
d we talk about pretty much everything," Nicholas said Norvell told her.
Nicholas said she told Norvell, "Don't let him hurt you," and Norvell responded: "He's not going to hurt me. He loves me."
She broached the subject with Cooper, too, and he said, "I love Barbara" and reiterated how they would soon get married.
"He seemed so sincere," Nicholas said. "Either that or he did a hell of a job fooling everybody. It seemed that he found his soul mate and they were going to have this beautiful marriage."
The night before police found Norvell dead at the house, Cooper called his sister at 8:52 p.m.
Cooper seemed to be acting strangely: At the end of the conversation, instead of putting Norvell on the line, Cooper began to cry.
Family members don't know where Norvell was at that point.
Later that night, police said, Cooper made a bizarre series of phone calls from pay phones saying he killed a woman, but didn't give the exact location.
When police showed u
p at Norvell's house the next morning after a neighbor called, they found Norvell dead and Cooper in front of the house.
It's still unclear what led to Norvell's slaying.
Nicholas said Norvell and Cooper apparently argued about a couple who was also staying at Norvell's house. The couple had been living across the street, but after being evicted from their home, Norvell invited them into hers. Cooper wanted them out, but Norvell wanted to let them stay.
That couple, Nicholas said, noted that while Cooper and Norvell often "fussed," nothing became of their arguments.
"They would start dancing in the living room, and everything would be fine," Nicholas said they told her.
His family speculates that Cooper might have gone out and bought drugs that day and gotten high, which could have led to the crime.
Newport News Police spokesman Harold Eley said police have not yet determined a motive, but "a domestic (argument) was in progress when the homicide occurred."
Norvell died as a result of multiple stab wounds.
Norvell's uncle was staying in a back room of the house and heard an argument going on, said Swenson, Norvell's 49-year-old brother from Lacombe, La.
"He said he knew it was over because it got quiet," Swenson said.
Another relative, a sister-in-law, had previously been killed near New Orleans in an apparent gang initiation, Swenson said.
"The impact of this goes far beyond one family," he said. "This is a crime against the entire community. Against a woman who did nothing but give everybody anything she had."
But, he added, she would never have lived any differently.
WHAT WENT WRONG?
They slow danced at a Father’s Day cookout a few weeks back. They would spend hours talking, laughing and joking. They seemed like an ideal couple, relatives said. Barbara Norvell, whose husb…
www.dailypress.com
What went wrong that led from romance to homicide?
"It's sad because she thought she found somebody she could trust," the suspect's niece says.
NEWPORT NEWS - They slow danced at a Father's Day cookout a few weeks back.
They would spend hours talking, laughing and joking. They seemed like an ideal couple, relatives said.
Barbara Norvell, whose husband died in December, and Edward L. Cooper, who recently was released from prison after spending nearly 34 yea
rs behind bars, met at a bus stop in late May, soon began dating, then got engaged, his family said.
Contrary to early reports, Cooper wasn't a homeless man who simply showed up at Norvell's house, the family said.
Norvell knew all about Cooper's past, but decided that everyone deserves a second chance. He moved into her home, on 25th Street in the Southeast area of Newport News, in late May or early June.
But something went horribly wrong.
On June 25, Norvell, 52, was found stabbed to death in her house. Police arrested Cooper, 52, on a murder charge the same day.
Cooper's niece, Cherice Cooper Nicholas, 26, of Newport News, said her family wants to express its deepest condolences for what her uncle is accused of doing.
"She was so excited about meeting him, and it's sad because she thought she found somebody she could trust," Nicholas said. "Everyone in our family is hurt. ... She's somebody who's going to be missed. That he would do that to anybody, let alon
e someone he said he wanted to marry. We just don't understand."
Cooper has spent nearly all his adult life in prison, according to Department of Corrections records.
He was sentenced to prison in 1974, at age 18, in a Hampton robbery and attempted murder case. He got more time for malicious wounding charges while in prison.
He was released in 2002 but sent back to prison after a month, following an incident in which he threw his sister's belongings out of her house, Nicholas said. He was released again in March.
Cooper will appear in Newport News Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court for a hearing on July 23.
Cooper, who is being held at the City Jail, declined to be interviewed. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Robert Pritchard, did not immediately return a phone call.
After he was released from prison, Nicholas said, Cooper was living at a rooming house on Warwick Boulevard in Newport News and working as a cleaner.
Cooper and Norvell met at a
bus stop at Coliseum Crossing in Hampton. She had missed her bus; he had gotten on the wrong bus. They chatted at the bus stop while they waited. He asked her if she had a boyfriend, and she said no.
They got to know each other over the next several weeks, going to church together and talking on the phone.
After he moved in, whenever relatives would talk to Cooper on the phone, they'd hear Norvell in the background, chiming in. He'd always put her on for a quick hello before he hung up.
"You could hear the smile on their faces," Nicholas said
They also appeared to be getting along at the Father's Day cookout, where they danced and were spotted kissing.
Lots of Cooper's relatives met Norvell for the first time that day, and everyone liked her.
"She told me, 'Oh, I was so nervous. I was planning all day to meet everybody," Nicholas said.
While at the cookout, Norvell gave Nicholas a digital camera that hadn't been used since Norvell's husband died.
"I said, 'I can't take the camera,' and she said, 'Yes, you can. You take the camera,' " Nicholas said.
Nicholas said Norvell — whose husband, Floyd S. "Chuck" Norvell, died in December — was flattered that Cooper was paying attention to her.
"She had felt like nobody wanted to be in a relationship with her, and was surprised when he was trying to talk with her and found her interesting," Nicholas said.
Norvell was one of 13 siblings who grew up in the New Orleans area, said her brother George Swenson.
He said the family wasn't surprised that Norvell, who was white, thought nothing of living in a mostly black section of the city.
"We weren't raised to see color," Swenson said. "We were raised on the hard side of the tracks in New Orleans, but we were raised to look at a person's character — not race, not gender, not financial status. And Barbara was an absolute reflection of that."
Cooper's family was happy because she was exactly the kind-hearted kind
of woman they thought he needed.
The relationship also seemed to bring out the best in Cooper, Nicholas said. When a child dropped food during a visit to Norvell's house, he jumped from the couch to clean it up, telling Norvell not to get up.
"He was being very nice, this person we wanted to see," Nicholas said.
She said her uncle was holding down a job, could read and write and didn't have any evident mental health issues.
"It seemed like everything was coming together for him," Nicholas said.
But in the back of their minds, Nicholas said, she and other relatives worried about Cooper and the "way he handles his anger." They were aware of his violent past and knew how he "spazzed out" while previously staying with his sister.
They even confronted them about the issue.
"We asked her, 'Are you sure you know everything about him?' " Nicholas said. Norvell appeared to know about the prior convictions.
"Me and Eddie, we stay up and talk all night long, an
d we talk about pretty much everything," Nicholas said Norvell told her.
Nicholas said she told Norvell, "Don't let him hurt you," and Norvell responded: "He's not going to hurt me. He loves me."
She broached the subject with Cooper, too, and he said, "I love Barbara" and reiterated how they would soon get married.
"He seemed so sincere," Nicholas said. "Either that or he did a hell of a job fooling everybody. It seemed that he found his soul mate and they were going to have this beautiful marriage."
The night before police found Norvell dead at the house, Cooper called his sister at 8:52 p.m.
Cooper seemed to be acting strangely: At the end of the conversation, instead of putting Norvell on the line, Cooper began to cry.
Family members don't know where Norvell was at that point.
Later that night, police said, Cooper made a bizarre series of phone calls from pay phones saying he killed a woman, but didn't give the exact location.
When police showed u
p at Norvell's house the next morning after a neighbor called, they found Norvell dead and Cooper in front of the house.
It's still unclear what led to Norvell's slaying.
Nicholas said Norvell and Cooper apparently argued about a couple who was also staying at Norvell's house. The couple had been living across the street, but after being evicted from their home, Norvell invited them into hers. Cooper wanted them out, but Norvell wanted to let them stay.
That couple, Nicholas said, noted that while Cooper and Norvell often "fussed," nothing became of their arguments.
"They would start dancing in the living room, and everything would be fine," Nicholas said they told her.
His family speculates that Cooper might have gone out and bought drugs that day and gotten high, which could have led to the crime.
Newport News Police spokesman Harold Eley said police have not yet determined a motive, but "a domestic (argument) was in progress when the homicide occurred."
Norvell died as a result of multiple stab wounds.
Norvell's uncle was staying in a back room of the house and heard an argument going on, said Swenson, Norvell's 49-year-old brother from Lacombe, La.
"He said he knew it was over because it got quiet," Swenson said.
Another relative, a sister-in-law, had previously been killed near New Orleans in an apparent gang initiation, Swenson said.
"The impact of this goes far beyond one family," he said. "This is a crime against the entire community. Against a woman who did nothing but give everybody anything she had."
But, he added, she would never have lived any differently.
Last edited by a moderator:
