Was watching Dateline yesterday about this case and found
this web site with the full transcript of the trial.
This case begs the question whether this poor girls father is guilty or not.
Here is a little inside about the case.
Amanda Renee Cope went to bed a twelve year old little girl, and died a brutal death before her father and sisters awoke in the morning to begin their day.
Amanda was found strangled and raped in her bed Nov. 29, 2001. Her father, Billy Wayne Cope, was jailed the next day on murder and criminal sexual conduct charges.
Thanks to DNA evidence, police later also linked James Edward Sanders, 44, to the case.
James Edward Sanders was released from prison not long before the Cope's lay down to bed that fateful night. When the prosecution realized this, they charged Billy Wayne Cope with conspiring with James Edward Sanders.
They claimed Billy allowed the horrendous acts to be committed upon his daughter.
Police say DNA also links Sanders to the rape of a 60-year-old woman and that he was involved in four home break-ins around the time Amanda Cope was killed.
Police now have added a conspiracy to commit criminal sexual conduct charge against Billy Cope.
But there is no connection between Sanders and Billy Cope, Cope's lawyer, Phil Baity of Fort Mill, said.
Cope's DNA does not match the DNA taken from Amanda Cope, but Sanders' does, Baity said.
Police would not discuss whether Cope's DNA was found on his daughter's body.
"The only scientific evidence in this case implicates Mr. Sanders," Baity said.
Sanders lived less than two blocks from the Copes when Amanda died.
Two months after Amanda Cope's death, her mother, Mary Sue Cope, died of an infection while recovering from major surgery. Two other children in the family have been living with relatives in Mitchell County, N.C.