The murder trial of Jabrai Jordan Copney, the man accused of a 2009 killing in the basement of Harvard’s Kirkland House, will not include charges of robbing two Yale graduates.
Essex Superior Court Judge John T. Lu decided on Monday that evidence and testimonies from the 2008 robbery could be used in the murder trial, but that the charges of robbery would be bifurcated into a second trial, the Harvard Crimson reported. Copney was allegedly the gunman in a failed “drug rip,” that resulted in the death of Justin Cosby Kirkland’s basement.
Copney, along with his alleged Kirkland murder accomplice Blayn Jiggetts, are accused of the armed robbery of $14,000 worth of marijuana from two Yale students in New York City in 2008, according to Middlesex Superior Court documents.
Jiggetts told prosecutors that the 2008 robbery served as a model for the attempted “drug rip” in Harvard, the Crimson reported.
Copney’s murder trial begins April 4 in Middlesex Superior Court.
Read more about the 2008 incident here.