Paula Cooper, 45, was found dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound in Indianapolis on Tuesday. She used to be an infamous teen killer, sentenced to death at 15-years-old, making her the youngest to be put on death row.
Police were called when a body was found near a tree in the the northwest Indianapolis-Carmel border. Officers confirmed that the body was of Cooper's and she was pronounced dead on the scene.
Cooper admitted and accepted full responsibility for the brutal stabbing of Ruth Pelke, a 78-year-old Gary Bible school teacher, in Pelke's Glen Park home almost 30 years ago.
Even though she confessed to the killing, she revealed that she had three accomplices who were all students at Gary's Lew Wallace High School.
The teenagers pretended to be interested in joining the chruch service, but had cruel intentions in mind. They stabbed the elderly woman 33 times with a butcher knife, then robbed her and got away with $10 and an old car.
Cooper was found guilty and sentenced to die in the electric chair.
Her death sentence enraged human rights activists in the U.S. and Europe and an appeal was backed by Pope John Paul II.
In 1989, the high court ruled to not send the juveniles to death row, but Cooper was still sentenced to 60 years of imprisonment. She was released on June 17, 2013, after spending 28 years behind bars.
Her death came as a shock even for the victim's grandson, Bill Pelke.
Bill was against the death penalty and was sad when he found out about Cooper's demise. He believed that his grandmother would want Cooper to have a renewed life.
"My grandmother would have been appalled she was on death row and that there was so much hate and anger and desire for her to die. I was convinced my grandmother would have had love and compassion for Paula and her family," he said in a telephone interview from Anchorage, Alaska.
