WHY DIDN’T ANYONE SAVE SABRINA?
SABRINA NGUYEN FILED MULTIPLE COMPLAINTS THAT SHE WAS BEING TERRORISED BY HER EX. SHE STILL WOUND UP DEAD. NOW HER PARENTS WANT ANSWERS
Even at just 18, Sabrina Nguyen had a zest for life that was infectious. The recent high school graduate often talked about her dream to become internet-famous as the star of her own YouTube channel and loved entertaining her parents and older brothers at their Memphis home. “It was always fun being around Sabrina,” says her brother Jimmy, 26. “She was the life of the party.”
But Sabrina didn’t share everything with her family. When she began dating Keedrin Coppage, whom she met at a party in early 2019, she didn’t give her family many details about him. It wasn’t until a few months later that Jimmy even met him. When Jimmy and his girlfriend hung out with the couple, Coppage “seemed OK”, Jimmy says.
Things were not as they seemed. Sabrina later confided to her family that Coppage had been physically and emotionally abusive throughout their relationship. In June 2019, her family says, she found the strength to end it, but Coppage appeared at her laptop-repair job unannounced and wandered the streets of her neighbourhood looking for her. Sabrina reported to police that Coppage was calling her repeatedly, sometimes threatening to kill her. She went to court to obtain a restraining order against him.
Then, on January 2, 2020, Sabrina was found lying on a sidewalk at a busy intersection near her home, fatally stabbed. Coppage, 24, has been charged with firstdegree murder in Sabrina’s killing; police say he admitted to murdering her, putting her body in the trunk of her car and dumping her, then abandoning the car. He has yet to enter a plea and is in Shelby County jail.
Now the Nguyen family has filed a federal lawsuit against the city of Memphis and Shelby County, alleging police didn’t allow Sabrina to re-enter a safe house set up to protect domestic violence victims. Coppage was arrested at least seven times over six months for alleged threats against Sabrina – but was released on bond every time. “Sabrina’s brutal death was totally preventable,” says the family’s lawyer Mike Laux.
While city officials declined to be interviewed by WHO’s sister publication People, Memphis chief legal officer Jennifer Sink says, “The death of Ms Nguyen is tragic, but the Memphis Police Department is not responsible for her murder. Ms
Nguyen was a victim of domestic violence, and Keedrin Coppage has been charged with first-degree murder and aggravated kidnapping.” The Nguyens, however, believe that Sabrina was treated differently because she was Vietnamese American and that if she had been white and wealthy, more would have been done to keep her alive. “If we lived in a nice neighbourhood, with a lot of money,” Jimmy says, “it would’ve been taken more seriously.”
Sabrina’s parents, Hai, 51, and Nung Nguyen, 54, emigrated from Vietnam in the late ’70s. Hai worked at the loading dock for Williams Sonoma while Nung worked odd jobs and raised the couple’s three kids – Daniel, 28, Jimmy and Sabrina. Sabrina’s death has left a huge hole in the family – each morning, Hai lights incense at a shrine for his daughter. “Every single day, I wake up and miss my daughter,” he says, wiping away tears. “My heart is broken, like somebody stepped on my heart.”
Sabrina was first granted a restraining order against Coppage on June 17, 2019, following an alleged attack that left her with head injuries. She then spent a week in a domestic violence shelter. When she
“The system broke. Did they do the right thing? Did they do their job?”
HAI, FATHER
returned home, she lived in fear of Coppage’s threats, often asking her father to escort her to and from her car.
Then, in August 2019, according to court records, Coppage asked Sabrina for a ride home. Inside her car he began beating and kicking her as they drove around town. Jimmy, who says he received an SOS message from Sabrina’s phone, chased after them and alerted police. “She kept telling us, ‘He is trying to kill me,’” Jimmy says. In the following months Sabrina and her family called police “at least 300 times, literally”, says Jimmy, and reported stalking, kidnapping, harassment, intimidation, rape and physical assault.
None of it – not the reports, restraining order or arrests – prevented her death. While the Nguyens are asking for monetary damages in their lawsuit, they also want to change a system they believe failed Sabrina. “If [police] took domestic violence more seriously, my little sister would still be here,” Jimmy says. “What happened to her should never have happened at all”
If you or someone you know is impacted by domestic violence, call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732