As the Long Island man who is accused of murdering his former wife and her boyfriend appeared in court Friday, neighbors of the couple were reeling as they remembered hearing the gunshots.
Daniel Coppola, 50, is charged with two counts of murder in the shooting of Kelly Coppola, 50, and Kenneth Pohlman, 53, at their Saint James home Wednesday night as his teen daughter sat in a car outside.
A neighbor of Kelly Coppola and Pohlman who identified himself as Allen, 70, said he heard the fatal shots, but never guessed what the source of the noise was.
“I’m deaf in one ear. I was sleeping. And I heard ‘pop, pop’. And then I heard something going on, like a muffled rumble. And then I just dozed off again,” said the neighbor.
“I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t even know really what direction it was coming from.”
It wasn’t until Thursday morning that the neighbor learned of the tragedy that had taken place next door.
“It was barricaded when I came out,” said Allen. “Then I looked up at the corner and I see all the cops.”
“I seen them bring them two bodies out, wrapped up on two gurneys.”
The neighbor was in disbelief at what had taken place.
“Nothing ever happens here, you know? Nothing.
“I would think to see a Sasquatch walking around before something like that,” he said of the murders.
Daniel Coppola arrived at the couple’s home late Wednesday night, knowing his ex-wife, Pohlman and his daughter were inside, according to Suffolk County police. He then convinced his 15-year-old daughter to leave the home with him, cops said.
“He went to the house on Brasswood Road, picked the girl up, put her in his car, committed the murders, drove her from there to Harbor Road,” Det. Lt. Kevin Beyrer of the Suffolk County Police said Thursday at a press conference.
“As he’s driving her, she is communicating with friends via text, saying, ‘I don’t know what my father did. I don’t know how my mother is.’”
The friends tried to contact Kelly Coppola and called 911 when they couldn’t reach her, Beyrer said. Officers arrived at the home to find Pohlman and Kelly Coppola dead from gunshot wounds.
On Friday Daniel Coppola was seen by a judge at Suffolk County District Court and held without bail.
Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Eric Aboulafia said Coppola had intended to kill the lawyers involved in the divorce between him and his ex-wife, and had prepared a typewritten letter detailing his plans as well as claiming he was “of sound mind,” according to Newsday.
“The letter states that he had a bullet with the names of each of the attorneys involved in the case,” Aboulafia said, Newsday reported. “He even had a bullet for his own attorney.”
Court records show that Daniel Coppola and Kelly Coppola had each filed divorce cases against the other in 2021 and that a judgment was granted in April 2023.
However, the filings also showed that there had been some new activity in the case in the weeks before the killings with an order to show cause filed and a hearing scheduled.
A representative at the law firm hired by Kelly Coppola said she could not give out any information.
Newsday also reported that prosecutors said Coppola shot his way through the front door before he “ambushed and executed” the couple upstairs.
A bullet hole was visible and the lock missing on the door to the couple’s home Friday.