One of the most unlikely serial killers in memory, Ray Copeland murdered at least five transient workers on he and his wife Faye's farm outside Chillicothe, Missourri. In October 1989, a business partner called police claiming to have come across a skull and several bones on the Copeland property. While investigators kept the Copeland's busy interrogating them about a livestock scam they were involved in, other officers searched the Copeland farm and others than he had leased, digging up five bodies, all shot in the back of the head. They also came up with a crude register of the couple's past workers on the farm. Some had and "X" marked through their names.

Chargers of murder were brought against the Copeland's, though it's very likely Faye never actually killed one of the workers. Ray first attempted an insanity defense and then pursued a plea bargain that would save them both from the chair, while Faye claimed to know nothing of the murders though she had stitched a quilt with the dead men's clothing and was the one who crossed out the names in the employee register. Both the Copeland's attempts to escape justice proved futile and both were sentenced to death. In the end they both cheated the state of Missourri. Ray died while on Death Row and Faye's sentence was later cummuted to life imprisonment.