A DOWNWARD SPIRAL OF DRUGS AND DECEIT

Until three years ago, insurance agent Robert Copple was an avid
outdoorsman, a doting husband and father of three who loved barbecuing on
Sundays for friends and family.

But an addiction to crack cocaine and an affair with a much younger woman
cost Copple his 20-year marriage and his Colleyville business, as well as
his good name and longtime friends. His life slipped into a free fall, his
ex-wife and several close friends said. Last week, with a SWAT team and FBI
agents outside his Fort Worth motel room, the once successful insurance
agent hanged himself. The officers and agents were there to serve an arrest
warrant issued after Copple skipped a federal sentencing hearing.

Copple, 57, had pleaded guilty to fleecing finance companies, insurance
companies, businesses and individuals out of $200,000. He faced three to
four years in prison, Assistant U.S. Attorney Ron Eddins said.

"I think he was tired of fighting," said Tanya Copple, his ex-wife. "I know
that he wanted to stop drugs. I know in his heart that he knew he had done
wrong. I don't think it was the fear of going to prison. It was fear of not
getting drugs."

Addiction experts say it's unusual for a middle-aged person to start using
crack cocaine. The highly addictive drug is used mainly by young men aged 18
to 25, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Copple also seemed an unlikely candidate to get caught up in the drug
culture.

The couple's son, Austin, had struggled with heroin addiction after turning
to drugs at age 13. By the time Austin was 17, his former girlfriend and
three other acquaintances had died from heroin overdoses, and Austin was
fighting to stay clean after returning from a recovery program.

"Of all the children, I couldn't believe this was happening to Austin,"
Robert Copple told the Star-Telegram in 1998. "We thought Austin was smart
enough not to get involved with this."

In July 2000, Austin was sentenced to 10 years in prison for manslaughter in
connection with the July 1998 traffic death of a 14-year-old Weatherford
girl on Airport Freeway in Fort Worth.

By then, Robert Copple's life had begun to unravel. He started dating Jerrie
Tovar, 29, an ex-convict. He also started using crack cocaine, Tanya Copple
said.

"I couldn't believe it after all we went through with our son," she said.

Copple left his wife on Nov. 10, 1999, "our 20th wedding anniversary," Tanya
Copple said. They were divorced in April 2001.

Copple left behind a life that included vacations in Venice, Hawaii and
California's Napa Valley, as well as skiing in Wyoming.

"He was a regular guy who enjoyed the outdoors," said Fort Worth firefighter
Danny Curry, a hunting and fishing buddy. "He was a fun guy to be around. He
gave it all up after he got caught up in drugs."

After the couple separated, Robert Copple lived at various times in a motor
home, in apartments, on his mother's farm in Poolville, and lately, in
various motels.

His American Express bills for the year 2000 showed $12,000 in motel
expenses, Tanya Copple said.

His spending habits got out of control, she said. He would rent cars for
three other people when he had two cars of his own, she said, and other drug
users stole his clothes, jewelry and other personal belongings.

"This was a guy who used to carry to-do lists in his pockets, who kept track
of every penny he spent," she said. "He could tell you how much he'd spent
going out for lunch or renting a movie."

His grandchildren called him "grumps."

Longtime friend Roy Powell, a Dallas insurance agent, remembers confronting
Copple after noticing a glazed look in his eyes. Powell said he asked his
friend point-blank if he was using drugs.

"He denied it," Powell said.

But Copple was open about his relationship with Tovar.

"According to Bob, it was instant love," Powell said. "He started acting in
a much different manner than I knew. He hung out in north Fort Worth bars.
His circle of friends changed dramatically. He completely abandoned his
friends and his business."

Copple had been in the insurance business for more than 30 years. He sold
insurance policies through Texas Associated Agents, an independent insurance
agency in Colleyville.

Tanya Copple was active in the Colleyville Woman's Club, the Arts Council of
NorthEast Tarrant County and other civic and charitable organizations.

Friends and acquaintances, who had purchased insurance from him for years,
were among the victims of his mail-fraud scheme.

A federal grand jury indicted Copple in March on 14 counts of mail fraud and
forging securities. According to the indictment, Copple schemed to defraud
businesses and insurance customers of money and property between 1997 and
2000. He fraudulently obtained money from finance companies by issuing
forged premium finance agreements and forged bank drafts from finance
companies, the indictment said.

He spent premium payments for personal and business expenses, according to
the indictment. He then forged a premium finance agreement and falsely made
a bank draft, as though the insurance customers had not paid the premiums,
the indictment said.

Copple billed customers for insurance renewals but never bought the
insurance. According to court documents, the face value of the fraudulent
premium finance agreements totaled about $915,000, but the actual loss to
finance companies, businesses, insurance companies and individual customers
was $200,000.

Tanya Copple, who had worked with her ex-husband in the insurance business,
said she received calls around the clock from irate customers, many of them
friends, who were trying to locate him.

"I could not say where he was," she said.

Tovar, the woman for whom Copple left his wife, said she was devastated when
she learned of his death.

"I loved that man so much," she sobbed in an interview this week at the
Tarrant County Jail, where she was being held on drug charges. "He said he
didn't want to be without me. He said he was going to prison for five years.
He didn't want to be away from me. He said he would kill himself."

Tovar served a year in state prison for robbery and returned to North Texas
after her release in March 1999.

Later that year, she met Copple at a Grand Prairie dance club.

She said about their relationship: "We were lovers and best friends. Bobby
was taking care of me all the way. I was the only one he could share
everything with."

Tovar denied introducing Copple to drugs. She said he was using powder
cocaine when they met.

"That's why he went to that club in Grand Prairie where they sold drugs,"
she said.

Tovar acknowledged, however, that they used drugs together.

"Yeah, it involved a lot of drugs," she said.

Her most recent brush with the law stems from her last date with Copple.

On Aug. 9, Tovar was in a rented car with Copple in Haltom City when he
spotted a police cruiser attempting to pull them over as they were turning
into a motel parking lot, she said.

Copple ran away to avoid being arrested, she said. Tovar was arrested and
later charged with possession of a controlled substance. It was the last
time she saw Copple.

Tanya Copple thinks that a few years in federal prison might have helped
turn Copple's life around.

"He would have been better off going to prison because they would have
helped him clean up his act and offered him drug treatment and counseling,"
she said. "This is a nightmare."