New WLOS exclusive surveillance video shows the moments a Hendersonville man was stabbed to death on the night of Monday, Dec. 23.
Police said officers were dispatched to 7th Avenue East and Robinson Terrace at about 8:43 p.m., where they found a man with injuries consistent with a knife attack.
The video shows two shadowy figures just off Seventh Avenue in Hendersonville. Suddenly, the suspect begins to attack his victim repeatedly. He drops to the ground before getting back up and making it a block away.
We called 911 for help. We come outside, the guy was laying right here where this cone is, bleeding and you just hear him gasping,” said Tizzy Johnson, whose family owns J and J’s Little Store, located less than a block away from the attack.
The victim, identified as 50-year-old Kevin Deran Copelin of Hendersonville, managed to get back up and make it across Seventh Avenue.
In a press release Tuesday, police said no suspects have been identified and no arrests have been made. Police added that the "assault appears to be an isolated incident."
“You can see the light off his phone and he was just looking I guess at the wounds, at his legs. And the next thing you know he fell over,” said Johnson, who was working at J and J at the time of the incident.
Johnson says she stayed with Copelin, who was breathing but barely responsive, as they waited for an ambulance. The man was then rushed to the hospital, where police say he died from his injuries.
Detectives are still searching for a suspect but confirm that this was an isolated incident.
Even after the stabbing, Johnson feels the area where it happened is safe.
“I don’t want anybody to be afraid to come, to buy anything out here you know thinking that somebody got killed up in there or something,” she said. “We got it lit up. We got cameras everywhere.”
Anyone with any information about this incident is being asked to call police.
STORY & PHOTO COURTESY OF ABC 13 WLOShttps://wlos.com/news/local/surveillance-video-captures-fatal-hendersonville-7th-avenue-stabbing-police-seek-publics-help#
