Navy sailor gets 43 years for strangling and hiding fellow sailor's body

A guilty plea to unpremeditated murder ended with 43 years in prison for Navy sailor Jermiah Copeland after investigators said he strangled fellow sailor Angelina Resendiz and hid her body in a Navy-issued black wheeled duffel bag. The sentence closed a case that started as a missing-sailor search at Naval Station Norfolk and turned into a homicide investigation inside one of the Navy’s largest bases.

Resendiz was 21 and serving as a Culinary Specialist 3rd Class on her first duty station after A school, assigned to the USS James E. Williams. Investigators said she was last seen in her barracks on May 29, 2025. Twelve days later, NCIS found her body in woods about 10 miles from the base in Norfolk’s Broad Creek area. Copeland later admitted he strangled Resendiz to death and kept her body in his closet for four days before moving it.

The military judge’s punishment marked the final step in a general court-martial that brought the case through disappearance, search, discovery, confession, and sentencing. Copeland also received a dishonorable discharge, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and reduction in rank to seaman apprentice. Some accounts described the punishment as 44 years confinement with one year credited for time served, but the result was the same: Copeland will spend decades in confinement.

The human toll of the case remained central at sentencing. Resendiz’s mother, Esmeralda Castle, described the shock of learning her daughter was missing and the devastation that followed. Witnesses at the hearing described Angelina as bright, kind, and deeply missed, and Castle later met Copeland one-on-one as part of the plea process. Copeland apologized in court, adding a rare and unsettling moment of direct confrontation to a case that had already gripped the Navy community.

The fallout reached beyond the courtroom. Members of Congress sent a July 10, 2025 letter to Navy Secretary John Phelan criticizing the chain of command’s response to Resendiz’s disappearance and death. The correspondence pushed for answers about the time before her death, the return of her remains to Texas, and the facts surrounding the accused sailor. Resendiz’s body was returned to Texas with full military honors on June 20, 2025, and her family later said the remains came back in shocking condition.

Mexia, Texas, where Resendiz was from, has continued to remember her. Memorials and vigils were held at Mexia High School, underscoring how a case that began in barracks at Naval Station Norfolk spread from the fleet to Congress and back home to Texas. Even with the sentence in place, the case still leaves hard questions about warning signs, oversight, and how a sailor could disappear so completely before being found hidden in the woods.