David C. Copley

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David C. Copley, born 31 January 1952 in San Diego to Helen Copley, who was recently divorced from John Hunt. David Copley's birth name was David Hunt. Helen Copley married the owner of Copley Press, and later became owner herself. David then became the adopted son of newspaper publisher James Copley. [1] James Copley was publisher of the family-owned Copley Press chain of some 20 newspapers and a wire service, the Copley News Service of Washington, DC. Recently the comany has downsized considerable and the chain's remaining major newspaper is the San Diego Union-Tribune [2]. A resident of La Jolla, California, Copley has been named in Forbes Magazine's 2005 list of the 400 richest Americans and is identified to be a billionaire [3]. He underwent heart transplant surgery in June 2005 at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, California [4], later donating a reported $5 million to Sharp Healthcare, operator of the hospital [5].

In 1999, Vanity Fair contributor Maureen Orth wrote “Vulgar Favors,” in which she chronicled the history of Andrew Cunanan, the 27-year-old gay serial killer from Hillcrest who murdered fashion icon Gianni Versace in 1997. Orth wrote that Cunanan had been seen at Copley’s parties and went on to note that the Union-Tribune had been suspiciously slow to report on Cunanan and his relationships with wealthy La Jolla men.

Copley had been repeatedly arrested for drunken driving, in one case doing a week at a county labor camp after being picked up weaving down a street near his La Jolla mansion in his Porsche. He was arrested in La Jolla in 1986 and in South Mission Beach in December 1989, and did time at a county work camp after the latter conviction. He was again arrested in 2002.