A Navy cook from Oak Harbor was charged this week in the murder of a fellow service member in Norfolk, Virginia, according to the Navy Judge Advocate General’s Corps website.

Coincidentally, a documentary film crew was in Oak Harbor this week to interview women who say they were victimized by the suspect, 20-year-old Jeremiah Copeland, while they were in high school.

Copeland, formerly a student in both Oak Harbor and Coupeville, has been in custody since 21-year-old Angelina Resendiz was found dead in a wooded area about 10 miles from Naval Station Norfolk. Both Copeland and Resendiz were culinary specialists in the Navy.

According to the Navy’s preliminary hearing information, Copeland faces charges of murder, rape or sexual assault, sexual misconduct, wrongfully distributing intimate images, making false official statements and obstructing justice. It’s unclear from the charges on the Judge Advocate General’s Corps website whether the sexual assault charges are related to Resendiz.

The case made national news after Resendiz’s mother, Esmeralda Castle, spoke out about the Navy’s handling of the case, especially the lack of communication with the family. Resendiz went missing on May 29 and her body was found June 9. Castle claimed she was not properly notified through the Navy about her daughter’s disappearance, but instead learned about the case from her daughter’s coworkers and media reports.

An independent documentary crew working on a film about the pervasive problem with sexual assault in the military became interested in the case after hearing that Copeland had previously been accused of sexual crimes.

As first reported in the Whidbey News-Times, Copeland was accused of sharing intimate images of one girl and of sexually assaulting a different girl while in high school.

“This is a story we hear again and again,” Maura Axelrod, one of the directors and producers of the film, wrote in an email. “Tragically, it’s the perfect illustration of the systemic issues our film explores.”

Axelrod, Kip Azzoni and Lucian Read are directors and producers of the documentary, which will be called “Aftermath.” They are working with a large team of veteran filmmakers whose credits include multiple Emmys and Academy Awards, according to Axelrod. They are supported in partnership with veterans’ organizations.

In interviews in Oak Harbor this week, people shared their grief, shock and desire for answers, Alexrod said.

“Some expressed real dismay that he came from Oak Harbor and that he was reportedly accused of similar conduct many times, over many years,” she wrote. “We heard people ask how he was allowed to enlist, and how the systems that should have flagged concerns failed. The consistent refrain was that there may have been an opportunity here to stop things before they escalated.”

Axelrod said the filmmakers also spoke with family and friends of Resendiz, who was from Texas.

“By all accounts, she was loving, generous and exceptionally bright,” she wrote. “Everyone we spoke with seemed to feel she had a big life ahead of her.”

In 2022, when Copeland was 17, the Island County Sheriff’s Office investigated a student’s allegations against Copeland and referred the misdemeanor case of “disclosing intimate images” to the prosecutor’s office. The girl’s parent filed a petition for a sexual assault protection order against Copeland, which a judge granted. In an affidavit, the girl describes two boys coercing her into sex while one of them, identified as Copeland, secretly took video. Copeland later sent the video to others. Multiple people reported the incident to school officials, and the girl was called to the office to speak with the dean, the affidavit states.

In his own affidavit, Copeland denied the allegations against him, writing that they are “twisted lies” that impacted his life in “horrible ways.” He wrote that he was banned from competing and performing at school because of the allegations.

“I want the truth to be brought forth so my life and any other person’s life will not be affected by such horrible allegations,” he wrote. “I am a young man that lives with my parents and have been pretty much scared to even leave my house since all the allegations came about.”

Copeland left Oak Harbor High School and enrolled in Coupeville High School.

In juvenile court, Copeland entered into a diversion agreement, which is mandatory for a juvenile’s first offense unless it’s a felony.

The diversion agreement was terminated after Copeland completed his community service and paid his fee, but failed to complete ten hours of mental health counseling before the deadline. Island County Prosecutor Greg Banks said Copeland had turned 18 years old by then and the juvenile court lost jurisdiction over him. Prosecutors could have charged him as an adult in district court as a result of the termination but decided against it.

“Because he was leaving the jurisdiction to join the Navy, and he had already performed his mandatory community service, we elected not to charge him,” Banks previously wrote in an email to the News-Times. “Military service seemed like a good option for him and would have him ‘supervised’ in a way by responsible adults. He had no other criminal history that we were aware of.”

In addition, the News-Times was contacted by former Oak Harbor High School student Lauryn Lopez, who claimed that Copeland sexually assaulted her in 2022, when he was 17 and she was 15 years old. Lopez claimed that Copeland kissed and groped her while she resisted. Copeland denied any wrongdoing.

The allegation was investigated by the Oak Harbor Police Department, but the case wasn’t forwarded to the prosecutor’s office for a potential charging decision. In a July interview, Oak Harbor Police Chief Tony Slowik said investigators determined there wasn’t probable cause to make an arrest.

Lopez, however, said that she didn’t feel that police took her allegations seriously enough.

Because of mandatory diversion in one case and the lack of charges in the other, the Navy likely wasn’t aware that allegations were made against Copeland prior to him entering the Navy.

The schedule on the Judge Advocate General website states that Copeland faces an Article 32 hearing — which determines in a military case whether there is probable cause to advance the case to a court martial — in Norfolk on Sept. 18.

Copeland