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Jurors will see gruesome 4chan pictures in Port Orchard murder trial

PORT ORCHARD, Wash. — Prosecutors told jurors they will see gruesome evidence of the 2014 murder of Amber Coplin, some of it in the form of pictures that were posted online by her accused killer, David Kalac.

“Those pictures, as you will learn, were then posted to the internet, to a website called 4chan,” said Kitsap County Deputy Prosecutor Jonathan Salamas.

That evidence is so crucial prosecutors said they will call the founder of 4chan, Chris Poole, who now works for Google, as a witness.

Kalac, 35, is accused of first-degree murder, and charged with strangling Coplin, 30,  at her Port Orchard home and sexually violating her corpse.

In opening statements, Salamas told the jury Kalac wrote comments under the pictures he posted, saying it was “way harder to strangle someone than I thought.”

Prosecutors say after Coplin’s murder, Kalac bit her corpse and used a Sharpie to draw arrows pointing at the teeth marks. Salamas said he also wrote expletives on her skin, posed her body to take the online photos and then deliberately left her body in her bedroom, “so that her son would find her body in her bed.”

Kalac's defense will not focus on innocence, according to his defense team, but on his years of alcohol dependence.

In his opening statements, defense attorney Nick Kiewik said Kalac regularly drank a half gallon of vodka, the equivalent of 50 drinks, every day.

Kiewik claimed the long-term effects of extreme alcohol consumption so damaged Kalac’s brain he couldn't commit first-degree murder while drinking because he was mentally incapable of premeditation.

“The details are not only horrific, they’re nonsensical,” said Kiewik. “They don’t display a person that’s thinking rationally.”

The prosecution’s case, which could be lengthy, promises a long list of witnesses and extensive forensic evidence.

Although Kalac is charged with aggravated first-degree murder, he will not face the death penalty if convicted as charged.