Hours after Durham County deputies responded to a domestic dispute on Red Mill Road, 64-year-old Stephanie McCoy was found dead in her home, and her son, 38-year-old Alexander James Glenn Jr., was charged with first-degree murder. What happened between those two calls, and how deputies handled the first, now sits at the center of a closely watched homicide case.
TLDR
Prosecutors in Durham County, North Carolina, have charged Alexander James Glenn Jr. with first-degree murder in the May 15th, 2025, death of his mother, Stephanie McCoy, who was found with a neck puncture wound after deputies twice visited her home the same day.
According to charging records and public statements from the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, Glenn is accused of killing McCoy at her home outside Durham, North Carolina, on May 15th, 2025. Autopsy findings made public months later describe a combination of stabbing, choking, and blunt-force injuries.
The allegations unfold against a documented history of prior violent convictions for Glenn, according to the sheriff’s office, and raise procedural questions about how deputies responded when McCoy first asked for help that morning.
First Call to Red Mill Road
In a public announcement from the Durham County Sheriff’s Office, deputies said they first responded to McCoy’s home on Red Mill Road on the morning of May 15th, 2025, for a reported domestic disturbance. The residence is in an unincorporated area just outside the city of Durham.
When deputies arrived, they encountered an argument between McCoy and her son. According to reporting by WRAL, a local NBC affiliate, McCoy told deputies that Glenn would not let her leave the house, would not return her cellphone, and would not give her the keys to a vehicle belonging to her boyfriend.
Deputies determined that Glenn’s driver’s license had expired and, according to the sheriff’s office, told him not to take the keys or drive the vehicle. A sheriff’s office news release states that Glenn then left the home while deputies were still present. The release does not describe any additional steps deputies took, such as seeking an arrest warrant or arranging for McCoy to leave the residence.
Available public records do not detail the exact time deputies cleared the scene after the first call, nor do they describe whether McCoy requested any specific protective measures beyond regaining access to her phone and transportation.
Hours Later, a Homicide Call
Later that same day, deputies were dispatched again to the Red Mill Road address. In an affidavit summarized by Law And Crime and WRAL, deputies reported finding McCoy unresponsive with what appeared to be a homicide-related injury.
Investigators noted a deep puncture wound to McCoy’s neck and observed that the vehicle previously in the driveway was missing. The sheriff’s office later announced that evidence quickly focused investigators on Glenn.
“Evidence gathered points to Mr. Glenn as the primary suspect in this death investigation,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement released days after McCoy’s death.
Authorities have not publicly outlined the full sequence of events between the deputies’ initial departure and McCoy’s death, including when investigators believe she was attacked or how they contend Glenn left and returned to the property. The publicly available affidavit identifies Glenn as the suspect but does not include a detailed minute-by-minute timeline.
Glenn was later arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Court records described by Law And Crime and WRAL indicate that he has remained in custody since his arrest. There is no publicly available trial date set in the records cited by those outlets.
Autopsy Details and Alleged Violence
In an autopsy report made public in early 2026, and reported by WRAL, the medical examiner identified McCoy’s cause of death as involving a puncture wound to the neck, strangulation, and additional trauma. According to that report, McCoy was choked and had injuries to her face and head consistent with blunt-force impact.
Those findings align with early investigative descriptions that emphasized the neck wound but provide a more complete picture of the alleged violence. They also support prosecutors’ allegation that McCoy was both choked and stabbed in the course of the killing, though no detailed narrative of the attack appears in publicly described court filings.
The sheriff’s office has also emphasized Glenn’s prior criminal record. In its public statement on the case, the office said Glenn had “a history of violent behavior,” including a prior conviction for assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill and what it described as “other equal or greater charges.” Specific case numbers and dates for those convictions were not detailed in the statement.
Neither the sheriff’s office announcement nor the reporting reviewed indicates that any active domestic violence protective order existed between McCoy and Glenn at the time of the May 2025 calls. It is not clear from public records whether deputies were aware of the full extent of Glenn’s prior convictions during the first response that morning.
Legal Stakes and Next Steps
Glenn is charged with first-degree murder, the most serious homicide charge under North Carolina law. In North Carolina, a conviction for first-degree murder is punishable by life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or, in some circumstances, the death penalty, depending on aggravating and mitigating factors presented at sentencing.
A status hearing in Glenn’s case is scheduled for April 16th. Status hearings typically address procedural matters such as discovery, motions, and scheduling rather than the presentation of evidence to a jury. No plea or trial details beyond that hearing date appear in the public descriptions of the case cited by Law And Crime and WRAL.
The Durham County Sheriff’s Office has not, in the documents and statements reviewed, publicly outlined whether it has conducted or completed an internal review of deputies’ handling of the first call to McCoy’s home. That leaves key questions unresolved, including what options deputies believed they had when confronted with McCoy’s claim that she was being prevented from leaving and deprived of her phone and vehicle keys.
As the case moves toward further hearings, prosecutors will have to present their evidence of what they allege took place inside the Red Mill Road home in the hours after deputies first left. For McCoy’s family, and for a community that watched deputies visit the scene twice in a single day, the courtroom proceedings may be the first venue where those unanswered questions begin to be addressed.
References
- Law And Crime: Man Choked and Stabbed His Mother to Death Hours After Deputies Arrived at Her Home
- Durham County Sheriff’s Office: Red Mill Road Homicide Investigation Announcement
- WRAL: Deputies Searched for Durham Man After Mother’s Killing on Red Mill Road
- WRAL: Autopsy Details Injuries in Stephanie McCoy Homicide
