 A woman who was once the youngest Indiana Death Row inmate was found dead Tuesday morning in Indianapolis, police said 
 
 Paula Cooper (Photo: Star file photo) 
 
 The campaign to save the life of Paula Cooper, who at 16 became the youngest Death Row inmate in Indiana, attracted international attention after she pleaded guilty to murder in 1986. Paula Cooper had pleaded guilty to murder in 1986 but a successful appeal led to her June 2013 release after 27 years in prison. Cooper, 45, died just after 7:15 a.m. from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in the 9500 block of Angola Court, according to Indianapolis Metropolitan Police. Her death is still under investigation, and the Marion County coroner's office conducted an autopsy Wednesday. "It's an unusual ending to a tragic case," said Indianapolis attorney Jack Crawford, who was the Lake County prosecutor when Cooper was charged. "I've been involved in a lot of cases in my life, and nothing compared to this case." Cooper admitted stabbing 78-year-old Ruth Pelke 33 times with a 12-inch butcher knife in a robbery that netted four youths $10 and an old car. Law enforcement identified Cooper as the ringleader in the slaying. She and three friends went to Pelke's Gary home armed with a 12-inch butcher knife. An investigation showed Pelke allowed the teens into her home after they said they were interested in Bible study lessons. But the scene turned grisly when they knocked Pelke to the ground and Cooper climbed on top of her. "Paula Cooper got on top of her and kept saying to her, and this is her own admission, 'Where's the money, bitch?'" " Crawford told The Indianapolis Star during a 2013 interview. He said Cooper began slicing Pelke with the butcher knife. The woman's last words were the Lord's Prayer. The other teens involved were sentenced to lengthy prison terms on robbery or murder charges: 25, 35 and 60 years. But when Cooper was sentenced, the judge invoked capital punishment. The decision led to an immediate shift in public outrage. Cooper was among only a handful of women in Indiana to receive the death penalty, and she was the youngest in the state's history. "My grandmother would have been appalled she was on death row and that there was so much hate and anger and desire for her to die. The 30th anniversary of the murder was just two weeks ago. (Photo: The Indianapolis Star and News) 
 
 Bill Pelke, a grandson of the slain Bible teacher, said he forgave Cooper, who said she had been abused as a child, and visited her in prison 14 times. I was convinced my grandmother would have had love and compassion for Paula and her family," he said in a telephone interview from Anchorage, Alaska, where he runs Journey of Hope ... From Violence to Healing, which supports alternatives to the death penalty.Pelke said he visited with Cooper while she was in prison and had last spoke to her last August. They exchanged e-mails almost weekly the last two years of her incarceration. In one of their last messages, Cooper told Pelke that her time in prison was about up and she was scared. "I have no idea what was going on in her life. She had never written a check or paid a bill. There was so much, Pelke said, that she didn't know how to do. He said he worked to help Cooper after realizing that's what his grandmother would have wanted. But the two talked only once after she was released. In 1988, a priest delivered a petition to Indianapolis with more than 2 million signatures protesting Cooper's sentence.Pelke's grandson, Bill Pelke, who organized opposition to the death penalty after his grandmother's killing, said he was devastated to learn of Cooper's death. "We had wanted to do things together around restorative justice and the death penalty," he said. She had always told me she wanted to help young people to avoid the pitfalls that she had fallen into. She wanted to tell them, 'Look, this is how I responded to the hate and anger, and look at all the trouble I got into.” Bill Pelke, grandson of Ruth Pelke 
 
 The Indiana Supreme Court commuted Cooper's death sentence and sent her to prison for 60 years. "She wanted to give them alternatives so they didn't end up like her." Cooper's pursuit of an appeal made her world renowned. According to the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana Supreme Court received 2 million signatures in support of her appeal. Cooper was 15 at the time the crime was committed.Her death sentence enraged human rights activists in the U.S. and Europe and drew a plea for clemency from Pope John Paul II. Robert Orr. The United Nations received a million signatures in support of overturning Cooper's death penalty. Two years after Cooper's sentencing, the U.S. Supreme Court, which was already considering the issue of imposing death sentences on teens, ruled it was unconstitutional to execute anyone who was younger than 16 at the time the person committed a crime. Indiana lawmakers later raised the minimum age from 10 to 16 in 1989 and again to 18 in 2002. "A lot of things have changed," Crawford said. "It was a truly unique case." The court said such sentences were cruel and unusual punishment and thus unconstitutional.Indiana lawmakers later passed a law raising the minimum age limit for execution from 10 years to 16, and in 1988, the state's high court set aside Cooper's death sentence and ordered her to serve 60 years in prison.Cooper's sentence was reduced due to her behavior in prison, where she earned a bachelor's degree. She served 27 years of that sentence until her 2013 release. Kevin Relphorde, who served as Cooper's public defender, said Tuesday he was stunned by the news. He said he hadn't spoken to Cooper in years and had lost track of her. "Paula was a good person," he said. "She was very misunderstood. She went through a lot at the hands of her father, with physical abuse, and I think that led to the situation with Mrs. (Ruth) Pelke.” Kevin Relphorde, public defender 
 
 Lewis said he taught Cooper and other female inmates a college-level Introduction to Philosophy class. Pelke." Her time at the Rockville Correctional Facility began with troubles. In 1995, she was sentenced to three years of solitary confinement for assaulting a prison guard. "I was very bitter and angry, so I was in a lot of trouble. I hated it. But I learned to adapt eventually," she said in a 2004 interview with The Star. Cooper soon began pursuing educational opportunities, first earning her General Educational Development degree, then a vocational degree, and in 2001 a bachelor's degree. "She couldn't deal with the outside world," speculated Warren W. Lewis, a retired dean and professor at Martin University who taught Cooper at the Indiana Women's Prison. She said she knew she had done something terrible to society and she wanted to give back. "She was practically a child, and she shouldn't have been treated like an adult." He had not had any contact with her for several years. "My goal," he said, "was to work up to a level of trust to ask, 'Why are you in this prison?'" When he reached that point with Cooper, Lewis said, the young prisoner told him no one had ever asked her that question. "I really don't know why I did that" was the best she could offer in regard to her role in the killing. Like a lot of prisoners, Cooper had difficulty connecting the cause and effect of crime -– "there's a disconnect," Lewis said. "My question," he said, "is what happened to her once she got out?" She was released from prison on June 17, 2013, after spending 28 years behind bars. “While in prison, my sister grew from a teenager into a strong woman, and she was trying to build a future outside of those prison walls she had come to call home.” Rhonda Labroi, Gary, Ind. VPC 
 
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– Paula Cooper, once the youngest death-row inmate in the US, has been found dead of a suicide two years after she was released after 27 years in prison. Police say Cooper, 45, was found dead near an ITT Technical Institute parking lot in Indianapolis on Tuesday. She suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head; a handgun was found in her lap. "It's an unusual ending to a tragic case," a lawyer tells the Indianapolis Star. "I've been involved in a lot of cases in my life, and nothing compared to this case." Armed with a 12-inch butcher knife, 15-year-old Cooper led three friends into the home of Ruth Pelke, 78, in 1985 after feigning an interest in Bible lessons. They knocked Pelke to the ground and Cooper climbed on top of her, demanding money, before stabbing her 33 times. The youths made off with just $10 and an old car, the AP reports. Sentenced to death, Cooper drew the support of millions, including Pope John Paul II, before the Indiana Supreme Court commuted her sentence. The state then raised the minimum age for a death sentence from 10 to 16, and later to 18. "She was so sorry for the crime that she committed, and she worked hard to change her life," Cooper's sister says, per the Indianapolis Star. "While in prison, my sister grew from a teenager into a strong woman, and she was trying to build a future outside of those prison walls she had come to call home." A grandson of Pelke, who visited and emailed Cooper while she was in prison, says she hoped to dedicate her life to restorative justice and helping other abuse victims "so they didn't end up like her." He last spoke to her in August. "I thought she was doing well," he says. "I have no idea what was going on in her life."