In the early summer of 2015 in Savannah, Georgia, a dispute over a rental application tragically escalated, ending the life of 27-year-old Lorraine Marissa Manuel Cuppie. A vibrant woman known to friends and family by many loving nicknames, including 'Cuppie,' she was a mother to a young son and a graduate of the Savannah Arts Academy. Her life was cut short after a violent encounter with her prospective landlord.
The series of events leading to her death began in June 2015 when Lorraine
and her fiancé decided against renting a house in Chatham County owned by 68-year-old Vivian Waldon Corley. When they requested the return of their application, which contained sensitive personal information, Corley was uncooperative. On the afternoon of June 4, 2015, the disagreement culminated in a shooting at the rental property on Culverton Court. Corley herself placed a call to 911 at 3:40 p.m. to report that she had shot someone.
Emergency services arrived to find Lorraine critically wounded. She was transported to Memorial University Medical Center, where she remained in critical condition for nearly a week. Despite medical efforts, Lorraine Manuel succumbed to her injuries and passed away on Wednesday, June 10, 2015. Following her death, an autopsy confirmed she died from a gunshot wound to the head.
Immediately following the shooting, Vivian Corley was arrested and initially charged with aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, aggravated battery, and criminal attempt to commit murder. With Lorraine's death, the charges were upgraded to murder. In November 2015, a Chatham County grand jury indicted Corley on charges of murder with malice aforethought, felony murder, and aggravated assault. Her first trial resulted in a hung jury.
A second trial took place in March 2018, where a jury found Vivian Waldon Corley guilty on all counts. She was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Lorraine Manuel, with an additional five-year consecutive sentence for the firearms charge. An appeals court later vacated the aggravated assault conviction, ruling that it should have merged with the murder conviction, but upheld the life sentence for murder.
