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Fri Jul 18, 5:03 PM

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By The Canadian Press

CARY, N.C. - The family of a former Edmonton resident slain in North Carolina said Friday it was weighing how to tell her two little girls about the grim fate of their mother, whose body was found Monday.

Nancy Cooper's daughters, Bella, four, and Katie, two, are being cared for by the family, in particular their mother's twin sister Khrista Lister, who they sometimes call "Khrista mom." The family believes the girls don't know their mother was killed and that her death is the subject of a police investigation.

"We as humans are pretty adaptive and I think our children always can make adaptations we doubt," Nancy Cooper's father, Gerry Rentz, said at a news conference in Cary, N.C., on Friday morning.

"I think the girls will come through this well if we handle it well."

Cooper, 34, was last seen Saturday morning by her husband Bradley Cooper before going for a jog. Her body was found Monday less than five kilometres from her home in Cary in a subdivision construction site.

The family was granted temporary custody of the girls this week after filing an emergency petition. Cooper's parents and sister argued that Bradley Cooper was having an affair, is emotionally unstable and posed a danger to the children.

Bradley Cooper's lawyers have not directly commented on the custody issue, and police said the issue was private. His lawyers have said he is devastated by his wife's death and will continue to assist police as they investigate.

"He would ask and I would join him in asking that anything having to do with the care, with the decisions about the girls be allowed to be worked out between the family members and in private," Cooper's lawyer Seth Blum told a news conference Friday afternoon.

"Mr. Cooper is in mourning I would ask that you respect his privacy and allow him the memory of his wife."

Authorities have not named any suspects in Nancy Cooper's death and have not released any details about how she died.

"He is not a suspect, he is not a person of interest and he has been very, very clear with the police - he did not kill his wife," Blum said.

Rentz said he and the family are coping the best they can.

"It's certainly all about those two girls at this point," he said.

Jim Lister, Nancy Cooper's brother-in-law, said they are working to set up a trust fund for Bella and Katie to which people in both the United States and Canada would be able to contribute.

Rentz said Lister works for Sleeman Brewing, and that the family is taking up the company's offer to provide grief counsellors, who they said they will meet with Friday to discuss what to tell the children.

"(They're) going to help us understand how to make news appropriately available to the children," Rentz said.

Meanwhile, Nancy Cooper's mother Donna Rentz said there has been a huge outpouring of support for the family, particularly in Edmonton, where she said the tree in front of their house is adorned with white ribbons.

The family said a service for Nancy Cooper will be held in Edmonton on Wednesday at 1 p.m. at Grace Lutheran Church.