DALLAS, TEXAS: A Tennessee man has been charged with murder for fatally shooting his girlfriend's husband. Darrin Ruben Lopez was accused of shooting James Faith, 49, to death in 2020. The girlfriend of the 51-year-old man has been sentenced to life in prison for hiring him to kill her husband.
James was killed on the couple's 15th wedding anniversary in October 2020. He suffered three blows to the torso, one in the groin, and three gunshot wounds to the head while he was walking his dog with his wife Jennifer. Lopez's trial in Dallas, Texas is set to last one week, according to Law and Crime.
Who is Darrin Lopez?
Lopez is a disabled Army veteran who claimed his high school girlfriend deceived him into murdering her husband. He drove over 600 miles to fatally shoot James just months after he reconnected with Jennifer during the Covid-19 pandemic. The weapon the murderer used to kill the man was found in Lopez’s home. The 51-year-old was then charged with a federal firearm offense.
Investigators later found that Jennifer used two fake email accounts to write to Lopez as she posed as her husband. In her emails, she told the defendant that James was physically and sexually abusive to her.
Jennifer set up a GoFundMe page a day after husband's death
Jennifer, the widow of the American Airlines executive continued to send Lopez money and gifts both before and after James' shooting death. She also set up a GoFundMe page to raise money a day after her husband's death.
Jennifer was arrested after she pleaded guilty to the murder-for-hire plot and was charged with obstruction of justice earlier when authorities found evidence of her helping Lopez to destroy evidence.
What evidence led to Jennifer's arrest?
After investigators swarmed Lopez's home, a flat-screen Samsung TV shipped to him from Jennifer raised suspicion. They then searched her phone and found she continued messaging Lopez with over 14,000 texts exchanged between them. She previously told her friend she had a five-year plan of how she would be with Lopez with whom she had a "full-blown emotional affair." Jennifer later told the friend she had to end the relationship as it would hurt James.
In a 2021 statement, US Attorney Prerak Shah stated, "Even as she publicly claimed she was 'desperate for answers' regarding her husband’s murder, Jennifer Faith was communicating with the alleged killer, actively urging him to destroy evidence and attempting to delete incriminating communications from her phone."
Jennifer who regularly kept Lopez updated about her efforts in collecting her husband's life insurance policy also schooled the defendant on how to respond to potential questions from the police to evade being caught. She also asked Lopez to pretend to be her old friend and told him to follow the narrative that is a single father who went through a divorce. "We talk every night because I am helping/giving support to the girls since you have sole custody. If it ever comes to it, I’ll answer the same way. Just so you and I have the same explanations," Jennifer reportedly told Lopez.
