Stuti Gokhale
The shocking October 2020 murder of American Airlines executive Jamie Faith has been chronicled in detail in CBS’ ’48 Hours: The Plot to Kill Jamie Faith,’ NBC’s ‘Dateline: Losing Faith,’ as well as ABC’s ’20/20: Happy Never After.’ The investigation of the tragic incident revealed an elaborate plot to cover up the murder by his wife, Jennifer. But alas, her lover, Darrin Lopez, was ultimately found responsible for it. While a lot is already known about Jennifer’s actions, let’s shed some light on Darrin’s involvement in this jolting case, shall we?
Who is Darrin Lopez?
Born on June 7, 1972, Darrin Ruben Lopez fell for his schoolmate Jennifer while they were attending Salpointe Catholic High School, and they dated all throughout these years and college. The pair had even begun planning their forever union, but they broke up shortly after, as she was still finishing college, when he was deployed to South Korea after completing basic training in the army. Darrin actually went on to serve as a Medical Sergeant for 26 years in the Special Forces. He suffered a traumatic brain injury during his time in Iraq, resulting in disability.
After retiring, Darrin settled in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, where he was likely living apart from his daughters. He then contacted Jennifer after looking for her. At that time, she was married to Jamie Faith, a technology director at American Airlines, and the couple resided in Oak Cliff, Dallas County. Nevertheless, she began speaking to her ex again through texts, emails, and calls around March 2020, and soon their romance rekindled. In an email dated April 6, 2022, he wrote, “I love and miss you so much…Keep dreaming of our life together. Keep planning our lives together.”
Jennifer actually reciprocated these feelings and secretly engaged in an emotional affair with Darrin, something that Jamie was reportedly aware of. Yet later, she created two fake email accounts posing as her spouse and an ex-colleague to indicate to her lover that the former was allegedly abusing her both physically and sexually. To substantiate her accusations, she sent him stock images of injuries or old pictures from when she’d been in an accident.
With such emails, Jennifer managed to fully convince Darrin of how abusive her husband Jamie was and that she wanted nothing more but to reunite with him. Deeply angered by her plight, Darrin allegedly drove to Oak Cliff, Dallas County, and waited in the empty house next to the Faith residence. On October 9, 2020, when Jennifer and Jamie stepped out with their dog Maggie at roughly 7:30 am for their usual morning walk, he stepped out in a mask, went up behind them, and gunned down his lover’s husband with a .45 caliber handgun.
Jamie was shot seven times in total — thrice in the head, three times in the chest, and once in the groin. As per officials, Darrin then went on to duct-tape Jennifer’s hands and tried to snatch her jewelry before giving up and driving off in his black Nissan pickup truck. Jamie died on the spot, whereas Jennifer was mildly injured. As investigations began, she frequently kept Darrin in the loop via text messages, especially in the 12 days following the incident. Yet the sinister plan soon became known by the police when they found all their correspondence on Jennifer’s cellphone.
In addition, a neighbor had luckily clicked a picture of Darrin’s truck while he escaped on the day of the murder, and another neighbor’s surveillance camera captured the entire incident too. After conducting aerial surveillance of Darrin’s Tennessee residence, the local police spotted the above-mentioned truck and concluded that he might be their perpetrator. When Jennifer got to know of this, she asked Darrin to remove the “T” sticker on his truck which was identified in the footage.
Moreover, Jennifer took $58,000 out of the $60,000 GoFundMe donations she’d received as aid to gift him expensive items like a TV or airplane tickets for him and his daughters. Apart from this, she even gave him two of her credit cards and initiated a claim at the insurance company to get $629,000 as death benefits from Jamie’s employer. As Darrin and Jennifer were apparently conspiring to make their cover stories sound the same, the police arrested him from his home on January 11, 2021.
The alleged murder weapon, the mask he wore, which Jennifer had rightly described, and both her cards were retrieved from Darrin’s house. Regardless, she continued contacting him in prison through an unknown third person, professing her unwavering love for him via more texts. Following Jennifer’s arrest for obstruction of justice in February 2021, Darrin claimed in custody that she’d vehemently requested him to murder her husband, and thus he complied to “protect” her from him. As per the show, he added that he had shot Jamie in the groin as revenge against Jennifer’s claims of sexual abuse. Based on his testimony, she was further charged with interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire in October 2020.
Darrin Lopez is Spending His Days Behind Bars
Darrin Lopez was charged with the murder of Jamie Faith as well as with a federal firearm crime, to which he pleaded not guilty. He hence remained in Dallas County Jail while awaiting trial, which commenced in July 2023 and lasted a mere week. In the end, he was found guilty of murder, for which he was subsequently sentenced to a total of 62 years behind bard with the possibility of parole. Therefore, today, the 51-year-old is incarcerated at the maximum security Texas Department of Criminal Justice – George Beto Unit in Anderson County, where he’s expected to remain until at least 2051. According to state records, his projected release date at the moment is February 4, 2083, yet he will become eligible for parole on February 4, 2051.
Read More: Jamie Faith Murder: How Did He Die? Who Killed Him?
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