The Grieving Widow

Jamie Faith was a forty-nine-year-old technology director at American Airlines, married to Jennifer, and on the morning of October 9, 2020 the couple were walking their dog on South Waverly Drive in north Oak Cliff. A masked man stepped out of a black Nissan pickup and shot Jamie seven times. He then came at Jennifer with duct tape before driving away.

Jennifer wept for detectives, gave interviews and accepted money raised by neighbors. Doorbell cameras along the street had caught the truck. Jennifer had cleared her messages before handing over her phone, but a name and address left behind in her contacts pointed to Darrin Lopez in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, a boyfriend from her high school years, and the black Nissan at his place carried the same window decal. For months she had fed him emails written under her husband’s name describing beatings that never happened, along with injury photos pulled off the internet. Cell tower records, thousands of messages and the donation money she used to clear his credit cards filled in the rest.

Jennifer Faith pleaded guilty to murder for hire in February 2022 and was sentenced to life in federal prison on June 21, 2022. Lopez went to trial, was convicted of murder and sentenced in 2023 to sixty-two years. A Texas appeals court upheld his conviction in December 2024.