James Faith

James “Jamie” Faith, a 49-year-old technology director at American Airlines, was a married man looking forward to the future. But on the morning of October 9, 2020, the day after he and his wife, Jennifer, celebrated their 15th wedding anniversary, his life was violently cut short. As the couple took their dog, Maggie, for a walk in their North Oak Cliff neighborhood in Dallas, Texas, a masked man approached them from behind. The assailant shot Jamie, a White male, seven times before he died at the scene. His wife told police the gunman had tried to abduct her and steal her jewelry before fleeing in a black Nissan Titan pickup truck.

In the weeks that followed, Jennifer Faith made emotional public pleas for help in finding her husband's killer. "Oh my God, if you know what happened, I need that for closure," she said in one interview. "I need to make some sense out of this." A neighbor, moved by her grief, started a GoFundMe campaign that raised over $60,000 to support Jennifer and her daughter. The community rallied around the seemingly heartbroken widow, desperate to find answers.

Behind the scenes, however, detectives were uncovering a different story. They learned that Jennifer had reconnected with a high school boyfriend, Darrin Ruben Lopez, in March 2020 and was having what she called an "emotional affair." An investigation revealed the two had exchanged more than 14,000 calls and text messages in the month surrounding the murder, including a five-year plan for how they would be together. Police discovered that Jennifer had manipulated Lopez, feeding him a sophisticated series of lies that her husband was physically and sexually abusing her.

The investigation revealed that Jennifer had masterminded the murder plot to collect more than $60,000 in life insurance and start a new life with Lopez. While leaving her husband's $6,500 funeral bill unpaid, she withdrew $58,000 from the GoFundMe account and used the money to lavish gifts on Lopez, including a large-screen television and airline tickets. Police traced the Nissan Titan from the crime scene to Lopez’s home in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee.

On January 11, 2021, Darrin Lopez was arrested in Tennessee and charged with murder. A month later, Jennifer Faith was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice for deleting incriminating text messages and urging Lopez to destroy evidence.

In February 2022, Jennifer Faith pleaded guilty to orchestrating the murder-for-hire plot. A federal judge, calling her "pure evil," sentenced her to life in prison. Darrin Lopez, a former soldier who claimed Jennifer had deceived him, went to trial. He was convicted of murder, and in August 2023, he was sentenced to 62 years in a state penitentiary.