The man who killed his girlfriend’s husband after their ‘emotional affair’ has shared chilling details which led to the fatal shooting.
In October 2020, Darrin Lopez, 51, shot dead Jamie Faith, 49. Faith was walking his dog outside of his home he shared with his wife Jennifer Faith.
And Darrin wants his 62-year sentence shortened because he says he helped put Jennifer in jail for ‘using’ him for the murder.
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He was convicted and sentenced for murder in July this year and has now named the widow as the ‘true criminal’.
Darrin spoke to NBC’s Dateline as he said: “I became her weapon, I understand that.”
Jennifer and her husband had been together for 15 years and shared a teenage daughter when he was killed.
But when Darrin was divorced and lonely during the pandemic, he reached out to his former high school sweetheart on LinkedIn.
After reconnecting in March 2020, they exchanged ‘tens of thousands of messages and phone calls’ according to Eric Barnes, a Dallas detective who worked on the case.
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Apparently Jennifer called him her ‘soulmate’ and they even came up with a five-year plan for them to be together.
He said he fell back in love with her, but insists he never intended to break her and Jamie up.
However, she started to ‘confess’ that Jamie was abusive after discovering the ‘emotional affair’.
Lopez told attorney Rick Calvert that Jennifer claimed Jamie had sexually assaulted her and she’d woken up to him performing CPR on her.
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Darrin wanted to go to the cops, but he told Dateline: “She also told me that she would say nothing’s happening. She would deny everything to the police.”
And it turns out, Jennifer was making the whole thing up. Calvert said the lies were ‘some of the most sadistic things you can possibly dream up’.
With Darrin believing Jennifer was being abused and threatened (apparently even receiving texts faked ‘from Jamie’) he drove 10 hours to Texas.
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He said he was convinced if he ‘didn’t do something, she was going to die’.
So he shot Jamie as he left their home and worked to make it look like a robbery, removing his wedding ring and punching Jennifer and binding her hands.
She even began pleading for help to find her husband’s killer and told NBC Dallas-Fort Worth at the time: “My hope is that someday perhaps the person will realize the gravity of what they’ve done, what they’ve taken from myself and my daughter.”
Seven months later, she was charged with murder-for-hire and later sentenced to life in prison.
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Darrin told Dateline: “That thought never registered in my mind that she could use me this way. I believe she loved me.”
He is now hoping that Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will consider his assistance and his self-defense claim can get his sentence reduced.
Topics: Sex and Relationships, US News, Crime