On October 9, 2020, Jamie Faith and his wife Jennifer headed out from their Dallas home for an early morning dog walk. Jamie Faith was about to take her final stroll. Jamie was shot and killed seconds after they exited the house. Their friends and neighbours were taken aback by the murder. Darrin Lopez was arrested in Tennessee on January 11, 2021. The accused murder weapon, credit cards in Jennifer Faith’s name, and a mask matching the description of the face mask that Jennifer described seeing on the shooter were discovered during searches of one of his vehicles and his residence by law police. Jennifer Faith was accused with murder for hire in September 2021.
While a grieving widow appealed to the public for information in her husband’s murder, investigators found texts and money were allegedly being sent to a man named Darrin Lopez – her high school boyfriend. https://t.co/sRk30USILt pic.twitter.com/xaPwq00AxI
— 48 Hours (@48hours) April 10, 2022
The stunning 2020 murder of American Airlines CEO Jamie Faith outside his Dallas home is documented in an episode of ‘48 Hours‘ titled ‘The Plot to Kill Jamie Faith.’ The events leading up to his death and the identities of those involved became apparent as the investigation progressed, leaving everyone perplexed. Do you want to learn more about this terrible case? Let’s take a look and see what we can find out.
Must Read: Jamie Faith Murder – Where is Darrin Lopez Now?
What Caused Jamie Faith’s Death?
49-year-old Jamie Faith, an American Airlines technology director, lived in Oak Cliff, Dallas, with his wife Jennifer and their dog Maggie. On October 8, 2020, the pair celebrated their fifteenth wedding anniversary. They met on a blind date in Phoenix in 2005 and married in Las Vegas in 2012. Jennifer, a speech pathologist by training, had a daughter from a previous marriage named Amber, whom Jamie legally adopted and to whom he was quite connected.
Jamie was a Wisconsin native who previously worked as a web engineer before joining US Airways in Tucson as a senior manager. After American Airlines acquired US Airways, the family relocated from Arizona to Dallas in 2017. Jamie and Jennifer left the house with Maggie about 7:30 a.m. on October 9, 2020, for their customary morning stroll. An anonymous masked assailant wearing loose pants, a blue mask, and a hoodie approached them just as they crossed the adjacent vacant house.
Jamie was shot seven times, three times in the head, three times in the chest, and once in the crotch, before duct-taping Jennifer’s hands and attempting to steal some of her valuables. After a brief struggle, he leaped into a nearby black Nissan pickup vehicle and fled. Jennifer was just slightly hurt, but Jamie died instantly from seven gunshot wounds from a.45 calibre handgun.
WHo Killed Jamie Faith and Why?
Following Jamie’s death, the residents of Oak Cliff flocked to Jennifer’s aid and sought to help her in any way they could. She also went on the local television and pleaded with her neighbours to come forward with any information they had on the murderer. Jennifer Svelan, the couple’s next-door neighbour, also helped establish a GoFundMe campaign to raise finances for Jennifer and her kid, which raised over $60,000.
On the day of the incident, a neighbour managed to snap a photo of the assailant’s truck, and the sound of the entire battle was captured on another house’s security camera. The truck featured a distinctive “T” decal on the driver’s side back window, which was key evidence for the cops. A check of Jennifer’s phone revealed that she had been having an emotional affair with Darrin Lopez, who lived in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, much to everyone’s astonishment.
Darrin dated her throughout high school and college and is a former army veteran. He is disabled as a result of a catastrophic brain injury sustained while serving in Iraq. Jennifer and Darrin reconnected in March 2020, and the two exchanged frequent phone conversations. The authorities began looking through his bank records with this information, and aerial surveillance of his Tennessee property discovered the truck that matched the description of the murder’s surveillance tape. Darrin was arrested at his residence on January 11, 2021, based on the incriminating footage.
The accused murder weapon, the mask matching Jennifer’s description of the assailant, and two credit cards in her name were discovered during a search of his home and cars. The police began closely monitoring Jennifer’s interactions after suspecting her involvement in Jamie’s murder.
According to the investigation, she created two phoney email accounts in the names of Jamie and a former coworker, and used them to send emails to Darrin while mimicking Jamie’s abuse. She claimed that her spouse was physically and sexually abusing her, and she backed up her claims with false stock images and old photos.
Darrin was persuaded to murder Jamie and “protect” Jennifer, and he drove from Tennessee to Dallas to do it. They exchanged several messages and phone calls, particularly in the 12 days after Jamie’s death, in which she revealed that she urged him to remove the “T” decal sticker from his truck after the police detected it in the surveillance.
They afterwards organised their alibis to give during interrogation. A month following Jamie’s death, Jennifer filed a claim with Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, seeking nearly $629,000 in death benefits from Jamie’s job.
According to Jennifer and Darrin’s texts, they planned to use the money to purchase her a house in Tennessee. She also withdrew roughly $58,000 from the GoFundMe donations over the course of two months, which she used to give Darrin extravagant presents like as a new television and airline tickets.
Jennifer also allowed him access to two credit cards under her name, according to the show. Jennifer kept in touch with Darrin after his detention through a third party who happened to be in the same prison.
Jennifer was arrested and charged with obstruction of justice on February 24, 2021, based on all of this information. During interrogation, Darrin finally admitted that she had urged him to kill Jamie, and that’s why he came to Dallas to shoot him. As a result, a further charge of interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire was added in October 2021.
Darrin Lopez was charged with both the murder and the gun crime of Jamie Faith, and he pled not guilty to both charges. Jennifer, on the other hand, accepted a plea deal and pled guilty to both charges on February 7, 2022.