Darrin Lopez: The Jamie Faith Murder-for-Hire Case, Sentence, and Appeal

The Darrin Lopez and Jamie Faith murder case is a 2020 Dallas killing in which Darrin Lopez, a decorated former Green Beret, shot and killed American Airlines director Jamie Faith after being manipulated for months by Faith’s wife, Jennifer, who fed him fabricated stories that her husband was violently abusing her. Lopez pulled the trigger. Jennifer Faith orchestrated it. Both are now in prison, she for life on federal murder-for-hire charges and he for 62 years on a Texas state murder conviction.

The Murder in Oak Cliff

On the morning of October 9, 2020, Jamie Faith, 49, left his home in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas for a walk with his wife Jennifer and their dog. A masked gunman approached and opened fire. Prosecutors said Jamie was struck as many as nine times, with three bullets to the head.¹ The gunman then duct-taped Jennifer’s wrists, took Jamie’s wedding ring, and fled in a black pickup.² Jamie was pronounced dead at the scene.

None of the staging was accidental. Lopez and Jennifer had agreed in advance to dress the killing up as a botched robbery. He punched her, bound her hands, and took the ring so she could tell detectives an attacker had tried to abduct her and steal her jewelry.¹³

Who Darrin Lopez Is

Lopez served as a medic in the U.S. Army Special Forces, deploying six times to Iraq and Afghanistan. He earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. A roadside bombing left him with a traumatic brain injury that ended his military career.⁴ By 2020 he was living on a 20-acre property in Cumberland Furnace, Tennessee, increasingly isolated during the pandemic. He and Jennifer Faith had dated in high school, and she used the code “575,” the number of his old Special Forces team, in their messages.¹

How Jennifer Faith Manipulated Him

Jennifer reconnected with Lopez in early 2020 after he found her on LinkedIn. Over the next six months the two exchanged roughly 116,000 text messages, an average of about 500 texts and emails a day, while rarely being in the same place.⁵

Inside that flood of communication she built an elaborate fiction. She created fake email accounts to impersonate Jamie and a male friend she called “Rob,” sending Lopez graphic messages that claimed Jamie was physically and sexually abusing her.² She sent photos she said showed her injuries; investigators later determined the images came from an old car accident or from stock photos online.⁵ She knew about Lopez’s traumatic brain injury and, in her own later words, “used that to her advantage.”⁶

The escalation is on the record. Writing to what he thought was Jennifer’s friend Rob, Lopez said: “I know I won’t feel better about her situation until she is … away from him, or she lets me put a bullet in Jamie’s head.”⁵ He was writing to Jennifer herself.

She also paid him, in effect. After the murder, Jennifer used more than $58,000 from a GoFundMe neighbors had set up to support her, spending the money on gifts for Lopez, including a Samsung television, airline tickets for him and his daughters, credit card payments, and Venmo transfers. Jamie’s $6,500 funeral bill went unpaid.⁷ A former husband of Jennifer’s, Rick Urlaub, later told CBS News she had tried a similar playbook on him years earlier, inventing spousal abuse to push him toward harming a previous partner.⁵

How the Case Was Solved

The daylight execution did not look random to investigators. Neighborhood cameras caught a black Nissan Titan pickup with a distinctive “T” decal on the rear window leaving the area. Police first read the “T” as a Texas Rangers logo. It was a University of Tennessee sticker.

A background check on Jennifer turned up constant contact with an old boyfriend in Tennessee. Detectives used Lopez’s cell data, bank records, and gas station security footage to trace a 650-mile drive from Cumberland Furnace to Dallas. Footage from an Arkansas gas station showed him wearing a blue mask that matched Jennifer’s own description of the shooter.⁵ Aerial surveillance of his property confirmed the black Titan with the “T” decal.

Two months after the killing, Jennifer went on Dallas station WFAA and publicly appealed for information about the “black pickup truck.” At the same time she was texting Lopez to remove the sticker. He replied: “Sticker done.”²

Lopez was arrested on January 11, 2021, in Dickson, Tennessee. A .45 caliber handgun recovered from his home tested positive for Jamie Faith’s blood and matched shell casings from the scene.⁵ Lopez told investigators he had dumped Jamie’s wedding ring somewhere in Arkansas on the drive home.

Jennifer Faith’s Life Sentence

Jennifer Faith was arrested in February 2021, first on obstruction charges. A federal grand jury later indicted her for using interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire.⁸ On February 7, 2022, she pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jane J. Boyle, admitting as part of her plea that Jamie had never abused her and that every claim she had made to Lopez was a lie.⁵ The plea took the death penalty off the table.

Prosecutors noted that Jennifer had pursued roughly $629,000 in life insurance benefits after Jamie’s death. U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham called the crime a “cold-blooded plot” and pointed to Jennifer “weeping on television” while coordinating with Lopez to hide the truth.⁸ On June 21, 2022, Judge Boyle sentenced her to life in federal prison.⁹

Lopez’s Trial, Conviction, and 62-Year Sentence

Lopez was charged with murder under Texas state law and with a federal gun crime. He pleaded not guilty and went to trial in Dallas in late July 2023.

The Self-Defense Argument

Defense attorney Juan Sanchez told jurors that Lopez, a disabled combat veteran with a traumatic brain injury and PTSD, genuinely believed Jennifer and her daughter were in imminent danger. Lopez testified that during the drive from Tennessee to Texas he entered “military mode,” casting himself as a “noble soldier” on a rescue mission against a “monster.”¹⁰

He admitted the shooting from the stand. “I did not want Jamie to suffer,” he testified. “I approached, and I fired the rounds into his head.” He said he also shot Jamie in the groin because of Jennifer’s fabricated sexual assault claims. When he later learned the abuse allegations were invented, he told the court: “I was devastated. I took an innocent life.”¹⁰ Forensic psychologist Dr. John Fabian testified that Lopez had an “unhealthy” obsession with his high school girlfriend and that the killing likely would not have happened absent Jennifer’s manipulation.

How Prosecutors Countered It

Prosecutors argued Lopez and Jennifer Faith had conspired together and that Lopez’s self-defense claim collapsed under his own conduct. He had taken “no logical steps to confirm the abuse or otherwise secure Jennifer Faith’s safety” — no call to police, no contact with social services, no independent check on anything Jennifer said.¹¹

Prosecutor Brandi Mitchell pressed him on how he could believe Jennifer was being subjected to gang rape while trading what Mitchell described as “steamy, erotically charged messages” with her.¹⁰ Assistant U.S. Attorney Rick Calvert, who had prosecuted Jennifer, said Lopez had “other avenues” available besides “murdering someone in cold blood.”¹

The Verdict

The jury deliberated just over an hour before convicting Lopez of murder. In the penalty phase, jurors deliberated nearly four hours before sentencing him to 62 years in prison and recommending a $10,000 fine.¹² Dallas County Criminal District Attorney John Creuzot said: “James Faith was a truly innocent victim, and we are thankful to provide a semblance of justice for his friends, family, and loved ones.”¹¹

A juror later told NBC News that the panel grew comfortable with the 62-year sentence after reviewing text messages that contradicted Lopez’s claim he had no alternative. The juror added that Lopez’s cooperation with federal authorities was only “briefly mentioned” at trial and not explained in detail.¹

Appeal and Push for Clemency

Lopez appealed to the Fifth District Court of Appeals in Dallas, arguing the evidence was insufficient to support the jury’s rejection of his self-defense claim. Justice Amanda L. Reichek issued a memorandum opinion on December 11, 2024.¹³

Separately, Lopez has publicly asked Texas Governor Greg Abbott for a sentence reduction. His attorney said in late 2023 that no formal clemency petition had been filed at that point, but Lopez has argued his case in media interviews. He says his cooperation with federal prosecutors helped secure Jennifer Faith’s guilty plea and life sentence, and that his own jury never heard the full extent of it. He has pointed to Abbott’s stated willingness to pardon Army Sergeant Daniel Perry in a separate case as a possible precedent, while saying he is seeking a sentence reduction rather than a full pardon.¹⁴ “The true criminal is in jail for life. I helped put her there,” he told reporters.¹ No public action from the governor’s office has been reported.

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NBC News. Darrin Lopez Jennifer Faith Love Triangle Murder
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ABC News. Investigators Unraveled Mystery Shocking Murder Jamie Faith
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CBS News. Darrin Lopez Convicted of Murder
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Oxygen. Jennifer Faith Convinced Darrin Lopez to Murder Her Husband
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CBS News. Jennifer Faith Jamie Faith Dallas Murder-for-Hire Puppet Master
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People. Man Tricked Murdering Girlfriend’s Husband False Abuse Claims Says Mission
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CBS News. Jamie Faith Dallas Murder Jennifer Faith GoFundMe Proceeds Alleged Killer
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ATF. Jennifer Faith Pleads Guilty Murder Hire Husband’s Death
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U.S. Department of Justice. Jennifer Faith Sentence Life Murder Hire Husband’s Death
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NBC DFW. Darrin Lopez Accused of Killing HS Girlfriend’s Husband in Dallas
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Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. Darrin Lopez Conviction
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Court TV. TX v. Darrin Ruben Lopez Boyfriend Hitman Murder Trial
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Leagle. Lopez v. State, No. 05-23-00753-CR
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New York Post. Decorated Army Vet Duped Into Murdering Ex’s Husband