Woman charged with murder of husband after going on TV begging for help finding killer

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A Texas woman who made a desperate plea to find her husband’s killer a year ago has now been accused of orchestrating the crime with the help of her boyfriend.

Jennifer Lynne Faith had said last year that she was not supposed to be widowed at 48 and urged the killer to come forward. “I just hope that at some point, maybe this person can recognise the gravity of what they’ve done and [can] feel some sort of guilt,” she had said in a tearful plea on 2 December.

On 9 October Jamie Faith, an American Airlines technology director, was gunned down while he and his wife were walking their dog. In January, Ms Faith’s long-distance boyfriend Darrin Rubin Lopez has been indicted for the murder.

Almost a year later, police say they have found evidence to show that Ms Faith engaged in a “depraved” plot to kill her husband and manipulated her boyfriend into committing the crime. In February this year, the police had charged her with destruction of evidence in the case.

Court documents alleged that Ms Faith impersonated her husband and another friend to send emails to her boyfriend. In these emails, she insinuated that she was being sexually and physically abused by her husband, allegedly provoking Mr Lopez to kill Faith.

There is no evidence to prove these accusations against her husband, authorities said.

Prerak Shah, acting US attorney for the northern district of Texas, said the woman’s act was “depraved and calculated”. “She preyed on her boyfriend’s protective instinct and his pocketbook in order to convince him to execute her husband. Jamie Faith’s brutal murder was a tragedy,” Mr Shah said.

Ms Faith and her boyfriend exchanged more than 14,000 calls and texts during the month of the murder, according to a report by WFAA, ABC’s local affiliate.

One time, Ms Faith, posing as her husband, sent a picture of two men sexually abusing an unidentified woman to Mr Lopez. “Good stuff,” an email to Mr Lopez on 9 May 2020 said. “Enjoy knowing you can’t do a f*****g thing about it.”

Still impersonating her husband, she also sent pictures showing injuries that she claimed were from an assault. These were, in fact, from a 2012 accident.

Another set of emails were sent to Mr Lopez from an account expressing concern over how Ms Faith was being treated by her husband. These were also sent by Ms Faith, authorities say.

After the series of emails and exchanges over months, where Ms Faith allegedly faked assault and torture at the hands of her husband, Mr Lopez went from Tennessee to Dallas last October to gun down Mr Faith, prosecutors say.