Jennifer Lynne Faith, 48, the wife of slain Texan and American Airlines executive James Faith, 49, was arrested Wednesday for coaching the killer Darrin Ruben Lopez, 48, to get rid of evidence, according to the Department of Justice.
“Even as she publicly claimed she was ‘desperate for answers’ regarding her husband’s murder, Jennifer Faith was communicating with the alleged killer, actively urging him to destroy evidence and attempting to delete incriminating communications from her phone,” said Acting U.S. Attorney Prerak Shah of the Northern District of Texas.
James Faith was shot and killed outside his home on October 9, 2020, according to the Dallas Police Department. Jennifer Faith said she and her husband were out walking their dog when she heard steps behind them. The suspect, wearing a hooded jacket and a blue facemask, shot James Faith multiple times, and terrorized Jennifer. The wife claimed the individual—who she said she could not identify—put duct tape on her hands, struck her, and attempted to steal her jewelry until she called for help.
“Oh my God! If you know what happened I need that for closure,” she told Fox 4 News in an Oct. 21 report. “I need to make some sense out of this.”
She claimed that she was teetering between being “completely heartbroken” and “completely devastated.”
Claims surfaced since Lopez’s arrest in January, showing that Jennifer Faith allegedly knew all about what happened. As previously reported, Dallas cops said she gave them permission to look at her phone. In their account, it turned out she had been having marital problems with her husband, and she had what she described as a “full blown emotional affair” with Lopez, her ex-boyfriend from high school and college.
The wife and her husband’s alleged killer had a “five year plan” on getting together. Cops said that is how Lopez, a Tennessee resident, landed on their radar. They were able to confirm he was the killer in part because he owned the suspect vehicle, a black Nissan Titan with a white “T” emblem on the lower left-hand side of the rear windshield. Between calls and texts, the widow and the killer contacted each other 14,363 times between Sept. 30 and Oct. 30 of 2020, authorities said, citing Lopez’s cell records.
Authorities suggested the alleged killer powered down his phone before the murder, and turned it on again on the way back to Tennessee.
Such phone contact and the Nissan Titan also play a major role in the new allegations against Jennifer Faith. The new widow allegedly contacted Lopez last December, telling him to remove the “T” decal off his truck.
“So I woke up in a little bit of a panic… something is eating away at me telling me you need to take the sticker out of the back window of the truck,” she allegedly wrote.
In the DOJ’s account, Lopez said he could not do it all at once because “the girls” would notice, but he had been working on it.
“I have a bad feeling and I really think you need to get that sticker off ASAP…,” Faith allegedly wrote on Dec. 4. “Like today.”
Lopez finally confirmed on the 6th that he removed the sticker.
“Oh YAY!!! Thank you!!” Faith wrote. “I feel SOOOOOO much better.”
The widow allegedly texted Lopez on Jan.10, the day before she was set for an interview with police. She told him she was going to do a factory reset on her phone after deleting texts, the DOJ said.
“If asked about you, you are an old friend going through a divorce,” she allegedly said. “We talk every night because I am helping/giving support with the girls since you have sole custody. If it ever comes to it, I’ll answer the same way. Just so you and I have the same explanations. Just thinking in case they [law enforcement] pulled phone records and asked.”
Cops, however, figured out she deleted most of the texts from her phone, but were able to recover the messages from Lopez’s device.
“Her cowardly attempts to utilize the media to conceal her involvement did not hamper relentless investigators,” said ATF Special Agent in Charge of the Dallas Field Division Jeffrey C. Boshek II. “She will now face the consequences for her misdeeds.”
Lopez is charged with murder in Texas state court, and in federal court with transporting a firearm in interstate commerce with the intent to commit a felony offense. Faith faces a count of destruction of an object with the intent to obstruct a federal investigation.
[Screengrab via Fox 4 News]
Have a tip we should know? [email protected]
