Murder by Manipulation

The Diabological and Deadly Plot of Jennifer Faith

In the early morning of Friday, October 9, 2020, forty-nine-year-old American Airlines IT manager Jamie Faith and his wife, Jennifer, took their dog Maggie for a walk. They'd done it hundreds of times. They were still near their Oak Cliff, Texas home when, according to Jennifer's initial account, a masked man approached them, duct-taped Jennifer's hands, stole her jewelry, and shot Jamie seven times before fleeing in a black Nissan Titan pickup truck with a white "T" sticker on the back. 

Jennifer and Jamie Faith

The gunshots, followed by Jennifer's screams, shattered the silence in their quiet neighborhood. Neighbors came running. One neighbor said he saw the blue-masked and hoodied man holding a gun, but by the time he'd dashed back inside his home and retrieved his own gun, the shooter was gone. 

Friends and neighbors had always viewed Jamie and Jennifer, who met in 2005 and married in 2012, as a loving and devoted pair. Friends who'd introduced them described the couple as "peas in a pod." They'd witnessed Jamie's transformation from a confirmed bachelor who espoused children pre-Jennifer to a devoted husband and caring stepfather to his stepdaughter, whom he'd legally adopted when she turned 18. They'd celebrated their fifteen-year "first-date" anniversary the day before; how many couples remember the day they went on their first date a decade and a half ago?  

Of course, anyone who follows true crime knows that appearances are never what they seem. While Jennifer was drumming up public interest in Jamie's murder by giving media interviews, investigators collected evidence. And the deeper they looked, the more dirt they found. And Jamie was filthy.

Jennifer and Darrin/high school prom

Unbeknownst to Jamie, Jennifer had reconnected with her high school boyfriend, Darrin Lopez, in March 2020. The two had begun an intense emotional affair. Over the next six months, Jennifer and Darrin exchanged over 100,000 messages, many of them sexually explicit. They declared their rekindled love for each other over and over. 

Darrin knew Jennifer was married, but the picture Jennifer presented of her relationship with her husband was far from what friends and family saw. To Darrin, Jennifer portrayed herself as a helpless victim in desperate need of rescue from a monstrous spouse. With chilling composure, she crafted a heinous plot to get rid of her husband and start a new life funded by his life insurance money - all while believing she'd expertly manipulate the legal system and public opinion in her favor. She did it by masterfully exploiting her lover's protective instincts while continuing to play the role of devoted wife and mother to her husband, friends, and community. It was a uniquely vicious example of a "proxy murder."

Darrin Lopez

The Puppet Master Pulling the Strings

A proxy murder, also known as murder-by-proxy or murder-for-hire, is a killing in which the instigator uses someone else to commit the actual act of homicide. Rather than directly carrying out the killing themselves, the mastermind or principal manipulates another party to be their proxy in executing the murder.

Proxy murders can take different forms and arise under various circumstances. One common type is a contract killing or murder-for-hire scenario where the principal pays the proxy to commit the murder. The proxy's motivation is often financial - they agree to carry out the killing in exchange for money or other valuable consideration promised by the principal.

For example, a spouse seeking to cash in on their partner's life insurance policy or inherit their estate might hire a hitman to stage a robbery and shoot the partner. Or a drug kingpin might contract the killing of a rival that threatens their turf. The proxy killer does not necessarily have any personal motive to want the victim dead. Their participation is purely mercenary.

However, murder-by-proxy plots can also arise without a financial transaction. In some cases, the principal threatens, blackmails, or otherwise coerces the proxy into murdering on their behalf. The principal might threaten to harm the proxy or their loved ones if they don't carry out the killing. Or the principal might be an authority figure who abuses their power to order a subordinate to kill for them.

In proxy murder scenarios like the Jennifer Faith case, no money exchanges hands, at least not for the murder. The payoff is psychological. The principal manipulates the proxy into murder by exploiting their emotions and convinces him that murder is either justified or necessary. 

The proxy, motivated by outrage, a desire for revenge, or a misplaced sense of chivalry, believes they are serving justice by taking lethal action against a deserving target. The proxy sees himself as a hero or warrior who dares to right a terrible wrong. The Jennifer Faith case is an example of how the principal can wield emotional manipulation as deftly as others might wield money or blackmail to secure a murder by proxy.

Pushing Familiar Buttons 

To understand how Jennifer Faith so effectively convinced her ex-boyfriend, Darrin Lopez, to kill her husband, Jamie, let's examine the manipulation tactics she used. First, Jennifer exploited gender stereotypes and cultural scripts about domestic abuse to cast herself as a damsel-in-distress and provoke Darrin's protective instincts. She invented vivid and horrifying tales of brutal physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her husband. She told lurid stories of being beaten until she was "black and blue."  She made up elaborate tales of her husband typing her up and raping her; she said that, at one point, Jamie had sexually assaulted her so severely that she'd awoken to him performing CPR on her.  

To make these stories more credible, Jennifer fabricated false evidence. She sent Darrin photos of abused women that she found online, claiming they showed the injuries Jamie had inflicted upon her. At one point, she even used injury photos from a car wreck she was in eight years earlier as visual proof of her husband's abuse. The doctored "evidence" in this way made the lies more viscerally upsetting and convincing.

She created fake email accounts to further her narrative. One of them, whom Jennifer pretended was a male friend, corroborated every bad thing Jennifer had said about her husband. Not only that, this "friend" begged Darrin to step in and save Jennifer before it was too late. No one else could save her except Darrin; the police would do nothing, and trying to enlist their help would only worsen things. This ploy created the illusion of a broader conspiracy of abuse, with Jennifer as the sympathetic prisoner in need of a male rescuer.

And then came the emails from "Jamie." Pretending to be her husband, Jennifer began emailing Darrin increasingly taunting and sadistic messages about what he was doing to his wife and Darrin's powerlessness to stop him. He talked of gang rapes. He threatened to drown her. Another of Jennifer's invented email personas, masquerading as Jamie's friend, chimed in and spoke about his participation in life-threatening abuse. Increasingly, Darrin believed that if he didn't intervene, his beloved would die. 

Through her months-long deception, Jennifer repeatedly pushes Darrin to view himself as a white knight whose masculine role is to slay the monster (Jamie) and rescue the innocent maiden (Jennifer) from peril. She made him feel needed and valued by praising his military background and positioning him as the only one brave and strong enough to redeem her suffering. She contrasted this with subtle digs about his failed marriage and isolated existence, making it seem like being her avenging angel was his path to a new life. Jennifer also exploited Darrin's insecurities. 

Whenever Darrin expressed hesitation or questioned the morality of murder, Jennifer used emotional blackmail to reel him back in and steel his resolve. She claimed she would rather die than keep living with Jamie's abuse. She accused him of not loving her if he could stand by while she endured such cruelty. She told him he wasn't "man enough" to do anything about her desperate plight. This questioning of his masculinity struck right at the core of Darrin's identity as a protective man. 

Jennifer knew when to push Darrin and when to pull back. She was careful never to ask Darrin to murder Jamie directly. Instead, she planted the seeds through suggestive comments like "I need you to save me from him" or "I wish you could put an end to my pain." This tactical ambiguity exploited the cultural narrative of the romantic hero saving the damsel through violence without Jennifer explicitly soliciting a murder. She counted on Darrin to read between the lines and conclude that lethal action was required. In doing so, she leads Darrin to believe it is his idea to kill Jamie, even though murder is precisely what Jennifer planned all along.

Enraged and determined to save the woman he loved, Darrin drove from his home in Tennessee to Dallas and, at Jennifer's urging, shot Jamie in an ambush attack on that fateful October morning. After the murder, Jennifer kept up the charade of the grieving widow while continuing to manipulate Darrin behind the scenes. She instructed him to remove decals from his truck that matched witness descriptions. She drained money from a GoFundMe account intended to support her and her daughter, showering Darrin with gifts and money. She continued to profess her undying love and gratitude. Her continued manipulation made it harder for Darrin to turn on Jennifer even as the law closed in.

Jennifer's world collapsed in January 2021 when Darrin was arrested. He was devastated when faced with the evidence of how he had been deceived by false abuse allegations and manipulated into murder. He confessed to everything. In February 2022, facing overwhelming evidence, Jennifer pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in federal prison.

The Bottom Line

The Jennifer Faith case is an alarming example of how emotional manipulation can be weaponized to achieve a proxy murder. Jennifer Faith coldly manipulated Darrin Lopez's feelings for her selfish agenda. She exploited his protective instincts, his ideals of masculinity, and his vulnerabilities. And she did it all while maintaining the illusion of a perfect marriage and the facade of an innocent victim to the world.

Some articles about this case have suggested that this would not have happened had Darrin Lopez not been at such a vulnerable point in his life. By the time he reconnected with Jennifer Faith, he was dealing with the repercussions of a severe head injury he had sustained while serving in the military and had gone through a painful divorce a few years earlier. When he reconnected with Jennifer, Darrin was lonely and adrift. Jennifer - a woman he had loved as a teen - must have seemed like an answer to a prayer. 

This may be true. But it is also true that, after Jennifer's arrest, her second husband came forward to say that she had made similar unfounded claims about her first husband - and that he, too, had once been enraged enough to fantasize about seeking retribution. 

Jennifer Faith had plenty of time to consider options that did not involve murder; so did Darrin Lopez. Someone willing to kill will always find a way, even if they don't get their hands dirty. Even if it means turning someone else into a weapon. 

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