The shocking murder of Jamie Faith still haunts the quiet Dallas suburb where he once lived. According to investigators, the 49-year-old husband was shot seven times on October 9, 2020, during a morning walk near his home in Oak Cliff, Texas. His wife, Jennifer Faith, was with him at the time and claimed to witness the entire ambush in stunned horror. As she later told police, a masked man appeared out of nowhere, fired multiple rounds at her husband, and forced her to the ground before duct-taping her hands to prevent her from getting away.
But during the months-long investigation that followed, Jennifer’s story didn’t quite add up. In September 2021, she was charged with murder-for-hire in the plot to kill her husband, and in February 2022, she pleaded guilty to orchestrating the entire thing. Now, more than 18 months after Jamie Faith’s death, other disturbing details about Jennifer’s behavior are being shared in a new episode of 48 Hours, which show just how calculating she was in the days after her husband’s murder.
Jennifer Faith remains behind bars for her role in the crime.
So does the hitman she hired to commit the murder — who just so happened to be her former high school boyfriend, Darrin Lopez.
As detectives eventually discovered, the former flames reconnected at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and started what Jennifer referred to as an “emotional affair” primarily over email and text.
At some point during their “rekindled” romance, Jennifer confessed to being unhappy in her marriage.
But that wasn’t all …
The Texas woman also began to tell Lopez a string of lies to win his empathy. This included repeated claims that her husband was physically abusive, even though investigators were never able to find any evidence of this.
According to CBS News, Jennifer knew that Lopez had suffered a traumatic brain injury years earlier while serving in Iraq, which may have made him more vulnerable to her lies.
Jennifer even created several fake email accounts, which she used to email Lopez while pretending to be Jamie. According to prosecutors, Jennifer would write disturbing messages to Lopez in these emails in which “Jamie” often bragged about abusing her. She also sent him numerous photos of her alleged injuries, which were later found to be a mix of stock photos and images from Faith’s 2012 car accident.
Lopez’s mounting anger over Jamie’s alleged abuse eventually reached a boiling point.
In one email he sent Jennifer (which was obtained by police), the 49-year-old confessed to wanting to “put a bullet” in Jamie’s head for what he’d done.
“If it were up to me I would tell you to go for it with your idea — lol,” Jennifer allegedly responded. “I’ll give you an alibi.”
In the days and weeks after Jamie’s murder, the people of Oak Cliff rallied around his widow.
“Once the GoFundMe was set up … those contributions were coming in from, I imagine, all over,” Svelan later said, adding that “it was shocking to see how much people were contributing and donated.”
All told, the GoFundMe raked in more than $60,000. However, as 48 Hours recently revealed in “The Plot to Kill Jamie Faith,” which aired April 9 and is now streaming on Paramount+, the GoFundMe page became something of a “pay-off” account for Jamie’s killer.
For months, Jennifer Faith dipped into the GoFundMe proceeds to send Lopez pricey gifts.
According to court documents obtained by 48 Hours, the gifts included a large-screen Samsung TV as well as airline tickets for Lopez and his daughters.
But she blew through the money in other ways too. Emails recovered by investigators show that Jennifer freely gave Lopez access to two of her credit cards and urged him to use them however he’d like.
“Here’s both of my major CC’s,” one email reportedly read. “AMEX has no limit and I think the Visa has like $35,000 … PLEASE don’t hesitate to use them for whatever you need, especially when it’s stuff for the girls.”
In just two months’ time, Jennifer allegedly withdrew $58,000 from the GoFundMe account and sent hundreds of dollars to her boyfriend via Venmo transactions.
Once her actions were discovered, Jennifer’s neighbors couldn’t believe they’d been duped.
Neither could the many generous GoFundMe donors, who had believed they were sending their money to a grieving widow struggling to rebuild her life after her husband’s murder.
They also believed the money would be going toward funeral costs — but ironically, detectives discovered that Jennifer never actually paid the funeral home that laid her husband to rest. In the end, it was stuck with an unpaid bill of $6,500.
“You don’t wanna let yourself believe that someone you care about could do something like that,” Jennifer’s neighbor, Melisa Gonzales, told 48 Hours. “So, for me, yeah, it took a while to get to the point of believing.”
Svelan, who organized the GoFundMe page, remains particularly disgusted by Jennifer’s actions — both before and after her husband’s murder.
“I look at it more as not stealing from GoFundMe but stealing from her family, her friends, her community … people who loved Jamie,” Svelen shared. “That’s who she was stealing from.”
Luckily, though, Jennifer didn’t get away with it in the end.
Though a murder-for-hire charge is punishable by death in Texas, prosecutors agreed to drop additional charges against her in order to recommend life in prison instead of the death penalty. As of now, she remains behind bars while awaiting a judge’s final decision on sentencing.
In the meantime, Lopez is also facing a life sentence on murder charges, though his trial has not yet begun.
According to Svelan, GoFundMe has at least reimbursed those who were swindled after donating money to Faith.
“I am thankful that GoFundMe has a policy of not allowing fraud,” she shared. “And when they become aware of situations like this, as they did in this case, they offered full refunds to anyone who had donated to this particular GoFundMe account. All they had to do was ask and fill out a form and they got their money back.”