DALLAS — ABC's 20/20 returns for its 46th season on Friday, Sept. 28, and the two-hour season premiere kicks off with a shocking true crime story based in Dallas.
ABC 20/20 will air “Happily Never After,” which chronicles the shocking love triangle that ended in the death of James Faith. The story talks about how Faith's death was actually coordinated by his wife, Jennifer Lynne Faith, of Oak Cliff, alongside her "high school sweetheart" ex-boyfriend, Darrin Lopez.
What happened to James Faith? Here is background of the story.
Jamie Faith was killed Oct. 9, 2020 while he and Jennifer walked their dog near their Oak Cliff home. After the shooting, police released a description of the suspect’s truck.
“Somebody has got to know whose truck this is,” Faith told WFAA in an emotional on-camera interview in December 2020. “It’s a black Nissan Titan extended cab. It had a Texas Rangers sticker in the back window. So it was very distinctive from that point.”
But two days after our interview, court documents say Jennifer texted her ex saying, "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 the truck."
Prosecutors said Faith's boyfriend, Darrin Ruben Lopez, shot Jaime Faith seven times from his black Nissan Titan pickup truck, which had a distinctive "T" decal on the back window.
Then, in September 2021, federal authorities discovered that before the murder, Faith encouraged Lopez to commit the crime by posing under fake email accounts.
An indictment filed in Dallas federal court said that Faith created a Gmail account under her husband's name on April 9, 2020. With the account, she emailed Lopez, posing as her husband, and "taunting Mr. Lopez with details of extreme physical and sexual abuse that never actually occurred."
Meanwhile, roughly one month after her husband’s death, prosecutors said Faith admitted she initiated an insurance claim seeking nearly $629,000 in death benefits through her husband's employer. Through the process, prosecutors said Faith would text Lopez on the status of the claim and even discussed using the money to apply for a residence in her name in Tennessee.
In June of 2022, Jennifer Faith was sentenced to life in prison.
What happened to Darrin Lopez?
Darrin Lopez went on trial in July for his role in the murder-for-hire plot. Over the course of four days, a Dallas County jury heard testimony from friends of James, a doctor from the medical examiner's office, a digital forensics investigator and even Lopez, himself.
Lopez, who was Jennifer Faith's ex-boyfriend, provided explicit detail of his relationship with Jennifer. WFAA covered Lopez's trial extensively here.
The Dallas County jury found Lopez guilty of murder and sentenced him to serve 62 years in prison.
Watch the final day of the trial here:
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