Jamie Faith appeared to lead an enviable life. With a vibrant social circle, a successful career, and a marriage spanning 15 years that friends deemed idyllic, it seemed unthinkable that someone might want him dead. Yet, tragedy struck in a way that would unravel the facade of his seemingly perfect existence.
One pleasant October morning in 2020, while taking a routine walk with his wife Jennifer and their dog, the 49-year-old American Airlines employee was brutally ambushed. Without warning, a masked assailant unleashed a fury of bullets, striking Jamie seven times, leaving Jennifer in a state of utter shock and despair.
“We’ve never had disagreements with anybody,” Jennifer expressed to Texas police, recounting the horror of that day, as highlighted in a February 5 episode of “Dateline: Unforgettable.” She emphasized the tight-knit community they had built around them, making the attack even more bewildering.
What Happened to Jamie Faith?
According to Jennifer’s account, a man of medium build with piercing black eyes and donning a surgical mask was responsible for the attack. After shooting Jamie, the suspect restrained her by duct-taping her wrists and attempted to snatch her wedding ring before fleeing the scene.
Initially, the incident appeared to be a robbery gone awry. However, the details of the autopsy painted a grimmer picture, revealing Jamie had been shot multiple times in the head, chest, and groin, suggesting a calculated and personal assault rather than a random act of violence.
“It was overkill,” remarked Maria Guerrero, an NBC 5 reporter, to “Dateline.” She noted the excessive brutality of the attack, reinforcing the notion that this was not just a crime of opportunity, but one driven by a deep-seated vendetta.
Jamie was an unlikely victim.
He was a beloved member of his Dallas community, where he lived with Jennifer and her daughter Amber from a previous marriage. He played pool and bowled in his spare time, while friends described him as wholesome, quirky and “a little nerdy.” Jennifer called her husband a loving dad who was well-liked but she informed police that Jamie had recently laid off some employees.
There were more immediate leads in the aftermath of the shooting.
Witnesses claimed the gunman had fled in a black Nissan pickup truck with a curious marking: a back windshield decal in the shape of the letter “T” Jennifer gave police her cell phone which contained her home security footage, which proved fruitful. The camera, conveniently pointed toward the yard of an abandoned house next door, captured an unknown man lurking just hours before the killing.
An Old Flame Enters the Picture
Police couldn’t entirely rule out Jennifer as a suspect—and for good reason.
They found text messages from Jennifer to a girlfriend, written six months before the muder, confessing that her marriage was sexless and that Jennifer was having “a full-blown emotional affair” with an old boyfriend named Darrin Lopez. Jennifer later wrote to the friend that Darrin—a single dad based in Tennessee—had expressed a “five-year plan to start a new life with Jennifer,” though she claimed to have ended the romance with the 48-year-old Special Forces vet.
Jennifer’s cell phone records showed more than 13,000 deleted calls and text messages between her and Darrin, around the time of Jamie’s murder—some of which continued after his death.
Police started tracking Darrin’s whereabouts and obtained gas station CCTV footage—recorded one day before the murder—depicting him fueling up a black Nissan truck. What’s more, police said, Darrin had typed Jennifer and Jamie’s address into a search engine for map directions to Dallas. The following month, fly-over footage of Darrin’s home showed that same truck, with the “T” decal on the window.
In Jan. 2021, Darrin was arrested and police later found the murder weapon in his home: A 45-caliber semi-automatic pistol that was stained with Jamie’s blood.
“Sadistic” Emails Reveal a Double Life
Darrin confessed to police that he and Jennifer were having an emotional affair though Jennifer chalked it up to being “caught up in old emotions.” She insisted that Darrin and Jamie didn’t know each other.
However, Darrin’s computer told a different story: It contained emails, allegedly from Jamie to Darrin, ordering him to stay away from Jennifer and admitting to abusing his wife in ways that federal prosecutor Rick Calvert told Dateline were “sadistic.”
Jamie also allegedly emailed Darrin photos of Jennifer’s bruised and burned body, as evidence of the abuse. Separately, police found text messages to Darrin from Jamie, sent from Jennifer’s phone.
Darrin threatened to call the police, but Jennifer insisted that Darrin instead email her friend Rob Schmidt for guidance. Darrin told Rob that he would feel better about the situation if he could shoot Jamie. In return, Rob offered an alibi if Darrin executed his plan.
The murder plot was set into motion when Darrin received another email, allegedly from Jamie, threatening Jennifer with an act of sexual assault so severe that it could kill her, to be executed on October 9, which is also the day that Jamie was killed.
After traveling to Texas, Darrin hid in the yard of that abandoned home next to the Faith residence and murdered Jamie.
Darrin confessed to the murder and to staging the subsequent robbery to “protect” his former lover.
“She told me that we were soulmates,” Darrin told Dateline from the Dallas County Jail. “Why would she put me through all this torture?”
A Deeper Truth Emerges
An FBI analysis of Jennifer’s computer determined there was no abuse in the Faith marriage.
In fact, according to authorities, all the email exchanges—from Jamie to Darrin, from Rob to Darrin—were written by Jennifer from fake email addresses (Rob also denied having ever communicated with Darrin). And those photos of Jennifer’s so-called injuries? They were documented in 2012 after Jennifer was involved in a car crash; another was a stock image.
“The only true victim in this case was Jamie,” Detective Eric Barnes told Dateline, adding that Jennifer’s hands were “just as dirty” as that of Darrin.
In June 2022, Jennifer was sentenced to life in prison on the federal charge of murder-for-hire, to which she pleaded guilty. In 2023, Darrin was sentenced to 62 years in prison without the possibility of parole. Darrin pleaded not guilty, testifying that he acted on the belief that Jennifer’s life was in danger.
