Jurors begin deliberations in trial of ABQ man charged in fiancee’s murder
Accused claims he was ‘lost in the heat of the moment’
A note Jeremiah Lopez wrote after he choked his fiancee to death shows that he deliberately killed the woman out of jealousy, prosecutors told jurors Tuesday in closing arguments.
Jurors began deliberations Tuesday in the first-degree murder trial of Lopez, 40, who is accused of strangling Krishauna Perez, 27, on Jan. 15, 2019.
Lopez also is charged with two counts of criminal sexual penetration for allegedly having sex with Perez’s lifeless body twice after she was strangled.
Defense attorneys countered that Lopez did not act deliberately when he killed Perez, but instead “snapped” after finding evidence of his fiancee’s infidelity.
“The question is if the circumstances caused a temporary loss of self control,” defense attorney Maxwell Pines told jurors in closing arguments. “Jeremiah Lopez learned that he was living a lie.”
Prosecutors called jurors’ attention to a “suicide note” that Lopez wrote shortly after he killed Perez. Deputy District Attorney John Duran read portions of the note that police found at the couple’s home on Bataan SW after Perez’s death.
“When I found out she was planning on cheating on me, I lost my mind,” Duran read from the note. “I could not take losing her heart or body to another, so I had to take her with me.”
Duran said the note shows that Lopez deliberately killed Perez — a key element in the charge of first-degree murder, willful and deliberate.
“He can’t stand to see her with somebody else,” Duran told jurors.
Lopez testified in his own defense Tuesday that he became suspicious of Perez after he found selfies on her tablet that he described as “flirty” and “risque,” and believed she may have sent them to a boyfriend.
Prosecutors contend Perez did not send the photos to anyone. Lopez “has no proof of cheating,” Duran told jurors. “This is pure paranoia.”
Lopez testified Tuesday about his on-again, off-again relationship with Perez in the year prior to her death. He said that, in May 2018, he tossed Perez’s belongings out of the home they shared after he learned she was having an affair.
The couple later patched up their relationship and announced wedding plans in the fall of 2018.
The night of the killing, Lopez said, he confronted Perez after he found selfies on her iPad that pictured her in a bra, which led to an increasingly angry exchange between them.
Lopez told jurors he “straddled” Perez on a bed as she struggled to free herself. The couple then fell to the floor, with Perez face down beneath him, he testified.
He put his arm around her neck “and squeezed,” he said.
“I lost it,” Lopez told jurors. “I snapped. I was so lost in the heat of the moment.” Lopez acknowledged that he then had sex with Perez.
“I’m ashamed to say that I had sex with her,” he told jurors. “My brain was just not thinking. She had passed away and I just wanted to be close to her.”