A Concord woman was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison for helping orchestrate the 2022 murder of her estranged husband, with the judge declaring she showed no remorse until investigators closed in on her. Francesca Lopez, 48, was convicted of second-degree murder in the death of Felipe Lopez-Custodio, who was clubbed with scrap wood and strangled with a cord inside his Concord apartment.
Prosecutors said Lopez planned a final date with Lopez-Custodio and made sure the two of them drank several alcoholic beverages before the attack, according to the East Bay Times. That evening, Lopez and the victim ate dinner and drank alcohol at a local sushi restaurant, as reported by mercurynews.com. Lopez then returned to the Concord home with her boyfriend, Ismael Alvarez, and the two found Lopez-Custodio asleep on the couch, where Alvarez beat and strangled him using wire and a piece of scrap wood, per the same account.
A Struggle That Left Evidence Behind
Lopez-Custodio fought back during the attack, causing Alvarez’s DNA to end up under his fingernails, mercurynews.com reports. Within hours of the murder, Lopez withdrew money from Lopez-Custodio’s bank account at a liquor store ATM, the outlet’s reporting states. Surveillance footage later showed Lopez and Alvarez disposing of clothing and the murder weapon in a dumpster, according to the same report.
About nine days after the killing, neighbors called Lopez to her husband’s home because they were concerned something had happened to him. Lopez and her son then entered the residence, where she pretended to discover the body and feigned shock before calling 911, mercurynews.com notes. Authorities said Lopez also invented a story about a suspicious character Lopez-Custodio had supposedly been associating with, an apparent attempt to mislead investigators away from herself and Alvarez.
Judge Rejects Bid to Reduce the Conviction
At sentencing, Judge John Kennedy found that Lopez participated in the murder by plying Lopez-Custodio with alcohol before Alvarez killed him, and he rejected a defense motion to reduce her conviction to manslaughter. The judge said Lopez destroyed evidence and invented a false story to mislead police, and that she showed no remorse until she was caught, according to the East Bay Times…