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.
Prosecutors described the killing as a meticulous plan to remove Lopez-Custodio and take his money, a characterization consistent with earlier reporting from mercurynews.com that detailed how prosecutors alleged the crime was planned in advance by Lopez and Alvarez. Lopez had faced 15 years to life for the murder charge heading into sentencing, the outlet reported following her June conviction.
Competing Accounts of Who Controlled the Night
Lopez's defense argued that Alvarez acted alone and that he had threatened her into silence after she witnessed the killing, according to eastbaytimes.com. Her lawyer argued that Lopez was a lifelong abuse victim who was fixated on pleasing others and powerless to stop Alvarez. Both the prosecution and defense agreed on one point heading into trial: that Francesca Lopez witnessed the murder, the outlet reported. Lopez and Alvarez were tried separately.
Alvarez was convicted of murder in a separate trial last year and was sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison, according to mercurynews.com's earlier coverage of the case. He is 38 years old and is housed in California State Prison, Los Angeles County. Lopez's sentencing brings a years-long case to a close, one that stretched from the January 2022 killing through a pair of separate trials for the two people charged in Lopez-Custodio's death.
