VISTA (CNS) - A state appeals court panel Tuesday upheld a Vista judge's refusal to vacate the murder conviction for a woman found guilty in the torture-killing of a 22-year-old military wife at a Fallbrook home.
Jessica Lynn Lopez is one of three people convicted in the 2012 slaying of Brittany Killgore, who prosecutors said was murdered after she was lured by one of the defendants, then abducted. Killgore's body was dumped in Riverside County and recovered by investigators four days after she disappeared.
Lopez and co-defendants Louis Ray Perez and Dorothy Maraglino were convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping, torture, and attempted sexual battery and were each sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
At trial, Lopez's defense attorney argued that she and her co-defendants engaged in a BDSM lifestyle, in which Lopez was essentially a slave in the household. Though she authored a confession letter in which she described killing Killgore, Lopez later claimed she was directed to write the letter by Maraglino, who apparently provided Lopez with specific details to include in the letter regarding Killgore's murder.
An appellate panel previously upheld Lopez's murder conviction, but a change in state law regarding felony murder allowed Lopez to challenge her conviction again. That law change holds that people who aren't the actual killer, didn't intend to kill the victim, or weren't major participants in a felony that led to the death, cannot be charged with murder.
After an evidentiary hearing, Superior Court Judge Robert Kearney ruled Lopez would still be liable for murder under California's new felony murder law.
Lopez appealed Kearney's decision, but a three-justice panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled that Lopez's appeal failed to show the evidence was insufficient to support she was either a major participant in the crime or aided and abetted the murder.
Lopez's appeal states that the confession letter's contents are "patently fabricated," yet the appeal "offers no supporting reasoning or logic that would justify us in concluding the statements the court relied upon must be rejected as inherently improbable or physically impossible," the panel wrote.
The appellate justices also disagreed with Lopez's contentions that she did not torture Killgore because no torture occurred, something the panel wrote was disproven by the medical examiner's testimony at trial. Lopez's appeal also alleged she didn't take part in the kidnapping because Killgore had already been taken captive by the time Lopez arrived at the home. The panel ruled that details in her confession letter indicated Lopez aided and abetted in restraining Killgore.
