6 days ago
Shameless murderess gets bad news after demanding freedom over torture murder of military wife
A woman convicted in one of the most disturbing murders in the history of San Diego just received a crushing legal blow after trying to argue she deserved her freedom.
Jessica Lynn Lopez, the so-called BDSM 'slave' who once claimed responsibility for the torture-killing of 22-year-old military wife Brittany Killgore, lost her latest bid to be released.
A state appeals court upheld a judge's refusal to vacate her first-degree murder conviction on Tuesday, ruling that Lopez remains legally culpable under California 's revised felony murder law.
Lopez had attempted to distance herself from the heinous crime.
Killgore was abducted, restrained, and brutally killed in 2012 after being lured to a home in Fallbrook under false pretenses. Her body was found days later, dumped in Riverside County.
Prosecutors said she was the target of a sadistic fantasy shared by Lopez and her co-defendants, Louis Ray Perez and Dorothy Maraglino, who were all convicted of murder, torture, kidnapping, and attempted sexual battery.
Each is serving life without parole.
Lopez had argued that she wasn't the actual killer and was not a major participant in the fatal events.
Her appeal rested in part on a change in state law that allows murder convictions to be overturned if the person wasn't the killer, didn't intend for anyone to die, or wasn't a major player in the crime.
But in a devastating ruling, a three-justice panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeal found that Lopez 'failed to show the evidence was insufficient' to support the conclusion that she either aided and abetted the murder or played a major role in the gruesome plan.
The panel took specific aim at her claim that her infamous handwritten confession letter in which she graphically described the killing was merely a fabrication dictated to her by Maraglino.
Her appeal argued that the contents of the letter were 'patently fabricated,' but the justices weren't convinced.
Even more damning was Lopez's attempt to deny that torture had taken place.
The court dismissed her arguments flatly, citing testimony from the medical examiner, who gave detailed evidence of the horrific injuries inflicted on Killgore's body.
Lopez also attempted to shift blame by saying she wasn't present when Killgore was abducted claiming she didn't arrive until the young woman was already in captivity.
In her appeal, Lopez attempted to distance herself from the heinous crime and argued that she wasn't the actual killer and was not a major participant in the fatal events
Prosecutors said she was the target of a sadistic fantasy shared by Lopez and her co-defendants, Louis Ray Perez and Dorothy Maraglino, pictured, who were all convicted of murder, torture, kidnapping, and attempted sexual battery
But the court once again found her confession letter betrayed her, noting how the details she provided about restraining the victim showed she was directly involved in the crimes.
The case shocked Southern California more than a decade ago, not only for its cruelty but for the twisted world it uncovered.
Lopez, Perez, and Maraglino all lived together in a master-slave BDSM relationship, with strict power dynamics that blurred the lines between role-play and reality.
Killgore, the wife of a deployed Marine, was simply trying to enjoy an evening out when she accepted what she thought was an innocent dinner invitation from Perez.
Instead, prosecutors say she walked into a nightmare orchestrated by three people obsessed with domination, control, and cruelty.
Lopez originally confessed to the murder in a detailed suicide note left behind in a hotel room, but later claimed she was pressured into writing it by Maraglino, who she said provided the details to protect herself and Perez.
Nonetheless, jurors found Lopez guilty, believing her role went far beyond that of a simply passive participant.
Her conviction was previously upheld on direct appeal but the 2021 change to California's felony murder rule gave Lopez a second chance to have her conviction overturned.
In his original ruling, Superior Court Judge Robert Kearney found that Lopez's actions, as laid out in her confession and reinforced by forensic testimony, still met the standard for murder, even under the new law and the appellate panel agreed.
