SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA: A California father and mother filed a missing person's report of their son following his murder almost four years ago in El Dorado County.
Investigators found Roman Anthony Lopez, 11, hidden in a storage bin in the family’s basement later that same day.
The couple were later charged with torture and child abuse over his death in February 2021 and six months later, in October 2021, Jordan Thomas Piper, 38, and his wife, Lindsay Piper, 40, were also charged with Roman’s murder.
Now, on Thursday, October 26, Jordan Piper formally admitted to what he had done.
What did Roman Anthony Lopez's autopsy report state?
An autopsy showed that Roman was severely malnourished and dehydrated. At the time of his death, the child weighed 42 pounds.
Medical records from two years before the child died showed that he weighed 61 pounds and, unfortunately, that was the last time he ever saw a doctor.
Besides, his intentional starvation, Roman was subjected to severe beating and restrained to his bed with zip ties at night.
The boy's biological father and stepmother initially claimed that they were innocent but their evil deeds soon came to light.
How long will Jordan Thomas Piper and his wife Lindsay Piper remain behind bars?
Lindsay Piper changed her “not guilty” plea to “no contest” on one charge of murder in the second degree in May last year.
She was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison in July of that same year. Jordan Piper’s plea was changed from not guilty to guilty.
According to the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office, he was convicted the same day while appearing in the El Dorado County Superior Court. Jordan is set to be sentenced for second-degree murder on November 21.
The maximum sentence for a conviction on a second-degree murder charge is 15 years to life in prison in the Golden State.
Who informed the authorities about the incident?
The victim's adopted mother reportedly made the call early on the day he went missing. Emergency responders searched through Placerville, a small town in the Sacramento metropolitan area, for the boy and finally just before midnight, authorities recovered the victim's dead body at home.
What did the county district attorney say?
“It is absolutely horrific and incomprehensible the way Roman was tortured, abused and murdered by his own father,” El Dorado County District Attorney Vern Pierson said in a statement according to Law and Crime.
“Although I recognize that it will never seem like enough prison time for any parent who killed their child, today I believe we secured some measure of justice for Roman Lopez," Pierson added.
The change of plea came one day after Jordan Piper was sentenced to spend 15 years behind bars in a federal child sexual exploitation case for making “surreptitious recordings” of a girl under 18.
He was charged by federal prosecutors for that offense in June 2022.
Although the two cases are not related, the child sexual exploitation investigation was a product of the murder investigation.
