Jennifer and James Faith.Photo: Gofundme
It was around 7:30 a.m. on Oct. 9, 2020, when Vicky Mendoza heard the gunshots and the screams.
“It sounded like a movie,” Mendoza tells PEOPLE. “She was screaming very horrifically. It was very, very scary, like over and over and over.”
Mendoza says she immediately looked out her window and saw her neighbors' Bernese Mountain dog, Maggie, bolting down their Dallas street with her leash in tow.
The gunman had tried to take some jewelry from Jennifer Faith, Jamie’s wife, after duct-taping her hands, but he quickly gave up, jumped into a black pickup truck parked on the street and sped away. Her injuries were minimal, but Jamie, a well-liked American Airlines technology director, died at the scene.
Jamie was killed one day after celebrating the 15th anniversary of the day he and Jennifer met.
The shooting, says Mendoza, rattled the Oak Cliff community.
“I was scared for my life,” she says. “I’ve been in Oak Cliff my whole life, and I know nothing like that just happens, especially right before school starts, kids are walking, getting picked up, going to school, people leaving for work. I was scared for my husband even to go to work. I was scared to take out my trash. I was always looking over my shoulder, thinking there was a killer on the streets.”
Darrin Lopez.Dickson County Jail
Despite the worry, members of the Oak Cliff community quickly rallied around Jennifer, setting up a GoFundMe page as well as a meal train, providing two meals a day for several weeks, including a vegan Thanksgiving feast for Jennifer and her grown daughter, Amber.
Kathi Kibbel even volunteered to walk Maggie when Jennifer was out of town.
“I offered up my services and she graciously accepted, and so I took care of the dog while they were at the funeral,” she tells PEOPLE. “And then when she would travel, I was her pet sitter. She seemed like a woman who’d lost her husband, the love of her life.”
Federal authorities eventually made an arrest — but it was Jennifer herself.
Jennifer was charged Sept. 28 with use of interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire. She was previously charged with obstruction of justice. She has yet to enter a plea on the murder for hire scheme.
Her trial is scheduled for Feb. 28.
“I thought it was strange because the next day [after the shooting], she was out walking her dog, like nothing,” she says.
Neighbor Emery Wilson says he was one of the neighbors who walked with Jennifer after the murder but stopped “because I just didn’t feel right.”
“I didn’t know what it was,” he tells PEOPLE. “And to be honest, I didn’t want to believe that she would do this because the community really poured everything into her … She probably had one of the most successful neighborhood GoFundMes I’ve ever seen. It’s unfortunate.”
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Wilson said he later found out that that Jennifer’s Facebook profile picture, which had originally featured her and Jamie, had been edited to remove him. “The audacity of somebody to crop out their murdered, 17-year partner after I don’t know how many weeks,” he said.
Jennifer Svelan, who set up the GoFundMe page, which raised more than $60,000, says she ended up getting hate messages for her efforts.
“I still get really nasty messages, through the GoFundMe account,” she tells PEOPLE. “I think they think I am Jennifer Faith, so they send me messages about, ‘Hope you get to use this money on your prison commissary.'”
GoFundMe, she says, is reimbursing those who donated.
“It just makes you feel like you’ve been completely duped in this whole process,” she says. “People are hurt how it turned out.”
Looking on the bright side, she says, “I do think it speaks volumes to the kind people that are here. I think it really showed the true colors of our community. It really was a beautiful thing. I hate that it turned out the way it did, but if anything, I feel it brought us closer together.”
source: people.com
