Concord woman convicted in husband’s killing, prosecutors cite boyfriend role

A Contra Costa County jury turned a Concord homicide into a conspiracy case, convicting Francesca Charlene Lopez after prosecutors said she and her boyfriend, Ismael Alvarez, worked together in the killing of her husband, Felipe Dejesus Lopez, inside his own home. The verdict came down on June 10, 2026, after jurors heard sharply different versions of Lopez’s role, from abused spouse to active participant.

The killing happened on January 31, 2022, in Concord, and prosecutors filed murder charges against Francesca Lopez and Alvarez in May 2022. At the time, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office said Francesca Lopez was 44 and Alvarez was 34, and both were being held at the Martinez Detention Facility. The case was charged with special circumstances for murder for financial gain and murder during a burglary, a combination that pushed the prosecution beyond a simple domestic-violence narrative and toward a planned kill for payoff.

Court records identified the cases as People v. Ismael Alvarez, docket 01-22-00305, and People v. Francesca Charlene Lopez, docket 01-22-00307. Prosecutors also pointed to Alvarez’s 2019 attempted robbery conviction as part of the backdrop for the case. That history mattered because it helped frame Alvarez not as a peripheral name in a messy marriage, but as a partner with a criminal past allegedly tied to a home invasion-style killing.

What made the case land with jurors was the relationship triangle at its center. Francesca Lopez was married to Felipe Lopez, but she was also involved with Alvarez when Felipe Lopez was killed in his Concord residence. The defense pushed the idea that Francesca Lopez had long been abused and had learned to go along with other people instead of speaking up. Prosecutors, by contrast, argued she was not a passive bystander, but someone who joined Alvarez in the attack.

That is the shape of the verdict now: not just a husband dead in a Concord house, but a case the prosecution convinced jurors to read as a coordinated inside-the-home killing. With the conviction in place, the courtroom story has moved from who was involved to how the law will punish what jurors decided was a plotted murder, not a private tragedy.