Exclusive: Parents of 11-year-old Placerville boy Roman Lopez speak out about his death

Roman Anthony Lopez liked to hide in cubby-holes and secluded places around his family’s home and property in a quiet Placerville neighborhood just off Highway 50.

Lindsay Piper, his step-mother, had climbed the stairs of their two-story home at about 9 a.m. Saturday to fetch the 11-year-old boy for breakfast. He wasn’t in his bed. After looking in all his usual hideouts, she was worried he was gone.

She and her family began to “frantically” search for Roman, she said.

In those first critical hours, Lindsay Piper and Roman’s father, Jordan Piper, said they got little help from the Placerville Police Department, which took hours to send an alert to officers. Later that evening, Roman was found dead.

In an exclusive interview with The Sacramento Bee, the distraught parents said they have still received little information about the investigation into Roman’s death, which police have described as suspicious. They talked to The Bee for more than 90 minutes Wednesday, but asked not to be photographed.

As the investigation enters its sixth day, police in Placerville have also revealed little publicly about the case, including where Roman was found and in what condition. Police have not said whether anyone has been arrested in connection with the young boy’s death.

El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Sgt. Anthony Prencipe said Thursday that Roman Lopez’s autopsy was completed Tuesday and any questions regarding the autopsy report should be directed to Placerville Police.

The department did not respond to The Bee’s request for comment for this story but said after publication that they “do not have the pathologist’s report and will not be providing any further information in reference to the autopsy.”

“We do not anticipate that report for another 4-6 weeks.”

Placerville Police last offered an update on Sunday to say that Roman had been found dead and the death continues to be investigated as suspicious. On Monday, the department said on Facebook there was “no public safety threat.”

Lindsay said Wednesday the Placerville police never told her that she and her husband are suspects in the case.

To the family, those first few hours Saturday morning left them feeling on their own, as it became clear something had happened to Roman, a 4-foot-8 lanky boy who was independent, sometimes sly, but never an attention-seeker.

“We woke up for work like normal,” Lindsay Piper said. “Kids started waking up. Breakfast started getting made. I went upstairs to get Roman and he was not in his bed.”

Two hours after finding Roman missing and searching the house and property, Lindsay Piper said they drove to the Placerville Police Department, about three minutes from their house. But the station is closed on Saturdays.

Next, she went to the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office. But they didn’t have a deputy available, Jordan Piper said. When they did get to speak to a deputy, they told the family they’d be on the lookout for him.

The couple did not say why they did not call 911 instead.

Placerville police response to boy’s death

According to a daily log posted by the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office, a “courtesy report was taken for Placerville Police Department for juvenile runaway” at 12:16 p.m. Saturday.

Jordan Piper said he was frustrated that “the sheriff’s department took two hours” to get the attention of the Placerville police.

“And the only reason we got it is because I physically pulled two deputies over in their department car ... so I kept pushing, I kept pushing,” he said.

According to El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office records, the “B.O.L.” or “be on the lookout” report was entered at 1:17 p.m. Saturday and forwarded to the Placerville Police Department. The department confirmed receipt the missing person report 10 minutes later.

Between the time the family discovered Roman missing and when he was found, about 15 hours had passed.

During that time, more than 40 people from Jordan Piper’s place of work — he is a journeyman lineman in the state’s fire hardening project — joined the search. And more than 250 fliers were printed and handed out in restaurants, bars, parks and businesses all over town.

“We were going anywhere where we could get more people, more eyes, more feet on the ground,” Jordan Piper said.

Police scanner traffic from that night indicates police went to El Dorado High School, not far from the Pipers’ home on Coloma Street, where Roman might have wandered.

But as the search waned into the night, police officers drove Jordan Piper back to the Coloma Street house, talking about suspending the search for the night and gearing up for the morning.

Amid a conversation about the weather and other small talk, “They told us they were hopeful he walk back in through the front door,” Lindsay Piper added.

“And then she (the officer) followed it up by saying we found your son and he’s deceased,” Jordan Piper said.

“We have no idea what happened, where they found him, what the autopsy report said, if that’s even done, any suspects, nothing. We have nothing. I’ve called repeatedly, all day long, everyday,” he said.

Jordan and Lindsay Piper went to the Placerville Police Department in the dark morning hours Sunday, where they sat for more than four hours before giving their statements. They were searched and forfeited their wallets and IDs to investigators.

Meanwhile, Child Protective Services took the seven children inside the home into protective custody, the three youngest under their legal guardianship, according to court records.

Roman’s siblings didn’t learn of his death until days later at a court hearing when they read it in a file given to them by their CPS case worker, Lindsay Piper said through tears.

“It’s the most horrible thing ever,” she said.

Roman Lopez and a large family

Roman lived in a large household with eight children from three different families. His own last name, Lopez, comes from his biological mother and not his father.

Four teenagers – one girl and three boys – who are Lindsay Piper’s biological children from a previous marriage live in the house the family rented on Coloma Street. There were also three younger children, a 7-year-old girl and two toddlers, who were living there after a Michigan court granted Lindsay Piper guardianship of the kids in July 2019.

Placerville Mayor Michael Saragosa, who lives directly across the street from the Piper family’s Coloma Street home, said Roman Lopez’s death has had “a profound effect on me.”

He walks by the memorial for the boy daily, which has grown to include balloons, candles and stuffed animals perched on top of the fence.

“I think it’s been a big shock to the community,” he said in a phone interview with The Bee. “You don’t expect something like this in a small town. A tragedy can happen anywhere.”

Placerville Police Chief James Ortega, who previously worked with the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, has shared some “small details” about the investigation, usually only a short time before it is posted publicly, Saragosa said. He empathizes with the frustration in the community about the lack of information shared, but said he fully respected the chief’s efforts to protect the integrity of the investigation.

“It’s been pretty tight lipped, even with us,” he said, encouraging the community to have patience. “Would I like more? Sure. But I don’t feel slighted that I don’t have more information at this current time. I trust my chief and our officers that are out there working.”

Multiple calls by The Bee to the Placerville Police Department and the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office were not returned Wednesday. Minutes after The Bee first published this story did the agency release an update on the investigation, in which they explain why few details have trickled out.

“The limited information provided to the public has been essential to this case because of the circumstances,” the release at 2:03 p.m. said. “There is very sensitive information that if released, could jeopardize the investigation.”

‘He wanted to belong’

Roman Lopez was remembered by his family as loving and “always wanting to help.”

Jordan Piper recalled with a smile the first time he took his son fishing. Roman took his pole and threw it in the water to “wash it,” his father said. Then, when he caught his first fish, “he just stared at it, he didn’t know what to do with it,” and ran over to his dad to show him, dragging the fishing pole and his fish through the dirt.

He was close with his siblings, often talking about video games with his stepbrothers and baking with his stepsister. And he loved to dance.

“You would think he was a regular raver (by) the way he liked to dance,” Jordan Piper said.

Roman Lopez and his stepbrothers would cook bacon, eggs, and potatoes with onions when they visited their grandmother, Sherie Sanders said. Roman liked to have a bagel with cream cheese with his breakfast, and would talk about that when he got home, Lindsay Piper added.

“He always wanted to be helping,” Sanders said. “He always wanted to be included.”

“I think he felt good because we had such a big family,” Lindsay Piper said. “You’re not ever alone . . . He wanted to belong.”

Guessing fills the vacuum

Meanwhile, as the family and a community await answers, Placerville officers pledged to post updates “as the case unfolds.”

“We realize that the press and public are looking for answers and mourning the loss of Roman,” Tuesday afternoon’s release by Placerville officers concluded. “The police department has also been affected and has been working tirelessly to complete the investigation. The complexity of this case will require time and patience.”

Rumors have circulated and grown on social media since the police department’s Sunday announcement, including Facebook groups devoted to solving a “murder” that’s grown to more than 1,000 members in the absence of definitive news from law enforcement.

The claims of Kira Sutkay, the biological mother of the three youngest children in the Pipers’ care, and Roman’s biological have drawn particular attention of internet sleuths.

Sutkay told The Bee on Tuesday she had agreed to an arrangement to have Roman’s guardian, Lindsay Piper, home-school her three young children and take them to doctor’s appointments while both women were still living in Michigan. But in late 2019, Sutkay learned that Piper had moved out of the state and had taken the children with her.

Sutkay said she has been in a custody battle since then, and did not know that Piper or the children had been in California until a mutual friend told her about Roman’s death over the weekend.

“We were kind of in shock,” Sutkay said. “I instantly texted Lindsay, ‘Is my son alive and OK?’“

But court records obtained by The Bee show Sutkay signed over attorney-at-law rights to Lindsay Piper in July 2019, and a September court hearing granted permission to move the three children to California where Jordan Piper took his job as a journeyman lineman in the state’s fire hardening project.

“A lot of people have commented on that, ‘You guys have such a large family,’” Lindsay Piper said, voice shaking and tears welling in her eyes. “And I’m like, ‘Gosh, I wouldn’t have it any other way.’ And it’s been so extremely lonely lately.”

“We just sit there, we look at each other, we cry. We sit in bed, we cry. We turn the TV on and we don’t even know what to watch. We don’t even have an appetite because we’re out, you know, we’ve lost everything.”

This story was originally published January 16, 2020 at 1:53 PM.