Sibling interviews led to murder charge against parents accused in California boy’s death
The parents of Roman Lopez returned to an El Dorado County courtroom on Friday to be charged with murder in the death of the 11-year-old Placerville boy whose body was found inside a storage bin in the basement of their home nearly two years ago.
Jordan and Lindsay Piper, Roman’s father and stepmother, were arrested in February in connection with Roman’s January 2020 death. At that time, prosecutors filed charges against the Pipers, accusing them of child abuse.
On Oct. 28, the El Dorado County District Attorney’s Office filed a motion to amend the criminal complaint against the Pipers, adding a count of murder against each of them.
Deputy District Attorney Jay Linden said in court Friday that the decision to add the murder charge was based on new interviews with children who lived in the family’s home at the time of Roman’s death. The Pipers were caring for seven other children in their Placerville home on Coloma Street when Roman was reported missing.
Tasha Paris Chalfant, a Rocklin-based defense attorney who has been hired to represent Jordan Piper, objected to the prosecution’s request to add the murder charge. She told the judge it was inappropriate timing — nearly two years after the boy’s death and the start of the homicide investigation — for the prosecutor to add the most serious charge her client can face.
Chalfant argued the prosecution’s investigators have had all this time to conduct interviews and gather evidence in this case. She said in court that she questions the “credibility” of these interviews with witnesses who have been questioned by authorities three times. The defense attorney argued that it’s “not reliable” that these interviews have resulted in any new evidence.
El Dorado County Deputy Public Defender Matt Johnson, who has been appointed by the court to represent Lindsay Piper, agreed with Chalfant’s argument and also objected to adding murder charges now.
Linden told the judge that the interviews were conducted in the past month when the children were no longer under the control of the Pipers. Linden said about the interviews “it’s not like the District Attorney’s Office has been sitting on them.”
El Dorado Superior Court Judge Vicki Ashworth granted the prosecution’s motion to add a murder charge against each defendant, adding such a serious charge can be added at any point of a criminal case ahead of trial. In this case, she said the court has not yet scheduled a preliminary hearing to determine whether there’s enough evidence for the Pipers to stand trial as charged.
Ashworth also said she was not aware whether the prosecution and the defense were in any negotiations for a potential plea agreement or whether any plea deal offers have been made. The judge said there was nothing to prevent a change to the charges now.
The amended complaint was filed immediately, and copies were given to the defendants and their attorneys to review in court. Shortly after, the defense attorneys entered not guilty pleas on behalf of the Pipers.
The judge scheduled the defendants and the attorneys to return to court Dec. 17 for another pre-preliminary hearing.
Initial child abuse charges
The Pipers have already been charged with child abuse likely to cause great bodily injury or death and causing cruel and extreme pain for revenge, extortion or sadistic purpose, according to the initial criminal complaint filed in February.
Jordan Piper has been charged with an additional count of willfully failing to provide food, clothing, shelter and medical attention to the boy.
Lindsay Piper was charged with a separate count of willfully having “mingled a poison and harmful substance with food, drink, medicine, and pharmaceutical product and placed a poison and harmful substance in a spring, well, reservoir and public water supply” knowing it could cause injury. The Pipers in February pleaded not guilty to those charges.
A week before the Pipers were arrested where they were living in Calaveras County, the Placerville Police Department revealed that “investigators located Roman deceased inside a storage bin in the basement” of the Pipers’ home hours after he was reported missing Jan. 11, 2020.
“Although an autopsy revealed no obvious trauma, Roman was found to be severely malnourished and dehydrated at the time of his death,” according to a Police Department news release in February.
The Pipers in an interview with The Sacramento Bee days after Roman’s death said they awoke to find the boy gone on a Saturday morning, “frantically” searched for him but did not find him.
After 15 hours of an extensive search involving police and dozens of Jordan Piper’s co-workers, the couple said, police informed them that their son had been found dead.
At that time, 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.”
The Pipers have remained in custody for the past nine months at the El Dorado County Jail in Placerville. Based on the murder charges the now face, the judge ordered the Pipers to be held without bail. Initially, the bail amount for Jordan Piper was set at $1.05 million; and his wife’s bail amount was $1.3 million.
This story was originally published November 19, 2021 at 12:44 PM.
