Bio

Edmund Lopes was born on September 27, 1935. He had a Portuguese-Catholic background and ties to Plymouth, Massachusetts. Before becoming known as a Baptist minister in Washington State, Lopes had already lived under different names and had a serious criminal history in Illinois. At one point, he used the name Jasper Brown. He had also been married before the murder case, and later reporting stated that he had abandoned his first wife and children years earlier.

By 1970, Lopes was living in Illinois with his second wife, Phyllis Brown. Their marriage had lasted only months when he killed her. After the murder, he became involved with Shirley Johnston, a woman he had met around the same period. When that relationship began to fail, he attacked Johnston and left her for dead.

Lopes was later convicted of murder and attempted murder. While in prison, he became religious and began corresponding with a woman named Joan, who later became his wife. After being paroled in 1983, he left Illinois in violation of his parole conditions. He eventually settled in Washington State, remarried, and became known as a Baptist minister.

For years, Lopes hid his true criminal past. He falsely told church groups that he had once been a Mafia hitman who killed many people and found God on death row. In reality, he had not been on death row, and he later admitted that those stories were false. His past was exposed in 1991, leading to his arrest as a parole violator.

Murder Story

In 1970, Edmund Lopes killed his second wife, Phyllis Brown, in DuPage County, Illinois. Reports state that he strangled her and buried her body in a shallow grave in a vacant area. Her body was later discovered by a construction crew. Investigators were able to identify her partly because one of her arms had been in a cast.

After killing Phyllis, Lopes continued his life and became involved with Shirley Johnston. About a month later, when Johnston wanted to end the relationship, Lopes attacked her. He stabbed, choked, and tried to suffocate her, then left her for dead. Johnston survived the attack, and her case became part of the prosecution against him.

Lopes fled Illinois and was later arrested in Florida on a forgery-related matter. He was returned to Illinois, where he was convicted of both murder and attempted murder. In 1972, he received a 50-to-99-year prison sentence for the murder of Phyllis Brown. Sources also report a separate attempted-murder sentence connected to the attack on Shirley Johnston.

While imprisoned, Lopes presented himself as a religious convert. He met his later wife, Joan, through prison correspondence. In 1983, after serving about 12 years, he was paroled from Illinois. His parole required him to remain in the state, but he left within days and disappeared from supervision.

Lopes later built a new life in the Pacific Northwest. By the late 1980s, he was living in West Richland, Washington, had remarried, and was serving as a Baptist minister. Members of his congregation knew him as a religious leader, not as a convicted murderer and parole violator.

His past came to light in December 1991, after a reporter checked his claims about being a former Mafia hitman. The investigation showed that his dramatic stories were false and that he was actually wanted in Illinois for violating parole. Lopes was arrested on December 12, 1991, in Washington.

After the truth became public, Lopes admitted to his congregation that he had lied about his past. He said he had not killed dozens of people, had not worked for Murder Inc., and had not found God on death row. The truth was that he had been convicted of murdering his wife and attempting to murder his girlfriend.

In 1992, Illinois authorities brought Lopes back and imposed additional prison time for violating parole. Later Illinois Prisoner Review Board records show that he was again in Illinois custody in 2013, listed as serving a murder sentence and an attempted-murder sentence.