AURORA | The suspect in the slaying of a wheelchair-bound homeless woman told police he stabbed her in the throat because he wanted to know how it felt, according to court documents.
Shawn Lopez, 21, told police he killed 67-year-old Francine Reade on April 25 a few minutes after meeting her.
Police said Lopez smiled as he told officers April 27 he used a knife to kill Reade two days earlier because he liked the closeness involved in stabbing someone.
“I like knives, just because it takes a real crazy, sadistic mother f***er to walk up to somebody and just stab them. Because you’re up close and personal. And you know that you’re the last face that person is ever going to see, in their pathetic little life,” he told detectives.
Details of Lopez’s confession are included in an arrest affidavit filed against Lopez’s roommate, Michael Snyder, 20. Snyder was arrested on accessory charges after police say he helped Lopez bleach the switch blade used to kill Reade. Investigators wrote in court documents that Snyder knew Lopez stabbed someone, but he didn’t know the person had died when he helped bleach the knife.
It’s unclear from court documents if police found the knife, which Snyder described as a camouflaged switchblade in the shape of a gun.
Lopez, who has been in jail since his arrest a few days after the slaying, told police he saw Reade sitting in her wheelchair in front of a liquor store near East Colfax Avenue and Chambers Road.
He said he pushed her wheelchair behind a nearby grocery store and when Reade asked where they were headed told her “don’t worry about it.” While he pushed the chair Lopez decided he was going to kill Reade and rob her.
Once behind the store, he pulled out the knife and stabbed Reade in the neck before taking the loose change in her purse and going to a nearby gas station to buy chewing tobacco. He then returned to the home he shared with Snyder and two other men and told them he stabbed someone.
Snyder told police Lopez had gotten into an argument with his roommates the day of the stabbing and stormed out of their home. He stood in the street in a rage yelling at nobody in particular, Snyder told police.
Police later arrested Lopez after a tipster called police and said Lopez’s roommate told her Lopez had killed someone.
Sue Lindsay, a spokeswoman for the Adams County district attorney, said investigators are still working on the case and it’s unclear if anyone else could be charged in connection with Reade’s slaying.
Lopez is being held in the Adams County Jail without bond and is due in court in July. Snyder is due in court May 23.
Police have not released mug shots for Lopez or Snyder.
I hope you burn in hell Shawn Lopez
That’s my cousin and ya he did a bad thing and I never would have thought he would do something like that but u have no right to say that! Wishing something like that upon someone is also sadistic and thoughtless just like he was being. I bet you’ve commited sins that would banish u from going to heaven but that doesn’t mean a person can’t change for the better and turn their life around whether they are in jail or not. Only god gets to decide who goes to hell and who goes to heaven and I’m pretty sure if you wish bad things upon someone you won’t go to heaven…your suppose to love everyone and forgive so until you can do that, your not going to heaven either…
And he got what he deserved. Life without paroll so we don’t need your nasty inputs. Anyone is capable of anything and it could have been one of your family who killed someone and you wouldn’t like it if someone said that about them. He derves to be in jail. You don’t know what he’s been through growing up but I do. And it wasn’t premeditated either. He was on heroin and he was drunk and very unstable. I don’t feel bad for him but I do feel bad for that old woman and her family. But no one besides her family should say anything about him because they don’t know him and shouldn’t judge him and neither should you. And to her family- if her family really cared for her then why was she homeless???