On the night of July 12, 2014, a domestic dispute in El Jebel, Colorado, ended with 40-year-old Mayra Lorena Lopez and her husband, 42-year-old Eliseo Lopez, shot dead in their Sopris Village home. The couple’s two sons, ages 13 and 14, were in the house but escaped unharmed; one son called 911 after fleeing.

The suspect was identified as 33-year-old Williams Anderson Amaya, a nephew who had been renting a room in the house for about six months. The argument that preceded the shooting reportedly involved the family dog. Amaya purchased the .380 caliber handgun used in the killings on the same day and fled the scene afterward; his phone was traced to his workplace in Glenwood Springs and he surrendered to detectives the next morning when informed of a police presence.

Amaya was arrested and charged with two counts of first-degree murder; prosecutors considered additional attempted murder counts because others in the house may have been targeted. During proceedings he expressed delusional beliefs, claiming the victims were possessed and saying he had been instructed to kill them; evidence was presented that he had bathed bullets in holy water. A jury later found Williams Amaya not guilty by reason of insanity and he was committed to the state mental hospital for treatment.

Did anyone in the Sopris Village area know the Lopez family or Amaya and have information that could shed more light on what led to this violence?