FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. – A Sunrise man accused of disemboweling his ex-girlfriend after she screamed her ex-husband's name twice during sex appeared in court Wednesday as attorneys argued whether a recorded confession and graphic crime-scene photographs could be used in his upcoming trial.
Fidel Lopez, 25, is charged with first-degree murder in the September 2015 death of Maria Nemeth.
Sunrise police said officers were called to Lopez's apartment after he called 911 to say that his girlfriend was having trouble breathing and was going to die. When officers arrived, they found Nemeth's naked body on the bathroom floor next to a large amount of blood.
[Warning: This article contains graphic details that some readers may find disturbing.]
According to the police report, the closet door had been ripped out and was on the hallway floor, and there were holes in the dry wall. Police said the rear sliding-glass door was shattered.
During an interview with detectives, Lopez said that he and Nemeth were drinking tequila inside his apartment when they began to have "rough sex."
Lopez said Nemeth then went into the bathroom to vomit, and he later found her having trouble breathing, so he called 911, the report said.
Detectives said Lopez later admitted that Nemeth "became very intoxicated" and they ended up inside the closet, where they started to have sex. It was during sex that Nemeth said the name of her ex-husband twice, enraging Lopez, detectives said.
Lopez began to break things throughout the apartment, shattering the sliding-glass door and punching holes in the wall, detectives said. He then returned to the closet, where Nemeth was lying unconscious, and "began to insert several items into (her)," the report said.
Detectives said Lopez gave them a graphic description of how he killed her. In the report, Lopez told detectives that he became a "monster."
Lopez said he carried Nemeth to the bathroom and tried to put water on her face to wake her up, but she never regained consciousness, the report said. Lopez then washed the blood off his hands in the bathroom sink, went outside to smoke a cigarette and then began to panic, taking items from the closet to cover up the bloody tissue, the report said.
When he returned to the bathroom to check on Nemeth, Lopez noticed that she wasn't breathing, so he decided to call 911, detectives said Lopez told them.
Nemeth worked in the leasing office at the Colonnade Residences, where her body was found.
Defense attorneys want to suppress the crime-scene photos, saying they are too inflammatory. The judge will continue the evidentiary hearing Thursday.