Man Charged With Ordering Ex-Girlfriend’s Death

A Northridge man has been charged with ordering his teenage former girlfriend killed after she testified against him for allegedly kidnapping her, authorities said Thursday.

Juan Manuel Lopez, 23, ordered his 17-year-old brother to kill Melinda “Mindy” Carmody, 16, of Panorama City, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

Lopez was charged with one count of murder, with the special circumstance of killing a witness, days after the April 12 killing but the information was not released until this week, after Lopez was arraigned in San Fernando Municipal Court last Friday, said Sandi Gibbons, a spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office.

Lopez’s attorney asked that the arraignment be continued to May 30.

The special circumstance of killing a witness could make Lopez eligible for the death penalty, Gibbons said.

Authorities contend that although Lopez was in custody awaiting trial on charges of kidnapping, assault and burglary when Carmody was shot to death, he ordered his brother to carry out the killing.

The younger brother was arrested on suspicion of murder four days later, when officers from the LAPD’s Van Nuys station, searching the family’s house under a warrant, allegedly found the weapon used in the slaying.

According to court documents, three weeks before her death Carmody testified against Lopez at a preliminary hearing. She said that on the morning of March 13, weeks after she ended their relationship, Lopez broke into her house and kidnapped her at knifepoint. He brought her back a few hours later, she had testified.

Carmody was shot four times in the back before a small crowd of teenage friends who had brought her to the 18000 block of Schoenborn St., just around the corner from Lopez’s house, Gibbons said.

John Nantroup, the deputy district attorney prosecuting the case, said there was no evidence any of the friends knew that the killing was to take place.

Rosario Lopez, the suspects’ mother, maintains neither of her sons could have been involved in the killing, saying her family had a good relationship with Carmody when the girl lived in their house while she was the older Lopez’s girlfriend.

The district attorney’s office is still considering whether to push for the death penalty, Gibbons said.

The younger Lopez is being held without bail while his brother is awaiting a preliminary hearing to determine whether he will be tried as an adult, Gibbons said.