DC Police Name Suspect in 2007 Murder

WASHINGTON - D.C. Police spoke openly Wednesday about a vicious Adams Morgan murder and the suspect who got away.

Investigators say they now know who killed Gabriela Lopez in the bathroom of her apartment in 2007. They say it's a former lover angry over the end of their relationship. But by the time police had enough evidence to file charges; Blanca Ortiz had fled the country.

D.C. Police say Gabriela Lopez was murdered in a crime of passion, viciously stabbed to death in the bathroom of her seventh floor Columbia Road apartment.

Investigators believe the Para Legal and her lover got into an argument over the end of their relationship. At the time, Lopez was 29, Ortiz was 44.

"We have her on video, going in and out of the building itself," said Captain Michael Farish, who heads the Homicide division.

But police were not able to get a warrant charging Ortiz until September of 2008. By then she was long gone.

"To have a hold put on someone's passport status and ability to leave the country," said Captain Farish, “you have to have more than a suspicion that they committed a crime and at that point we didn't have more than a suspicion and by the time we had enough probable cause to show she did commit the crime she had already left the states."

Ortiz was still in the country a year after the murder. She was arrested in Ocean City, Maryland on a drug charge.

"The warrant isn't going away,” said Farish, “and her status as a fugitive will never change until she is in custody."

Gabriela Lopez worked as a Para Legal for an immigration lawyer in Arlington. At the time of her death she had been with the firm for four years.

D.C. Police are certain Ortiz fled to her native Argentina. Calls to the embassy for comment were not returned.