SPRINGVILLE, Utah (KTVX) – A man is in custody after police say he shot and killed his mother inside a home in Springville, a city south of Salt Lake City, Wednesday evening.
According to a probable cause statement, a woman called the Springville Police Department, saying that she had received a call from her younger sister, saying that their brother, Mike Lopez, 23, had shot and killed their mother.
The 17-year-old sister of the suspect then ran approximately half a block away from the home to call her older sister and tell her about the shooting, a probable cause statement said.
Police then responded to the home to find 43-year-old Victoria Ramirez, the mother of the family, deceased due to a gunshot wound to her neck.
Officers found the suspect in a bathtub in the basement of the home with a shotgun leaning against the bathtub. A probable cause statement said that Lopez was “acting unresponsive.”
He was later transported to a local hospital where a doctor believed the suspect “was faking his condition.” Lopez was later booked into the Utah County Jail where he continued to act unresponsive and would not speak with officers, a probable cause statement said.
A blood test of Lopez revealed that he had THC in his system at the time of his arrest.
Police say they also found a 14-year-old inside the home, who was safely escorted away from the scene.
In an interview with police, the 17-year-old sister of the suspect told officers that the suspect approached their mother at the dinner table and pointed a shotgun at her. According to the 17-year-old, her 14-year-old sister and the suspect nodded at each other, just before the suspect shot and killed the victim. The 17-year-old girl said she then locked herself in the bathroom and jumped out the window of the home, to call their older sister and tell her about the shooting.
The 17-year-old sister believed her 14-year-old sister knew that the shooting of their mother was going to happen and that the suspect had been supplying the younger sister with marijuana. She also said that the suspect had been “meditating a lot where he claims to go to different dimensions and [was] talking about a lot of bad people.”
The 17-year-old sister also told police that the suspect and the 14-year-old got up and started dancing after the shooting occurred.
In a separate interview with police, the 14-year-old sister told police that the suspect had purchased a shotgun and handgun the day before the shooting in Provo.
When police asked her about her mother who was shot, the girl claimed that it wasn’t her mother and that she was in the bathroom when the fatal shot was fired.
According to a probable cause statement, when asked about dancing with the suspect after the shooting, the 14-year-old smiled at officers and said she “remembered dancing” and was trying to recite the song for the officers. She denied that she knew that the suspect planned to kill their mother.
The interviewing officers indicated in a probable cause statement that the girl was “acting very strange” and “did not show any emotion during the interview.”
