Nearly three months after a man was shot to death in a car on I-75 in northwest Georgia, his widow has been charged with murder, police said Friday.
On March 1 shortly before 3 a.m., deputies were called to I-75 southbound, just south of exit 348, the Catoosa County Sheriff’s Office previously said. The driver, 35-year-old Noel Lopez of Dalton, was dead inside a car stopped on the interstate when deputies arrived.
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According to investigators, Lopez's wife, Belinda, and a female friend were passengers in the car. The three had gone to a Chattanooga bar on a Saturday night and consumed alcohol for several hours, the two told police.
“Statements obtained from the occupants indicate there was a mutually physical domestic argument going on between Noel Lopez and his wife in the front seat while they were traveling down the interstate,” the sheriff’s office posted on its Facebook page after the death. “A gun became involved and it discharged, striking Mr. Lopez in the head.”
An autopsy was conducted by the GBI on Noel Lopez. Those findings, combined with information uncovered in the investigation, led to a murder charge, Sheriff Gary Sisk said.
Belinda Lopez, 41, was arrested Friday, Sisk said. She was being held without bond.
