Man eager to fight ends up dead

Months before Noel Lopez was found dead in the rubble of a construction site, he challenged co-workers at the Seattle Marriott Waterfront hotel to fight him in the garage where they parked cars as valets.

His co-workers chalked up the strange request to Lopez's increasingly erratic behavior and his fascination with the movie "Fight Club."

Last weekend, Lopez, 25, was involved in a real fight that ended his life.

At least 20 people surrounded Lopez on April 13, after drinking alcohol together, and watched him fight another man in Freeway Park, according to court records released Saturday. Construction workers found his body the next day.

The man who police say fought Lopez, a 22-year-old from Federal Way, was ordered held without bail Saturday on investigation of murder. He is in the King County Jail.

Police are still looking for a second suspect in the slaying, a 20-year-old man.

The 22-year-old, who had not yet been charged, told police he had been contacted by friends to "straighten out" Lopez because he "was treating people wrong," according to court documents. The man told police he wrestled Lopez for the title of "King of Freeway Park," court records said.

But he claimed it was the second man who broke boards over Lopez's head and body and stomped on his stomach and chest. He said the second man fought Lopez after the three walked together to a nearby construction site.

Both men fled after the beating.

Born on Dec. 25, 1982, Lopez graduated from high school in Odessa, Texas, in 2001 and moved here to attend the Art Institute of Seattle, his family told the Odessa American newspaper.

His family remembered him as a smart young man who loved acting and music, but struggled with bipolar disorder.

"He was a cheerful, beautiful boy before he got sick," his mother, Patricia Lopez, told the newspaper. "We don't want to keep it a secret — we want people to know how dangerous it is, and there's not adequate health care available."

Sky Carson, one of Lopez's Seattle co-workers, said he wasn't shocked to hear the account of the fight.

Carson said he met Lopez about a year ago when both worked as valets at the Marriott Waterfront hotel. He said Lopez was fired about a month ago after a series of incidents that made his managers question his mental stability.

"He had a quick downfall," Carson said. He went from looking like a bookworm to "completely something else."

Andy Yem, a valet manager at the hotel who trained Lopez in his job, called him creative and imaginative.

In the first few months Lopez worked for the hotel, he was a model employee, Yem said. But Lopez's demeanor changed over time, and he told co-workers he had stopped taking his medication for bipolar disorder. In the weeks before he was fired, Lopez began asking his co-workers in the hotel garage if they would start a "fight club" with him — inspired by the 1999 movie in which bored young men fight one another in underground clubs.

When another manager at the hotel found a collection of random garbage and objects Lopez had collected "to build a robot," he was fired, Yem said.

Before the 22-year-old man was arrested Thursday, police had been investigating a possible link between Lopez and a man who died Tuesday in an explosion at an east Pierce County home. Detectives now say the deaths are not related.

Karen Johnson: 206-464-2393 or karenjohnson@seattletimes.com