Slain woman sought to end relationship with ex-spouse

Noemi Lopez had tried for several years to break off her relationship with her ex-husband and the father of her three children, a man her friends and relatives described as "no good."

He was an addict and a gambler who worked inconsistently and had a violent temper, according to one woman who stopped by the South Seattle home Monday to pay her respects to Lopez, slain at the home Sunday.

That woman did not give her name, but another friend, Chelon Jackson, told a similar story.

Jackson said Lopez, for whom she had provided child care, had divorced Jose Angel Blanco last year.

"He didn't like to work," Jackson said. "And he was a cheater."

Despite the divorce, Lopez apparently had a hard time cutting the cord completely, according to police and family. She continued to let her ex-husband live with her from time to time, friends said.

About a month ago, the 31-year-old woman began making a serious effort to get her ex-husband out of her house and her life.

"She was starting over and she was happy," Jackson said.

Police and prosecutors say that on Sunday afternoon Blanco stabbed Lopez more than 60 times in the living room of her home while their children — ages 15, 13 and 6 — were at church with an aunt. Police said Blanco left a voice mail on his eldest daughter's cellphone at around 2:45 p.m.

"The defendant told his daughter to not go into the house with the other children ... " charging documents say.

The children and their aunt, however, did return to the house shortly before 4:30 p.m. and found their mother "lying on the living-room floor, obviously deceased from stab wounds," police said.

Blanco, 39, who remains at large, was charged Monday with first-degree murder in King County Superior Court and a warrant was issued for his arrest. He is also known as Jose Naranjo-Blanco.

Police said he was last seen driving a silver BMW with Washington license plates, 732 PPB. They say he may be headed for Mexico, where he has relatives.

Tiffany Satre, who lives next door to Lopez, said that on three times in the past month, she saw a man in a BMW pull up to the victim's house in the 7600 block of 46th Avenue South.

"He went up to the house and was banging and yelling and trying to get someone to answer the door," Satre said.

Then he would return to his car and honk the horn repeatedly.

"He seemed frustrated and really angry," she said.

According to charging papers, police said Blanco called a cousin in Fresno, Calif., sometime after the slaying to ask for phone numbers of other family members in Mexico.

According to court documents, Lopez's 15-year-old daughter told police that her parents had been arguing Sunday morning. Her father left for a time, but then returned before the children left for church.

According to police, family members told them that Blanco had in the past threatened to take his life and "to take two or three others with him." He had been hospitalized at Harborview Medical Center in the past for an intentional drug and alcohol overdose, police said.

King County prosecutor spokesman Dan Donohoe said there was no record in Superior Court that Lopez had sought a restraining order against Blanco.

According to Jackson, Lopez worked as a waitress at the Westin Hotel in downtown Seattle, where she was well-liked and admired. She described Lopez as a good mother and a "wonderful, wonderful person."

Jackson said that when Lopez had to work late, it was usually one of her two daughters, and not Naranjo-Blanco, who came to pick up the 6-year-old boy from day care.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com