This episode contains descriptions of violent crimes and sexual assaults.

Please listen with caution. Lynn Lopez thought it couldn't get any worse when a man broke into her home and raped her.

It did though, because that same man killed Lynn's husband Jay. He was trying to defend his wife.

Then, as the attacker left the house, he set the living room on fire.

Lynn managed to escape, but in a literal case of adding insult to injury, Lynn was then

questioned by the investigators, as if she was a suspect in her own rape and her husband's

murder. Fortunately, prior to the questioning, she was taken to the hospital to be

examined and to gather any biological evidence.

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files the Podcast.

I'm Brooke and here is the awe-inspiring Bill Curtis with a classic case, a wife's mission.

I never look at this album, I can't. It's in my room and it's odd to have something in

your room that you're afraid of I have not gone this far in years I would say

on a morning in August Lynn Lopez opens up a photo album and a window into her past.

Every Christmas, my husband was the thing that you put bows on. You can see my husband so playful, so happy.

Oh, this is really hard.

It's very painful and it almost makes me feel like it really never happened. But it did happen, almost 10 years earlier, a handful of moments that changed Lynn Lopez's life forever. 9-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-what is your emergency?

Fire, rates, possibly murder?

Around 4 a.m.

Hillsborough County Deputy Steve Donaldson responds to a call and finds her home in flames.

Before I could even get out of my car the man ran up to me and he goes he's still inside he's still inside and I said well who's inside and he said you know the owner Mr Lopez

Donaldson enters the Lopez home finds the living room Lopez. I could see Mr Lopez lying on his back. He was covered in blood and he had multiple

stab wounds and he wasn't moving. Firefighters extinguish the blaze and police

...