SACRAMENTO, CA — Losing a child is heartbreaking under any circumstances, but to learn about it online is unfathomable for most parents.
That's the ordeal one woman says she is coping with this week.
11-year-old Roman Lopez was found dead over the weekend after police in California listed him as missing.
Investigators are calling the death suspicious, and the woman who says she is the boy's biological mother is calling for answers.
“He didn't deserve this and I wish I could've been there anyway I could've stopped it,” Shelly Lopez said.
Lopez said she has been fighting to see roman his entire life.
“I told Roman I would do anything I can do be with him again,” she said.
Lopez says she was deployed to Iraq when Roman was less than a year old and has dealt with addiction to pain medication.
“I felt like roman deserved a mom who was worthy of him,” she said.
She says Roman’s father took custody. and has kept her son away from her for the last two years.
“So Im sitting here trying to follow him from state to state so I can be with my son,” she said.
She said last month- he suddenly took Roman, his siblings, and other children his wife is taking care of- and left their Michigan home.
It wasn't until Lopez’s family saw an article online that she learned about his death.
“And that was the last thing I was expecting to hear,” she said.
Police say Roman's body was discovered during a search.
Just how he died remains a mystery, for now.
Lopez says she hasn't heard from police or Roman’s father about his death.
Shelly Lopez says she hasn't heard from police.
She plans to travel to California soon.
