Lisa Lopes - Death

Death

On April 25, 2002 in La Ceiba, Honduras, Lopes was killed when she lost control while driving a Mitsubishi Montero Sport. The vehicle rolled several times after hitting two trees, throwing Lopes and three others out of the windows. She died of neck injuries and severe head trauma, and was the only person fatally injured in the accident. The person in the front passenger seat was videotaping at the time, so the last seconds leading up to the swerve that resulted in the fatal accident were recorded on video. Lopes's mother, Wanda, later sued Mitsubishi Motors, as the Montero was prone to rollovers according to a 2001 Consumer Reports review.

Her funeral was held at New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, Georgia on May 2, 2002. Thousands of people attended her funeral. Engraved upon her casket were the lyrics to her portion of "Waterfalls": "Dreams are hopeless aspirations, in hopes of coming true, believe in yourself, the rest is up to me and you." Lopes was buried at Hillandale Memorial Gardens, in Lithonia, Georgia.

In a statement to MTV, producer Jermaine Dupri remembered Lopes:

She was determined to be something in life. She was a true Hip-Hop star. She cared about some press. She was the star out of the group. She was the one who would curse on TV. She had the tattoos. You could not expect the expected. When you see Lisa, you could expect something from her. That is the gift she carried.

Controversy over leaked autopsy photos led to a protest by NASCAR star Dale Earnhardt, Jr. In response, Earnhardt, Jr. and his DEI teammates Michael Waltrip and Steve Park painted a single black stripe next to the left headlight decals of their Chevrolet Monte Carlos for the Pontiac Excitement 400 at Richmond International Raceway to protest the display of her autopsy photos. A similar controversy had befallen Earnhardt, Jr. himself after his father's death in the Daytona 500 a year earlier.

A documentary on the final twenty-six days of Lopes's life, titled The Last Days of Left Eye, premiered at the Atlanta Film Festival in April 2007, for an audience that included many of Lopes's contemporaries, including Monica, Ronnie DeVoe, 112, Big Boi, India.Arie, and Cee-Lo. VH1 and VH1 Soul broadcast the documentary on May 19, 2007. Much of the footage was shot with a hand-held camera, often in the form of diary entries filmed by Lopes while on a 30-day spiritual retreat in Honduras with family and members of the R&B group Egypt. In these entries, she reflected on her personal life and career. A calmer side of her personality was on display, showing interests in numerology and yoga. She was in the process of setting up an educational center for Honduran children on 80 acres (320,000 m2) of land she owned.

The film also captured a car accident in which Lopes was a passenger and her assistant was the driver: "It was dark when the car driven by Lopes's assistant left the village. It is commonplace for people to walk the roads that wind through Honduras, and it's often difficult to see pedestrians." "Ten-year-old Bayron Isaul Fuentes Lopez walked into the path of the van driven by Lopes' personal assistant. The child had been trailing after his sisters and brothers and stepped off the median strip at the last minute." The boy was hit. "Lopes' party stopped and found the boy critically injured. They loaded him into the car, and Lisa cradled the dying boy's bleeding head in her arms. Someone gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as they rushed him to a nearby hospital." Lopez died the next day and Lopes paid for his medical expenses and funeral. Lopes is shown in a local funeral home choosing a casket for the child. Earlier in the documentary, Lopes mentioned that she felt the presence of a "spirit" following her, and was struck by the fact that the child killed in the accident shared her last name, even thinking that the spirit may have made a mistake by taking his life instead of hers." While her assistant was never charged with any wrongdoing, Lopes later compensated the family for their loss." The program also showed the last minutes of Lopes's life, including her swerving off the road.