Ty Lopes is dead.

The convicted murderer of a Manteca High School teenage girl some 11 years ago was reportedly killed Monday by a cellmate at the Mule Creek State Prison in Ione after serving some nine years behind bars.

Lopes, now 44, and Jake Silva were both convicted in the beating, rape and strangulation murder of Renee Ramos, 18, of Manteca.  They were both sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole in 2002 some two years after the crime was committed.

Ramos had been missing for about a week before her body was discovered by construction workers on June 5 of 2000 wrapped in insulation and buried under a pile of fiberglass building material at a warehouse-style structure that was being built to house a Manteca Home Depot store at 250 Commerce Avenue near the intersection of Highway 99 and Yosemite Avenue.

A group of area teens had reportedly been partying in the building the night she was killed by the two men.  Lopes was then 34 years old and Ramos’ boyfriend, Jacob Silva, was 19 when the teenager was killed. 

Lopes was the first to be tried in the case in San Joaquin County Superior Court under Judge Thomas Harrington in early 2002.  Jake Silva’s trial was held later that year.