The 21-year-old mother known as “Miss Smiley” was found dead at a Columbia County home, and her boyfriend was charged with murder.
LAKE CITY, Fla. — Before Nicole Xenia Lopez became the victim at the center of a Florida murder investigation, her family knew the 21-year-old mother by a much warmer name: “Miss Smiley.” Her mother said Lopez was sweet, caring and loving, and that her familiar smile could brighten a room. Those memories emerged after deputies found Lopez dead Sept. 10 and arrested her boyfriend, 19-year-old Isaiah Devon Campbell, on a murder charge.
Melissa Lopez said her daughter was her only girl and someone whose personality was reflected in the family nickname. In statements provided to local news organizations after the killing, she spoke about the memories she expected to carry long after her daughter’s death. Local reporting identified Nicole Lopez as the mother of a toddler, adding another dimension to the loss experienced by her family. The public portrait offered by relatives stood apart from the language of arrest reports and crime-scene findings that soon surrounded her name as detectives reconstructed what happened inside a Northwest Moore Road residence.
Deputies were sent to that home at approximately 4:19 a.m. Sept. 10 after Campbell called 911, according to the Columbia County Sheriff’s Office. Authorities said Campbell told dispatchers that Lopez had fallen and struck her head during a physical altercation and that she was not breathing. Campbell let responding deputies inside. When they located Lopez, sheriff’s officials said she was already cold to the touch. Emergency medical personnel pronounced her dead shortly afterward, and what had begun as an emergency call quickly became a homicide investigation. Detectives detained Campbell at the scene while they examined the residence and questioned him.
The sheriff’s office said investigators determined that Lopez had sustained blunt-force injuries and stab wounds during an altercation earlier that night. An arrest report described additional observations, including facial swelling, bruising and multiple puncture wounds. Investigators also reported seeing blood spatter inside the home and finding blood beneath Campbell’s fingernails and on his shoes. Those findings became important because Campbell denied stabbing Lopez when he was interviewed. He acknowledged striking her in the face several times, according to the arrest report, but maintained that he had not inflicted the puncture wounds described by investigators.
Campbell’s interview also gave detectives a more detailed account than the reported statement that Lopez had fallen and hit her head. According to the arrest report, Campbell said the couple had argued and that Lopez struck him in the chest and arm. He said he became enraged and hit her face. Investigators wrote that Campbell was crying and appeared upset during questioning and that he told them he had “blacked out” and had not meant to kill Lopez. His description of the encounter remains his reported account to police, and the murder charge against him is an allegation that has not been resolved by a conviction.
Authorities said Campbell then described what happened after Lopez became lightheaded and fell. According to the arrest report, he told investigators he went into another room for roughly 30 minutes to calm down and did not immediately check on her because he thought she was seeking attention or “playing around.” When he later returned, he said, Lopez was unresponsive on her back. Campbell claimed he attempted CPR for about an hour. He told detectives that fear and panic affected his actions before he eventually contacted authorities, according to the report.
The report says Campbell covered Lopez with a white sheet before the 911 call. Investigators attributed another stark statement to him: that he had become tired of looking at her. The arrest report also described indications that Lopez had been dead for some time by the point deputies arrived. Authorities did not release a final autopsy report in the material reviewed for this article, however, and the public record did not establish the exact time of death or the precise order in which Lopez’s injuries were inflicted. Those details remain distinct from the allegations recorded during the initial investigation.
After detectives interviewed Campbell, the sheriff’s office arrested him and booked him into the Columbia County Detention Facility. A judge ordered him held without bond at his first appearance, authorities said. The sheriff’s office listed the case as a murder charge under Florida law. No conviction had been reported in the sources reviewed for this article, and publicly available coverage did not establish that a trial had taken place. Campbell is therefore an accused defendant, and the state bears the burden of proving its case as the criminal proceedings continue.
The investigation unfolded during a particularly difficult 24-hour period for local law enforcement. The sheriff’s office said Lopez was the second young woman to die in a separate suspected domestic violence-related homicide in Columbia County within roughly 12 hours. On the afternoon of Sept. 9, deputies had responded to a well-being check at an apartment and found a 16-year-old pregnant girl who had been fatally shot. Authorities treated the deaths as unrelated cases, but Sheriff Wallace Kitchings’ office referenced both investigations in a public statement about the damage caused by domestic violence and thanked personnel who worked through the night.
That broader public warning was part of the official response, but Lopez’s relatives focused on the individual life behind the case. Her mother said Nicole had a heart full of love and a spirit that touched people who knew her. In another statement shared with local media, she said memories of her daughter’s smile would remain with her. The descriptions were simple and personal, contrasting with the forensic vocabulary that dominated early reports about the homicide. For a family suddenly confronting a public criminal investigation, those statements put Lopez’s identity as a daughter and mother ahead of the allegations concerning the final hours of her life.
The case remained centered on evidence from the Northwest Moore Road residence, Campbell’s statements and investigators’ findings concerning Lopez’s injuries. The sheriff’s office asked for information from anyone who might know more about the death. As of Oct. 21, the public reports located for this story continued to describe Campbell as having been ordered held without bond, while no later resolution of the murder charge was identified. Lopez’s family, meanwhile, continued to be represented in early coverage by the nickname they chose for her long before the homicide: “Miss Smiley.”
Author note: Last updated October 21, 2026.