Did he do it? - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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By Puffer Fish
#15161519
A former Navy sailor from San Diego, Matthew Sullivan, has been sentenced to 16 years to life in prison after being found guilty of murdering his wife.

Did he do it?

The prosecutor accused Sullivan of stabbing his wife, Elizabeth, in October 2014, then putting her body in a small freezer which was kept in the home, telling everyone that Elizabeth had abandoned the family. Shortly before he moved out of town in October 2016, the prosecutor alleged that Sullivan dumped Elizabeth's body into San Diego Bay. But her body was soon found.

The prosecutor claimed that Sullivan killed his wife because she was involved with another man and was planning to leave him, and further alleged that she had threatened to take their children along with more than $1,000 out of their joint bank account.

Sullivan's attorney argued during trial that Elizabeth Sullivan had abused drugs, didn't always come home at night and sometimes slept in a nearby park.

Elizabeth's body was discovered October 4, 2016 in the water about a half-mile from their residence, the same day that movers arrived to the home as Sullivan was about to move across the country to the East Coast.

One of the experts who had conducted the autopsy testified that decomposition made it difficult to narrow down her time of death, but that he did not believe she had been in the bay for the two-year period she was missing, as the decomposition would have been more advanced. The autopsy revealed a series of injuries to her ribs consistent with stab wounds, as well as fractures in her jaw and the left side of her nose.

On October 13, 2014, the same night that Elizabeth went missing, Sullivan called police several times that night and alleged that his wife was likely going to call police to commit what he termed "abuse fraud", making false claims that Sullivan had been abusing her.

One of Elizabeth's friends, who knew she was planning to leave Sullivan, couldn't reach her and reported her missing. Sullivan did not report her disappearance, but the prosecutor noted he did go to a store the next morning of October 14 to purchase a single item: carpet cleaner.

When investigators searched the home in 2014, when it was still a missing persons case, they had found an unplugged, empty freezer in the garage.

When police reinvestigated in 2016, blood was found beneath the carpet of Elizabeth's separate bedroom, and it is alleged a knife was found in the attic with the victim's blood on it.

Sullivan's defense attorney argued that the presence of Elizabeth's blood inside her bedroom and on the knife stemmed from self-inflicted cutting, due to a reported history of depression and self-harm. He claimed that a month before her disappearance, Sullivan had discovered his wife had cut herself with a broken mirror shard and bled heavily throughout her bedroom.

The defense attorney also said Elizabeth was a drug user and often went out with friends without informing Sullivan of her whereabouts. He said she grew tired of Sullivan's frequent overseas deployments and in an effort to escape her unhappy marriage, abused drugs, self-harmed and used fake names while dating other men.


In 2020, a San Diego Superior Court jury found Sullivan guilty of second-degree murder after deliberating for about a day and a half.

During sentencing, Judge Albert Harutunian III had harsh words: "The jury verdict and the evidence at trial made it clear that Matthew Sullivan brutally murdered his wife, methodically cleaned up the messy murder site, and then hid the body for years. He almost got away with it, but his final attempt to hide the body at the bottom of the bay failed."

Ex-Navy Sailor Murdered Wife with Children in Other Room, Then Froze Body and Claimed She'd Left (msn.com)
Closing arguments begin in trial of Navy man accused of murdering wife, hiding body | cbs8.com

My thoughts on this:
Maybe he did do it. But I am wondering if the police might have planted the knife or planted the blood on the knife. It seems a little difficult to believe that he would have kept the murder weapon and left it in the attic. Maybe they thought the man was guilty and they wanted to make sure he was found guilty. The rest of the evidence seems somewhat circumstantial though. Like that there is a very strong suspicion and feeling that he did it, but there is just not solid enough proof.

And even with the blood on the knife as evidence, it still seems theoretically possible that the defense's proffered explanation could be correct and this man did not kill his wife, although implausible.

I have personally observed cutters, and someone who slashed their wrists with a knife. If she had been a cutter, it is very plausible she could have been the one to hide her self-cutting tool, the knife, in the attic. That would be typical behavior for a cutter.

Maybe even that man did kill her, but not with the knife police found.
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