Posted on 04/18/2021 12:31:14 PM PDT by L.A.Justice
SAN DIEGO — A former U.S. Navy sailor who fatally stabbed his wife and hid her body in a freezer for two years before dumping her in San Diego Bay has been sentenced to prison.
Matthew Scott Sullivan, 36, was convicted last year of second-degree murder in the October 2014 death of 32-year-old Elizabeth Ricks Sullivan. He was sentenced Friday to 16 years to life in prison for the killing.
“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,” Superior Court Judge Albert Harutunian III said, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “He almost got away with it, but his final attempt to hide the body at the bottom of the bay failed.”
Sullivan has denied killing his wife, whose body was found in the bay Oct. 4, 2016, almost two years to the day after she vanished from their home in the Point Loma neighborhood of San Diego. His defense claimed at trial that Elizabeth Sullivan used drugs, sometimes slept in a park near their home and had a habit of self-mutilation, or “cutting.”
The day her body was found, movers were at the couple’s home to move Matthew Sullivan, who was leaving the Navy, and the couple’s two children to the East Coast, the Union-Tribune reported. According to People magazine, he was moving with his daughters, his fiancée and their new baby.
(Excerpt) Read more at wftv.com ...
Lindberg argued last year that the slain woman’s body remained at the home, hidden inside a freezer in the garage, for two years as her family searched in vain and as her two young daughters were told she had left them.
I think death penalty would have been fine for the guy...But, 16 years to life is better than nothing...
I would understand if his two daughters refused to visit him in prison...
Very sad... that he didn’t get the death penalty.
While I would not object to the death penalty, if you read the article, there are grounds for calling it a crime of passion. It looks like crazy cut both ways in this relationship. I’d be more inclined for 20 to life, but much has to do with what the parole regulations are.
What a contemptible Human Being, and those poor daughters.
It is sickening.
He’s an ice cold killer.
He’s willing to sacrifice their love.
Only 16 years?
kinda strange no one looked in the freezer during the investigation...
The man should be given four choices: tree + rope, chair, hot lead or sodium pentothal. And a fifth choice for his favorite flavor of ice cream.
He was sentenced to 16 years. In California he will be out in 8 years. In California you can murder somebody with premeditation, cop a plea for manslaughter or second degree murder and get out of prison while you are still young enough to kill again.
My mother lived in Lake Charles, LA and back in the 1950s, there were some foreign sailors that had come in on some ship- probably something to do with oil? At some point, it was discovered that one teenager had been bludgeoned to death in her home and it was thought that one of the sailors had done it. They were long gone by the time she was discovered. I can’t remember if my mom knew the girl but she mentioned it a few times when I was growing up.
(ice cream for the last wish)
Do you think he’ll serve 16 or maybe 8?
My 16 yr old’s killer got 20 in a bad plea deal. They took off the 2 yrs in jail, Served 8.5 in prison because I fought 6 parole hearings, 1st 10 months after the plea deal. Maxed out his ‘good behavior’ days. Sociopath.
‘...his fiancée and their new baby...”
He’s the gift that just keeps on giving.
Right which is the only reason it is newsworthy.
I agree with both of you.
This seems like not great police work. If a wife goes missing shouldn’t the house automatically be searched? How do they miss blood covered carpets and her body in the freezer?
I’m a little amazed the cops didn’t ask to have look around the house back when she disappeared...
I know it’s trivial to bring up a TV movie, but in a movie I saw, a woman killed her husband and hid the body in the freezer.
It does seem like a search of the home should always include the freezer.
Any legal eagles here, who can tell us if a search warrant would be needed to search the freezer? Assuming someone is missing and there are no other clues as to what happened to the missing person, can we legally search the freezer?
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