Matthew Sullivan’s wife, Elizabeth Sullivan, was 32 years old when she vanished in San Diego in October 2014, with her last known location near the home she shared with her husband and their two children. Her disappearance was a mystery, with searches turning up no sign of the Navy wife and mom, until nearly two years later.
In October 2016, her body was found floating in San Diego Bay. Authorities ruled that she’d been stabbed to death, NBC San Diego wrote. Her husband Matthew Sullivan was arrested nearly a year and a half later, in January 2018, and charged with his wife’s murder. He was extradited from Delaware, where he’d been living, to San Diego, and his trial began on February 21, 2020.
Where is Matthew Sullivan today?
Matthew Sullivan Was Found Guilty of His Wife’s Murder & Sentenced to 16 Years to Life in Prison
At trial, prosecutors argued that Sullivan stabbed his wife repeatedly in their bedroom and hid her body for two years in a freezer before disposing of it in the bay when he had to move across the country, Fox23 reported. After he left his home in San Diego, authorities found in the attic the knife used in her killing and bloodstains on her bedroom floor.
According to prosecutors, the couple’s two daughters, who were four and two years old at the time, were in the room next to Elizabeth Sullivan’s bedroom as she was killed, the outlet reported. During Sullivan’s trial, they argued that “He made her look like the person who had abandoned her family, when that was not the case and he knew it.”
Sullivan was found guilty of the second-degree murder of his wife and sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. The former Navy man, now 36, is serving his sentence at the North Kern State Prison, where he was admitted on April 30, 2021. Public records show that he will be eligible for parole in October 2028. The prison is a medium-security facility in Delano, California, that opened in 1993 and has an inmate capacity of 2,694. It’s unclear at this time if he will appeal the verdict.
Sullivan Spoke at His Sentencing But Did Not Admit to the Crime or Talk About His Wife
At his sentencing, Sullivan addressed the court but did not speak about his wife or the crime, simply about his trial. NBC San Diego reported that he said, “The only issue I had about trial was I believe I was not allowed to call in relevant witnesses to my defense. I thoroughly believe their testimony would’ve thoroughly changed the verdict in this trial.”
The prosecutor accused Sullivan of showing no remorse and the judge ruled that the former Navy man should serve 16 years to life: “The jury verdict and the evidence at trial makes 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,” the judge said.
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