Law&Crime Sidebar - Mom Allowed Boyfriend to Beat, Suffocate Her 3-Year-Old: Prosecutors

Episode Date: April 15, 2025

Two people in Michigan, Amanda Maison and Maurice Houle, are facing murder charges for allegedly killing Maison’s three-year-old son Matthew. The toddler was found dead in his bed in February of 2018, but prosecutors didn’t arrest the former couple until years later. Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber analyzes the latest on case with trial attorney Sam Bassett.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: Download the FREE Upside App at https://upside.app.link/sidebar to get an extra 25 cents back for every gallon on your first tank of gas.HOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondery app Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Agent Nate Russo returns in Oracle 3, Murder at the Grandview, the latest installment of the gripping Audible Original series. When a reunion at an abandoned island hotel turns deadly, Russo must untangle accident from murder. But beware, something sinister lurks in the grand. views shadows. Joshua Jackson delivers a bone-chilling performance in this supernatural thriller that

will keep you on the edge of your seat. Don't let your fears take hold of you as you dive into this addictive series. Love thrillers with a paranormal twist? The entire Oracle trilogy is available on Audible. Listen now on Audible. We have a young child that was the victim here. This young child Matthew suffered years of abuse at the hands of both defendants. Both defendants admitted that the other person was abusing this child. A Michigan family may finally be on their way to getting some justice, years after a three-year-old was found dead in his bed. Despite an autopsy saying little Matthew Mason died by homicide, no one was charged. But now prosecutors say significant recent developments led to murder charges for Matthew's mother and her now former boyfriend. And

the alleged reason for the toddler's death, shocking. Welcome to Sidebar, presented by law and crime. I'm Jesse Weber. Matthew Mason should have been 10 years old this year, described as an energetic kid, going to school, spending time with his friends and family, maybe, you know, getting into a little bit of trouble. But instead, Matthew died seven years ago at just the age of three, found dead in his bed in Port Huron Township, Michigan. According to a police report that was reviewed by the Times Harold Matthew's mother, Amanda Mason, and her boyfriend at the time, Maurice Hool, would leave the house early for work before Matthew and his younger brother woke up. And Hull's grandparents would reportedly come over to take care of the children, get them ready for the day. But Hool's mother reported that on February 18, 2018, Matthew didn't get up on his own.

When she goes to check on him, he's in bed, cold to the touch. An autopsy report released two years after his death reported that Matthew died by, quote, blunt traumatic injuries with features of mechanical asphyxiation. According to the Times, Herald, the St. Clair County Medical Examiner wrote the extent, severity, and distribution of the traumatic injuries is indicative of inflicted trauma. Here's the thing, though. Despite all that, despite those conclusions, there were no arrests in connection with this toddler's death. Nope. There was an outcry. There was an outcry for sure from family members that Mason and Hool, they were involved in Matthew's death.

Matthews grandparents have led a justice for Matthew campaign, putting up yard signs and billboards, leaving flyers at local stores, even having bracelets and t-shirts made that say, my name is Matthew, I was murdered by hands that should have loved me. Now, the Times Herald reports that David Mason, this is Matthew's grandfather and his wife, had seen, bruises and cuts on their grandson and reported it to CPS, Child Protective Services, but they say Matthew was allowed to stay in the home. This campaign to keep Matthew's death in the minds of community members and law enforcement finally saw some results this week when Mason and Hul were both arrested and charged with murder. And the arrests came after a meeting with investigators where Hul and Mason allegedly blamed each other for the abuse. St. Clair County Prosecutor, Mike Wendling, told the Times Herald that the sheriff's office had been searching phone and health records, which led to a new line of questioning and an eventual breakthrough.

So to talk about this, I want to bring in trial attorney Sam Bassett. Sam, thanks so much for taking the time. Long time to wait for even arrest. What do you think is going on here? I have no idea. It's pretty crazy that it took seven or eight years to bring these charges with all the information. that we are now learning from the CPS investigations and from the physical medical evidence.

This makes no sense to me. I can understand a year or two, but perhaps they were waiting to get the parents to turn on the mother and the boyfriend to turn on one of them, get the statements that they needed to kind of clinch the case, but it's crazy how long it took.

This is a really, really tough case, but I will tell you, you wanna talk about an important, one to stay on top of right isn't that the whole theme with all of this how these two individuals are now being prosecuted but look in terms of us i want to quickly thank upside for sponsoring this episode and helping us to bring this episode to you helping us to cover this story now upside is great it is a free app that gets you cash back when you buy daily essential so when i pump my gas i can use upside i go out to lunch at tripotle i can use upside maybe get something at 7-11 i can use

upside and why not get cash back when i do all these things right and this is real cashback. It's money that appears in your Upside app that you transfer right into your bank account. So once you have the free Upside app, you claim an offer for whatever you're buying on upside, you pay as usual using a debit or credit card. You follow the steps on the app, you get paid. So to find out how much you can earn, click the link in the description to download upside or scan the QR code on screen and make sure to use our promo code sidebar because you get an extra 25 cents back on every gallon on your first tank of gas. Do you think in general public pressure reporting documentaries that has an effect on law

enforcement's actions or prosecutor's actions? Absolutely. In my experience, when there's pressure from a victim's family or if there's pressure in media, absolutely, that has an impact on the urgency of an investigation on the results of plea bargaining. Yes, it has an absolute effect. Okay, so let me get into this a little bit more. So both defendants were arraigned on Monday and the judge considered whether they should get bail and be released pending trial. Maurice Hull was up first. Now, he was dating a to Mason at the time of Matthew's death, the two apparently have since broken up. But according to investigators, Matthew's biological father was not part of his son's life.

So the public defender representing Huell for this hearing did her best to offer reasons to allow his release. I review the recommendation here from food trial services and the general gap with Mr. Hull. We would ask if the court would take into consideration the fact that Mr. Hulis and ties to the community does move here. It only has one prior misdemeanor condition on this record. So we would ask if the court just take that in the consideration here with the court's deciding what the appropriate bond to be said is in this manner. I have to explain to my client what the recommendation will bond would run for him. He does understand that so we would leave the amount of bond to the court's discretion. Thank you. Mr. Nalsela and I'll read in the record the pretrial service

recommendation advises that the defendant's 28 years old. He resides at the Grash and has an address in Fort Grashton with his wife and children for the past three years. He's a lifelong resident in St. Clair County. The defendant has been a self-employed painter for the past 18 months, has been working as a painter for the past eight years, denies any mental health diagnosis, indicates that he consumes alcohol one time a month and uses marijuana once a month. He has prior conviction for reckless striding in 2022.

It's recommended that there be no bond with conditions that the defendant not use consumer, marijuana alcohol or illegal withdrawal substance have no contact with the co-defendant Amanda Mason or any person under the age of 18 years old. Mr. Sparland, your appearance for the record. Good afternoon, Justice Sparland, behalf of the people. And would you like to address by it? I would your honor. Did one of those recommendations also have been very carry a condition of not to possess firearm or dangerous weapons? It did not. Okay, so I would agree with pre-trial service recommendation for the other ones, especially with no contact.

in any minor, so any person under the age of 18, I'd ask for that additional bond requirement as well. Pursuant to Rule 6.106, I would ask that this court fine and hold the defendant in custody as provided in sub-role B as he is charged with murder. I am aware of the 90 days in which to try this case. The people will be ready and prepared to try this case within 90 days. And when was the prosecutor's turn to speak? he just ripped into Hull and his alleged actions against this small child. He also explained why Hul is facing additional charges of resisting or obstructing an officer. Recently, and it would be on Friday when the defendant was taken into custody,

that was after my office and our prosecutorial subpoenas, where both defendants were brought in to provide sworn under oath statements. At that time, we came to realize of a scheme where both defendants, and it conjured up this lie of previous injuries to the victim in our case, Matthew Mason, and came up with this lie about how the injuries occurred prior to talking to investigators. One of these members of the community that he's relying on is his mother, Tracy Hull, who is part of that scheme to tell police officers the lie about the injuries. This case is an extremely serious case.

Obviously, we have charges of felony murder substantiated by child abuse in the first degree. We have a young child that was the victim here. in this young child, Matthew, suffered years of abuse at the hands of both defendants. Both of defendants admitted that the other person was abusing this child during those prosecutorial subpoenas last week. There was multiple CPS investigations as pertain to injuries that Matthew acquired over the years since Maurice Hool was involved in his life. Maurice has been the subject of multiple of these investigations where he's, hit Matthew across the face, Matthews had to go and receive doctor visits and well-checked visits because of the injuries caused to his face. On this occasion, he was beaten, I'd say within

an inch of his life, but he was murdered that night under the care and guidance of both Maurice and Amanda. I'll also state that throughout this time, this dangerousness, the community factor, Matthew was subjected to very cruel, torturous, child abuse, and punishment. He would be placed in timeout on his knees where his head would be banged off the drywall. He was locked in his room for hours on end without food or water. There was a prior time where Maurice placed a pillow over this child's face and pretended like he was playing. But yet the autopsy that we know, Matthew died from Blumphor's trauma from all the injuries he sustained

as well as possible suffocation. and we have evidence to corroborate that as well. That being said, not to mention this plan that was put forth to kill Matthew, to make room for a child that the two of them could have together, when he was placed under arrest by the St. Clair County Sheriff's Office, in the prosecutor's office, he became extremely violent fighting eight different officers. That's where some of those resisting, instructing officer charges come from. He injured one of our officers at least, and although we only charged three counts of the R&O's, certainly there could have been many more.

So he has dangerousness to the community as well. We do think that no bond in this case is extremely warranted, and it's coupled with the fact of the line, the continued child abuse with the other son that continues to go on, as well as his violent nature and the efforts it took to suppress him once he was placed under arrest. Wow, those are some pretty heinous allegations. And Sam, a lot to break down there. What do you think from those two arguments? Well, I think this thing has a cripple whammy.

The kind of offense it is is obviously very serious and very heinous. If it's true that one or both of them murdered this three-year-old child, in of itself, that's bad. Number two, if you look at the history of abuse, if that is proven, the prior CPS investigations, the prior abuse, that's terrible as well. And then finally, you have the resistance, the fighting of the officers at the time of arrest. It is a triple whammy for Mr. Fuel, in my opinion. That's why Bond was denied.

And I think it's a real, real tough case for the defense here. You know, there didn't seem to be this syndication of domestic violence against Amanda, per se. Is that a factor at all? that mattered? It doesn't really matter because we're talking about the death of this child. Well, kind of the lack of violence toward the mom or the lack of allegations of violence toward the mom really show her to probably be complicit, neither the cover-up or the participation in the abuse. And that's a real problem for her, assuming he's the primary

perpetrator of abuse. Of course, I think he's going to blame her at the trial and or maybe a grandparent, I don't know. It's a real tough story for the defense to put up in this case. It's just, it's one of these cases as a defense attorney where you just do the best you can and you attack the components of the state's case as best you can. But this looks really tough. Now, the prosecutor also said that they wanted to have a baby of their own, maybe get rid of Matthew, Maybe he made a plan for how to talk to investigators. The bomb was involved. Look, if you're watching this on our YouTube channel, by the way,

you also may have noticed that significant eye roll that Hul did at one point. He did it again, by the way, when the judge announced his decision on bail. Take a look. Based on all the factors considered by the court and stated on the record today, a bond is denied at this time. Yeah, it's pretty overt, to say the least. Now, let's talk about Amanda Mason. This is Matthew's mother.

up next. I do have a pretrial service release recommendation advises defendant is 33 years old resides at the Henry Street address in Port Huron with her boyfriend and children for the past nine months, has lived in St. Clair County most of her life. She's unemployed last work a year ago at, is it U.S. Ferrethame? She denies any mental health diagnosis. Defendant indicates that she does not use any drugs or alcohol, has no prior conviction. It's recommended that no bond be ordered with conditions she not used, consumer-possessed, marijuana, alcohol, or illegal's control substances, have no contact with the co-defendant Maurice Hul or any person under the age of 18. I understand the recommendation here is for no bond, and we understand that's fully within the court's discretion. We would just ask if the court were taken into consideration of that because she has no other criminal history, and she does have children here in this community, so we don't believe that she would be likely to flee.

But the prosecutor reiterated that Mason was accused of allowing and even covering up the abuse of her own son, so she shouldn't be allowed to have contact with her other children. We would ask pursuant to rule MCR 6.106 under sub-roll B that this defendant be held in custody with no bond. All she does have ties to community. For family and small children, we would ask that those bond conditions to be imposed, limiting or removing any contact with those minor children to make sure that they're. safe moving forward. The only thing we know at this point in which we can state is that the children are not safe with her. These allegations stem from Matthew Mason, the same as the co-defendant. She had years of covering up for abuse that was done by both Maurice Hull as well as herself. She admitted to us during those prosecutorial subpoenas that Marie's Hull was extremely cruel

and abusive, that Matthew was locked in his bedroom for a long period of time. She also admitted to investigators that she herself was one of the people that would take Matthew's head and had shoved it into the drywall, actually forceful enough to remove the backing off the drywall itself. She admitted that she had observed Maurice at previous times hold a pillow over the child's face, and we're talking about a three-year-old child here. She admitted to lying about the abuse. She admitted to lying about what she originally told police officers, and as well, she admitted to me that, at one point she actually did not take her son to the doctor's appointment because of injuries he had and she was worried about CPS involvement she lied to CPS and investigators at prior times involving prior abuse of Matthew and she admitted that as well so the only thing we have that

we do know is that she's a documented liar she abused her son and for those reasons and the fact that she assisted in the death of Matthew we'd ask for that no contact or not no contact certainly all those conditions for that no body issued in this particular case. So bond was denied for both of them. Sam, was that the right call? Probably, you know, it's a little bit closer call with the mom. There was no evidence she was resisting or fighting the officers at the time for arrest. She certainly seems to make a more sympathetic appearance. It seems that the actual allegations of abuse are less against her than the boyfriend. But at the same time, I think, you know, it's a very serious offense over a period of years, if not months, in terms of the number of a top number of incidents of abuse that were

occurring. And she didn't say anything about it. She didn't protect her own biological child. And that is probably one factor that's really going to get to a judge or a jury that your own mother is not protecting you from somebody who's very abusive. And in fact, engages in some of the abusive acts herself. So I think the judge probably made the right call. It's a little closer call than Mr. Hules. How much is going to be blaming each other an actual defense? Very common in these cases that other custodial parent or the other custodial adult

is blamed for the acts of abuse. You know, grandparents may not be out of the picture either as far as blame. You never know. They're not the grandparents and Mr. Huell's parents is whom I'm referring to. Who had the opportunity, who was alone with the child besides the mom and the boyfriend. That's one defense investigation you have to conduct. You also have to attack the medical conclusions, get your own expert to analyze the injuries to see if the conclusions were correct or could be argued the other way. We've seen some of that in shaken baby syndrome cases.

This doesn't appear to be a shaken baby syndrome case, but medical conclusions are sometimes subjective. I mean, the prosecutors have to feel that they have enough here to prosecute and convict. Obviously, these two individuals are innocent until proven guilty, but there was a change in this case. What do you think it is? Seems to me, and I don't know the exact timing of the statements by the boyfriend and the mom, it seems like those statements, even though they were blaming each other to a certain extent, are going to be some of the most damning evidence of all in addition to the physical evidence. So maybe they were waiting to get everything together to make sure that they could get a statement from each of them before they filed the case.

Now, according to the Justice for Matthew Facebook page, both Mason and Hool, they had moved on with their lives. Hul reportedly got married. You heard a little bit about that there in the clips that got married. Mason started a new relationship to. But for now, they're going to remain behind bars, preliminary hearings for both of them, scheduled for later this month. They face life in prison if they're convicted. You know, when you think, Sam, about the preliminary hearing, right, the opportunity for the prosecution to present enough evidence for this to move forward towards trial. Are there any, are there any kind of reservations you have

about the prosecution's case in these types of child abuse cases, alleged child abuse cases, are there pitfalls for the prosecution that they have to worry about? Well, the prosecution in these cases often chooses a side, so to speak, as one caregiver versus the other. In this case, they seem to be siding more with Mr. Huell than the mom, although she's pulled herself into it. as well with her own statement. So yeah, I mean, I think the prosecution has to be wary of completely relying on one person's story over the other. And they also have to, they have to buttress their case with medical testimony and prior incidents, what the parents have said about prior incidents and any physical evidence at those prior allegations. And I think all of that combined

makes this case a very strong case for the prosecution. I just, I think it's a real uphill battle for the defense, as I've said. But again, as a defense attorney, you roll up your sleeves, you start doing the work, and you see what you can find in your own investigation. And I think that the circumstances of these people's statements to the police have to be examined as well. No, that's fair. And I'll tell you this. This is not the end of the story.

There is another heartbreaking twist. that I wish I was making this up. I'm not. Because we learned this is not the first time. The Mason family has had to endure the death of a toddler and the prosecution of a child's parent. Here on Long Crime, we filed the case of Andrew Mason. This is Amanda's brother and his wife Hillary Mason almost 10 years ago. The two are serving life sentences right now for killing Andrew's five-year-old daughter. McKenzie Mason starved to death. The couple was also connected of abusing her three-year-old sister. Matthew's grandfather told the Times Herald

that he tried to report abuse back then, too, but that CPS brushed him off. You know, Sam, obviously this won't come into evidence in their case, but you got to wonder what is going on here. I mean, unless these are allegations against these two, but, you know, what you had in that situation, what should we be thinking here? Well, I don't know.

It's hard to connect those dots. It certainly is not going to be admissible at the trial of these two. I don't believe unless there's some sort of weird door opening that occurs during the trial. But it is an unusual coincidence that you have two grandchildren of the same grandparents die from abuse or neglect around the same time frame. It's a little bit coincidental and concerning. Obviously, I think the law enforcement is looking into any kind of connectivity between the but I don't think as a trial judge you can let in the evidence of the other case in this case

because an appellate court would there would be a high risk of reversing a conviction here really tough case very difficult to hear about it's the beginning of it well it's the beginning of a new chapter of it to say the least and look you got to think that it was the attention the pressure as we talked about you have to wonder if those were factors and what ultimately led to the rest of these two individuals Sam bassett thanks so much for taking the time good seeing you. Thank you. Good to see you. All right, everybody. That's all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll speak to you next time.

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