Prime Crime: Solved Murders - Missing In Waukesha: The Disturbing Case of Stephanie Pavlons

Episode Date: May 9, 2026

A Wisconsin woman left her Waukesha apartment for what should have been a routine physical therapy appointment for her boyfriend. Stephanie Pavlons seemingly vanished while en route to the doctor’s office, never coming home. Her mother, concerned after not hearing from Stephanie for days, contacted the police. Georgiann’s intuition was correct — Stephanie was missing. Law enforcement immediately began a search and investigated her last movements, with surveillance footage capturing her last known moments. Find out what happened next on this episode of “Prime Crime with Jesse Weber.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

911, what's the address of the emergency? It's the orthopedic hospital of Wisconsin on Gulf Road. Yep, it's behind it. It's in a vacant lot next to it. We found a dead body in the woods when we were putting up up stakes for no trespassing signs. Where exactly are you in relation to the orthopedic associates? We're like between the Gulf Court and that. There are so many questions here.

What happened to this person? How did the body get here? And most importantly, who is this? It wasn't as if we had a missing person case that we could, you know, try and link up right away. There's nothing in my dad, Colin. We're not even accusing you of having anything in your truck. The thought that somebody could just disappear from the world and no one seems to notice was just so heartbreaking. Delafield is a high-end community that I don't know that. I don't know that I've covered a murder in.

It's a very wealthy area. This is not the area that somebody goes missing in and nobody says anything. That's not this area. Are you able to keep everybody away from it? Yep, I got everybody out there. Want to figure out what it is. Okay. All right.

I'll have a couple officers to meet with you, okay? Our captain called, said, hey, patrol is out at a field east of orthopedics and associates of Wisconsin. They have what appears to be the mummified remains of a human. Can you guys start making your way out there? We were directed down through the thick brush area and walked into the tree line and I could see deceased human being lying on their back

probably 20 or so feet into the tree line. It was a badly decomposed body, so it was difficult to to determine what gender the body was. There was nothing around the body in regards to identification, no purses, no wallets that we could find. Obviously, we had to call the medical examiner. We had determined during the autopsy that it was a female between the ages of 20 and 50.

She was in so far advanced state of decomposition that making a manner and cause of death determination by the medical examiner would be almost, if not entirely, It could have been an accident. It could have been, I don't know. She ran in the woods and hit her head on a rock. She had an epileptic seizure. She worked or the other thing that everybody pointed to was suicide.

While the autopsy doesn't determine how this woman died, it does offer some clues as to who she was. She had a pin in one of her wrists from a surgery and then some tattoos. like a tribal and a rose tattoo on her arm and a tattoo of a J on one of her ankles. Those are all things in medical examiners we're going to try and use to try and figure out who this person's identity is. One of our detectives accessed our Wisconsin Department of Corrections database, and with that information he came down to a short list of possibilities.

When he checked the name Stephanie Pavlon, so we felt that we had enough potential identification to find find out who the victim's parents are and see if they were able to help positively identify her. And then we went out to Della Field and met with Stephanie's parents. Detective Frederick and Plannis. So we're doing some follow-up on a case and we just wanted to touch base with you and you live here with your wife. Yeah. And how about is Stephanie? No, she's not right here, none right now.

You guys want to have contact with her ever? We do, but we don't know where she's at. Okay. She won't answer any other form calls. Okay. When was the last time you talked to her? That's equal, three weeks two? Okay. And where was she staying then?

She was here. Then Stephanie's mom comes to the door. You're looking for Steph? Well, we were, I mean, we're working in investigation, and we believe Stephanie is a part of the investigation. Friday, a person was, A person was found deceased in the town of Delafield. Oh, I thought is that it might be Stephanie.

Oh, no. We found out from two Waukesha County detectives that asked us questions about Steph. She had a tattoo on her left arm that was still visible when the body was found. that came to terms that, yeah, that was our daughter. It took a while to really sink in. You couldn't say goodbye to your child. It's a suffering that is hard to relieve, to get out of your system, and it hits so hard that it's,

so hard that it's, it's, it's, I don't know, I gotta stop. Father, he lives in Waukesha. Do you know what his name is, Lougham? Matt Paul. Matt Paul. P-A-H-L. Okay. Stephanie's parents were able to tell us that she spent time between their house

and a long-term boyfriend and the father of her daughter in the city of Waukesha. So as police talk to Stephanie's parents and they're learning more about Stephanie's life, they're also learning more about her relationship with Matt Paul. But she was a very caring, loving person. She was an understanding person, and she was a helpful person, and she loved doing things for you. And in 1999, she met Matt. She met him at a bowling alley in Waukesha and moved in with him. She really loved him a lot.

I think she was about 10 years younger than he is. He's mid-50s. She was mid-40s. It was an on-again, off-again relationship, very rocky relationship. But they were together a long time. Stephanie had a daughter in 2003, and that kind of changed everything for all of us. Layla Pavlans was in her late teens. She was living with both of her parents at the time of her mother's disappearance.

What strikes police is odd is that it seems she was surrounded by people who loved her, so why wasn't she reported missing? Mom and Dad had not called anyone. We knew Mr. Paul had not reported her missing because we didn't have any missing reports associated with her name. You had stated when you talked to her approximately three weeks ago? I think she stayed the night,

and then the next day she got dressed up, and Matt was going to pick her up, and they were going to go to the Y. Okay. And I thought she'd be going to be gone. home later but no she hasn't been showing she was wrong and no contact with her sons nope she'd be gone for weeks on end and then come home for a couple of days so Stephanie's parents figured that she would come back at some point but this time she never did

Stephanie's mom provided us with the address of where Matthew lived we wanted to talk to Matthew and get a timeline from him when did you see her last what was she doing how was your relationship, that type of thing. And I walked up to introduce myself. And the first thing he says to me is, whatever you guys are here for, I didn't do it. I thought, OK. We told him, hey, you're going to come back to the Sheriff's

Department. We're going to talk to you about some things. He ends up having an interview with Detective Brian Fredericks and Detective Ross Sites. This is not a good situation coming over like you did. I mean, I don't know what's going on, but you could have just called. Well, actually I called you a little while ago, but nobody answered.

You called me a little while ago? Yeah, like, how do you have my phone? Four o'clock? Oh, we got all kinds of ways. Oh, yeah. Well, I know. If I wanted to hide my number, I wouldn't, I would, you wouldn't have that access. I know how chat phones were in all that. Yeah, I had nothing to hide.

We were ahead of the game. He was very, it seemed to us, very intent on trying to control the interview, what direction it went. it went. I haven't done anything to be charged. But there's nothing. There's nothing in my vehicle and there's nothing in that apartment. Nothing. We're not even accusing you of having anything in your truck.

I think he thought that he was smarter than law enforcement and he was smarter than everybody else. So the detectives decide they're going to outsmart Matthew Paul by playing dumb. We don't want him to know what we know at this point. We never told him she was deceased. We just stated that she was missing. that she was missing. Can we, let's talk about Stephanie. What is she to you?

Stephanie is the mother of my daughter. And you guys already know that. Yeah. Is you guys have a firm relationship? Uh, we've, we've always had some type of relationship with helping, helping each other. She, uh, helped me recently when I, um, when I broke my ankle. She helped me out quite a bit and I was quite thankful for that.

It's well documented with the suicide attempts that she's made in numerous places. And back in April she took a whole bottle of kills. by her parents' house, and I tried and tried and tried to get her to stop the medications, to get help. What did she take when she overdosed it by her parents? What was she taking? She was taking one of the doctors was prescribing her a lot of medication. Almost from the get-go, he wanted to talk about Stephanie's mental health problems

and addiction problems she had regarding medications that she was taking. There were times that she talked suicide, but she would always call me, and she never did do anything. You don't know where she is? Do you remember the last time you saw her? No, weeks ago. Weeks ago? And I'm sick in my stomach.

Why is that? Because I have a bad feeling. You guys know something here. telling me why were she that's what we're trying to find out we don't know or she's missing so we're trying to figure out who saw her last I tried I tried the best I could with her but these last couple years she was just going off the deep end and the doctors went listen they just kept prescribing more and more drugs more and more drugs when we tried to pin him down on timeline with regards to

to when he last saw her. He would then say, boy, I'm starting to get a sick feeling. What do you guys know? What are you guys not telling me? And then he'd go off again into the, you know, she was on heavy duty medications, none of which in our mind was really relative to what we were talking about with him.

When was the last time you remember seeing Stephanie? Like, because you said, you said, if you think it's been a couple weeks since you last saw her. If you go back, think about the last time you saw her. Where was that? It's been over, over a couple of weeks. I don't remember exactly.

At times when we would press him for more details on his timeline, he would get nervous. And I think that's when he would blow his nose and cover his mouth and sort of get his thoughts together before changing the subject. Detectives keep pushing him. What happened on the day that he last saw Stephanie? And exactly what day was it? You said, you went with her. You went with her to an appointment at orthopedic? Yeah, we went to, I was going to orthopedic associates.

Matthew earlier in the year had hurt his ankle or his foot and was getting physical therapy treatment at orthopedic associates, close by on where the victim was found. He said you had a morning appointment and you guys went out there together. You said when you got out there, you went into your appointment. So this the last time you would have seen her, it sounds like, okay? Did she come in the building with you? Do you remember? No.

She stayed in the truck? Yeah, she stayed in a truck. You finished your appointments? Yeah. Come out your truck and then what? She's gone. She's not in the truck anymore? She's gone.

Yeah. Did she have the keys or no? Do you remember? Oh, no. No, I had keys. I had the keys. Did she give you any indication that she was going to go anywhere or like where she would be going? No.

When you got back out to your truck, Matt, and she wasn't there, what happened next? So like I've done before, I drove up and down looking for her. I was thinking that maybe she took a walk up the street. Maybe she called her mom, maybe she was just venting because she's had a habit of this in the past to run out to the woods, call her mom. do stuff like that. One of the things that jumped out at us is we talked about how she's very well known

to run off into the woods and try to kill herself, which we thought was an interesting thing to say considering that she was found deceased in the woods. You asked for Mavit, is she seen her? You remember when you got back to the apartment, was she there? Oh, no. Her, when I really got worried

and didn't understand what was going on is, I went to the car wash, about a week ago, and I took out my car mats and I started cleaning everything, and lo and behold, I see her purse, and that's when I was, I thinking, well, this is strange. Like, and a week goes by or two weeks goes by, and then all of a sudden you find that, you said, when you were cleaning it out. And Paul claims that he found something even more shocking when he was cleaning out his truck. There was a note underneath the car man.

What did it say? It wasn't anything that I haven't already heard before through email, through texting. I'm tired of everybody. I hate everybody. I hate you. I hate my parents. Um, everybody. You know?

That type of language. Do you think she left that note that last time you saw her? Possibly. I can't say for sure. Well, yeah, I just, that's... I have to go pee. I think Matt was relying on that note to make it a suicide note.

I think that was his way of covering him for himself and putting the blame on Stephanie by saying she's got this history, I found this note, and then you guys found her dead. Mr. Paul is clearly our suspect in this matter. He's somehow either involved or knows what happened to Stephanie. Okay, I have to get an attorney.

You asked for an attorney, man, we're done, right? We'll be in touch with the next couple weeks that I can promise you. Okay? That's fine, you know. I can promise you, I didn't do anything. So you say. So I know. We didn't have enough information or evidence to say that he killed her.

We don't have enough to arrest, so he's going to have to be released. For now, Matthew Paul has nothing more to say to police. But it turns out, his apartment building has a lot more to tell them. We figured out where Mr. Paul resided. It was an apartment building in the city of Walkershaw. We found out that all the exits at this facility at this apartment complex had cameras. And we wanted to get video. We ended up obtaining a search warrant for Matthews apartment.

Stephanie also often resided as well. And so they had seven cameras around the interior of the complex. And so we had literally a team. of deputies and detectives that would take a chunk of footage or a camera and look at 24-hour footage to see when is Stephanie here, when is she leaving August 23rd, 2022. Stephanie's seen coming down the door, the steps and exiting out the apartment doors on the north side of the complex. She's wearing the same clothing that she was wearing when she was discovered. She's got a black purse over her shoulder that's

It's got like metal chains on the strap and a very large pink water bottle. And she's seeing it like 8.39 in the morning exiting that door. Matthew exits out of a different door. As we understood it is that Mr. Paul did not want to be seen leaving the apartment with Stephanie because he was not allowed to have a another roommate, basically. It was a one-tenant apartment. Thanks to a dash cam that Paul has in his truck that's seized by Detective Fredericks, investigators are able to track the couple's movements that morning.

They're heading for his orthopedic appointment, but they make a stop after they leave the apartment. She's seen a few minutes later at the quick trip, which is between Matthew's apartment and orthopedic associates of Wisconsin. Stephanie goes into the store, and you can see her in the store, and makes a minor purchase. I think of some breakfast food and goes back out to the truck. They sit there for a few minutes eating the breakfast, and then she gets out and makes a deposit into the trash can, gets back into the truck, and within a minute or two,

they leave together in the truck from the gas station and head west on Gulf Road, which is the direction of his doctor's office. That is the last time she is known to be alive that we can docket. Unfortunately, the cameras at Orthopedic Associates are on a five-day loop, so they record five days, and then it writes over itself. So by the time we were able to identify who Stephanie was, we were well beyond the retention period for that. But the surveillance video at the apartment, that keeps going. In continuing to watch that video, we do see Matthew come back later that day early afternoon, and Stephanie does not. He also does walk into the building with the pink water bottle, and he later comes in with a plastic grocery bag, like a shopping bag.

And inside that bag, you can see what is to be a purse. You can see the strap, but Stephanie doesn't return. During their search, they located Stephanie's water bottle, they located her purse, they located her phone, they grabbed his phone, they grabbed an iPad. I think a laptop, and we got phone records back, location data associated with those phones, Stephanie's and Matthews. We watched the phones leave.

They end up going to the area of where Stephanie's found, which is that O-AW, at Orthopedic and Associates. However, both phones end up coming back to the apartment, but Stephanie never does. As police continue to comb through Matthew Paul's phones, they come across something very curious. So when we were going through his phone downloads, we started seeing some conversations between two ladies in the Philippines that Matthew was in regular contact with.

They were sexual in nature, the conversations, they were daily conversations, they were in an online relationship. We had learned that Matthew's intent at some point was, in fact, to move to the Philippines with one of those females that he was chatting with. One of the women was a, I want to say was a nurse, the other one was a school teacher. Norma Jean Desireto and Sherlyn Valenti were the two females that Matthew was in regular contact with. I can remember if it was late 2021 and then we used to chat or send a suggest site for year 23rd. Did anything happen between all your conversations that seemed strange or?

or anything in regards to anything that you were talking about with Matthew. He told me that there was someone missing there. He was to be, but he always told me that he's worried about that. Did he ever say a name or anything? Norma Jean, the nurse, she remembered some things. Matthew had told her about, you know, he was worried about someone in his circle. It's just that those communications occurred before Stephanie's body had even been found,

which obviously also caused more concern that he was involved. As detectives talked to these women, they zero in on the day that Stephanie's body was found in the woods. September 9th is the day that I kind of want to talk to you about. September 9th of 2022, he ends up texting you on Skype that says, I'm sorry, I can't explain this, but I'm going to have to delete your contact.

And then you have a frightened back and says, does it relate to the matter you've been worried? I think he told me that there was already an investigation happened at the time. So he keeps people talking to me that if there's someone will reach out to me, asked me about anything that I know about the related incident, something like that. Did he tell you what to do if somebody did contact you? Yeah, he told me that I would just answer, I don't know anything. Neither of those females told us that Matt admitted to any type of causing harm to Stephanie whatsoever. But Matthew Paul does tell them something else that investigators find very interesting.

Yeah, he wanted to go here. Okay. I think Matthew was looking for a way out of not only his relationship with Stephanie, but out of the country. We found out that he did leave the country. He went to the Philippines. I believe it was March 14th he left of 2023. He's making plans with one of the Filipino women that he's coming back there on a one-way ticket and he's going to live out there and live happily ever after. So I think very much in his mind, he was under the impression that they've got nothing on me.

They can't prove anything, and I'm home free here. He's back June 14th of 2023. There's an urgency, but we're still waiting on some things. We're still trying to put things together. We had no physical evidence. We had no confession. We had no eyewitnesses. And so it was absolutely 100% circumstantial.

It takes another three months before detectives feel confident enough in the evidence. to finally make their move and arrest Matthew Paul. We had been surveilling his apartment complex for several days. On one particular day, I think it was day four of us being out there. He came out of the apartment complex and we pulled up on him, jumped out, put him in handcuffs, and brought him back to the department. ...in the parking lot. Certainly, in the parking lot.

That kind of time, man. How in hell could you... How did I just come up? I just came out, it just came out. Yeah, you got lucky. Got lucky. You got unlucky, you got unlucky. I'm just telling you, I'm just telling you.

I don't know what I'm being arrested for. What could I possibly be arrested for? I didn't do anything. Matthew Paul was ultimately charged with murder in the first degree, along with hiding a corpse. We were working very closely with the district attorney's office. And what we wanted was to be able to present the most solid case possible that Matthew not only killed Stephanie,

but also concealed her body in the woods. The weaknesses were still, the condition of the body and the lack of a ability to determine cause and manner of death. That was the biggest concern that I had. And without a murder weapon, without a medical examiner, a medical doctor coming in and saying, she was strangled, she was shocked, whatever is a jury going to accept this.

It took three years to get to trial, all those years of waiting, you know, for them to get all the evidence together and have a good strong case. We were certainly concerned that the jury might find, hey, I don't know for certain how she died. I'm not exactly sure how she died or that this was a homicide versus a suicide. suicide. So we really wanted to button up as many of those holes as we could prior to trial. In October of 2025, Matthew Paul's trial finally begins. And this is Stephanie Pavlant's. She is the person who is the subject of this homicide trial. She's a person you will not hear from directly in this case. This is Stephanie as she was enjoying life one day. How did she end up dead in the woods in the town of Delafield in 2022?

There's one thing we won't be able to present to you. And that's the cause of death. I wanted them to know right from the outset, hey, you're going to hear all this stuff, but you're not going to hear how she died, but that's okay. So that was the gist of the opening statement of, we got a lot of evidence, but the one thing you're going to want to know, I probably can't answer.

answer. And you may say, how in the world are you going to prove a murder case when you don't know how she died? The burden of proof on the state of Wisconsin is not to prove how she died. You will not be asked that at the end of the case. You will be asked, did Matthew Paul intentionally kill Stephanie Pavlons? Is he guilty of that allegation by the state or not guilty? The only reasonable conclusion you can reach is that he's guilty of killing Stephanie Pavlans in an intentional act. The defense had several strategies that they went into this case with, first of all, and most significantly, we don't know how she died, let alone who, if anyone, was responsible for her death. No witnesses will be able to testify with any certainty how Stephanie Pavlon's life came to an end. In a homicide case, the government always relies upon the testimony of one critical witness,

that being the medical examiner. In this case, the Waksha County Medical Examiner will testify that despite exhaustive testing and investigation, they can sum up the conclusion about the manner and cause of Stephanie's death in one word, undetermined. I believe the government will not be able to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Matthew Paul committed. the offenses for which he is charged. So the prosecution sets out to show the jury that while they don't know how Stephanie was killed, there's only one person who could have killed her.

So we really had to put the pieces together for the jury with all of the other evidence that we had. Not scientific evidence, but in this case a lot of digital evidence, a lot of statements from the defendant messages from him to other people that indicated that he, you know, he was the one that caused Stephanie's death. Now, among the digital evidence are computer searches that were done by Matthew Paul alongside his father, Marvin, that are pretty incriminating. Once Matthew Paul is at Mr. Marvin Paul's resident, what did you observe in Mr. Marvin Paul's computer?

These are web searches. Missing Woman Found Dead. September 9th, 2022 video clips, Walker Shaw Police Scanner. body found in Waukishaw field, missing woman found dead. Did anyone in law enforcement know who it was that was found in the woods near OIW? Not to my knowledge. Did anyone know in law enforcement that Ms. Stephanie Pavlans had been missing since August 23rd? At this point, no, because at this point, we didn't release any information about who was found,

simply because we didn't know. based on these searches, maybe this person knows. He almost immediately, after the 23rd of August, 2022, he starts looking up obituary for Stephanie Pavlons. He's looking up funeral homes. He starts looking at his police scanner app throughout that time frame as well. Another strong witness for the prosecution was Andrew Willis, alongside his cadaver dog, Rabin.

Now Raven was taken to the facility where Matthew Paul's truck was being held to see if she could sniff out any evidence that human detectives may have missed. So now you get Raven out and you put her vest on and you take her up to the service door there, correct? Correct, yes. So she keeps going through the garage and then comes back over to the area of the target vehicle. Yes. And tell us about when she approaches the target vehicle, please. She approaches the target vehicle from the passenger side coming off the west side of the pole barn and then crosses the rear bumper

In the direction towards where the search had started But then does a 180 with increased respiration so again now I'm seeing a change of behavior again And as she comes back towards the passenger side rear corner she puts her nose to it and gives a train form over it of a sit The dog got to the back of Matthews truck on the passenger side and just did a hard sit. The canine handler said that's a positive alert right there. Matthew ends up throwing that water bottle and that purse in the back of that truck, right? Like that scent doesn't mean that there was necessarily a body in that truck.

It just means that something close to or in contact with a dead body was in that truck. Some of the strongest evidence that the prosecution ends up presenting, is Stephanie's journal, and it is heartbreaking. So beginning on page one, you said the first entry is July 10th of 2020. That's correct. Please read that entry to the best of your ability. Had a good day at work until I came home, and he thought there was smoke left there, wasn't. Gave me a good hard slap to my face, which stung, and gave me a migraine.

Good day, bad night, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This is why I want to die sometimes. Again, blame for something I didn't do. I think Stephanie did have the foresight to know that something tragic may happen to her at some point. And so she was creating a record of the abuse she was suffering. It's basically the words from the grave. Without that journal, we wouldn't have gotten to the place of understanding what her life was like every day. 10-7-20.

A lot has happened since my last writing. My left ear drum got blown out again. I received another black and blue eye. Had a spinal bruise for about three weeks straight and more emotional abuse than can count. July 6, my heart, soul, and mental state have been broken time and time again. I feel trapped.

Then it's time for closing arguments. This isn't a case where we had an eyewitness, and eyewitness, this isn't a case where we had the homicide on video. We had to do hard work to prove this case. Each piece of evidence builds on one another. No single piece of evidence is determinative in this case. But each piece shows you the kind of person that Mr. Matthew Paul was, shows you the relationship that Stephanie Pavlons had with Mr. Paul and ultimately that Stephanie Pavlons met her demise on August 23rd because of the actions of the defendant. Matthew is fighting for his freedom.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you sit today in this case as 12 judges, 12 individuals who control the destiny of Matthew Paul. You sit here today as the ultimate law enforcement officers. There is not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Given the evidence and testimony, the state certainly has not. satisfied their burden of proof with respect to the crimes charged. I'm confident you will render verdicts that will be consistent with good common sense and logic and find Matthew Paul not guilty.

We're saying, I think he's going to get off. It's all circumstantial evidence. We kept saying, like, I just don't, I don't see how 12 people can convict. Somebody's going to have reasonable doubt. Every little piece of evidence didn't seem like enough. There was nothing overwhelming. There was no smoking gun. Well, there may not be a smoking gun, but prosecutor Christy Gordon does have a secret weapon in her holster. And I like to save a little something for my rebuttal.

In this case, it was our theory. We had talked the whole time that this trial was ongoing, even in our trial prep about what is our theory going to be. And we came up with one that we just all felt fit the evidence. and Christy got up there, the prosecution got up there, and when she started to put it together, we all gasped. That was it. He goes into his appointment,

and while he's in there, Stephanie is just stewing. She's like, I am sick of this. I'm done. I'm done with the violence. I'm done with the abuse. I don't want this anymore. So she writes that note that's found in the car. That's not a suicide note.

That's a breakup note. She leaves it on the driver's seat. She has to find a way out. So she gets out of the car and she starts to walk away. She decides to walk towards that wooded area. She's probably thinking, I just gotta get out of sight. He can't see me leaving. Mr. Paul comes out of the appointment.

She's run out of time. He sees that she's not in the truck. She sees the note. Doesn't take very long to read this note. He reads it and oh boy, he's mad. He's furious. He gets in his truck, he drives, and he sees Stephanie. And then what happens?

Mr. Paul, grabs her purse. And ladies and gentlemen, this is the murder weapon. He wraps this around her neck. He strangles her for just a minute or two. That's all it takes. She goes unconscious, and she's dead. He uses the strap of her own head. purse to kill her. See, Mr. Paul, he couldn't let Ms. Pavlons have the control. He couldn't let her

walk away. He couldn't let her leave him. This is how she died. This is what everybody's been waiting for. She took the breadcrumbs and she put them together and she gave the jury a meal and the case is done. The jury deliberated for one hour. I've done a lot of murder trials in my career. Never had a one hour verdict on a murder case. I've never heard of a one hour verdict on a murder case, to be honest. The verdict's read as follows, we the jury find the defendant, Matthew E. Paul, guilty of first-degree intentional homicide as charged in count one of the information. The second verdict reads, we the jury find the defendant, Matthew E. Paul, guilty of hiding a corpse as charged in count two of the information. I was very excited. I think I had to double check and make sure that it was really guilty because they came back so fast.

And just so grateful for the juries that they went by the evidence. Before Matthew Paul is officially sentenced, prosecutor Christy Gordon reads a statement from Layla. This is Matthew and Stephanie's daughter, and it is directed straight to her father. I do not know why she would tolerate your abuse and I might never know why. What kind of sick monster would do that to an innocent woman that spent her life with you, cared for you, and was there for you when she could be? You have no soul. You killed the one person that made me happy and was there for me at times I needed her.

You took an innocent woman's life and hurt so many people. I hope you rot in jail. It's going to haunt her for arrest for her. life. It's a be hard for her to explain, talk, talk about it because it brings up so many different kinds of memories that she had with her mother and some of her memories that she had with her father. Matthew Paul also speaks his mind to the judge and he doesn't hold back. And I just want to make a statement about this case. And I think this was definitely a sham trial called making a murderer here in Waukesha. I am the only victim here. I'm the one being murdered by the new Gestapo.

This is just a pattern of abuse of power in the DA's office. He certainly did not help himself at his sentencing during his statement. I think he highly offended the judge. The jury told me loud and clear in less than an hour and your statements and your behavior and your attitude tells me loud and clear as we sit here today, what is the appropriate thing for me to do? And so here's what I perceive. My purpose in imposing a sentence in this case is to incapacitate Matthew Paul,

to prevent him from taking advantage of somebody like Stephanie Pavlons in the future of hurting her mentally, emotionally, physically, and in light of that, as to count number one, I'll impose a sentence of life imprisonment without any eligibility for release to extended supervision. As to count two, I'm going to impose a term of imprisonment of 12 and a half years with 7.5 years initial confinement and five years of extended supervision consecutive to the term of life. I thought it was very fair, and I fully expected Judge Ramirez would give him a life sentence, and he did.

This is one of those cases that will be a top case by the end of my career. We were able to get the right, you know, the correct verdict and justice for her. It was the most challenging case I've ever worked and also the most, rewarding case. I think ultimately a finding of guilty is the most justice that Stephanie can get because it shows that she was living a hard life and that life was at the hands of Matthew

and he was the one that took her life and took her life much too soon. This is a tragic story of a woman who was robbed not only of her dignity, but ultimately her life. But the most enduring loss is for her family. And so I want to leave you with her mom and her dad who should have the last work. The reason I'm doing this today is to help anybody who's in that kind of a situation that it will help them, give them the courage to leave the person that's abusing them.

Just go out and get help. Just reach out to somebody to get help. Even if it's hard to do it, just try to do it to get yourself a piece of mind. yourself a peace of mind.