find the defendant matthew scott sullivan guilty of the crime of second degree murder. guilty of second degree murder. matt was sentenced to 16 years to life. and then i was so happy. elizabeth got justice. and her husband didn t get away with it. it had been a weight to carry around said detective collier. the case that wouldn t let her go. what memories do you carry around of elizabeth sullivan and the story? i bought a necklace for jill and myself and for tammy who was one of the dna lab analyst people, and it is what we all carry around with us periodically. this garbage makes you don t mind? it is a little leaf and it says badly drawn girl but you never gave up. no, that young woman had the
were told they just didn t have enough. so, detective collier got on the plane, flew to maryland, and knock on matt s door. tell me about that? again, a very long, painful interview. i mean, at that point i definitely knew we had the right person, there wasn t any doubt in my mind, but he didn t confess. once again, the case had hit a wall. yet another year went by. not a single lead. but they couldn t just give up. we all sat down and collectively decided that we wanted to go back in the house because there were some things that we needed more of. during the previous search they had notice some wooden slats in the attic were broken as if someone had been climbing around up there. so when they returned in october 2016, that is where they went looking. i started just pulling up
detective collier learned that october 4th, the very morning liz s body was discovered, the movers arrived at matt s house. to pack up his whole house, essentially, and to put it in the container so they could ship it back east. mad said his girlfriend this photo with this message, movers are working. what a fascinating timing? yes. couldn t quite say it would prove anything but it was suggestive? very suggestive in my opinion. over the years detective collier had been keeping an eye on matt s facebook page. when she saw matt and his girlfriend were expecting a baby, she figured they might need a bigger place. it was in the back of my mind that if they did move out that i wanted to go in and do a complete forensic examination of their place before it was rented to somebody else. was that something that could not have been done while he was living in the house? based on the fact that he
a month later, more carpet cleaner. and a roll of plastic wrap. i don t mean to big industrial stuff? yes. did you have an explanation for that? he said when his mom was coming out that he needed to wrap up some of the things that she had brought and put them in storage. another perfectly reasonable answer. so far out their suspicion, they couldn t prove matt did anything. or that liz didn t just run off on her own. and so it went until detective collier and her team had exhausted all their leads. and soon elizabeth sullivan, claudia leslie wells, marleen quay liz s name was another in a long list of missing people profiled by san diego s nbc seven investigates. just names to us but to family members and friends they are
and the sub floor stain itself was at least a foot. and saturated. is, though not on the surface of the carpet. it must have been clean with that carpet cleaner matt bought, maybe? the dna, no surprise, matched lives. what did you think when you got those results? i thought, here we go, you know? that s a big moment. was not the case, as far as you could tell. it s, not okay could persuade the da, based on this? we hoped. we don t get to make all those decisions by ourself. and detectives presented their case to the da, the retooled they just didn t have enough. so, detective collier got on a plane, flew to maryland, and knocked on matt s door. tell me about that. again, a very long painful interview, at that point, i definitely knew we had the right person. there wasn t any doubt in my mind. but, he didn t confess.