The OB Rag has followed the tragic saga of Elizabeth Sullivan, a 31-year old Point Loma Navy spouse, who disappeared in mid-October, 2014. Nearly two years after she vanished, her body was found off Point Loma and Liberty Station, in San Diego Bay.
Four years after her disappearance, her husband, Matthew Sullivan, was arrested in 2018 at his home in Delaware and extradited to San Diego on murder charges.
In 2020, Matt Sullivan was convicted of of second-degree murder for fatally stabbing Elizabeth. On Friday, March 12, this year, he was sentenced to 16 years to life in state prison.
Here are some details – some new – about the case from CBS8:
- Prosecutors allege Sullivan killed his wife at the couple’s Liberty Station home, then hid her body inside a freezer for nearly two years before dumping it in the water on the day he was set to move out of San Diego;
- after stabbing his wife at least five times in her bedroom, Sullivan hid the body and murder weapon inside his home until he was compelled to discard Elizabeth’s remains when movers arrived Oct. 4, 2016, at the onset of his cross-country move to the East Coast;
- their children were in another room, when Elizabeth was murdered;
- her decomposed body was discovered that same day in the water about a half-mile from their residence, dressed in the same clothes she was last reported wearing;
- the autopsy revealed a series of injuries to her ribs consistent with stab wounds, as well as fractures to her jaw and her nose;
- the victim’s blood was found beneath the carpet of her bedroom and on a knife found in the attic of the couple’s home;
- the victim never contacted anyone after Oct. 13 and never touched about $1,000 she transferred from the couple’s joint account to her personal bank account shortly before her disappearance;
- when Matt Sullivan arranged for his mother and sister to move into the Liberty Station home on Oct. 13 to begin caring for their children, his wife contacted an attorney to secure a restraining order to keep her husband’s family out of the home;
- Matt Sullivan did not report her disappearance, but did go to a store the morning of Oct. 14 to purchase a single item: carpet cleaner.
Finally, Elizabeth and her family can get some justice for this horrible crime. Seven years later. Props to the SDPD officers and investigators who wouldn’t let this murder go unsolved.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Elizabeth Sullivan was lovely woman—an attentive mother, and very sweet and very pretty, and she looked all the more pretty when she smiled, which she did often. She hid the fact that she was the victim of abuse all too well, as too many women do.