The strange case of Elizabeth Sullivan [True Crime Documentary]

when Elizabeth Sullivan was reported missing in the Autumn of 2014 the San Diego Police suspected Foul Play Over the following days and weeks suspicions only compiled but the evidence of what if anything had befallen the young mother was sparse friends insisted that something horrible must have happened but her family wasn't so sure Elizabeth Sullivan was a complicated and capable woman it was possible that her disappearance had been by Design maybe Elizabeth didn't want to be found hi everyone I'm Kevin and welcome to just thought Lounge today's case takes a look at a missing person with

a chaotic history it took years to piece together the story and when it did reach its conclusion the truth was just as messy let's take a look [Music] [Music] 31-year-old mother of two Elizabeth Sullivan was a force of nature according to her closest friends she was not just charismatic fashionable and funny what was most striking about the young mother was her intelligence friends and acquaintances alike were drawn to Elizabeth because she was smart well readed and creative in the Autumn of 2014 Elizabeth was living in the Liberty Station neighborhood in San Diego California she shared

a home with her husband Matthew and their two daughters aged 2 and four the neighborhood is a former Naval training center and the home that the Sullivans rented was a spacious multi-level house living in California was still new for Elizabeth she had relocated from her home state of Virginia only few years before after falling for husband Matthew who was in the US Navy Matt was transferred from the large base in Norfolk Virginia to California only months after the two began dating nonetheless Elizabeth packed up and went with him they wed and welcomed their first daughter

shortly after once settled in San Diego the young mother found a new routine Matthew's career saw him deployed for short periods of time then sometimes much longer ones in his absence Elizabeth did her own thing she made friends she maintained an active social life that is until the 14th of October when the San Diego Police Department the sdpd made an announcement Elizabeth Sullivan was missing it was Elizabeth's good friend Nathan character who had notified police with concern turns when he was unable to reach her Nathan would recount later that he just had a bad feeling

that something could have happened Elizabeth had last been seen at her home the day before by her husband Matthew who was back in San Diego between deployments the sdpd missing person section found that Elizabeth's car was still at home in the garage the family home was a bit messy but they found nothing that overtly alarmed them or that indicated Foul Play Matthew pointed out that one of the family suitcases appeared to have gone missing missing persons investigators also found that just the day before Elizabeth had transferred over the full balance in her and Matthew's joint

bank account over $1,000 to her personal one perhaps these were signs that she had decided to leave of her own valtion seeking insight into the life and mind of Elizabeth Sullivan investigators poured over the 31-year-old's journals in them they discovered her creative flare fictional stories of a woman swept off of her feet by a dashing Navy man a white knight as she called him in her story The Knight and his love began a life in California and welcomed a beautiful baby girl the parallels in Elizabeth's story to her own life were clear in Her Fantasy

the female protagon disillusioned with her new life and white KN abandons her life and starts again was the fantasy once again mirroring reality Elizabeth had last sent a text message from her phone the day before on the 13th of October this would be the last contact she would have with her friends and family Days Later Elizabeth Sullivan's phone was turned off Matthew for his part was concerned eared but not shocked by his wife's absence it seems that amongst the quirks in Elizabeth's vibrant personality was a tendency to on occasion become emotionally unstable briefly home from

deployment her husband had just invited his mother Michelle Sullivan and her partner to come live with them in San Diego certain that his mother's help with the two kids would be gratefully received he purchased the plane tickets and Reed for their arrival but Elizabeth was not pleased she did not get on with her mother-in-law and was insistent that they not live under the same roof only a few days before Nathan reported her missing Elizabeth upset with her husband had left the house and failed to return home all night Matthew explained to the sdpd that such

behavior from his wife was not uncommon he was concerned she had always come home in the past but this time their argument had been a big one maybe this time he thought she had left for good as unlikely as Matthew's explanations seemed to investigators they had no concrete evidence that a crime had taken place and the more that they waited into the life of Elizabeth Sullivan the more murky the waters speaking with friends and family members they learned that Elizabeth and Matthew had been mostly living two separate lives for years after multiple long-term absences while

he served in the Navy Elizabeth had come to adopt the life and mindset of a single mother it became more and more difficult for Matthew to integrate back into his marriage and family life when he returned back home by Autumn of 2014 friends reported that it had not been a happy marriage for some time and they had not been married for very long there had been accusations of domestic abuse and police had been called out to the house on more than one occasion to cope with these stresses Elizabeth was known to overmedicate and not only

with her prescription drugs she also began a relationship with a man that she had met on Tinder it was as though Elizabeth Sullivan was living two lives at home she was a wife struggling to hold things together as well as a loving mother to her girls but the other Elizabeth the one that investigators were learning more and more about she had a boyfriend and some dangerous habits on October 19th police confirmed there had been a sighting of Elizabeth reported at the soccer fields at Liberty Station 2 days after she was reported missing the sdpd told

the media that the sighting had actually been made by two off-duty deputies they had been at the park that morning to watch their child play soccer and that's not all the deputies spoke with Elizabeth directly she appeared to them disheveled and possibly under the influence of something Elizabeth told them that she had not been home the night before she had also lost her phone the deputies helped her look for it but they were unsuccessful after being missing for one full week police confirmed yet another sighting of Elizabeth this time she was spotted near the San

Diego International Airport I feel like she's in trouble and I've come out here from Virginia to look for her to let her know we're here it can happen to you and when it does it gets very personal and it takes on a whole new light when it happens to you and you get a strength like you never had before because that's my daughter I'm bringing her home we are going to let this go by November of 2014 1 month after being reported missing there had been no further sightings of Elizabeth that month Matthew decided to

give an interview about his wife's disappearance to People magazine he told the publication I'm running on fumes right now I don't know where to look I'm always looking around the neighborhood trying to catch a glimpse of her he stated that I think about her constantly I can't stop the girls are my biggest concern right now I have to keep going try to do what I have to do for them and keep praying by that time the missing person's investigative team had looked into the sighting of Elizabeth near to the airport and found it was a

false report however they still believed the eyewitnesses who had placed her in the park they continue to circulate Her Image and description to the public should there be any further sight sdpd investigators were also keeping tabs on the behavior of the outwardly distraught husband while Matthew told People magazine that he was getting by with the support of the Navy Community friends of Elizabeth's noticed that that was not the only support he was receiving within a month of Elizabeth's disappearance Matthew was back on the dating scene indeed only months later he moved his girlfriend friend into

the house at Liberty Station 10 months after she vanished police said there was still no sign of Elizabeth Sullivan and her case had gone cold on October 4th 2016 one week shy of the 2-year anniversary of Elizabeth's disappearance a woman's body was found floating in the channel neared Liberty Station the San Diego County Medical Examiner confirmed that they had found Elizabeth Sullivan her body showed signs of sharp force trauma in other words Elizabeth had been stabbed to death the case was finally handed over to the sdpd homicide unit to take a thorough look on the

day that Elizabeth was found Matthew Sullivan had been packing up and moving house he and his new girlfriend were expecting a baby and they required more space despite the shocking development in Elizabeth's case Matthew nonetheless moved forward with his plans undeterred 3 days after she was pulled from the water Matthew moved out of state with the certainty that she had in fact been murdered facts from the early days of the investigation began to take on new significance homicide detectives followed up on Elizabeth's accounts and transactions they found that the $1,000 balance that she had moved

into her personal account remained there untouched Elizabeth had been killed before she had a chance to spend it there was one transaction however on her credit card that stood out that was a payment made to an attorney a divorce attorney the writing had been on the wall separate bedrooms calls to police her stress over her mother-in-law moving in then roughly a month before she went missing Elizabeth had admitted to her husband that she was having an affair at that point the two began arguing over custody of the children Matthew evidently believed that Elizabeth intended to

make false accusations against him to law enforcement in order to have him arrested she would then gain sole custody of the children on the day Elizabeth vanished Matthew called 9911 to report his concerns go believe this is Melanie hi I have concerns my wife is trying to have me I don't know evicted or arrested from my house and take my children away from me oh okay I mean she took my personal credit card used it to hire a lawyer against me haven't been with any papers yet but I know she's called your department um earlier

this morning and I think that's where she's headed now to try to get me detained and she said that she took all the money out of your shared bank account I just checked it it's all gone there's nothing maybe 15 cents left I'm still here with my children and I don't know what she's doing if she comes back and there's some problems or you can call us back when she's there okay after Matthew had moved out of state the stpd performed yet another search of the Liberty Station home this time they knew what they were

looking for in the attic space above what had been Matthew's bedroom police pulled insulation from the beams and searched in every corner and crevice there efforts paid off uncovered from that space was a military style folding knife testing revealed blood DNA from Elizabeth Sullivan Matthew's DNA was on the handle the knife was the key piece of evidence they needed on January 31st 2018 Matthew Sullivan was arrested outside of his new home in W oming Delaware he was later extradited to California as the state prepared their case they needed to reconcile one seemingly inexplicable Fact Two

medical examiners had reached conclusions regarding Elizabeth's death after she had been pulled from the water and both experts agreed based on decomposition it appeared that Elizabeth had not been deceased for two full years but rather only two months the state of California believed that her husband had killed her on the night of October 13th 2014 the last day that she had been heard from by friends and family if that was true they needed to account for the results of the autopsy and they did so when the home was searched cadaver dogs were alerted to a

large freestanding freezer it was empty but police believed it indicated that there had been a body inside it previously looking back on the first search of the home investigators recalled that the same freezer had been plugged into the power socket in the garage next to Elizabeth's car when they opened the freezer at that time it had also been empty the state now believed that Matthew had filled it he had used it to keep Elizabeth hidden for nearly 2 years then as the time approached for his move to Delaware he finally disposed of her body hoping

she would stay hidden in the water s believe the show The Descendant K Elizabeth I st her with the night he then he has a body it's it's it's an incredible loss they have two beautiful children um they have a a long uh storied history and um Mr Sullivan as I stated in court um is a Navy veteran uh who's traveled the world defending freedom and it is now going to be uh his chance to be served by the institutions that he defended Matthew Sullivan's murder trial began on February 21st 2020 Matthew's defense attorney argued

that that Elizabeth had been unpredictable that she often took off without telling anyone and that she abused drugs they argued that the freezer theory was just that a theory there was no real evidence that Elizabeth had ever been held in the freezer law enforcement had searched the home on more than one occasion and failed to find Elizabeth there Matthew had also lived in the house with his children and then later his mother her partner and his new girlfriend yet no one discovered Elizabeth the evidence will show that Elizabeth's family and her friends will report a

history of finding a man finding Independence deciding abruptly to turn the page on her life and not necessarily sharing with everybody who would otherwise be included normally in such a decision her father will tell you about this p pattern her friends will tell you about this pattern her friends from Virginia and her friends from San Diego you're not going to hear one bit of evidence of Matthew Sullivan trying to secret away parts of his home and at the end of the day when the evidence is all put through after several witnesses it will not be

able to divert your attention from the fact that the evidence is consistent with the life that Elizabeth San led to that point and that while her passing while tragic cannot be attributed to Matthew Sullivan by the time of the trial the off-duty officers that had reported speaking with Elizabeth at the park now thought that they had confused their dates the encounter had taken place but a few days before she was reported missing not after this fact was confirmed when investigators found that Elizabeth had spent the night of the 11th at a homeless shelter instead of

going home supporting the statements she had made to the deputies in the park the next morning on the 12th Elizabeth went missing 2 Days Later although these early sightings were dismissed there remained evidence that Elizabeth could have been alive and well after October 14th her boyfriend Steve Sutton had initially refused to Cooper operate with law enforcement he hired an attorney and then refused to take a polygraph test eventually after being ruled out as a potential suspect Steve told investigators that weeks into the Search for Elizabeth he had been in contact with someone claiming to be

her messages from an email address that he did not recognize were signed off by someone claiming to be Elizabeth as a test Steve had asked the writer of the emails to identify what was on the keychain to the hot tub where they had spent time together somehow the writer had answered him correctly Matthew's defense team argued that this was a fact that only Elizabeth could have known but Steve Sutton could not produce the emails he had already deleted them he said once um you no longer dating suan did you maintain any communication with her yeah

there would be every now and then uh text or email um she would reach out when she's like feeling lonely or something like that and I would respond answer and what was the what was her deor her Tong L when you spoke to her um she seemed happy and did you and she talk about what she was doing and what her plan was with respect to Matthew and her marriage um I mean yeah told me she was getting divorced um she said she was filing a restraint order the state believed that Elizabeth's affair with Steve

and her plans to get a divorce were the motive for the murder Elizabeth's closest friends testified about the state of the marriage things were just not good at home um Matt apparently was making her feel really guilty about it and um she was just Iraq Elizabeth's best friend from Virginia kandra Harris spoke with her on the phone daily we would have to end our conversations because Matt was either coming listening um she was afraid he was coming did she seem to be afraid of him yes uh she was going to pack her thing she met

with an attorney so far as I know she met with Anor attorney and she was trying to figure out what her rights were what she could and couldn't do and yes she was going to go to a hotel kandra and Elizabeth were speaking on the phone on the night of October 13th Elizabeth was at home and so was her husband he knew about the affair he knew about the divorce Matthew was angry I told her to lock herself in her room or her girls room have a glass of wine and we just needed to make

it to morning what was her response to that she said I have my Veno and I'm going to lock myself in my room I then said if you feel that seriously about it if it doesn't get any better call the police in San Diego and did she respond again she said hold on a sec and then she said got to go quietly I didn't hear from her anymore that was your last conversation before is inside her bedroom where it is thought that Elizabeth was hiding while on the phone with kandra forensic teams tested areas with

luminol a chemical used to detect blood the floor leading to the bathroom lit up from the testing inside the bedroom more areas were found the interior of the bathroom door revealed spatter stains pulling up the carpet revealed an even larger stain testing confirmed the blood had been Elizabeth's the exposed carpet had been cleaned thoroughly the jury was told that on the 14th of October Matthew Sullivan went to a Home Depot store and bought carpet cleaner took his rubber n and he stabbed her then he stabbed her again and again and again and again he her

by he hid the murder but cleaned up the prime scene and hid it this is the bank record that shows you his debit card purchase at a hardware to buy that carpet cleaner this wasn't the first time she left without saying where she was going it wasn't the first time she'd been gone overnight something only somebody who had been in that experience on that Affair in that Adventure could know the emailer responded with the correct answer something only Steven Sutton and Elizabeth S could have known she was found about 200 yard from the park that

we know that she slept in on nights when she would not be at home married to a Navy man who had a secret life who had a history of of behavior that was erratic and who had a history of leaving when the jury was sent off to deliberate they needed to decide not only whether Matthew Sullivan had killed his wife but also if they concluded that he had they could convict him of either first degree or second degree murder we the jury in entitled cause find the defendant Matthew Scott Sullivan not guilty of the crime

of first-degree murder we the jury in the above entitled cause find the defendant Matthew Scott svin guilty of the crime of second deegree murder and at his sentencing hearing Matthew's defense lawyer argued for leniency based on his history of service he had served eight years in the US Navy and had been honorably discharged during those 8 years he had been the recipient of the global terrorism cross the humanity service medal and the Navy Good Conduct Medal for those who knew and loved Elizabeth there was no sentence that could make up for their loss no longer

sentence won't make the pain go away nor will my recanting of the sorrow I've gone through these last 6 and a half years make this man feel any differently than he does now M has caused a tremendous amount of pain to me Liz's family and friends there are no words to describe this pain that still sits in the pit of my heart I pray that Matt never see or experience Freedom again Matthew Sullivan was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison for second degree murder according to the most recent update of his California incarceration

records Matthew will be eligible for parole in August [Music] 2028 that was the tragic case of Elizabeth Sullivan thank you again to everyone that watches and supports us every week I'm Kevin this is just thought lounge and I'll see you in the next [Music] one when the SC plays tell me who the scream saves I can hear the CRI repeat got to take my time cuz these crimes get deep but these stories can't hide let me find my seat