SILVER SPRING, Md. — A woman, who was found guilty of killing her brother during an attack while he was sleeping inside their family's Silver Spring home in 2017, has been sentenced to more than two decades in prison in court Monday afternoon.
Leaundra Matthews was sentenced to 30 years in prison with all but 25 years suspended and five years of supervised probation upon release for what happened almost seven years ago.
Leaundra Matthews was found guilty of second-degree murder in August 2023 for helping to strangle her brother, 17-year-old Christian Matthews, in the early morning hours of March 21, 2017.
“This defendant was integral to the plot to kill Christian Matthews and served as the driver, both to and from, the scene of the murder," said Montgomery County State’s Attorney John McCarthy after the conviction. "She executed a significant cover-up operation to deflect responsibility.”
According to McCarthy's office, 26-year-old Tysean Lipford was dating Leaundra Matthews and helped kill her brother. A jury convicted Lipford of second-degree murder in 2019. He is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence.
Officials claim in court documents that Leaundra Matthews confessed to her mother, Patricia Edelin, that she helped kill her brother. Edeline said her daughter was unremorseful and "straight faced" when she said "it had to be done. He had to go because he wasn't going to stop."
Edeline reportedly asked if the plan was just to beat Christian Matthews up, to which Leaundra Matthews replied, "No, because you already know how Christian is you know that if he was going to get into a fight it wasn't going to stop there so we had to stop him."
Court documents say Leaundra Matthews admitted to her mother that she picked up Lipford and another codefendant, Daniel Howard, and brought them to the home where Christian Matthews lived. She then went inside to make sure he was asleep. After confirming her brother was not awake, Leaundra Matthews reportedly unlocked the back door and left disposable gloves for the men.
During Lipford's confession, he said those gloves could be found in a sewer drain behind the house. A pair of gloves were later found in the area with DNA matching Lipford.
When Edeline asked Leaundra Matthews what happened to Christian Matthews, she explained that he was held down while Lipford choked him.
Edeline reportedly called that night of the murder to ask what her daughter was doing. When they spoke, Leaundra Matthews said she was dropping the other suspects off.
"So Christian was already dead when I called you and talked to you on the phone?" Edeline asked her daughter to which, Leaundra Matthews said "Yeah."
Leaundra Matthews's twin sister, Lemae Matthews, pleaded guilty to helping her sister after the fact in October 2021. Howard's trial is scheduled for April 2024, where he'll face murder charges. Lemae Matthews will be sentenced following Howard's trial.
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