Mathews will serve consecutive sentences and won’t be eligible for parole for 25 years.
He was convicted in October 2022 by a Champaign County jury after evidence in the case showed that on Oct. 24, 2011, Mathews entered the home of Louis Taylor in the 500 block of Dorothy Moore Avenue in Urbana, assaulted him and caused severe blunt-force injuries, including multiple skull fractures.
Taylor was found the next morning and flown to Miami Valley Hospital in Dayton. His family later transferred him to Hospice of Dayton, where he died 24 days later on Nov. 17, 2011.
“The victim died before he could lead us to his attacker, but determined investigators made sure he got justice,” Yost said. “The community is safer with this cold-blooded killer off the streets.”
After Mathews assaulted Taylor, he took his wedding ring and vehicle — a 2006 Jeep Liberty, which was later found abandoned in a Long John Silver’s parking lot on South Limestone Street in Springfield. Mathews’ fingerprints were later discovered by investigators on the outside of the vehicle and found he checked into a nearby hotel.
An analysis of Mathew’s phone showed he was in the area before the assault before he turned his phone off for three hours.
Witnesses testified at the trial that Mathews “bragged about having been in the area to find someone to rob,” and other testified he tried to sell the stolen vehicle and wedding ring.
The Urbana Police Department investigated the case, the Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation performed lab work, and attorneys with Yost’s Special Prosecutions Section prosecuted the case.
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