A Florida man has been found guilty of shooting dead his ex-girlfriend in front of their young son, before murdering her parents and new boyfriend in 2014.
Adam Matos, 32, of Hudson, may face the death penalty after he was convicted of the brutal quadruple murder on Thursday.
The body of his ex-girlfriend Megan Brown, 27, was found dead on top of a hill in Pasco County, alongside her parents, Margaret and Greg Brown, both 52, and her new boyfriend, Nicholas Leonard, 37.
Adam Matos, 32, (pictured in court Thursday) of Hudson, may face the death penalty after he was convicted of the brutal quadruple murder on Thursday
The body of his ex-girlfriend Megan Brown, 27, (pictured) was found dead on top of a hill in Pasco County, alongside her parent sand her new boyfriend in 2014
Cops say his shot dead his ex, and her father, at their home, before he battered Brown’s mother and new boyfriend to death with a hammer.
Matos was arrested on September 5, 2014, at a Tampa Bay area hotel with his missing four-year-old autistic son, Ismael Tristan Santisteban.
The suspect sat emotionless in court as the verdict was read out on Thursday while the victim’s family erupted into sobs.
‘The worst part is over,’ Leonard’s mother, Paula Rystrom, told the Tampa Bay Times.
Matos sat emotionless in court as the verdict was read out on Thursday while the victim’s family erupted into sobs
Matos (left and right in previous court appearances) stunned the court by dramatically confessing from the witness stand Thursday
Arrest: SWAT teams swarmed the Floridian Hotel in Tampa on September 5 2014 and arrested Adam Matos
Matos had denied murdering his ex and her family, as well as her new partner, and refuted a police report that stated he had threatened Megan Brown with a knife on August 28, – the last day anyone had heard from her. He offered up his own theory of what happened, claiming a woman was stalking Brown and sending her threatening letters.
But the 32-year-old stunned the court by dramatically confessing from the witness stand Thursday.
He said a combination of self-defense and ‘paranoia’ drove him to kill the family of his ex, and had left his four-year-old son, who has autism, alone at the murder scene when he went to buy a shovel to bury the bodies.
Killed: The body of Nicholas Leonard, pictured here, was found on top of a hill in Pasco County
Margaret and Greg Brown, both 52, were found dead in 2014 at the hands of Matos
He described August 28, 2014, as ‘the worst day of my life, a horrible experience, like a nightmare I couldn’t wake up from.’
Matos, who was born in Philadelphia and had lived in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and New York City, said he met Brown six years ago but the relationship ended two weeks before the murders.
The sentencing phase begins Monday and Assistant State Attorney Chris LaBruzzo said prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty. A jury must reach a unanimous decision for a death penalty to be imposed.
‘Either way his life is over,’ said Leonard’s father, Daniel Leonard after the trial, ‘and that’s basically all we can really ask for, to keep him off the streets, because obviously he was not a very good person.’