In April 2018, after police contacted the victim and she agreed to testify, a warrant was signed charging Matthews with first-degree criminal sexual assault, Weinert said.
Also in April, Matthews was arrested in New York for a 2007 homicide, although a grand jury later dismissed the charges. He remains in jail, however, because his DNA was in the police computer system stemming from his 2000 sexual assault arrest, when a saliva sample was taken from him.
“NYPD reached out to the prosecutor’s office and let them know they got a DNA hit on the rape case, and prosecutors contacted me,” Weinert said.
As Detroit detectives investigated the rape case, they discovered the dormant 2003 murder warrant, Weinert said.
On Jan. 11, 2003, police say Matthews strangled a woman in an abandoned house on Detroit’s west side. At the time, he was on probation after pleading guilty a year earlier to cocaine possession.
“(The killing) was over a debt,” Weinert said. “He said the woman owed him money.
“A warrant was submitted to the prosecutor’s office, but it just never came back to us,” Weinert said. “I don’t know what happened to it.”
Weinert declined to give the victim’s name because relatives have not been found and notified.
The homicide matches the circumstances of other killings Matthews is suspected of committing, Weinert said.
“The victims are all black women in their 30s, and they were all strangled in abandoned houses,” she said.