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Leaundra Matthews, left, was convicted of conspiring with her twin sister Lemae Matthews, inset, to kill their brother Christian Matthews in 2017 Silver Spring, Maryland. Leaundra Matthews was sentenced to 25 years in prison, while her sister will be sentenced later this year for accessory after the fact in murder. (Montgomery County State Attorney’s Office)
A judge Monday sentenced a 25-year-old woman who schemed with her twin sister to have her boyfriend murder her brother to 25 years in prison and five years probation.
Leaundra Matthews was convicted by a jury in August for the 2017 murder of her 17-year-old brother Christian Matthews at their home in Silver Spring, Maryland. Prosecutors described Leaundra Matthews as playing an “integral” role in the plot to kill her brother, serving as the driver to and from the murder scene.
Her attorney Jeffrey Zahler told local news website MoCo360 that he plans to appeal the case because his client’s brother abused her and her child, and he was unable to present evidence of that at trial.
“The sentence was a little higher than necessary, considering she was convicted of a second-degree murder,” Zahler told the outlet.
Leaundra Matthews’ boyfriend Tysean Lipford, 26, was convicted of second-degree murder in 2019 and is serving a 30-year prison sentence. Another man, 27-year-old Daniel Howard, who allegedly held Christian Matthews down as Lipford choked him to death, is scheduled to go on trial in July. In addition, Leaundra’s twin sister, Lemae Matthews, pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to murder in October 2021 and will be sentenced after Howard’s trial.
Montgomery County police were called to the Silver Spring home on March 21, 2017, where they found Christian Matthews unresponsive. First responders rushed him to the hospital where doctors pronounced him dead. Officers noticed bruising around his neck and an autopsy revealed the cause of death was asphyxia and the manner of death was homicide.
Leaundra Matthews told police she was upstairs in her bedroom when she heard a commotion in the basement and found her brother unresponsive before calling 911. An arrest affidavit said Lipford admitted to killing his girlfriend’s brother in an interview with detectives two days after the murder. Lipford said they wanted him dead because he threatened harm to his girlfriend and their child.
Text messages between Lipford and his girlfriend show them carrying out the plan. Lipford initially said he wanted to do the murder earlier in the night but Leaundra Matthews disagreed.
“And yall idea is not a good idea trust meee Im not gonna let yall do it iff yall dont do it how i said cuz its a whole bunch of stuff yall aint think about,” she texted her boyfriend, according to the affidavit.
If they did it later in the night, fewer neighbors would be awake and therefore there would be fewer potential eyewitnesses, she reportedly said.
Leaundra Matthews picked up Lipford and Howard from another home and brought them to her house, the affidavit said. She also told them to break a glass window and ransack the house to make it look like a robbery. She unlocked the back door and left some disposable gloves for him to use. They waited outside until Christian Matthews was asleep.
After the murder, she met her boyfriend and Howard nearby and drove them back to the home where she had picked them from, the affidavit said.
Two years after the murder, Leaundra Matthews admitted to her mother and aunt what she had done. During her confession, she was unremorseful and “straight faced,” according to the affidavit. She said “it had to be done. He had to go because he wasn’t going to stop.”
Her mother asked if the plan was just to hurt him.
The mother relayed her daughter’s confession to detectives and she was arrested.
Lemae Matthews told detectives she knew of the plan to kill her brother but hoped they would just beat him up. She went to the basement before the murders and relayed to her sister that their brother was asleep. She saw Lipford and Howard go to the basement while wearing gloves.
Lemae Matthews said her brother and Lipford often argued because he did not like that he was dating his sister and fathered a child with her.
