On Tuesday, November 4, a Wisconsin man was convicted guilty of murdering his girlfriend and burying her body in the woods.
Matthew Pahl, 57, was found guilty of first-degree deliberate homicide and disguising a corpse in the killing of Stephanie Pavlons.
“Justice has been served in the tragic and senseless murder of Stephanie Pavlons,” Waukesha County District Attorney Lesli Boese told PEOPLE. “The jury’s quick decision, reached in little over an hour, demonstrates the strength and clarity of the evidence presented. We appreciate their service and hope that the ruling gives some comfort and closure to Stephanie’s loved ones. Our prayers are with her family as they continue to recover from this unthinkable tragedy.
According to TMJ4, prosecutors claimed that Pahl killed Pavlons in 2022 after she decided to end her relationship with him. According to the outlet, he allegedly strangled his long-time lover with her own purse strap, but detectives were unable to identify how she died due to her horribly decayed body.
“Mr. Pahl was a violent and abusive partner,” prosecutor Kristi Gordon told the jury, according to the site. “He killed Ms. Pavlons because she attempted to leave him. Something he could not let to happen.”
The couple had been together for over 20 years and had a child, according to The Waukesha Freeman.
On September 9, 2022, a construction worker discovered her remains in the woods.
According to a police complaint obtained by PEOPLE, Pavlons was seen going out of her residence on August 23, 2022 at 8:39 a.m., carrying a black purse with silver-colored metal links and chains and a huge pink water bottle.
Pahl was also seen exiting the building around a minute later. According to video, he returned to the flat shortly before 11:15 a.m., carrying a large pink water bottle “believed to be the same water bottle [Pavlons] previously left the building with.”
Just over an hour later, investigators reported that Pahl was observed “carrying a plastic shopping bag containing [Pavlons’] black purse.”
The investigator “observed that the same metal links/chains from [her] purse can be seen in the plastic shopping bag as [Pahl] enters” the premises.
According to authorities, Pavlons was never seen on tape again since she did not return to the apartment.
According to the complaint, police discovered Pavlons’ daily planner at the apartment she shared with Pahl. Pavlons stated in one journal on July 8, 2021, that it was “another dismal and physically abusive day. I believe he enjoys doing it, even if he claims not to ‘Hate my Life.'” The next day, she wrote, “Go home power washed instead & got hit hard which left a nice mark on my chest, got a nice scar along w/ it.”
According to the complaint, investigators discovered many images on Pavlons’ cell phone “from the year 2021 of [Pavlons] with a bruised and swollen eye and a red mark on her breast.”
Pahl allegedly told investigators on September 17, 2022, that he had not seen Pavlons in weeks. His claim was that he “was feeling sick to his stomach and he had a bad feeling.”
“The defendant then claimed that [Pavlons] was threatening suicide all of the time and that really got to him,” as stated in the complaint.
In September 2023, he was formally charged with her death.
According to FOX6, prosecutors confessed that the case was circumstantial, with no DNA evidence, no official cause of death, and no eyewitnesses. They stated throughout the trial that cellphone records were critical because they indicated that Pahl deleted nearly a thousand messages and that both his and Pavlons’ cellphones pinged to the location where she was last seen alive.
According to the publication, prosecutors said Pahl monitored police scanners and online obituaries, which his defense attorney, Peter Wolff, did not “find suspicious.”
“If I was worried about someone, I’d do the same thing,” Wolff stated in court, according to FOX6.
“He thinks he’s covering his trail — but he didn’t know that we would know we could look through her phone, find things he deleted — we’re smarter than him,” said prosecutor Kristi Gordon, according to the site, adding that Pahl thought he was “the smartest man in the room.”
