Murder With My Husband - 144. Lisa Solomon - An Unmerry Christmas

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

On this episode of MWMH, Payton and Garrett discuss the murder of Lisa Solomon and the suspicion that fell on her husband. Links: https://linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: Justia.com, Solomon v. Commissioner of Correctional Services, 786 F. Supp. 218 (E.D.N.Y. 1992)   The Cinemaholic, Lisa Solomon Murder: Where is Matthew Solomon Now? Newsday.com, “Matthew Solomon parole hearing transcript sheds light onto high-profile crime,” by Bridget Murphy, 8 Jul 2019 Newspapers.com sources: Kathy Boccella, Newsday, "Wide-Ranging Search for Missing Woman," 27 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/710286618), citing print edition, p.21 Stuart Vincent, Newsday, "Fearful Search," 28 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/723039703), citing print edition, p.2 Don Gentile, Newsday, "Psychics, bikers hunt newlywed," 28 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/434149538), citing print edition, p.3 Jerry Rosa and Paul Peskil, Newsday, "Search for bride turns to ex-beau," 29 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/406033575), citing print edition, p.3 Newsday, Man Who 'Hassled' Woman Sought, 29 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/723040375), citing print edition, p.25 Stuart Vincent, Newsday, "A Search Goes On as Hope Dims," 29 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/710287319), citing print edition, p.4 Shirley E. Perlman, Newsday, "Public's Help Sought in Search for Woman", 31 Dec 1987, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/723041029), citing print edition, p.27 Stuart Vincent, Tom Demoretcky, Kathy Boccella, Nicholas Goldberg, and Peter Marks, Newsday, "Grief, and Questions," 2 Jan 1988, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/711221395), citing print edition, pp.3, 10 Tom Demoretcky and Joshua Quittner, Newsday, "Matthew Solomon Charged in Murder," 12 Jan 1988, archived (https://www.newspapers.com/image/711308834/), citing print edition, pp.3, 29 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey everybody welcome back to our podcast. This is murder with my husband. I am Peyton Morland And I'm Garrett Morland and he's the husband. I'm the husband Happy holidays everyone. I know it's the holidays We are still putting out an episode and it's going to be a good one We just wanted to say that we have fixed all the issues as of now with Apple subscriptions There will be no more ads all the bonus episode should be there So we were sorry if you're having some issues with that, but we should be good to go now. So again, if you want anything that's ad-free, or you want bonus content, you can subscribe

on Apple or Patreon. Our hosting platform was down a bit a couple weeks ago, so if the podcast wasn't playing, I think that was the issue. Thank you all for being patient and continuing to listen through all of that. All right, Garrett, let's jump into your 10 seconds. If you weren't at the live, I will give you a quick rundown version. Basically, we were running off the road while we were driving. We were okay, nothing bad happened to us, but we were running off the road into a bunch of trees and bushes, flew over a couple of jumps, did a couple flips, and my car is not doing very good.

flew over a couple jumps, did a couple flips, and my car is not doing very good. So it is currently in the shop, hopefully everything is okay. It wasn't our fault. It was a, I mean, I get in run, I guess. And yeah, they ran us off the road, but we're okay. Luckily we were in my truck. This is not an ad for Dodge Ram or the TRX, but it held up pretty good. And the other kind of a long story behind it, but we're okay. It's in the shop, so that's an update there. And we spent time with Payton's family last week. We went to Disneyland. We had a good time. It was extremely crowded. We still had a good time. I am currently carless for a couple of weeks until it's fixed. I couldn't

tell you exactly what was wrong with it. There was a lot of stuff that I don't know I'm not a technician. So I'm just been daydreaming about my car Hope we get it back sometime and on that note. Let's hop right into the episode Okay, our case sources this week are justia.com the Cinemaholic newsday newspapers.com Newsday.com and newspapers.com Christmas newsday.com, and newspapers.com. Christmas time is the time of year for all the things that make you feel warm inside. It's the time for candy canes and Christmas trees, sugar cookies, and eggnog for blinking multi-colored lights, flickering fireplaces, silver tinsel, and fuzzy red stockings.

For receiving gifts and for my personal favorite giving gifts, joy, warmth, celebration, family, but certainly not murder. I'd say murder is the last thing you want to associate with Christmas, but murder doesn't care, and death isn't discriminating. This Christmas season, we're taking you back to 1987, in the final week of December. A time that should have been full of joy for the people at the center of these stories. But instead, it was a season of life-altering tragedy. Christmas 1987 was special for Matt and Lisa Solomon.

Not only would it be this young newlywed couple's first Christmas together as a husband and a wife, but would also mark their two-month wedding anniversary. Like a lot of young couples, they were sentimental like that, celebrating anniversaries and micro-anniversaries. And although they were spending Christmas day with Lisa's family, they had a special evening plan for Christmas Eve, for just the two of them. It's like in high school, you know? It's's like oh, it's our two-month anniversary. I mean two week. Yeah, it's our two-week two hour Yeah, it's kind of funny how

You don't do that anymore. At least we don't I mean if you do it out there good for you, but yeah, we don't we don't I don't even think we did like months when we were dating. No, now it's just years Yeah, Garrett's not a very sentimental person. So now we've been married for like 25 years and going strong. So Matt and Lisa lived on Long Island, New York in the community of Huntington's station. They had first met four years earlier

when Lisa was 18 and Matt was 19. And Matt was working at a gas station down the road from Lisa's home. When Matt would be out pumping gas and saw Lisa walk by, he would whistle at her. And Lisa didn't mind because she thought Matt was cute. And also this was the 1980s, so CatCalling was a little more socially tolerated back then.

And this is such a cute way to meet. Lisa walked by Matt's gas station nearly every day on her way to the local shopping center And they had this low key flirtation going on. He would whistle at her She would look over at him do a little smirk and then she'd keep walking by those movie type of meetings doesn't happen anymore I feel like I know and I when I was researching this I just thought this is just such a Nicholas sparks note book Yeah, like it's just one of those ways to meet. So one night, Matt had been making plans to hang out with his friend Mike when he insisted that Lisa joint them. So Lisa walks by and he's like, listen, I'm hanging out with my friend tonight.

And you should come. And Mike was cool with that. And so Lisa accepted the invite. And before long, Matt and Lisa were hanging out all of the time. They grew to be crazy about each other. And Matt was the kind of guy who would bend over backwards to please Lisa. Like one year, despite Matt being a Jewish boy, he decided to give Lisa, who was Catholic, the best Easter celebration ever. So he dragged his friend Mike, who was also Catholic, into the store to help him figure out what kind of stuff to buy Lisa to celebrate Easter with her.

Matt ended up going overboard and buying practically every Easter item in the store. Matt was devoted to Lisa and Lisa to Matt and they became close with each other's families as well. Lisa was a good-natured, conscientious person and her only real stressor at this point in her young life was the health of her father. He had serious hard issues and his health was deteriorating. It reached a point where he had to be moved to a relative's house while his wife, Lisa's mother, had to work two jobs to cover her husband's medical expenses. It was the one thing that really weighed on Lisa. No one prepares you for what it's like to watch your parents grow old, to watch them lose their health.

And despite the fact that her parents was the only thing weighing on her, her relationship with Matt, like all relationships, began to hit its share of speed bumps. And a few years in, they decided that they needed a break from each other. And it was during that break that Matt's friend, Mike, moved in on Lisa and they began dating. But it didn't last very long. It just made Lisa realize how much she loved and missed Matt. So she and Matt reconciled in an October of 1987 they were married. Their wedding wasn't one of those city hall weddings. No, not that there's anything wrong with those,

but Matt and Lisa had a proper wedding with over three dozen guests from both families and social circles. And then they went off and honeymooned in Hawaii. When they returned to New York, they settled into their new life together, sharing an upstairs apartment in a house in Huntington station. By this time, Matt was working as a sheet metal worker, and Lisa had a job as a consumer loan processor at a bank, which was a job she'd held for the last three and a half years. Lisa was a highly responsible and dependable person. In fact, she had a reputation for being punctual and meticulous.

She woke up at seven each morning for work and was home by five to enjoy her new married life. And that brings us to Christmas time 1987. Matt and Lisa had this romantic dinner plan for Christmas Eve night to celebrate their two-month anniversary. They were celebrating a day early because Lisa had family that had come to town to celebrate Christmas with them. And they were headed to her mother's house the following day. So Christmas day was for family, but Christmas Eve was just for the two of them. That afternoon at work, Lisa was chatting with her co-workers, and she told them about how excited she was to be spending her first Christmas Eve with Matt as his wife, and

how they'd be celebrating their two-month anniversary with a romantic dinner at home, after which they were going to exchange Christmas gifts. That evening, after work, Lisa called her mother, and then spent the rest of the evening at home with her husband as planned, eating a three-course meal, finishing three bottles of champagne throughout the night. But then, the next morning, this would be Christmas Day. Lisa's relatives, who were expecting to see her that day, began getting phone calls from her husband Matt.

And they weren't the kind of phone calls anyone expects to get on Christmas. Matt sounded panicked and upset. Lisa was missing, he told them. She had gone out for a walk the night before he explained and she never came back. Whenever there is a wife that goes missing, my first thought and I'm sure everyone's thought now is just the husband. Always. Right, like that's always the first thought I don't know yet what to think and I'm sure I will in a second but guess we'll see if it's the husband. Well Lisa's family could not

believe what they were hearing it was so real start from the beginning they asked Matt what had exactly happened on Christmas Eve Matt told them that it was around 10.45 pm that Lisa said she was going out for a walk, quote, to get some air. They had already finished dinner. She stepped out into the chill night air without a coat, without her car keys, without any money, and most concerning, without her asthma medicine, which she needed on a daily basis. In fact, she had to set an alarm every day so she wouldn't forget to take it. Now Matt mentioned that Lisa had been depressed over her father's declining health, and she seemed especially sad about this when she left the house.

Presumably, he wasn't too worried at the time though, because he said he soon passed out and fell asleep. I guess it was that heavy three-course mill and all that champagne that they had consumed that night. And then he woke up around 3.45 AM to find that Lisa hadn't returned from her walk. He said he looked outside and saw that her car was still in the driveway.

And aside from everything else she'd left behind, she also left her wedding and engagement rings, which she'd removed that afternoon while cleaning the house, Matt said. Maybe it's not that weird, but I feel like very rare. Do you fall asleep without me next year or do I fall asleep without you next to me? Yes, but also to play devil's advocate couples

are so different. Yes, for sure. What's normal in our relationship is probably not normal across the board. Yeah, which is a good point. I guess it just seems weird. He just passed out. And maybe I'm just being super suspicious right now

because we'll look at it's as a podcast, a true crime podcast. Right. So is at this point that Matt said he then went out looking for his new wife. And after over an hour of unsuccessful searching, he called his father Jack Solomon at around 5 a.m. And the elder Solomon raced over to help his son find his wife. He and his father then drove around Huntington station for over two hours, searching the deserted streets, looking down alleyways, looking inside parked cars, and nothing.

There was no sign of Lisa. This is, I mean, what a way to spend Christmas morning. And it would continue that way for the entire holiday, for all the relatives who'd come to town expecting to spend some time with the newlyweds to celebrate the Christmas holiday with Lisa, they ended up instead spending the day looking for her with a search party, while other families all around open presents are celebrated the holidays together. That morning, when Matt and his father first called the police to make the missing persons report, Matt admitted while giving cops an account

of that evening, that after dinner, he and his wife had what he described as a little tiff. See, this is the kind of thing that immediately turns police focusing on the husband, who's usually the first person they will look at anyways. But whenever I'm hearing a story like this where a wife disappears and the last thing that happened before the disappearance was an argument with her husband, that's usually a blazing red flag for me. Also, if you're trying not to get caught, why even bring that up? Why even talk about the argument? Oh, we got an argument before, huge red flag.

And the wording that Matt used describing a little tiff really sounds like him trying to minimize or downplay it. I mean, like I get that you would, if it wasn't a big fight, you might say it was a little tiff, but also it just seems like weird wording. But let's give him the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he knew the cops would think this situation seemed shady, and they'd put misplaced focus on him,

which would just take away from finding out where Lisa was. So that's why he was wording it like this. And they wore a newlywed couple. They'd only been married for two whole months, and by all accounts, they were really happy with each other. And according to people close to them, they worshipped each other. So maybe this was really just a little tip. Because when the cops asked him about what this argument was about, Matt explained that his wife had recorded a TV soap opera on the VCR that afternoon. Does anyone remember when you used to record shows on Vichy?

I literally always recorded so that you can dance on VHS tapes and then we'll go back and rewatch them. Oh, I thought you were talking about On Demand. Yes, VHS tapes. We're in the E. Yes, I don't know what I'm thinking. It's way too far ahead. So Lisa says she records this and then after dinner,

she wanted to watch it, but Matt wasn't interested in watching it, so she got irritated and then they bicker about it and that's when she decided that she needed some air. That's what the argument was about. So I guess between that and the situation with her father's health, Lisa's first Christmas as a newlywed wasn't shaping into what she'd expected it would be and had told people it would be. And also it was revealed that she'd done this sort of thing before. So if this is something that she had a habit of doing,

walking out during a fight, that does relieve the suspicion on the husband just a little bit. True. Although in those past instances of her walking out, she'd been in contact with her mother in each instance and had always only been gone for a few hours. This time, obviously, it was different. So now the question was,

what happened after Lisa left for that walk? And where was she? The clock was different. So now the question was, what happened after Lisa left for that walk? And where was she? The clock was ticking, and it was really cold on Long Island this time of year. Temperatures continued to drop, and Lisa didn't have her asthma medication. So it was important that they found her as soon as possible.

Police and volunteers found out on Christmas Day, searching the 100 square mile area that the city of Huntington occupied, which was about 30 miles or an hour's trip east of New York City, a third of the way into the island. They had 50 or so bikers from various motorcycle clubs assisting them, including the Blue Knights, which was a police motorcycle club called in by Matt's brother Rick, who was a private detective. So this search was definitely a family affair and a joint effort with the Huntington police. I was thinking the other day about this and what it says about our communities, that when

someone goes missing this many people show up to search for them. It's not easy to take the day off or multiple days off, and in this case, especially on Christmas day. So the next time you kind of think the world sucks, remember how many people show up for others in the cases that we share. It's pretty freaking amazing if you think about it. Yeah.

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uncoordinated. There were canine units and helicopter searching specific areas, including areas that were suggested by a pair of sidekicks that the family was working with. It just always blows my mind that police and people in these situations listen to and sometimes even take the initiative to consult with sidekicks. But I guess when you're looking for someone and don't have a starting point, sidekicks do provide that so you've got to start somewhere. It's no worse than throwing darts at a map blindfolded.

I mean, they have to start looking somewhere. One of the psychics helping out to use that term loosely was a friend of the Solomon family, and the other was a random psychic who got in touch with Lisa's family the day the news reports went out. The one psychic who was a friend of the family, she claimed that Lisa was on the grounds of the VA hospital in Northport. And so they proceeded to search the area. And guess what? They came up with nothing. Is anyone kind of any one surprised about that? And then the psychics both, presumably independent of each other, arrived at the same exit numbers on the Long Island Expressway directing the search to that area.

Hey, really? Yes. But it also ended up being a waste of everyone's time and resources. So early on in the hunt for Lisa, after being thrown around by these psychics, Matt's family printed missing person flyers, offering, quote, a substantial reward, though they weren't specific about the amount.

This family was clearly going to every length searching, quote, Matt's father, every dumpster, every park, schoolground, every shopping area in their desperate effort to find this poor woman who, if she was still alive, may have been out there somewhere freezing to death. Again, I don't know how you find someone when there's no cameras, no evidence of where they've gone. That is so difficult.

It's hard. And every time they checked a garbage dumpster, they prayed all they'd find inside would be garbage. It's such a, it's such a like double edged sword because you want to find her, but also you don't want to find her in a garbage dumpster. Yep. And so again, the search at first was sort of chaotic and unstructured, but then there was a guy named James Monson

who decided to join in the search and assist to find Lisa. Munson was a 37-year-old army sergeant from the nearby town of East Meadow, and he enlisted, no pun intended, the help of a bunch of his friends and colleagues from the various branches of the military. Munson had served in Vietnam and taught military tactics, so he brought a level of organization and precision that the search operation was sorely lacking up to that point. Meanwhile, detectives received a new lead that came in from Lisa's family and friends. Lisa had a stalker.

There had been this man named Rob, no one really seems to know his last name, who telephone Lisa's bank a year earlier to apply for a loan. And I guess Rob was really taken with Lisa's voice because he fell in love with her over the phone without even meeting her. But then he began harassing her with frequent and unwanted phone calls. When Lisa told him she was getting married and asked him to leave her a B, this guy Rob said he was disappointed in her and he kept hassling her about her decision to marry someone other than him. Why does this come out so late? Into the investigation?

Yes. I had the same thought, but maybe it's not actually that late because we're still in like the first days of searching for her, so they were needing to interview family, maybe not the whole entire family knew. I don't know, but it does seem like this would be your first suspect. By the way, there, she, she has a stalker. Right. But also your first suspect tends to be husband. It's always husband. Yeah. So it's kind of hard. Okay. So this guy Rob even started calling Lisa at

her home. This is when she still lived with her mother before she moved in with Matt and married him. And when Lisa refused to come to the phone at home, Rob would engage with her mother instead. The harassment reached a level where Matt was ready to intervene and put a stop to it. But Lisa told him to wait and see what happened. She seemed pretty confident that Rob would get the message eventually. And it seemed like he did, because after Lisa and Matt married and they were living together, the calls stopped. That was until Christmas Day, after Lisa disappeared.

That morning, Rob called Lisa's mother's house and Lisa's sister Donna answered But this time the guy didn't ask to speak with Lisa. He asked to speak with Lisa's mother And when Donna told him her mother wasn't available He told Donna to wish the mother a Merry Christmas. So yeah, oh my god. That's super crazy. That's super creepy, right? Also even weirder that he didn't ask to speak to Lisa Super creepy, right? Also even weird that he didn't ask to speak to Lisa. Also police can't help but wonder if Rob didn't ask to speak with Lisa because he knew Lisa wouldn't be around.

And by this point they were closing in on a week into the search, a week that Lisa had been missing after going out to get some air and never coming back. Christmas presents remained unwrapped beneath the tree. And the large Christmas wreath outside the couple's door stood in contrast to the hell that everyone was going through in her life. Lisa's husband Matt wore a beeper around his neck in case of news, and he seemed utterly beside himself,

a total wreck. He'd spent all of Christmas day crying, according to what his father was saying, and Matt would get choked up every time he talked to the media. He said there was nothing he wouldn't do to bring Lisa home. I get more scared every day, he said, more for Lisa's health and safety than finding her. I know I'm going to find her, but she's sick. She has asthma and she needs her medicine.

He continued to express hope that Lisa was still alive somewhere and that they'd find her. But as the temperatures dipped below freezing, making the search an increasingly difficult one, it seemed less and less likely that they'd find Lisa alive. And as the days passed, even Matt's hopeful tone took a downturn. Somebody is responsible, he said of her disappearance. This isn't her. This isn't something that she's done.

On Wednesday, December 30, the temperature fell into the low teens while the wind picked up, nipping at whatever skin the volunteer searchers left exposed. It was the coldest night of the year so far as searchers sifted through logs and piles of garbage while spitting profanities through chattering teeth. A man named Carl, who was an auxiliary police officer, joined the search around this time, not because he'd been assigned. Auxiliary police officers are like volunteer police who don't work shifts. They're kind of like on reserve.

And not because he knew the Solomon's personally either. He didn't know them at all, but because something about this case just grabbed him, so he decided to volunteer. Carl partnered with Lisa's cousin, Stephen Clerk, around 6pm that Wednesday night, and the pair joined a larger group of about 30 searchers. But as the air got cooler and the search area began to overlap, Karl and Steve separated out from the groups that they could cover more ground. Over the next several hours, Karl and Steve searched through school yards, construction sites, and even a local cemetery. But none of these searches turned up anything.

Defeated, Officer Carl had the idea of examining a map and marking all the places that hadn't yet been searched. In particular, Carl was looking for the most desolate place in the area near the Solomon's house that hadn't yet been searched. And that's when he zeroed in on a poultry farm about a mile away, whose acres of brushy land were right off the side of a main road from which you could pull your car and walk right into the brush. Steve reasoned that it would be most productive to limit their search to this area within 20 feet of the road, and he thought that that was likely

as far as anyone would drag a body into terrain. So yeah, hope at this point had dwindled to where everyone was just looking for Lisa's body, sadly. I don't know where you go from here. I don't either. I don't even know what you're supposed to do. And what does this timeline look like? Is it like, okay, if we don't find her within three days, we presume she's dead and starts searching areas where a dead body would be?

It's just such a heartbreaking and awful thing for a family to have to go through. Yeah, and I can't imagine because she has asthma. She doesn't have her medicine. So I mean obviously as a family, you don't want to say it in a soon. Well, she's probably not alive one because she's still missing, but two because she's sick and needs this medicine. I don't know what you do. So Carl and Steve bundled up in their winter layers, got to the area a little after 1030 PM and spent 45 minutes systematically searching the area, sifting through rubbish and road debris.

It was about 1120 PM that December 30th, when totally exhausted and freezing cold, they were about to call it a night. But then, they spotted three plastic garbage bags, which appeared to be full and closed up with trash bag ties. Nervously, Carl and Steve walked over towards the bags, and Carl took out his knife and cut one of the bags open. Leaves spilled out of it until the bag was completely empty, like a deflated balloon. He then cut open the second bag, same thing, nothing but leaves.

Someone must have raked up the leaves on their property and taken them out here to dump the bags. But when Carl cut open the third garbage bag, which was layered, there were more garbage bags inside, like layers of an onion kind of, he saw something other than leaves inside of it. It was a frozen human arm. Oh my gosh. And although Carl knew the nature of the search, he was still stunned and horrified by this discovery. His search partner, Steven, this is Lisa's cousin, peeled the cut plastic bag

back a little bit more enough to see the face of the person inside of it. Oh, it was a whole body. It was a whole body. Okay. And he immediately recognized the person. Carl went to his car and used his CB radio to call the other searchers and summon police to the area. They had found Lisa Solomon's body stuffed into a trash bag and dumped a mile away from her home. While police made their way to the scene, Carl sat and stared at his dashboard. His eyes glazed over. He was feeling sort of numb. Police arrived at the site of the discovery a little before Matt did her husband. And when Matt showed up he exploded in a display of grief and emotion that he seemingly couldn't contain. Where is she? He screamed. Let

me see her. Matt was so emotional that he had to be restrained at the scene transported to Huntington's hospital by ambulance and sedated. Lisa's body was taken to the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's office and examined by the forensic pathologist. He noted that Lisa's tongue was clenched in her mouth and there was hemorrhaging around her lips, in her eyes and around her face. If you've heard enough of these stories, you probably recognize this type of hemorrhaging as pt. e. e. hemorrhaging, which is usually a telltale sign of strangulation.

The swelling to Lisa's neck and fractured cartilage left no doubt that Lisa had died of strangulation, and considering the amount of pressure that was applied, the pathologist felt that she'd been placed in something like a bar arm choke hold, which is where a person puts their arm around another person's neck and then uses their other arm to lock and tighten the hold. It was obvious that an extraordinary amount of force had been applied to Lisa's neck, considering the way the cartilage was fractured. The doctor believed that Lisa's death could have occurred in as little as 20 seconds using this level of force.

Injuries to Lisa's scalp, her shoulders, and her forearm suggest that her head may have been banged against something like a floor or a wall. of course. Injuries to Lisa's scalp, her shoulders and her forearm suggest that her head may have been banged against something like a floor or a wall. Toxicology tests revealed that her blood alcohol level was 0.16 at the time that she died, meaning that she'd have consumed between 6 and 8 drinks, which was roughly consistent with the amount of champagne that Matt said they consumed that night. So she died shortly after her Christmas Eve dinner the night she was lost heard from Police continued interviewing friends of the Solomon's and began learning that the relationship wasn't as rosy as it first seemed

Matt's friend Mike had grown distant from Matt after the brief period where he had began to Date Lisa before her marriage. You know when she and Matt had taken their break, an ex-besty mic described Matt as very protective. But the way he described it made it sound like Matt was more controlling of Lisa than he was protective of her. Whenever Lisa would go out, Matt would insist on knowing where she was, who she was with, and pretty much where she was at all times.

How long did the date for? Wasn't that long, correct? About four years, but they did take that break. No, but I mean, how long did... Oh, yeah, no, not long at all, because pretty soon it, she realized that she wanted to go back to her room. Yeah, and then they wouldn't got married. Yeah, yeah. And this jealous, controlling behavior,

according to Mike from Matt, was the reason behind many of the fights that the couple would have. And then the police talked to Raymond Padilla. This is Matt and Lisa Solomon's landlord. So Raymond owned the house that the Solomon's lived in. And the couple lived upstairs and what would have been converted into an upstairs apartment. And Raymond lived down below. So Raymond told police that on Christmas Eve night, he'd heard Matt shouting at Lisa. And the shouts got louder and more intense before heavy footsteps were then heard

and it sounded like one person was chasing another. Then he said he heard a loud bang that sounded like someone being pinned against a wall maybe. And then he heard Lisa crying and then it all kind of stopped. So with this information, the detectives decided to backburn the Rob guy. This is the stalker, the one who'd been harassing Lisa and focus their investigation back on Matt the husband. I will be pretty appalled if it's Matt because it seems like this whole time everything he's been doing is super genuine. Right. He's been crying. He's been freaking out, but I don't know, maybe he's a psychopath. Yes, but also there was one thing that did strike family members is odd during the search period for Lisa Matt had been giving suggestions to Lisa's relatives about the sorts of places that they should be looking for her during the search and

To them it just fell off because he suggested everywhere except where Lisa was found. That's why that place So the police re-interviewed him and he once again gave an account of what had happened that evening So the police re-interviewed him and he once again gave an account of what had happened that evening. But as they had in previous interviews, the investigators noted subtle changes in his story each time he told it. And over the course of these interviews, they kept a running list of each discrepancy, reaching a point where they counted over 30 of them. 30 tiny changes to Matt's story. Like, there were inconsistencies in the times that Matt claimed his wife went for the walk. In one telling of the story, Matt said that she went for her walk at 10.45pm, and then in another, it was 11.30pm.

And before the body was found, he'd switch between present and past tense when talking about his wife, which softened a red flag when interviewing a suspect. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Have you ever found yourself at a crossroads, unsure of which direction to take in life? We all face those moments of uncertainty where the right path seems elusive. But guess what, there's a solution

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Matt's apartment and his old mobile. Carpet fibers were collected from the trunk of the car, and hair was taken from Matt. The reason being, fibers and hairs were found on Lisa's body. And late that Christmas Eve night, after the time Lisa supposedly went for the walk, it was learned that Matt had gone to the local 7-11. During the time that he said he passed out and went to sleep.

The store had captured him on their security cameras so the police had videotape, where he was seen buying the same type of garbage bags as the one's Lisa's body had been stuffed into. Remember that she had been found inside a garbage bag that was padded with four additional garbage bags. And then forensic analysis of the hairs found inside the garbage bags she was stuffed into proved they were mats and the carpet fibers were proven to have come from his car. Again, how would mats hair and carpet fibers get inside the barricade of bags if each one wasn't directly used by him in his car. He was better off. I know

this isn't about how to not catch Matt, but he was better off to using one garbage bag. Right. And not multiple. Because one, you could kind of be like, well, I'm her husband. I'm her husband. Maybe I was already on her, you know. So why? Why would he do this?

Well, I mean, yes. I'm apparently do this. Right. Well, in the second week of January, as police were preparing an arrest warrant, Matt Solomon sat down for an interview with a reporter for New State, unaware that he was prime suspect number one and about to be arrested.

And he was emphatic that he had nothing to do with his wife's death. People don't know the love we shared, he said. But then the next day, Matt was arrested. And when the detectives confronted him with the evidence tying him to the murder, all the emotions seemed to drain from him. Like either he went numb or everything up to that point was an act, all of the crying and the emoting and losing control where he'd had to be sedated. Now his demeanor was totally flat, and that's when he confessed to what had actually happened

that night. This was it. His final story, the truth. His new account of that evening was that after Lisa had gotten off the phone with her mother and in around 7 pm that night she and Matt began eating dinner and over the duration of their meal he said they drank three bottles of champagne. They then went to bed and had sex and at around 10 pm Lisa began watching that soap opera that she'd taped off TV that day. Matt said

he'd fallen asleep while Lisa was watching her soap only that she'd taped off TV that day. Matt said he'd fallen asleep while Lisa was watching her soap, only to be awakened by her shortly before midnight. Lisa, he said, was upset that he'd fallen asleep on Christmas Eve, and also he reiterated from his previous accounts, depressed about her father's health and her mother being alone. And then she told Matthew that she hated him, and she was leaving. As she started getting dressed to leave, Matt began yelling, which is landlord, who lived downstairs, heard. Now I can't help but feel like even though Matt was now confessing to the murderer, he's blaming her.

He's still not giving a totally straight account about what happened that night, which is often the case with these murderers or even habitual liars. When backed into a corner, they changed their story just enough to admit the lie that's now been exposed, but not enough to put themselves in a bad light. He doesn't want to seem like the bad guy. Matt claimed that as Lisa was getting ready to leave and to go to her mother's, he tried to stop Lisa from leaving by cornering her. She tried to push past him, steadily losing her temper, getting more and more angry. So he said, at this point, he reacted by putting his arm around Lisa's neck and Matt, by

the way, was 9 inches taller than Lisa. She was only 501. And he applied a bar arm chokehold just as the pathologist had suspected. Lisa struggled against him, bit him on the bicep while he held the chokehold, telling her to calm down. He said that then, unbeknownst to him after a few minutes, she went quiet and stopped moving. He sat and stared at her. He claimed trying to talk to her, but when she wouldn't respond or come to, that's

when he realized that his wife was dead. He didn't mean to kill her. He said he just didn't want her to leave. Matt said he then removed her clothes and her underwear and moved her naked body to the bathroom. Her body was nude when it was found, by the way. Which is just another...stop. It doesn't make sense. Why would you do this? And then he went downstairs to the driveway where he switched the positions of their cars

so that his would be back ready to pull out. Oh my. So he was clearly already calculating how you would get away with this, what he'd done, and trying to set things up so that he wouldn't be found out instead of just calling 911 in hopes of resuscitation. You accidentally kill your wife, you accidentally hold her in a chokehold too long, call 911. I hate when I start feeling bad for the person that did it because I don't know he did it. Yeah. Like when I was like, oh poor Matt, his wife just died, like so sad and it ends up being him.

Well, because you put yourself in their situation, right? And it's also my fault for the way I'm setting up this story. But you put yourself in a situation, hopefully, and you go, if this was my wife, yeah, I would be, I would be this, I would be distraught, I would have to be sedated. I wouldn't know how to fathom what was going on. But little do we know he was acting the entire time? The entire time. Matt then walked to a 7-11, bought garbage bags, removed his wife's diamond rings, and replaced them with a simple gold band. The only reason to do this would be because he wanted

to recoup the money for them. There's no other reason to remove her rings. And then he wrapped her body in five garbage bags. He carried her to the car, put her inside of the trunk, and dumped her body in the woods, where she was found a week later. He claimed he then drove around for the next several hours until five in the morning, which is when he came across a police officer. Matt then asked the officer if the officer had seen his wife. He told a story about her going out for the walk the night before and not returning. The cop said he had seen a woman walking alone so Matt showed him Lisa's picture, which of course

the cop didn't recognize because Lisa never went out for the walk. Matt then returned home and called his father, repeated the same story to him, and then to Lisa's relatives. For good measure, Matt left a note behind in their apartment, which read, �Dear Lisa, when you come home, please don't go anywhere. Wait for me to return. Love Matthew. I love you. So Matt maintained that he killed his wife accidentally

and then disposed of her body in a panic and continued to stage things to make himself look innocent. Okay. Now Lisa's family was appalled at the arrest and at Matt's story. But what do you do? Reality is, spouses are a threat to each other according to statistics. There's a real reason that the husbands are the first suspect.

The case went to trial that fall, and in November, Matthew Solomon was found guilty of second degree murder and depraved indifference. Second degree murder. Well, because he said it was a fight he never planned to kill that night. Bull crap. He would ultimately be handed down a sentence of 18 years to life in prison. At the sentencing hearing, he apologized to Lisa's mother, insisting it had been an accident, and that he prayed to Lisa every day. Now, this is unusual in our cases, but Matthew served his time,

and he's out of prison now. Because this was back in the 80s. And also, I'm sure if who's first to get murder. He would be life in prison. He'd be life in prison. So when he was finally paroled this was just in 2019 at the age of 55 after spending 31 years in prison. He insisted to the parole board that he loved his wife and that he maintained that he killed her accidentally. He also partly blamed his actions on drugs and alcohol and told the parole board he was committed to sobriety. And I don't know. I think drugs and alcohol used as a crutch for one's destructive acts is problematic when it comes to, you know, murdering your wife. Lisa's family fought against his parole and were understandably disappointed when it was granted.

Lisa's mother believed the murder was an accidental and didn't occur exactly the way Matthew described it. And she also didn't believe he was truly that remorseful. Pointing to the fact that Matthew had two additional marriages during his 31 years in prison. One of those marriages produced a daughter who by 2019 was grown and had her own child. So Matt was a grandfather when he was paroled and that daughter wrote a letter to the parole board that contributed to their decision to let him out. And that's the case of Lisa Solomon, how her husband of two months murdered her in cold blood on Christmas Eve. But Lisa's murder was not the only tragedy that surfaced during Christmas 1987. In fact, the new cycle around Christmas 1987

was bloodstained with another far more monumental crime. One that occurred 1,000 miles away and a world away culturally in the Ozarks of Arkansas. It was a crime that to this day remains the worst family annihilation massacre in United States history. And I'm going to tell you that case next week. I guess you could consider it and add on to this week's story, except it's a brand new case with its very own tragedy. And it's one you aren't going to want to miss. So we will see you next week with that intense and horrifying episode. I love it.

I hate it. Goodbye.