Wife's killer gets 65-year sentence
GOSHEN — While handing down a 65-year sentence Thursday, a judge expressed disbelief that a man who claimed to love his wife could torture her before taking her life and then try to cover it up.
Matthew Thompson, 37, received the maximum prison term for the murder of his wife of eight years, 27-year-old Ciarra Thompson. He entered a sudden plea on the second day of his trial on May 7.
Ciarra Thompson was found dead in their Cone Street home on Aug. 18. Her husband was accused of killing her based on claims he made about punching her in the head, causing her to hit her head on the kitchen counter, as well as apparent attempts to clean up the blood in the home.
According to prosecutors, she had been dead for hours while Matthew Thompson texted her mother and co-worker using her phone.
“The amount of blood that was on the couch, on the floor, on the walls going down into the basement – it was almost like a Stephen King novel,” Elkhart County Deputy Prosecutor Kathleen Claeys said. “The violence it took to murder someone he claimed to love is horrifying.”
Judge Michael Christofeno, Elkhart County Circuit Court, listed Ciarra Thompson’s injuries before giving Matthew Thompson his sentence. They included stab and chop wounds to her head, cuts to her neck and fractures to her skull, leaving her with bleeding on her brain.
“All that tells me this: You brutally beat Ciarra Thompson to death,” the judge said. “She suffered substantial injury as if she had been tortured, because she was.”
Ciarra Thompson’s mother, Carrie Miller, said she later learned her daughter was already dead at the time she received a confusing text message from her on Aug. 19. Miller said Matthew Thompson answered when she called, but stalled for hours with claims that his wife was either in the bathroom or taking a nap.
Miller finally called 911 and drove over there herself when she’d had enough.
She said her daughter had told her days earlier that she was finally leaving Matthew Thompson, after years of physical and mental abuse and financial control.
“She was finally going to be free of Matthew’s abuse. She didn’t get the chance because she was brutally murdered,” Miller said. “She was the heart and soul of our family. She was one of a kind.”
Ciarra Thompson’s father, Brian Hammers, said he always told her she would wake up one day and decide she wanted a better life. He said he couldn’t see her one last time because of the severity of the injuries to her face.
Hammers said he often wakes up in the middle of the night in tears while having graphic nightmares about his daughter’s brutal death and her cries for help. He said even the good memories he has are clouded by the trauma she was put through.
Matthew Thompson told the court he has no memory of battering his wife after the first two blows to her head. He said he had taken 53 Adderall pills the day before.
He said he thanked God that he couldn’t remember anything else because he might not be able to live with it.
He directed blame at her family for not intervening in the divorce, and at his wife for his suspicions of infidelity.
“The bottom line is, I loved her more than words can describe or actions can show,” Thompson said. “Not only did I play a part in Ciarra losing her life, not only did did Ciarra play a part in Ciarra losing her life, but ... they all played a role in this. Actions have consequences.”
