SAN DIEGO — A former U.S. Navy man whom prosecutors said killed his estranged wife and hid her body in a freezer for nearly two years before dumping it into San Diego Bay was sentenced Friday to 16 years to life in prison.
Matthew Sullivan, 36, was sentenced in a San Diego courtroom for second-degree murder in the stabbing death of Elizabeth Sullivan.
His 32-year-old wife vanished mysteriously in October 2014 from the San Diego home she shared with Sullivan and their two daughters.
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During opening statements, prosecutor Jill Lindberg told jurors that Sullivan may have stabbed his wife five times after learning she was having an affair, then hid her body until he had to remove it because he was moving to the East Coast.
“He made her look like the person who had abandoned her family,” Lindberg said at Sullivan’s sentencing.
In October 2016, her decomposing body was found floating in the bay about a half-mile from the home.
Investigators later found blood under her bedroom carpet and a knife in the attic.
Sullivan was living in Delaware when he was arrested in 2018.
He was convicted last year.
