In a chilling criminal case that shocked the nation, a man who brutally killed his girlfriend and mutilated her body, storing it in his basement, now faces justice.
Matthew Lewinski has been sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the heinous murder of Courtney “Jerri” Winters. This sentence was announced by Michigan’s Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office on July 14.
Lewinski had earlier been found guilty of first-degree murder, as well as disinterment and mutilation of a corpse, and concealing an individual’s death. For these last two charges, he was sentenced to serve a minimum of 23 months and one year, respectively.
The tragic series of events began in December 2020, when an argument erupted between Winters and Lewinski after she revealed she had undergone an abortion. This detail emerged from a police interview conducted with Lewinski, included in a Michigan Court of Appeals review and reported by Oxygen.
During his confession to authorities, Lewinski recounted how he tied Winters up, slapped her, and ultimately placed his hands around her neck for about five minutes. When she stopped moving, he moved her body to the bathroom and, seeing she was lifeless, made no effort to resuscitate her.
Winters’ body remained in the bathtub for a month before Lewinski relocated her to the basement, where the temperature was colder, according to the opinion.
Over subsequent months, prosecutors said in the press release, Lewinski “removed portions of the victim’s remains in an effort to conceal and dispose of the body.”
Then, Lewinski was hospitalized after neighbors reported him wandering his condominium complex in his underwear while mumbling incoherently, according to the court opinion. A spokesperson for the Macomb County Prosecutor’s Office told Oxygen that Lewinski’s brother-in-law discovered Winter’s body in the basement.
Lewinski was arrested in July 2021 and confined in the Macomb County Jail.
Defense attorney Elisha Oakes argued in court that Lewinski had committed manslaughter, which would carry a maximum sentence of 15 years.
“She pushed him to a point where he snapped,” Oakes said, according to Macomb Daily. “I want you to think about being told that your baby was taken from you, your child was taken from you by the act of another person, the one thing you wanted, and in that moment, after months of abuse, being threatened, being told ‘I’m going to blow your f–king head off,’ all of those things culminated.”
However, Assistant Prosecutor Carmen DeFranco said the killing was intentional.
“Manslaughter is nowhere near what we have here,” DeFranco said, per Macomb Daily. “There is absolutely no impulse. This is conscious though, five minutes of conscious thought to squeeze the life out of someone. It wasn’t a pull-out-a-gun and shooting in two seconds.”