Matthew Trussler, only 25 years old, was found dead in the back of his house.

Matthew Trussler, only 25 years old, was found dead in the back of his house. The contours of this story leave us thinking that human perversity has no limits and that, in this case, ideologies related to sadism and the incarnation of fictional characters could be the motivations for this crime. Matthew Trussler is a 25-year-old young man, born and raised in Massachusetts, which is the most populous state in the New England Region of the United States. He ended up pursuing a college degree in his hometown at Westfield State University in Massachusetts. After graduating, he got a job as a manager in an Italian restaurant.

Matthew was seen by friends and family as a kind, hardworking, and funny person. In 2015 he left the life he had to move to the same location as his brother, in the Tampa Bay area, Florida, and quickly got a job at a technology company. Already two years later, in 2017, Matthew at just 23 years old, found what he thought was the love of his life. Matthew ended up meeting a woman he fell deeply in love with, her name is Melissa Turner, who was 24 years old at the time. The love was mutual and the relationship quickly grew, until after about a year and a half after they met, they bought a house.

In December 2018, the two wanted to pursue a life as a couple and so they bought a house on White Barn Way that is located in River View, Florida, a perfect place to live as a family and be in constant contact with nature, since it is an area with many sides and green spaces. The couple lived in full harmony and their relationship seemed to be perfect, but apparently, Melissa had not completely forgotten her past life and the idea of dressing up in costumes during festive times like Halloween was still very present. She still made a taste of covering herself in fake blood and even included Matthew, who actively participated in her costume.

One year after they moved into their new home, on October 18, 2019, a 911 call came in at 8:45 am. On the phone was Melissa, who had just reported that her boyfriend was lying in the back of the house, by the garden, with a pool of blood around him. She told the authorities that she had no idea what was going on and tried to give her boyfriend CPR, but got no reaction. Matthew was dead. Along with the ambulance, the first sheriffs also arrived to try to figure out what happened in that house, but Melissa was upset and said what she had said for the 911 call, that she found Matthew lying there and had no idea what had happened.

But things were not quite as the internet users thought. In fact, all those photos and videos had something dramatic behind them. Besides the couple not getting along in any matter, their life becomes marked by all kinds of physical and verbal violence, it was something totally toxic that the neighbors had known about for some time. Matthew’s own brother even commented that he couldn’t accept the fact that Melissa deprived Matthew of seeing his own family and friends and that the only thing she did was manipulate.

The prime suspect is the most obvious in this type of crime where the death of one of the members of the relationship occurs, is her own partner, who in this case is 29-year-old Melissa Turner.

In early adulthood, Melissa didn’t feel good about her excess weight, so she started a radical physical change to increase her self-esteem and thus combat the depression she was going through, she started to have healthy habits, such as physical exercise and good diet. The result of this transformation was more than 220.5 pounds lost and a good physical condition that made her feel good again with the person she was and she didn’t need to hide from the world anymore for not having the perfect body. Melissa’s life in 2017 was a bit peculiar to the general, she was a lover of dressing up and embodying fictional characters from games, anime, and festivities like Halloween, what we call Cosplay. But in addition to this hobby, Melissa pursued an acting career, which went viral on the internet after she started sharing sexually charged photos that showed how secure she was with her new look.

But on a certain night, Melissa met a girl who had a similar path to hers, and perhaps because of the empathy that was established by the similarities, Melissa followed a piece of advice that was to change her life. This girl told her that instead of posting anonymous pictures of her body, she should make her body earn money. The solution? Adult Streaming sites, where she could make sex lives through her webcam without leaving her home. Melissa followed the advice and the next day already started her first online broadcast. The truth is that life was going better than she could ever imagine and it didn’t take long before she could live only with the money that lives sex streaming gave her because besides loving to expose her body, she received huge amounts of money, which led her to have a very comfortable economic life.

But as time went by, her audience stopped funding her and started to see other models coming up, which led Melissa to rethink her life and new ways to combat this problem. This led Melissa to rethink her life and find new ways to combat this problem until she decided to start selling her videos, where she put together what was useful and what was pleasant, but which would restrict her niche of clients. The theme of her videos was cosplay, with a combination of horror that made her unique. Even she and the sets where she recorded were covered with what appeared to be blood.

With her career at its peak again, Melissa went back to entrepreneurship and provided a solution for the other girls who wanted to do cam modeling but had no privacy, so with the right amount of money she was able to open her own studio with her boyfriend at the time, but things didn’t go well. The two ended up getting angry and Melissa is unhappy that she wasted so much time trying to help other models gain visibility, that she left her career aside, besides, the models only paid a small fee to use the space, which she later realized that it was not worth the effort she put into this project.
In the neighborhood, Melissa was seen as being crazy and totally controlling, until neighbors even commented on the fact that she, at a party she threw for her friends, forced a girl back into the house because she wanted to leave.

After Matthew’s body was discovered and Melissa’s lack of information, led the police to do an investigation around the area to try to gather evidence, such as talking to witnesses and looking for surveillance cameras that could show what had happened. And it wasn’t long before an officer noticed a camera from one of the neighbors that pointed to a part of the yard where Matthew was dead. Melissa even altered her story when she was taken in for questioning, and Melissa explained to the officers that Matthew was a difficult person who on this very day, was drunk all day and that around 4 am, he had woken up aggressive and tried to assault her with a knife, which ended up cutting Melissa on one of her hands. Melissa retaliated against Matthew’s attack and things escalated to the point where she took the knife and stabbed him in the back, his arm, and dozens of other places.

The truth is, the investigation found that the cut she had on her hand, was not consistent with a cut made by someone else, but by herself, for the purpose of trying to cover it up. Unlike Matthew, where the autopsy analyzed and concluded that some marks Matthew had on his body were made in an attempt to defend himself and not to attack. Already on camera, which managed to capture the audio of the conversation between them, it is possible to hear things like ‘I hate you, fuck you, die’. It was Melissa facing Matthew at the time the events occur. The screaming only ended when we hear Melissa saying – What have I done? and silence took over.

The problem is that the investigation aims for new evidence, and one of it came from Matthew’s wristband. Matthew had a bandfit, which is a smart bracelet that is used to measure the body’s vital signs, and when the police analyzed the data from the bracelet, they concluded that Matthew was already dead at 4 o’clock and Melissa didn’t call the authorities until after that time. It was a fact that shocked the investigators because they knew that Matthew might still be alive, but it seems that Melissa waited so long to make sure that he was really dead or else to give her time to find an alibi so as not to make her a suspect in the death. Melissa had then gotten into an argument with him and ended up wounding him with multiple stab wounds that Matthew could not resist.

The Trial began in February 2022. In the middle of the courtroom, Melissa is totally crushed by the death of her boyfriend and in tears says that she loved him very much and that her intention was not to kill him, but that he gave her no choice because, according to her, he was a type of person who got very upset when he drank, adding also that he was depressed and that the relationship with him started to get very complicated.
She claimed that she acted in self-defense and that she only had to kill him because she felt that her life was in danger and that Matthew’s repeated behavior made her compelled to kill him, but none of this was proven and Judge Samantha Ward was not in the conversation that she acted in self-defense. Melissa eventually refused a plea deal that sentenced her to 25 years in prison, showing her firm stand against conviction. The cameras proved that Melissa was there at the time he died and yet she did not call the authorities until 4 hours later.
The testimonies also conditioned the judge’s decision. It was said by Matthew’s brother that she intentionally manipulated him and that he was a very good person, but that he was forced to stay away from his family and live isolated from his surroundings. His family further adds that she should be grateful for everything because she was the best thing that ever happened to him.
The prosecutors were asking for 35 years for Melissa behind bars. Melissa was sentenced to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 20 and a half years in prison. It was proven that she wanted to kill him and that she deprived him of medical treatment since he stayed 4 hours before 911 was called