FAIRBANKS, Alaska (AP) - A North Pole man charged with breaking into a woman’s home and fatally shooting her boyfriend as she and her daughter hid in a closet was sentenced to 42 years in prison.
Matthew Burton Davis, 43, was sentenced Friday after pleading guilty to murder last year, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported (https://bit.ly/2oSLAGj ).
Authorities said Davis shot John Adam Chilcote, 34, eleven times with a 9 mm pistol after breaking in to the North Pole home and finding the couple in a bedroom in 2015. The woman ran to her daughter’s room.
Davis reportedly was interested in the woman romantically and sent her text messages earlier that day asking if she wanted Chilcote to die. One message said he was “going to come in and I am going to shoot him the cops will be too late,” according to court documents.
The woman testified via telephone that she feared for her life.
“After all the gunshots were over, I’m sitting in the closet with my daughter and I don’t know what to do, but I told her that I had to get out. I had to see what was going on,” the woman said. “And my daughter asked me a question - she asked if I was going to die. And I told her, ’Yeah, I think so.”
The woman asked Superior Court Judge Michael McConahy to give Davis the maximum sentence of 99 years behind bars, saying she did not think he could be rehabilitated.
McConahy determined that the killing was not a crime of passion carried out in the heat of the moment. The woman says Davis met Chilcote earlier in the day at her home. McConahy noted that Davis had gone to two bars, got his hair cut and had pizza before going back to the house and shooting Chilcote.
He sentenced Davis to 65 years, with 23 years suspended.
“Everybody needs to know this behavior is not acceptable and will result in incarceration and long periods of supervised probation,” McConahy said. “Our society does not accept a person who perceives his affection to be unrequited to simply execute those he considers a rival.”
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Information from: Fairbanks (Alaska) Daily News-Miner, https://www.newsminer.com
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