DATELINE ‘Secrets by the Bay’ Husband killed his wife, then hid her body in the freezer for 2 years

Tonight’s episode of Dateline “Secrets by the Bay” details the 2-year disappearance of 32-year-old Elizabeth Sullivan that ended with a devastating revelation.

In 2014, Navy petty officer Matthew Scott Sullivan claimed that Elizabeth, his wife and the mother of his two kids, had left the family and drained their shared bank account. Two years later, the same week Matthew moved away from their home in San Diego with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Sullivan’s body was found in a shallow grave near a bay. Her body was not as decomposed as it should have been given the amount of time between her death and her body’s discovery.

The young couple, who married after a “whirlwind romance,” had been experiencing marital troubles for years before Elizabeth’s murder. Friends say that Matthew had been physically abusive to her in the months prior to her murder. They had been sleeping in different bedrooms and Elizabeth was using dating apps to meet someone new. Matthew claims his wife’s drug use and self-harm events were escalating, and that she would often sleep in the park instead of coming home.

In October 2014 Matthew said that Elizabeth was missing, but did not report her disappearance to the police. A friend of hers did. Her family hired a private investigator and launched a social media campaign to find her. According to the Times of San Diego, Elizabeth continued to send emails from her account until November 2014. It’s now believed that it was Matthew Sullivan himself that was sending emails to making it look like his wife was still alive.

By 2016, Matthew was ready to leave the Navy and start his life on the other side of the U.S. Suspiciously, his missing wife’s body was found in a bay in San Diego the same week he left for Maryland with his new girlfriend.

The defense argued that the evidence of bloodstains in the carpet and floor from where he stabbed Elizabeth at least five times were from self-harm, but a San Diego judge ruled in October 2014, Matthew stabbed his wife multiple times while their children were in another room. The day after Elizabeth went missing, Matthew purchased carpet cleaner.

The knife used in the murder was found in the attic of their home, hidden in insulation. It also had traces of Elizabeth’s blood. During the investigation of the house, cadaver dogs behaved as if there was a body in an empty freezer. This could explain why Elizabeth’s body was not decomposed when it was found at the bay. The theory is that Matthew hid his wife’s dead body in a small freezer for two years. When he moved away, he tried to hide her body in a shallow grave in a San Diego bay.

In 2018 Matthew Sullivan was extradited from Delaware to California. This March (2021) he was found guilty of murdering his wife and sentenced to 16 years in prison.

“The jury verdict and the evidence at trial made it clear that Matthew Sullivan brutally murdered his wife, methodically cleaned up the messy murder site, and then hid the body for years,” Superior Court Judge Albert Harutunian III said, according to the San Diego Tribune. “He almost got away with it, but his final attempt to hide the body at the bottom of the bay failed.”

Dateline airs Fridays FRI 9/8c on NBC

Photos via NBC/Dateline