Friday, January 3, 2014

Melissa Sowders Ex Husband Charged with Murder

Matthew Sowders is now charged with capital murder in the death of Melissa Sowders, a pregnant Texas mother of four who went missing last week.

from local ABC affiliate:

Thursday afternoon, Matthew Sowders, 28, was arrested and charged with capital murder.The body has not yet been officially identified, but family members tell Eyewitness News they're confident it's Melissa, since detectives asked them about a tattoo.

Please note that we did not have much to go on.  The boyfriend's statement indicated a belief that she was dead.  What did he know about the estranged husband? It may be that Melissa shared just how violent he was.  Something caused the family to lose hope quickly.  Now we know.  

We did not have much to go on but:  

The estranged husband did give us something to look at:

http://statement-analysis.blogspot.com/2014/01/melissa-sowders-ex-husband-statement.html

It is short, but the word "just" should be viewed. 

EquuSearch said they nearly gave up efforts to recover her Thursday morning, after an intense six day search in and around Cypress Creek. But that crew says something told them to come back out to an area of the creek, about half a mile east of I-45, where they picked up sonar images.
Sowders is the pregnant mother of four, who mysteriously disappeared on December 26 after meeting her estranged husband at a nearby McDonald's on FM 1960, where she was supposed to pick up their children.

This local ABC reported that the boyfriend was the last to see her.  This was not correct information.  


Sowder's family says they're confident the victim will be identified as the missing mom, and they're relieved investigators didn't give up.

Melissa's cousin Michelle Bierman said,"EquuSearch did a tremendous job. They're a Godsend. We couldn't have done this without them. They are forever in our hearts and will be a part of our family."

Note that many readers here are familiar with, and support, Texas Equasearch after learning of their work in the case of murdered baby, Caylee Anthony.  Sowders was not cooperating with police, though his lawyer said he was not involved.  

The estranged husband stopped cooperating with police.  

When someone stops assisting or cooperating, there is a reason. 

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's not forget the boyfreind was assisting in the search and cooperating with LE. I couldn't understand why so many on this site automatically jumped on him as responsible for her disappearance. I was waiting to hear about the ex.

patrice said...

How sad this is. Another mom is murdered. EquuSearch is good- I give whenever I am able in memory of Caylee.

Anonymous said...

Is Matthew Sowders Melissas' EX-Husband (with divorce finalized), or her estranged husband with divorce pending? Some articles make reference to him as her EX and others as her estranged. (With being estranged he is still her husband, technically, legally). Which is it? TY.

Patrice, it is lovely that you donate to EquuSearch whenever you can. I've read that Tim Miller does this work voluntarily in honor and memory of his own missing daughter, and that sometimes he is short of money in purchasing and keeping up maintenance of their expensive search equipment and in paying his crew and their expenses, that his crew will even sometimes sleep in their automobiles trying to save on expense money; also that sometimes he has to cut their searches short or not take some searches at all due to shortages of expense money.

Also, it really hurts them financially when no one at search sites sets up food or water for their much needed use when they go out on these searches for days at the time. Anything anyone can donate to them is a blessing and a help to them and to Tim Miller personally. This is a good man and no scammer. God bless you for helping.

TrishapatK said...

To Anonymous @ 2:57,
I understand getting annoyed at people who pounce upon one person and seem to disregard evidence or in this case "statements for analysis" but in this instance we had more statements from the boyfriend than the husband.
There were several of us who were analyzing the boyfriends words - and found them to be strange.
We tried to stick with the tools that Peter has given us to work with and apply them correctly. We were suspicious of him because of what he had said.
I don't think we took it to the extreme, nor did we disregard the possibility that the husband was another possibility. We had nothing to work with from the husband. Hearing that he wouldn't work with Law Enforcement is just another news report. The news reporting was problematic to begin with and we had nothing but that to go on until recently.
I am feeling defensive because I was one of the ones who found the boyfriends statements to be odd and out of place. I didn't say silly things about black car doors, nor did I surmise that he must be a meth user.
I don't want to be criticized for trying to use some statement analysis on the statements we have to work with. I certainly don't claim authority when doing so but I don't want to be spoken of as a fool when I am trying to stay on topic. I really do try not to just spout off my opinion if it's based upon something other than statement analysis. I think there were a few of us who were doing that who all found the boyfriends statements to be out of place under the circumstances.

Anonymous said...

Your comments are well taken TrishapatK (ref my post @ 2:57) and I apologize if I made you feel personally responsible for making false accusations against the b/f; I do agree and understand there was very little to go on other than his poorly worded, what appeared to be suspicious comments and badly acted-out interviews.

I am not the commando of this thread and don't consider myself to be any ones' judge of character; therefore, I apologize as well. TY.

~mj said...

With the exclusion of posters that do make assumptions: there is the bit that statement analysis did work on the bf's words.

SA indicated that the boyfriend had knowledge to believe she was deceased. The bf's words indicated a strain in the dynamics of her being pregnant by the bf. Now its coming to light that LE knew early on that she was in fact deceased and had a crime stoppers tip to help direct them to her body and the alleged culprit. Most likely LE informed the bf of their understanding that she was deceased (withholding details of course) and the bf leaked that insider knowledge when he spoke.

Then we find out that the ex or estranged husband susposedly wasn't aware of the pregnancy for a time, which the contention in why she hadn't told her husband also was leaked in the bf's words.

SA worked.

It becomes a problem when osters take the results of SA and infer what it means and take all sorts of liberties with it. That is agreed to be beyond the scope of SA and this blog.

Anonymous said...

According to new details, there is an audiotaped confession from the ex husband.
http://news.yahoo.com/video/details-revealed-melissa-sowders-case-001940594.html

955 said...

http://www.chron.com/neighborhood/spring/crime-courts/article/Cause-of-death-revealed-for-pregnant-woman-found-5111324.php


Prosecutor Hans Nielsen told the court on Friday that Matthew Sowders' neighbor knocked on his apartment door later that afternoon and saw a woman's lifeless body lying on the floor. The neighbor said she only got a glimpse of her feet and lower legs before the door was quickly shut again, the prosecutor said.

The neighbor, whose name was not released, returned to her apartment where she thought about what she had seen for two hours before deciding to contact law enforcement, Nielsen said.

After an investigator arrived at the neighbor's apartment, the neighbor telephoned Matthew Sowders - while the investigator was listening - to ask him what had happened, Nielsen told the court.

Nielsen said Sowders told his neighbor that he choked his wife after she pointed a gun at him. Then he blacked out. When he awoke, he said he stuffed her dead body into a plastic trash can and hauled her to the Greenspoint area where he dumped her body into Cypress Creek, Nielsen said.

Neyland is skeptical of the account.

"Why would it take two hours to report seeing a lifeless body?" he asked, noting the electricity was out at the time and so it would be difficult to see anything at all.

Later that same day, another female acquaintance reported Matthew Sowders appeared at her home soaking wet and his vehicle's tires were covered in mud, Nielsen said.

This witness, whose name also was not released, said he then made a second confession about strangling his wife after she'd pulled a gun on him.

"My client says all these allegations are false," Neyland said.

955 said...

Fry the idiot.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous said...
Let's not forget the boyfreind was assisting in the search and cooperating with LE. I couldn't understand why so many on this site automatically jumped on him as responsible for her disappearance. I was waiting to hear about the ex.


January 3, 2014 at 2:54 PM
-----------------------------

But... but... don't you get it? We don't need FACTS... we just need an unemployed Statement Analysis hobbyist to tell us who dunnit. (Except that Peter has been wrong just about every time, not withstanding when the FACTS were obvious to everyone who hasn't had a lobotomy.)

Anonymous said...

I've been following this blog for a year or so now and learned a lot from it. I wonder though if at some point statement analysis becomes cold reading because after you know the facts it is easy to make things seem like connections. Not only the posts about the boyfriend but a good example is Peter's test about I believe it was the woman cop who had the abusive boyfriend. Comments all over the board, but if we already knew the situation we could have easily made it look easy to explain everything accurately.

Shelley said...

To the anon that said “Peter has been wrong just about every time”



When was Peter wrong exactly? Date, story line, and what were his exact comments and what case updates PROVE he was wrong.......

It would be easy to back up if you were right. SO lets see what you got?

His blogs are all here on line so please back it up.

And don’t do what some other person TRIED to do and claim he was wrong because the person was not the murderer when Peter never said “this is the murderer”.

Unless Peter said the person was the murderer and it was proven someone else was the murderer, then he was not wrong.

Most of what Peter highlights is “deception in statements” or “sensitivity” in places where he feels additional questions would be needed.

There is a big difference.

Someone called Peter out once stating he was wrong and one of the cases they used to back this up was the Sierra Lamar case. They claimed that Peter stated the mom was responsible.

Well, what Peter actually said was something along the lines that the mother was possible not being accurate about the relationship between her and her daughter and he though it was likely they had a fight that am and so that what was causing the sensitivity in her statements.

Not once did Peter ever say “Marlene killed Sierra”.

There is a big difference. There are a lot of cases here where he notes something off with the parents but often even states it could be due to guilt over neglect.


So be clear if he was truly wrong, give us case dates, details, what Peter stated and then give us facts that prove him wrong. Saying that deception is noted but further questions would be needed… is not saying “dad killed kid”. He is saying there is something sensitive with the questions asked, other questions need to be asked to get more information.

So, if you cannot do that with facts…. then are doing the exact thing you are accusing him of, but hes not actually doing that.



I have seen many people come on this site and bash SA……when in all honesty, if this is not your thing and you don’t by this…..why you come here????? it’s just a blog. There are plenty of other blogs and well, plenty of other things to do with your free time than come and read a site daily that you think is totally bogus.



There are things I don’t believe in. But I sure as heck don’t follow blogs and try to bash all that they say.

So seriously why come here?



Unless…. You are one of people he has talked about and noted deception… In that case, then that would make sense. You are probably guilty and googling yourself and stumbled upon this site. Like Billie Jean Dunn.

But we know she nothing better to do. She is a total waste of human air. So I am sure she was one of the many anti SA posters. She has a reason, shes guilty as hell but she is going to do what she can to try to make others wrong.

Just like SA says….

So which one are you?



But by all means, prove where he was wrong…..