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Derrick Matthews pleaded guilty on July 16, 2018, to second-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime in Michael Gayan's killing in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and received a seven-year prison term on September 14, 2018. Charges of harboring and aiding a felon and armed burglary were dismissed, and the State agreed to recommend seven years of confinement followed by supervision. Kenosha County Circuit Judge Jodi Meier imposed the term worked out in his plea agreement and agreed with the attorneys that his sister, Donna Matthews, had taken advantage of his loyalty and love.

The cases were severed. Donna Matthews went to trial in late June 2018, claiming self-defense with support from a battered woman syndrome expert. Derrick Matthews testified for the State. On July 10, 2018, after about three hours of deliberation, the jury found her guilty of first-degree intentional homicide with use of a dangerous weapon. Meier sentenced her on August 31, 2018, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Gayan lived in Kenosha, as did Derrick Matthews. Donna Matthews, Gayan's former girlfriend, described their relationship of several years as abusive; she had lived in Hawaii since January 2016. At trial, she testified that Gayan had stalked her and threatened to kill her and hurt her family if she did not move back to Wisconsin. The State said she killed him out of anger over humiliating photos of her he had posted online.

Gayan was shot on July 4, 2016, at his home on 59th Place near 3rd Avenue in Kenosha. According to the criminal complaint, Donna Matthews flew from Hawaii into Chicago that day and took a bus to the Brat Stop in Kenosha, where her brother met her and paid for a hotel room. She paid him $500 for his revolver, and that evening he drove her near Gayan's home. She hid in the house, then came out and shot Gayan five times; when he made a noise, she struck him in the head with the gun, and she took his phone. Derrick Matthews told investigators they threw the casings into the lake and he later gave the gun to his ex-wife. At her trial, he testified that she had planned the killing for months and chose the Fourth of July so the shots would be mistaken for fireworks. Gayan's badly decomposed body was found on July 26, 2016; an autopsy ruled the death a homicide.

Kenosha police investigated. According to the complaint, a downstairs neighbor of Derrick Matthews described phone and text conversations about Donna Matthews wanting to kill Gayan. The neighbor said Derrick Matthews owned a snub-nose revolver and had said July 4 would be a good time to test it. A search of his home found a box of ammunition with five rounds missing. The complaint describes a July 31, 2016 interview in which he said he knew his sister planned to kill Gayan. He was arrested on August 1, 2016, and charged with first-degree intentional homicide as a party to a crime. Donna Matthews was arrested in Seattle on August 3, 2016, and charged with the same offense, with use of a dangerous weapon.

In the recorded interview, detectives began by telling Derrick Matthews the earlier talk was a clean slate and the obstruction question was off the table, then read him his rights. He said he was scared and not guilty of shooting Gayan. He said his sister contacted him before she arrived, that he picked her up at the Brat Stop and got her a room, and that he told her many times he could not help her. Late in the interview, he repeated what he said she told him afterward: that she came out of hiding, shot Gayan and hit him with the butt of the gun. He agreed to give a written statement.

The Wisconsin Court of Appeals affirmed Donna Matthews's conviction on October 5, 2022 (No. 2021AP607-CR), and on November 5, 2025 it affirmed the denial of her later pro se postconviction motions as procedurally barred (No. 2024AP1586). She was then held at Taycheedah Correctional Institution.

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Part 2 of 3 of the recording described above.

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Part 3 of 3 of the recording described above.