Boyfriend gets life plus 20 years for slaying Austell teenager

By Andria Simmons

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

A Douglasville man was sentenced to life plus 20 years in prison on Thursday for murdering his girlfriend in what Cobb County Superior Court Judge Tain Kell called "as gruesome and as brutal a crime as I have seen."

Matthew Wilkins, 20, cannot be considered for parole until 2038, according to prosecutor Jesse Evans.

Relatives of the victim, Marlisa Wells, said they forgave the man who silenced their beloved "songbird" on Jan. 19, 2008, but hoped he could find forgiveness for himself.

Authorities said Wilkins cornered his girlfriend in a basement bathroom of her home, stabbed her repeatedly, slammed her head into a toilet tank and drove a fork into her back. The attack happened after Wells told him that she was pregnant and wanted to keep the baby, Evans said.

Wells, 16, believed she was pregnant at the time of her death, but an autopsy later showed that she was not.

Family members and friends of Wells filled five rows of the courtroom at the sentencing hearing. Marvin Wells, the victim's grandfather, said he paid for her cellphone for a year after she died so that he could dial her number and hear his granddaughter sing out a greeting on her voice mail. Wells aspired to attend college and become a singer-songwriter.

Erika Young, her mother, said Wells loved everyone and wanted only to be loved back.

"She didn't deserve the abuse and pain that she endured that morning," Young said.

Wilkins' parents and aunt, who testified at the hearing, insisted that he was innocent. However, the young man, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with his hands and feet in shackles, made no statement. The judge noted that Wilkins sat stone-faced throughout the trial, even when crime scene photographs were shown.

"You who knew Marlisa Wells better than any of us seemed to have no reaction, then or now," Kell observed. "I haven't seen remorse."