Man sentenced to life in slayings of Cherokee firefighter, wife
On a November evening four years ago, a Cobb County couple sat on their couch watching television. Minutes later, they were both killed as their young son slept upstairs.
When the toddler woke up, he tried desperately to get his parents’ attention, Cobb prosecutor Stephanie Green said during a trial this week. The little boy was found 12 hours later with his parents’ blood on his Mickey Mouse pajamas.
“Your honor, Jacob cuddled with his dead parents,” Green said. “He cuddled with his dead parents.”
The gunman was a young neighbor Amber and Justin Hicks didn’t even know, according to investigators.
Matthew Lanz, then 22, was arrested and charged with murder in the couple’s deaths. By then, Lanz had again broken into a home, this time in Sandy Springs, and stabbed an officer, police previously said.
On Friday, Lanz was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole after he was convicted the day before on numerous charges, including two counts of murder, second-degree cruelty to children, home invasion and tampering with evidence.
Lanz sat motionless wearing a lime green jail suit as Judge Sonja Brown read her verdict Thursday. He was not in court the next day to hear his fate. In a rare turn, he waived his appearance at the sentencing. Brown, to the dismay of the victims’ loved ones, said Georgia case law gave him that right.
“Wow,” someone whispered from the gallery upon learning Lanz would not hear the emotional statements offered by about a dozen of the victims’ friends and relatives. Lanz also opted for a bench trial, meaning the judge decided his guilt rather than a jury of his peers.
The couple’s deaths were shocking. Justin Hicks, 31, was a Cherokee County firefighter, and he and his 31-year-old wife had celebrated their son’s second birthday in August. The two were excited for their new home and the upcoming weddings of friends and family.
Their losses sent fear and insecurity through their “village,” loved ones told the judge during Lanz’s sentencing hearing. Still, Justin Hicks’ father displayed grace through his grief.
“I forgive Mathew Lanz for what he’s done, for what he stole from us … I forgive him,” Timothy Hicks tearfully told Judge Brown as sobs echoed throughout the courtroom. “We all need the grace and mercy of God, and I cannot in good conscience withhold what I ask for God to give to me.”
“It’s not mental rehabilitation that he needs, your honor. It’s an exorcism,” he added. “I pray that he’ll find (Jesus) once he’s there (in prison) and has time to reflect, because hell is real and heaven is real.”
Amber Hicks’ father, Mark Boggs, called Lanz a coward for not facing their pain in court and asked the judge to sentence him to life in prison without parole.
“I firmly believe that Mr. Lanz is a representative of pure evil,” Boggs said.
The prosecution requested the same maximum penalty.
“We know that it won’t bring closure, but (this verdict is) confirmation that the man who stole these lives will be held accountable, whether he sat to hear his sentence or not,” Cobb District Attorney Sonya Allen said at a news conference after the sentencing.
Defense attorney Jimmy Berry asked the judge for some “measure of mercy” and said he believes his client suffers from mental illness. During the trial, Berry had argued there was no evidence — not even DNA at the scene — that pointed to Lanz as the killer.
According to prosecutors, the murder weapon was found by Lanz’ parents on his bedside table in Athens. At the time, he was a student at the University of Georgia. His parents suspected their son when they heard about their neighbors’ killings and drove to Athens to question him, the state said.
Prosecutors said Lanz had bought the gun about a month before he drove from Athens and broke into the Hicks’ home, where they had lived for less than three months.
“He shot them both in their head in the comfort of their home,” Green said Thursday.
Less than 48 hours after killing the couple, Lanz allegedly ran out of gas off I-285 and walked to a Sandy Springs neighborhood, where he committed another home invasion, investigators previously said.
During that incident, he allegedly stabbed an officer, who survived. Another officer then shot Lanz. Investigators in the Sandy Springs case, which is still pending, helped Cobb police link Lanz to the double homicide.
During police questioning, Lanz said he was bothered by “demonic” lights on the Hicks’ home, Green said.
But Friday, Amber Hicks’ aunt, Diana Helton, offered a simpler explanation for those lights.
“It was their Christmas tree,” she told the judge as she battled through a stream of tears. “The only thing demonic in their home was him and his black heart.”
Helton helped raise Amber Hicks from infancy after her mother died of cancer.
The years-old case had been delayed while Lanz underwent mental evaluations, court records show. In October, the judge ruled he was competent to stand trial. Berry called no witnesses on his client’s behalf and Lanz did not testify.
Lanz is the brother of Austin William Lanz, a man who made national headlines in August 2021 when he fatally stabbed a police officer at a bus stop near the Pentagon in Washington. After stabbing George Gonzalez, 27-year-old Austin Lanz used the officer’s service weapon to kill himself, the FBI Washington field office previously said.
