The last time anyone saw Stephanie Pavlons alive, she was climbing into a pickup truck outside her boyfriend’s apartment in Waukesha, Wisconsin, heading to an orthopedic appointment that would never be kept. Within hours, the 44-year-old mother of a teenage daughter had vanished from the face of the earth, leaving behind a purse, a water bottle, and a note that prosecutors would later argue was not a suicide letter but a breakup note that sealed her fate.
Her body was discovered nearly three weeks later, on September 9, 2022, by a construction crew putting up no-trespassing signs in a vacant lot behind the Orthopedic Hospital of Wisconsin on Golf Road in Delafield. The remains were so badly decomposed that the medical examiner could not determine the cause or manner of death. The victim was a female between 20 and 50, with a surgical pin in one wrist and distinctive tattoos—a tribal design, a rose, and a letter “J” on her ankle.
For weeks, investigators had no missing person report to match the remains. That silence became a central mystery: How could a woman with parents, a boyfriend, and a daughter simply disappear without anyone calling police? The answer, authorities later learned, lay in a toxic relationship marked by years of documented 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮, a pattern of disappearances that her family had grown accustomed to, and a boyfriend who seemed determined to control the narrative.
Stephanie’s parents told detectives they had last seen her about three weeks before the body was found. She had stayed overnight, then dressed up and left with her boyfriend, Matthew Paul, for his physical therapy appointment at the Orthopedic Associates of Wisconsin. When she didn’t return, they assumed she was with Paul, as she often disappeared for days or weeks at a time.
No one reported her missing.
Matthew Paul, then 55, was the father of Stephanie’s daughter and her on-again, off-again partner for more than two decades. When detectives first approached him at his apartment, his greeting was telling: “Whatever you guys are here for, I didn’t do it.” During a subsequent interview at the sheriff’s department, Paul repeatedly deflected questions about the last time he saw Stephanie, instead focusing on her history of suicide attempts and prescription 𝒹𝓇𝓊𝑔 use.
“She was going off the deep end,” Paul told detectives. “Doctors wouldn’t listen. They just kept prescribing more and more drugs.”
But investigators noticed inconsistencies. Paul claimed he last saw Stephanie on August 23, 2022, when they drove together to his appointment. He said he went inside for his treatment, and when he returned to the truck, she was gone.
He claimed he drove around looking for her, then went home and didn’t report her missing because she had a habit of running off into the woods.
Detectives found that explanation suspicious, especially after they obtained surveillance footage from Paul’s apartment complex. The video showed Stephanie leaving the building at 8:39 a. m.
on August 23, wearing the same clothes later found on her body. Paul exited through a different door minutes later. A dashcam in his truck captured them stopping at a gas station, where Stephanie bought breakfast.
They drove toward the orthopedic clinic. That was the last known sighting of her alive.
Paul returned to the apartment alone that afternoon. Surveillance showed him carrying Stephanie’s distinctive pink water bottle and later a plastic grocery bag containing what appeared to be her purse. Her phone and other belongings were found inside the apartment during a search warrant.
Paul’s phone data placed both devices at the orthopedic clinic area on August 23, but only his phone returned home.
The case took a critical turn when investigators discovered Paul had been in regular online relationships with two women in the Philippines. He had told one of them, Norma Jean Daza Yerto, that he was “worried about someone” and that if anyone contacted her, she should say she didn’t know anything. On the day Stephanie’s body was found, Paul messaged the women, saying he had to delete their contacts because an investigation was underway.
Paul also made incriminating internet searches. On September 9, 2022, while at his father’s house, he searched for “missing woman found dead,” “Waukesha police scanner,” and “body found in Waukesha field.” These searches occurred before law enforcement had publicly identified the remains or even confirmed the victim’s identity.
Despite the mounting circumstantial evidence, prosecutors faced a daunting challenge: without a cause of death, could they prove murder? The medical examiner had ruled the manner and cause “undetermined” due to advanced decomposition. There was no murder weapon, no confession, no eyewitness.
Yet the prosecution built a case on digital evidence, Paul’s own statements, and the testimony of a cadaver dog named Raven, who alerted on the back of Paul’s truck. Most powerful of all was Stephanie’s journal, which documented years of physical and emotional 𝓪𝓫𝓾𝓼𝓮 at Paul’s hands.
“Had a good day at work until I came home and he thought there was smoke left there. Wasn’t. Gave me a good hard slap to my face, which stung and gave me a migraine.
Good day, bad night. Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde. This is why I want to die sometimes,” one entry read.
Another entry from October 2020 described a blown eardrum, a black eye, and a spinal bruise. “My heart, soul, and mental state have been broken time and time again. I feel trapped,” she wrote.
During closing arguments, prosecutor Kristi Gordon laid out a theory that stunned the courtroom. She argued that on August 23, Stephanie wrote a note—not a suicide note, but a breakup note—and left it on the driver’s seat. When Paul returned from his appointment and read it, he became enraged.
He saw Stephanie walking toward the woods, grabbed her purse, and used the strap to strangle her.
“He couldn’t let her walk away. He couldn’t let her leave him,” Gordon told the jury. “This is how she died.”
The jury deliberated for just one hour before returning a guilty verdict on both counts: first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse. At sentencing, Stephanie’s daughter, Laila, read a statement directed at her father.
“You have no soul. You killed the one person that made me happy and was there for me at times I needed her. I hope you rot in jail,” she said.
Judge Michael Remer imposed a life sentence without the possibility of parole, calling Paul’s behavior and attitude during the trial “telling.” Paul, who had called the proceedings a “sham trial” and compared prosecutors to the Gestapo, showed no remorse.
For Stephanie’s parents, the verdict brought a measure of justice, but the loss remains profound. Her mother urged others in abusive relationships to seek help. “Just reach out to somebody.
Even if it’s hard, just try,” she said.
The case, which took three years to reach trial, stands as a stark reminder that even without a cause of death, a web of circumstantial evidence can be enough to convict. For investigators, it was the most challenging case of their careers. For Stephanie Pavlons, it was the final chapter of a life marked by pain, but also by a voice that refused to be silenced.
