Matthew Pahl, 57, was convicted of killing his 44-year-old girlfriend Stephanie Pavlons, in 2022.
A 57-year-old Wisconsin man has been convicted of killing his girlfriend and then hiding her body in the woods after she told him she was leaving him.
On Tuesday, a Waukesha County judge found Matthew Pahl guilty of first-degree intentional homicide and hiding a corpse in the death of his girlfriend, 44-year-old Stephanie Pavlons. The trial lasted six days.
Pavlons Body was Found in the Woods on Sept 9, 2022
On Sept. 9, 2022, Pavlons’ body was found in the area of Golf Road in Delafield in an “accelerated state of decomposition”, according to a criminal complaint.
Once the body was identified as Pavlons’, authorities spoke with her family, who told investigators they had not heard from their daughter in nearly three weeks and that she was in an “on and off again relationship” with Pahl for more than 20 years.
Pavlons Detailed the Abuse She Suffered at the Hands of Pahl in Journal Entries
Pavlons’ mother believed her daughter was a victim of domestic violence and that Pahl “knocked her around.” As detectives continued their investigation, they found apparent evidence of such abuse in the form of entries into a daily planner book.
“[A]nother depressing & physically abusing day. I think he likes to do it”, read an entry from July 2021. “HATe my life.”
An entry from the next day read, “got hit hard which left a nice mark on my chest”, as well as “got a nice scar along w/ it.” Pictures from that same year showed the victim “with a bruised and swollen eye” and a red mark on her chest.
