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Dateline has returned to cases that refuse to fade, and one of the most striking is the story of Elizabeth "Liz" Sullivan. The episode of Dateline: Secrets Uncovered revisits her disappearance and death, pulling together years of fragments that once felt disconnected.
The case does not unfold in a neat line. It starts with a phone call in the middle of the night, raw and frightened, and then everything stops. For two years, there has been nothing but questions. Later come small discoveries, and then larger ones, until the courtroom brings an ending of sorts.
The night everything changed
On October 13, 2014, Liz called her friend Calandra Duckett. The call was short and urgent. Duckett remembered her voice shaking, words rushing, and fear spilling through the line. Then silence. The call ended and was never resumed.
From that night on, Liz was missing. She left behind two young daughters. Matthew, her husband, told people she had left on her own, that she wanted to start over. Dateline noted that police had to keep that option on the table because Liz had shown impulsive behavior before and sometimes wrote about escape.
Dateline revisits marriage under strain
Elizabeth and Matthew had met years earlier in Norfolk, Virginia. Their relationship moved fast. Within months, they were engaged, and not long after, they moved to San Diego. He was in the Navy. They married, had children, and tried to build stability.
But long deployments meant Matthew was often gone. Liz raised the girls on her own and built her own circle of friends. Over time, she started seeing Steven Sutton, a man she met through Tinder. The relationship added another layer of tension.
Messages between Matthew and Sutton showed sharp words and taunts. They hinted at anger that ran underneath daily life. Combined with the distance in the marriage, it created a fragile situation.
First steps of the investigation
Once Liz vanished, investigators turned to the two men closest to her. Matthew was cooperative. He let officers search the house. He took a polygraph and passed. Steven, on the other hand, refused to answer questions. He hired a lawyer and kept silent.
Detectives did not stop there. They learned Liz had transferred about one thousand dollars into her personal account just before she disappeared. They also found a journal she kept, where she wrote about a woman who left her family behind. There was also a history of self-harm. Dateline showed that, taken together, the options ranged from voluntary disappearance to suicide, with foul play never off the list.
Two years later
For a long time, there was nothing. Then, in October 2016, the case shifted. Liz’s body surfaced in San Diego Bay, less than a mile from her home. The medical examiner determined she had been stabbed, with injuries even to her jaw. The finding was homicide.
The timing was unusual. That same day, movers had arrived at the Sullivan home, preparing to take Matthew’s belongings across the country to Maryland, where he planned to live with a new partner. For detectives, the coincidence was hard to ignore.
Breakthrough in the attic
With Matthew gone, detectives searched the home again. This time, they looked deeper. In the attic, under insulation, they uncovered a folding military-style knife. Tests showed Liz’s blood on the blade. On the handle was DNA from both Liz and Matthew.
Further testing with luminol found traces of blood in the master bathroom and beneath the bedroom carpet. The carpet itself had been cleaned, but evidence remained below. These discoveries became the cornerstone of the prosecution’s case.
Dateline later outlined how prosecutors argued that Matthew killed Liz after learning she intended to divorce him, stored her body in a freezer for years, and eventually chose to dispose of it in the bay.
Trial and verdict
The trial opened in February 2020. Jurors heard about the final phone call, the marriage, the tensions, and the forensic findings. Prosecutors described the evidence as a chain pointing back to Matthew. The defense stressed the lack of direct proof and argued that no prior violence had ever been documented.
In March 2021, the jury found Matthew Sullivan guilty of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison, with parole eligibility after the minimum term. From prison, he continued to deny responsibility, insisting he never harmed his wife.
Looking back
Trending Dateline: Secrets Uncovered arranged this story as a timeline. It showed how the investigation started with fear on a phone line, shifted into silence, and then reopened when the body was found. The knife in the attic and the blood evidence became turning points.
The account demonstrates how cases sometimes take years to resolve. Between the night of the disappearance and the final verdict, there were long pauses, competing theories, and sudden discoveries. By revisiting each step, the program made clear that persistence and forensic work were what finally brought resolution.
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