Matthew Phelps and Lauren Hugelmaier first met in middle school in Kentucky. They were not close back then, but years later, Matthew reached out to Lauren on Instagram and their connection grew into a serious relationship that ended in marriage — and eventually, in tragedy.
Just after 1:00 a.m. on September 1, 2017, Matthew called emergency services. He told the dispatcher that he had taken more cough syrup than he should have before going to sleep, had a dream, and woken up to find Lauren on the floor covered in blood with a knife on the bed.
He said he believed he had killed her but had no memory of doing it. During the call, he was calm and coherent. He did not sound panicked or disoriented.
When officers arrived, Lauren was on the floor in a fetal position, clutching clumps of her own hair. She had been stabbed 123 times. She was taken to the hospital and pronounced dead at around 1:45 a.m.
Investigators immediately noticed that Matthew had almost no blood on him. A few drops on his feet, nothing more. Given the nature of the attack, that was not consistent with what they would expect.
Luminol testing of the apartment found blood traces throughout the bathroom — on the sink, the walls, and surrounding surfaces. It was clear that a cleanup had taken place before the 911 call was made.
Blood testing confirmed that cough syrup was present in Matthew’s system, but not at a level that would cause him to lose control or black out. The company that made the medication issued a statement saying no studies had ever linked their product to violent behavior.
Investigators also found that Matthew had been searching online for information about the effects of the cough syrup before the night of the murder — how much it would affect someone, how disorienting it would be — despite having used the substance for years since high school.
Early Lives and Background
Lauren grew up in a warm, close family. Her parents were Laurie and Dale, and she had two sisters, with Beth being the one she was closest to. She was known for being kind, genuine, and deeply religious. She was heavily involved in her church and even led a youth group there.
Her family eventually moved to North Carolina, and Lauren built a stable, busy life there. She was working multiple jobs at the same time — an auditing role at a Fortune 500 clinical research company, babysitting, a position at the church daycare, and she also ran a small candle sales business on the side. She was hardworking, organized, and took her faith seriously.
Matthew’s background was very different. His father was mostly absent, and his mother showed little interest in raising him, so his grandparents stepped in. His mother married several times, and he only really bonded with one stepfather.
In high school, he got involved with the wrong social circle and started abusing cough syrup for the high it produced. His parents enrolled him in a Christian academy after that, and things appeared to stabilize.
He later attended Clear Creek Baptist Bible College in Kentucky and wanted to become a pastor. That ambition is what made him seem like a perfect match for Lauren, at least on the surface.
When Matthew contacted Lauren through Instagram after years of no real contact, he liked every single photo she had ever posted before sliding into her direct messages.
They went from messaging to texting to phone calls, and eventually Matthew decided to move to North Carolina to be with her. Lauren was 29 at the time and was looking for a long-term partner who shared her values. Matthew seemed to fit that.
Lauren’s mother, Laurie, welcomed Matthew almost immediately and treated him like her own son. Her father, Dale, was a different story. He found the whole situation moving too fast and had a quiet, unsettled feeling about Matthew that he could not quite explain.
His concerns grew during a family gathering when Matthew casually revealed, through a game of 20 questions, that he had been married before. He gave no explanation about why it ended and shut down any attempts to find out more. Most of the family moved past it, but Dale did not.
Marriage and Hidden Tensions
The couple got engaged in 2015. Their engagement party was attended mostly by Lauren’s family. Matthew’s mother showed up wearing a white dress, which immediately caused tension.
Lauren’s family felt she was rude and dismissive of Lauren throughout the event, and got the clear impression that she did not approve of the relationship. They married in November 2016 and had a Star Wars-themed wedding, which reflected a shared passion both of them had for the franchise.
Six months into the marriage, they traveled to Kentucky to visit Matthew’s family. His mother had told Lauren in advance to wear blue for a planned family photo shoot, claiming that everyone would be wearing that color.
When Lauren arrived, she discovered all the other women had been told to wear white. She was the only one in blue. Matthew’s mother then canceled the photo shoot and blamed Lauren for the mix-up. Lauren’s family believed it was done deliberately to make her feel unwelcome and excluded.
Back in North Carolina, the marriage was falling apart behind the scenes. Matthew could not hold down a job. He moved through positions in caregiving, sales, and lawn maintenance without any real stability.
Lauren was carrying the financial weight of the household almost entirely on her own. Matthew was spending large amounts of money at electronics retailers and had reportedly taken money directly out of Lauren’s purse on multiple occasions.
The couple had been saving for a trip to Orlando, but Matthew spent that money on himself as well. Lauren had entered the marriage with around ten thousand dollars saved. By the time she died, she had less than one thousand dollars left.
The financial situation got bad enough that both families sat down together and created a weekly budget plan, with regular dinners to review their spending. Matthew seemed agreeable during those meetings, but Lauren privately expressed doubt that he would actually follow through.
She had been confiding in friends for a while that she was unhappy and felt unable to leave. Her religious beliefs made her feel obligated to stick it out, even as things got worse.
There was also jealousy. Matthew became convinced that a man named David, someone both of them knew from church, had feelings for Lauren. He told Lauren that his first wife had cheated on him during a mission trip and left him for another man, framing his jealousy as something rooted in past trauma.
His ex-wife, Brooke, later contradicted that account. She said their marriage ended because of his financial recklessness and repeated infidelity, not because she had been unfaithful.
Meanwhile, Matthew was presenting a completely different version of himself to the outside world. He and Lauren would post on social media regularly, and their relationship looked happy and healthy to anyone who saw it.
He was active in their church and kept pushing his goal of becoming a pastor. Nobody outside their immediate circle had any idea how bad things had gotten at home.
On the evening of August 31, 2017, Lauren was at home cooking dinner and talking on the phone with Beth when a woman named Valerie showed up at the front door. Matthew answered, then told Lauren he was going out with Valerie because she needed his help.
Lauren made clear she did not want him to leave — she had just made dinner — but he left anyway. He later texted her and told her to eat without him because he was having too much fun to come back.
Lauren told Beth on that call that the marriage was over, that Matthew was dragging her down and ruining her life, and that she was done. She followed that up with a text message to Beth saying the same thing.
What Lauren did not know was that Matthew had been showing deeply concerning behavior to people around him for some time. A neighbor he had become friendly with, someone he had bonded with over shared struggles with anxiety and depression, had already started pulling away from him.
He had told her at one point that he could take her firearm and kill someone with it. She found it unsettling enough that she began distancing herself from him.
Matthew had also told a friend that he was curious about what it would feel like to kill someone and that he was fascinated by the main character in the film American Psycho, a movie centered on a serial killer.
He was also running a secret Instagram account which was filled with dark imagery from American Psycho, photos of himself posing as the film’s main character, and content that referenced demonic themes — a stark contrast to the churchgoing, pastor-aspiring persona he maintained publicly.
One post went up shortly before Lauren’s death. The caption read: everyone thinks I’m a serial killer… found an angel to kill.
Trial and Sentencing
Matthew was charged with first-degree murder. Prosecutors presented the physical evidence, the digital records, the secret Instagram account, testimony from people who had witnessed his behavior, and the financial and relational history of the marriage.
The defense offered character statements from friends and coworkers who said they were shocked and that his actions were out of character. No family member showed up in court to support Matthew at sentencing.
In October 2018, Matthew Phelps pleaded guilty to first-degree murder. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He addressed Lauren’s family during sentencing with an apology. They made clear it meant nothing to them.
Laurie said she would never forgive him. Dale expressed guilt over the warning signs he felt he should have acted on sooner. Lauren’s family, along with members of her church, attended the sentencing wearing shirts that read Lauren’s Lights and purple ribbons representing domestic violence awareness.
