Damon Mathews Ignacio Colorado man kills wife Rachel Ream after being released from jail after two domestic violence arrests.
A Colorado man is alleged to have killed his wife on New Year’s Eve, days after being released from jail on a domestic violence arrest, authorities said.
Damon Lamont Mathews, 44, was arrested on Saturday and charged with the first degree murder of his wife, 47-year-old Rachel Phillips Matthews (also going by the name of Rachel Ream) on New Year’s Eve, The Durango Herald reported.
The couple had been celebrating New Year’s Eve together in their Ignacio home when they started to argue. Mathews then strangled his wife, took her car keys and a gun before shooting her in the head, the media outlet reported.
Damon Matthews was arrested after he was involved in a traffic crash near the intersection of South Kipling Parkway and West Belleview Avenue, according to a CBI news release.
The man had been previously arrested twice for allegedly beating Rachel Mathews.
‘I always knew he’d never be stopped until he murdered a woman’
Mathews was arrested Nov. 24 for third-degree assault in an incident that sent his wife to the hospital with a gash above her left eye, according to The Durango Herald.
Cops then arrested him and put him in jail for the domestic violence incident in November. Upon his release on $1,500 bail, Matthews is alleged to have murdered his wife, less than a week later. Matthews a habitual offender was able to override demands to have bail set at $10,000.
Mathews told investigators that despite a protection order against him, he was living in the back house at his wife’s home. The two were celebrating New Year’s Eve together when they started to fight, the man told police.
According to court records, before the Nov. 24 assault, Mathews had been convicted four times since 2003 on domestic violence-related crimes.
His former wife, April Shawl, said in an interview with The Durango Herald that Mathews was in prison in Nevada for domestic violence-related crimes from around 2003 to 2015.
‘He was so dangerous, he did the same things to me,’ Shawl said. ‘I always knew he’d never be stopped until he murdered a woman. It’s haunted me.’
Mathews is being held at Jefferson County Detention Facility without bond.
