Chelsea Perkins ex Virginia Coast Guard veteran turned OnlyFans model, ‘Sabrina Savage’ pleads guilty to murdering Matthew Dunmire, Ohio man, after luring man she claimed had raped her 4 years earlier and fatally shooting the man at a national park.
A Virginia woman appearing in court on Tuesday pled guilty to luring a man she claimed had raped her 4 years earlier into isolated woods of an Ohio national park, then fatally shooting him in the back of the head.
Chelsea Perkins, 35, pleaded guilty to second degree murder after shooting and killing 31-year-old Matthew Dunmire after luring the unwitting victim to his death.
Perkins a former Coast Guard veteran turned OnlyFans model on the day of the man’s shooting murder had traveled more than 300 miles from her Arlington, Virginia home to Ohio to meet the victim whom she knew previously, according to a press release by the US Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Ohio.
Virginia woman lures Ohio man to his eventual shooting death
On March 9, 2021 at around 11:00 a.m., authorities showed up to the Cuyahoga Valley National Park when hikers discovered a dead body, later identified as Dunmire, according to the criminal complaint. An autopsy found that his cause of death was a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.
An investigation found that four days before Dunmire’s body was found, he was out with his co-workers at a bar when he told them he was going to meet a girl he met online who was staying in the area, according to the criminal complaint.
Dunmire’s boss watched him get into a white car and leave. Authorities say the car Dunmire got in belonged to Perkins’ husband, the criminal complaint cited by People Mag stated. The two later drove to an Airbnb that Perkins rented.
The next day, Dunmire sent a text to his girlfriend that he planned to donate plasma and return home, the complaint said. Except he never ‘made it home.’
During their investigations, authorities came across a couple who’d gone hiking where Dunmire’s body was discovered, saying they hearing a gunshot less than an hour after investigators say Dunmire texted his girlfriend.
Authorities tracked the missing boyfriend’s phone to the Terra Vista Natural Study Area of the park.
Linking ex Virginia Coast Guard turned OnlyFans model to crime scene
Another couple said they encountered a woman in the woods wearing all black clothing, black knee-high boots and a black hoodie during the same time frame. According to the criminal complaint, the woman seemed confused and expressed no emotion. She told the couple that she was looking for the cemetery and had became lost.
On March 30, 2021, investigators executed a search warrant of Perkins’ home in Arlington where they found that the markings on the bullet that killed Dunmire were similar to those seized by officers at Perkins’ home, according to the criminal complaint.
FBI authorities said they were able to link Perkins to Dunmire’s death after using evidence including GPS data, DNA analysis, social media records, phone tracking, and ballistics testing from the crime scene.
In the days before Dunmire’s shooting death, Perkins messaged Dunmire on Facebook, and driving to Cleveland where she spent the night with Dunmire at an AirBnb rental.
The next morning, on March 6, 2021, she drove Dunmire to the national park and the two walked deep into the woods, where she shot him once in the back of the head, prosecutors said.
Chelsea Perkins reports alleged rape in 2017
Hikers found Dunmire’s body three days later. The FBI investigated the case because the shooting happened on federal property.
Perkins denied knowing about the slaying during a March 2021 search of her home, where they had collected bullet ballistics tying her to the crime scene, the Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Zarzycki said during Tuesday’s hearing.
It would take the FBI a further 9 months before they arrested Perkins on Dec. 9, 2021.
Federal prosecutors stated Perkins and Dunmire had known each other from high school between 2005 and 2009, with the woman alleging Dunmire having sexually assaulted her years later in 2017 in a filed complaint with Virginia Beach police at the time.
At the time of her arrest, Perkins had being pursuing an online adult content creator vocation under the pseudonym, ‘Sabrina Savage.’ Dunmire, at the time of his death was an aspiring musician who grew up in Virginia and had moved to Cleveland.
On May 27, Perkins pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and using and carrying a firearm during a crime of violence on federal property, the US Attorney’s Office of Ohio stated. If the court accepts the plea agreement, Perkins faces between 20 and 25 years in prison.
The plea happened less than a week before she was scheduled for trial, where she faced a mandatory sentence of life in prison plus 10 years if convicted on charges that included first-degree murder. Prosecutors dropped the first-degree murder charge as part of the plea agreement, Cleveland.com reported.
Perkins had previously rejected a plea offer from prosecutors that called for between 27 years and six months in prison and 31 years and two months.
Prior to Perkins’ arrest, the victim’s grieving parents attempted to take justice into their own hands, according to the federal prosecutors.
In November 2021, Tommie Lynn Dunmire and John Nelson McQuillen drove to Washington, DC, with a plan to hunt down and kill their son’s alleged murderer, the dailymail reported.
Dunmire’s mother disguised herself as a UPS delivery driver and knocked on an apartment door she believed belonged to Perkins.
When a woman answered, she opened fire and shot the victim twice in the abdomen.
The woman, however, wasn’t Perkins but rather an innocent bystander who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The parents fled the scene, changing their vehicle’s license plates in a bid to attempt to avoid capture.
But police tracked them down after a high-speed chase that turned fatal.
Tommie Lynn Dunmire ended up taking her own life after being pulled over by police in Florida.
The innocent gunshot victim survived her injuries after receiving emergency medical treatment.
McQuillen was arrested and later pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to assault with intent to kill, which led to a three-year prison sentence.
Perkins is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 9, 2025.
