Navy Wife's Murder: Husband Heads To Court In San Diego

SAN DIEGO, CA – A former Navy man accused of fatally stabbing his wife, whose decomposing body was found in San Diego Bay in 2016 after she had been missing for two years, is due to appear in court for a preliminary hearing Thursday.

Matthew Scott Sullivan, 33, is charged with murder in connection with the death of 31-year-old Elizabeth Sullivan. Sullivan is slated to appear in a San Diego courtroom Thursday for a hearing that will determine whether there is enough evidence to proceed to trial on the murder charge.

The defendant was arrested last year at his home in Delaware and extradited to San Diego, where he has been held in lieu of $2 million bail.

San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan said the victim -- a mother of two young children -- was in an abusive relationship with her husband and was in the process of leaving him when she was killed in October 2014.

Stephan alleged that the defendant hid the body somewhere for years until it was discovered in the water near the couple's Liberty Station home on the day movers were at the home. Matthew Sullivan left the Navy and ultimately moved to Delaware where he started a new life and was in a new relationship, prosecutors said.

After the defendant moved out of the Liberty Station home, a knife with the victim's blood on it was found in the attic and blood was located under the carpet, prosecutors said.

The defendant faces 26 years to life in prison if convicted.

• ALSO SEE: Navy Man Convicted Of Manslaughter For Fatal Bridge Crash

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