Pennsylvania man gets life sentence in 2019 death of woman in Lincoln County

A Pennsylvania man was sentenced to life in prison on Friday after a conviction in the 2019 kidnapping and death of a woman whom he lured into traveling with him to Southern Nevada and later tied her to a signpost, taped her mouth and nose and watched her die from asphyxiation.

John Matthew Chapman, 44, was found guilty by a jury in May in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas of one count of kidnapping resulting in death. U.S. District Judge James Mahan presided over the trial and sentenced Chapman to the maximum penalty.

“The defendant violated the victim’s trust by luring her away from her family and friends in Pennsylvania and out into the Nevada desert where he viciously killed her,” said Nevada’s U.S. Attorney Jason Frierson. “This sentence should send a clear message to others that kidnapping and killing another person will result in a substantial prison sentence.”

Based on court documents and evidence presented during Chapman’s eight-day trial, on Nov. 14, 2019, police in Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, conducted a welfare check on the woman at the request of a friend, according to prosecutors.

The friend had not seen the woman for about two months but had seen a man they believed to be her boyfriend, Chapman, entering and leaving her home, prosecutors said.

While searching the woman’s home, “officers found identification cards with Chapman’s name and photograph, the victim’s cellular telephone, multiple zip ties, and a roll of duct tape,” prosecutors said in the release.

Detectives arrested Chapman the following day, and during an interview, he admitted to driving the woman from Bethel Park to Las Vegas and misleading her into believing that the trip was a vacation and that they might buy a residence in Las Vegas, according to prosecutors.

“Chapman, however, had planned to kill the victim before their departure to Nevada,” prosecutors said in the release.

Chapman admitted to investigators that he drove the woman to the desert in Lincoln County and under the pretext of a bondage photo shoot, bound the victim’s hands and feet with plastic zip ties and tied her to a signpost.

“Then he applied duct tape to her mouth and nose and watched her die from asphyxiation,” prosecutors said.

Contact Marvin Clemons at mclemons@reviewjournal.com. Las Vegas Review-Journal reporter Jeff Burbank contributed to this report.