ELYRIA, Ohio — A man who was serving time in jail for attacking a woman in 2008 has now been charged with aggravated murder for her death years later.
According to the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office, Matthew Plas, who was 25 on May 6, 2008, attacked Shawn Stevens in the Carlisle Reservation.
Stevens was attacked, beaten, sexually assaulted and stuffed in the back of a car, according to prosecutors. She initially survived the attack but was left paralyzed from the waist down.
In 2009, Plas pled guilty to his role in the attack and was sentenced to 33 years. After years of fighting to survive, Stevens died in 2019.
According to doctors, she died as a result of the attack in 2008. Plas has now been indicted for aggravated murder for his alleged role in her death.
In 2009, the Lorain County Prosecutor's Office did not allow Plas to take a plea bargain, and that's how the case is able to be opened back up in 2024. The new, more severe charge brings Stevens' family some more closure.
"She was just walking through the park to pick mushrooms and look at flowers, and he walked past her and said, isn't it a beautiful day? And she went to turn around and that's when he shot her," said Carol Shaffer, Stevens' daughter.
Shaffer said it is hard for her and her sisters to relive the nightmare their mother endured. Stevens was paralyzed after the attack and lived in excruciating pain until her passing in 2019.
"For 12 years, he put her on death row that's how I see it," said Shaffer.
"In January of 2020, Lorain County coroner Frank Miller ruled that Shawn Stevens died of complications proximately caused by the original gunshot wound to her spine," said J.D. Tomlinson, Prosecutor of Lorain County.
Tomlinson said Stevens' case went overlooked for years.
"Even after I was elected, though I was unaware of it, the Shawn Stevens matter stalled again," said Tomlinson.
In late 2023, Stevens' family pleaded again for a breakthrough.
"I do want the family to know that I was not aware of it, and had I been, it would have been immediate," said Tomlinson.
Tomlinson promised the family that although justice was delayed, it wouldn't be denied.
"33 years is not enough, especially because she passed with a wound that's related to the original gunshot wound to the spine," said Tomlinson.
Steven's family has new hope that Plas won't be able to commit a crime like this again.
"He took away a grandma to the children. She would have taken them to the zoo all the time and to the duckpond, she would have babysat all the time, but she wasn't able to. He took everything from her and from us," said Shaffer.
Plas has a lengthy criminal history, beginning in 2003 with a felony drug possession arrest. In 2006, Plas was arrested for domestic violence and driving under suspension. And months before the attack on Shawn Stevens, Plas was arrested for Grand Theft Motor Vehicle.
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