Missing, Then Murdered: The Tragic Disappearance of Elizabeth Sullivan

LIBERTY STATION, SAN DIEGO – SUNSET – OCTOBER 13, 2014

Warm California light spills over the quiet streets. Children play in the distance. Joggers pass by, unaware that somewhere in one of these homes, a life is about to be taken.

“Elizabeth Sullivan didn’t plan on dying that night. She planned on leaving.”

She was 31. A mother of two. Brilliant, magnetic, and complex. A woman trapped in the final days of a marriage already buried under broken trust, isolation, and whispered threats.

THE SULLIVAN HOUSE – LIVING ROOM – NIGHT

Elizabeth and Matthew Sullivan, her Navy husband, sit on opposite sides of a cold room. Silence. Their marriage had once been filled with hope, but now only sharp words and resentment remained.

“They had been through deployments, relocations, and the quiet erosion of intimacy. But this time, something snapped.”

Elizabeth had started seeing someone else—a man she met on Tinder. She was using prescription drugs. She was planning to leave. And Matthew knew it.

• – Elizabeth pulls $1,000 from their joint account and moves it into her own.
• – She texts a friend, hinting at big changes.
• – She’s seen at a park days before her disappearance, disoriented, possibly drugged.
• – Police had been to the house multiple times for domestic disputes.
• – The tension in her life had reached a boiling point.

LIBERTY STATION – DAYS LATER

Elizabeth vanishes without a trace.

Her car is still parked outside. Her phone is silent. Her suitcase is gone. Her daughters are left behind.

“People don’t just disappear. Not like this. Not Elizabeth.”

POLICE STATION – DETECTIVE’S OFFICE – WEEKS LATER

The San Diego Police Department begins piecing things together. But the case quickly runs cold.

There are no leads. No body. No signs of struggle.

Meanwhile, Matthew is seen with a new girlfriend—living in the same home Elizabeth disappeared from.

“It looked like he moved on a little too quickly. Like he wasn’t expecting her to ever come back.”

TWO YEARS LATER

SAN DIEGO BAY – EARLY MORNING

A body floats near the water’s edge.

It’s Elizabeth.

The autopsy reveals sharp force trauma. She had been murdered. Her body hidden, decomposed, but not forgotten.

“She had been there the whole time. Just yards from the home where she vanished.”

SULLIVAN HOUSE – ATTIC – POLICE SEARCH

Detectives find a military-grade knife hidden in the attic. It has traces of Elizabeth’s blood.

Matthew’s alibi unravels.

The forensic evidence and timeline point in only one direction.

COURTROOM – TRIAL OF MATTHEW SULLIVAN

In 2018, Matthew is arrested and charged with second-degree murder.

The prosecution paints a vivid portrait:

– A failing marriage.

– A man afraid of divorce and losing control.

– A motive built on jealousy and rage.

The defense tries to suggest Elizabeth disappeared on her own. That she had a habit of leaving. That maybe she came to harm after she left.

But the jury isn’t convinced.

“The truth was heavier than excuses. And in the end, justice—delayed though it was—arrived.”

Matthew Sullivan is sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. He won’t be eligible for parole until 2028.

Elizabeth’s daughters are growing up without their mother. Her friends still mourn the vibrant, complicated, deeply human woman they loved.

This wasn’t just another domestic homicide.

“It was a story about a woman trying to leave, and a man who couldn’t let her go. And the silence that swallowed her… for far too long.”

In a world where true crime becomes content, Elizabeth Sullivan's story is a reminder that behind every headline is a human life—messy, real, and irreversibly changed.

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