Man faces drug, weapon charges while awaiting murder trial

In the nearly five years he has been behind bars awaiting his murder trial, Joshua L. Matthews hasn't exactly stayed out of trouble.

Authorities accuse him of battering a deputy, damaging a jail sprinkler and, in the latest incident, getting caught with 12 marijuana cigarettes and homemade weapons and razors.

On Thursday, a DuPage County grand jury officially indicted Matthews on seven counts of unlawful possession of contraband in a penal institution for the drugs, hidden in his groin area, as well as the weapons.

If convicted, he may face at least an additional four to 15 years in prison.

Matthews, 24, who is acting has his own lawyer despite never having stepped foot in a law school, is accused of fatally shooting 17-year-old Sade Glover Oct. 9, 2004, in Warrenville. Her mother, Barbara Hudson, was the one who found her only child slain outside their townhouse on Winchester Circle.

Less than two weeks earlier, Matthews was arrested on battery charges after Glover accused him of punching her during a July 2 dispute in her garage. After posting bond, prosecutors allege, Matthews ambushed Glover to keep her from testifying against him since he still was on parole for beating up a cabdriver and robbing a woman.

Prosecutors lack the murder weapon in Glover's homicide, but Matthews confessed in a Sheriff officials said they are investigating how the drugs made it into the secured jail, but they noted a high court ruling that bars such penal institutions from conducting strip-searches without probable cause.

Matthews pleaded innocent to all the allegations, including the recent drug/weapons charges. Last month, he told Circuit Judge Perry Thompson he is a model inmate who simply was trying to clean up the jail contraband to later turn over to deputies.

But, in a recent court filing, prosecutor Paul Marchese wrote: "The defendant claimed during an interview that he bragged that he 'ran the (expletive)' in the jail. He advised that at one point he had 50 (marijuana) cigarettes. He admitted to selling these to inmates. He claimed to know everything in the jail and told (deputies) he previously provided shanks and razors in the jail to a deputy with hopes of obtaining burritos, but never obtained them."

Glover worked at the Warrenville Walgreens and attended College of DuPage. Her family said she planned to transfer to Northern Illinois University to become a genetic scientist.

Matthews is due in court again June 18. A trial date has not been set, but Judge Thompson told both sides to be ready by late August.