Jury hears confession in '04 Warrenville murder

A DuPage County jury Thursday saw the videotaped confession of a man charged with murdering a 17-year-old college student six years ago in Warrenville.

In the video, Joshua Matthews, then 19, tells investigators he wants to “be a man” and take responsibility for fatally shooting Sade Glover on Oct. 9, 2004.

But he says the killing “wasn't supposed to happen.”

“I don't know how many times I shot her,” Matthews says, “but I didn't stop until it (the gun) was empty.”

“She just kept screaming, and I was like, ‘I'm sorry, I'm sorry.' It happened so fast, it seemed like I blinked, and when I opened my eyes again, the gun was in my hand and she was on the ground,” he says.

Later on in the video, Matthews, of Maywood, apologizes repeatedly and thanks investigators for allowing him to come clean.

“I'm just going to be a man and step up and say that's what I did,” he says. “I want to apologize to Sade and her family. I'm sorry I took her from you. I was drunk and I was high. I wasn't thinking.”

But Matthews, 25, who is acting as his own attorney, took a different tone in court Thursday as he cross-examined Jeff Kendall, a former prosecutor who recorded his confession four days after Glover's death. At the time, Matthews refused to sign a waiver of his rights, but said on camera he was speaking voluntarily.

Matthews tried to establish that authorities conspired to trick him into admitting to the murder, but Kendall flatly denied it.

“You were asking to speak to law enforcement,” Kendall told the defendant.

Assistant State's Attorneys Bernard Murray and Steven Knight said Glover was shot five times as she exited a car in an alley behind her mother's home on Winchester Circle in Warrenville.

They said the killing was an act of revenge after Glover pressed charges against the defendant, a recently paroled felon, for allegedly punching her in the face months earlier.

Glover was a recent graduate of Wheaton Warrenville South High School who had been attending classes at College of DuPage. Authorities said Matthews met the victim in middle school but their friendship deteriorated after the defendant asked her to hold drugs for him.

The trial resumes Friday.