A Michigan man will spend the rest of his life behind bars for violently murdering a Detroit-area radio host in front of his terrified girlfriend, assaulting their two kids and then attempting to overdose on heroin.
Macomb County Circuit Court Judge James Biernat called Arthur Williamson the “embodiment of evil” during a sentencing in Mount Clemens on Thursday, according to The Detroit News.
“Try to commit suicide before you do any of this,” Biernat said of Williamson’s failed overdose. “Take yourself out so you don’t kill people and try to rape 5-year-olds.”
Williamson killed Matthews, the overnight anchor at Detroit radio station WWJ-AM for nearly seven years, in a violent attack inside the newsman’s home on Sept. 23, 2022. Authorities have said he was a friend of Matthews’ girlfriend, Nichole Guertin, who shared a 10-year-old son and 5-year-old daughter with the anchor.
Guertin took the stand during the trial and told the court she considered Williamson her best friend at the time. She went on to recall how she let Williamson inside their home around 4 a.m., while Matthews was at work. They were both doing drugs together when Williamson told her he needed a hammer to fix his hubcap.
But when he returned, he pulled out a knife and told Guertin he wanted to “role play.” When she refused, Guertin claimed that he cut her throat with the knife and bound her wrists and ankles with zip ties.
“He said, ‘When Jim gets home, I’m going to kill him,’” Guertin testified, according to courtroom footage by Detroit Fox affiliate WJBK. “He said if I tried to warn [Jim] in any way, he’d kill the kids.”
Guertin said she then heard the radio host return home, calling out a warning to him. She said she could only watch as Matthews tried to run for the bedroom while Williamson kept “hitting him and stabbing him” with the knife and hammer.
Guertin also suffered several stab wounds and Williamson sexually assaulted her 5-year-old daughter during the night of violence.
Police showed up at the house the next day, after the young girl got her hands on scissors and helped free her mother. The two then managed to flee.
Authorities later discovered Guertin and Matthews’ 10-year-old son tied up in a closet inside the home with trauma to his head. He too had been struck with the hammer.
Police meanwhile found Williamson on the floor of the basement suffering from an apparent overdose he would ultimately survive. He pleaded no contest in April to first-degree murder, assault with intent to murder and unlawful imprisonment. A no-contest plea is not an admission of guilt but is used as such at sentencing.