Matthew Lewinski: Man Gets Life in Prison for 2020 Murder of Courtney Winters After Her Remains Were Hidden for Seven Months

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A Clinton Township man will spend the rest of his life in prison for the murder of his former girlfriend, a crime that remained hidden for more than seven months.

Matthew Lewinski, 42, received a mandatory sentence of life without parole on July 14, 2026. 

Macomb County Circuit Court Judge Rachel Rancilio handed down the punishment just days after a jury found him guilty of first-degree premeditated murder. 

He was also convicted of disinterment and mutilation of a dead body, and concealing the death of an individual.

Courtney "Jerri" Winters

According to police reports, the chain of events began in December 2020 when 52-year-old Courtney "Jerri" Winters showed up unexpectedly at Lewinski's condominium near Hayes Road and 17 Mile Road. 

The couple had broken up about a month earlier, and when Winters arrived she told Lewinski she had terminated a pregnancy. 

Lewinski then went into the kitchen to prepare tea, and while he was out of the room, she took off her clothes and sat naked in a recliner, as per Macomb Daily

When he got back, a verbal fight soon erupted, and according Lewinski, the argument turned physical. 

He told detectives the two slapped each other, Winters bit him, and she "egged" him on before he wrapped one hand around her throat and choked her to death.

After Winters died, Lewinski first placed her body in a bathtub inside the home, then he later moved it to the basement and wrapped it in a tarp. 

According to Court documents, he then gradually dismembered her over the following months in an effort to dispose of the evidence and conceal the death. 

The crime went undiscovered until July 2021, when Lewinski was spotted wandering his condo complex in his underwear, mumbling and appearing confused. 

When a family member entered his basement, they found the badly decomposed and partially dismembered remains, leading to a 911 call.

Lewinski later gave a bedside confession to police while he was hospitalized after the discovery. 

A trial court judge initially threw the confession out after the defense argued he should have been read his Miranda rights. 

However, the Michigan Court of Appeals later reinstated it, allowing prosecutors to present his own account to the jury.






At trial, defense attorney Elisha Oakes argued that Lewinski had "snapped" in response to months of what she described as intimate partner violence. 

A police officer told the court that Lewinski had reported in 2020 that Winters threatened to come to his house with a gun and warned him to change his locks. 

Oakes also pointed out that Winters had a criminal record, used multiple aliases, and had six Social Security numbers and ten dates of birth. 

She was estranged from her own family, who did not report her missing during all the months her body was hidden.

An expert on intimate partner violence testified that male victims are more common than people think and may struggle with impulse control. 

However, she could not say whether Lewinski himself was an abuse victim and acknowledged she was not a therapist.

However, assistant Prosecutor Carmen DeFranco pushed back firmly against that line of defense. 

"We just watched Jerri Winters put on trial," he said. "Because she had an arrest record, she should've been killed. Because her family had spoken to her for a few months, kill her. Be gone with her." 

He reminded jurors that Lewinski had not interacted with his own family for years and relatives had to sneak into his home to collect their possessions. 

"If we use the defense's logic, are we to assume Matthew must've been a horrible person, too?" DeFranco added. 

He insisted that none of the defense arguments changed the elements of the crime. "There is absolutely no impulse," he said. "This is conscious thought, five minutes of conscious thought to squeeze the life out of someone. It wasn't a pull-out-a-gun and shooting in two seconds."

DeFranco also pointed at Medical testimony at trial which established that Winters would have lost consciousness in roughly 30 seconds an that it would have taken at least five minutes of continuous pressure to cause her death.

He argued that the five-minute window when the killing happened, was not impulsive. "This is not a spur-of-the-moment thing," he told the jury. "He has more than a moment. He has five minutes. Every moment he keeps his hand on her throat, every moment he squeezes that life out of her is another choice to continue doing it." 

DeFranco also reminded jurors that Lewinski admitted he cried while choking her. "He's crying, as he says, because he knows what he's doing but is continuing to do it," DeFranco said. "He knows it's wrong, but and he's like, 'Ah, just crying over it but here we go, I'll take her life anyway.'"

After the closing arguments, the jury deliberated for several hours over two days before they convicted Lewinski on all charges, as per PEOPLE.

With the life sentence now imposed, he will remain in state prison with no possibility of release.

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