Trial begins for neighbor accused of killing Georgia firefighter and wife

MARIETTA, Ga. (CN) — Just 73 days after Justin Hicks, a Cherokee County firefighter, and his wife Amber moved into their Acworth-area home in Georgia, they were murdered in it, seemingly without motive, with their 2-year-old son present.

In the trial for 2021 murders that kicked off Monday, prosecutors can only point to a strange fascination 26-year-old Matthew Lanz appeared to have with the family’s house, which he has been accused of harassing along with his brother before the slain family ever even lived there.

The 31-year-olds’ toddler was in the house but was found unharmed the following day. Timothy Hicks, Justin Hick’s father, testified Monday that he found the boy, who is now 6 years old, with his pajamas covered in blood and clutching his father’s reading glasses.

“I saw they weren’t okay," Timothy Hicks tearfully recalled of looking through the back window of the home that had been smashed in before calling 911.

“I cannot think of one person that would be their enemy," he added.

Lanz, who sat in the courtroom expressionless, with his head down and in a yellow jail jumpsuit, is accused of fatally shooting the couple on November 18, 2021.

His defense attorney, Jimmy Berry, said Lanz “believes he has been set up by either the FBI, CIA or some government agency.”

“We believe and are confident that the court after hearing all the evidence will make an enlightened and fair judgment,” Berry added.

In addition to malice murder, Lanz faces, among others, a charge of cruelty to the couple’s child for causing “cruel and excessive physical and mental pain” by leaving him “alone and unsupervised for approximately 12 hours during which Jacob Hicks was unable to feed himself, change his diaper or get the attention of his parents.”

Cobb County Police Sargeant Mark Gasque testified that the blood on the child’s pajamas was most likely from him crawling on his deceased parents and wrapping his arms around them.

Lanz is also charged with evidence tampering and is accused of removing shell casings from the murder scene in an attempt to cover up the crime, according to prosecutors.

Gasque testified that there were at least five bullets fired, but only three casings were recovered and matched by ballistics to Lanz’s ZEV OZ-9mm pistol.

Berry argued this doesn’t mean they were hidden by Lanz and suggested the couple’s child could have flushed the missing casings down the toilet.

Prosecutors presented surveillance footage showing Lanz arrive at his parents’ house — which shares a property line with the Hicks’ home — and later walking around the Hicks property multiple times on the night of the murders.

“You will not hear a specific motive in this case,” Senior Cobb County Assistant District Attorney, Jared Horowitz, told the judge during his opening statements. Lanz waived his right to a jury trial, placing Brown in charge of determining his fate.

A day after the Hicks’ were killed, Lanz was arrested after breaking into a different home and stabbing the responding Sandy Springs officer in the back of the neck multiple times.

After Lanz’s arrest, his father Scott Lanz told officers he “was not convinced” when his son denied killing anyone to him.

Prosecutors said Matthew Lanz was a student at the University of Georgia, who had a troubled brother with ties to the Hicks’ neighboring home.

Months before the Hicks family moved in, Lanz’s brother Austin Lanz was caught on video breaking into the house after repeatedly leaving pornographic material in the mailbox, according to police records.

In April 2021, officers arrested Austin Lanz, but a month later he was granted bond and ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation, despite being accused of assaulting two Cobb County police officers while in jail.

A few months later, Austin Lanz drove to Washington, D.C., where his father worked, and stabbed a Pentagon officer to death in an unprovoked attack before fatally shooting himself with the officer’s gun.

The trial has been delayed for years as attorneys had argued over whether Lanz was competent to stand trial. Last month, Cobb County Superior Court Judge Sonja Brown ruled it could go forward, arguing that interviews showed Lanz “appeared to have the capacity to make rational decisions” and that he “did not exhibit paranoia” in his interactions with his lawyers and “displayed no active psychosis or delusions affecting the proceedings.”

The judge also cited multiple doctors who testified Lanz does not have a mental health diagnosis or illness.

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