University of Georgia student found guilty of murdering couple inside their home

MARIETTA, Ga. (CN) — Four years after a Georgia couple was mysteriously murdered in their home while their two-year-old was in bed, their neighbor Matthew Lanz was found guilty Thursday by a Cobb County judge.

The 26-year-old was found guilty of malice murder for the fatal shootings of Justin Hicks, a Cherokee County firefighter, and his wife, Amber, inside their home they had just moved into 73 days prior. He declined to testify in his defense and faces life in prison, with his sentencing scheduled for Friday.

“That was the Hickses’ home sweet home. This defendant shattered those dreams and little Jacob’s world forever,” Senior Assistant District Attorney Stephanie Green said during closing arguments.

During the last day of trial, prosecutors shared his online search history in the weeks leading up to his neighbor’s deaths on Nov. 17, 2021. It included searches for “facts about blood,” “ballistics calculators for long range shooting,” “what would getting shot by a .308 be like?” and “do heads really explode as portrayed in Pulp Fiction?”

Video evidence showed Lanz’s vehicle arriving at the victims’ neighborhood, and he is seen walking around the home on the night of the murders before returning to his own residence.

Lanz was convicted of multiple other charges, including 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 he “was unable to feed himself, change his diaper or get the attention of his parents.”

The 31-year-olds’ toddler was in the house during the killings but was found unharmed the following day, with his pajamas covered in his deceased parents’ blood.

“Jacob cuddled with his dead parents,” Green told the court. “Desperately trying to get his parents to acknowledge him.”

Sitting with his head down, handcuffed and expressionless, Lanz was also found guilty of tampering with evidence as police weren’t able to recover all of the shell casings from the crime scene.

Cobb County Police Sergeant Mark Gasque testified that there were at least five bullets fired, with three casings recovered and matched by ballistics to Lanz’s ZEV OZ-9mm pistol.

Lanz’s defense attorney, Jimmy Berry, said during closing arguments that the child could’ve picked up the missing shell casings and flushed them down the toilet.

He was also convicted of home invasion for breaking into the back window of the home. However, prosecutors weren’t able to pinpoint a specific motive for why the University of Georgia student decided to drive hours back to his hometown and target the Hickses.

Lead Detective Zachary Stannard testified that no valuables were taken from the home, and there was no evidence of attempted burglary or anything being rummaged through or taken.

Prosecutors could only point to Lanz’s brother, Austin, who was arrested for breaking into the same house after repeatedly leaving pornographic materials in the mailbox, months before the Hicks family moved in.

Austin Lanz was eventually released on bond and, in August 2021, 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 day after the Hickses were killed, Matthew Lanz was arrested after breaking into a different home and stabbing the responding Sandy Springs officer in the back of the neck multiple times. Lanz was shot in the neck by other responding officers during the incident, for which he will be tried separately.

The trial was delayed for years as attorneys argued over whether Lanz was competent to stand trial.

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

Prosecutors showed video footage of Lanz being interrogated by police after his arrest, during which he said he had “blackouts” and didn’t realize he was not at his own home.

During a hearing in October, a forensic psychologist testified that he suffered from schizophrenia, but Cobb County Superior Court Judge Sonja Brown ultimately ruled 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.”

Lanz waived his right to a jury trial, placing Brown in charge of determining his fate.

His parents did not testify during the trial, nor were they present in the courtroom, but they were shown in interrogation interview footage presented by prosecutors complying with police in their investigation and handing over Lanz’s gun they took from him.

Family members and friends of the Hickses clapped and cried with relief as the judge read the verdict.

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