A man known as "Crackhead Joe" has been sentenced to 50 years in prison without a chance of parole for murdering Keighley
Ann Alyea.
Joseph Mattox, 23, received the "Hard 50" sentence on Friday. In April, a jury convicted Mattox of first-degree
murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated robbery in the slaying of Alyea. Mattox was the last of three men to be tried in the 18-year-old woman's September 2009 kidnapping and killing.
In February, Gerald Scott Calbeck pleaded guilty to
charges of second-degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and aggravated
robbery. The 20-year-old's plea followed the
conviction of Alyea's ex-boyfriend and Mattox's cousin, Dustin Hilt, who was also sentenced
to a "Hard 50."
Prior to her disappearance in the early hours of September 30,
2009, Alyea reportedly confronted Hilt for
sleeping with her stepsister. Her body was
October 5 in a farm field in Cass County, Missouri. Ann Alyea was beaten so severely that her captors thought she was dead ... then they stabbed her.
Authorities say Keighley
Hilt,
Mattox and Calbeck beat Alyea so
severely that they thought she was dead. Then they stuffed her
in the trunk of a car and drove to
rural Cass County to dump her body. But Alyea
started hitting the
trunk and calling for help.
After
hearing the pounding, the men
stopped and asked her if she'd tell on them. She promised not to and
begged them to take her to a hospital. Alyea was stabbed about 30 times.
Mattox's defense attorney argued that he didn't have full mental capacity at
the time of the killing because he'd suffered several head injuries and
was known as "Crackhead Joe" due to excessive drug and alcohol abuse.
Neither prosecutors nor the judge bought it. At Mattox's sentencing, Judge James Franklin Davis told him (via the Star):
"It is my finding that you were up to your eyeballs in the attack on this young lady," the judge said.
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