JATHAN and JAYLON HERSHMAN - 3 and 1 yo (2010) - Manchester (S of Fort Bragg) CA

Manchester Slayings Calculated, Say Police

Police: Army Sergeant Confesses To Killing Woman, Her Sons

POSTED: 5:19 am CDT September 23, 2010
UPDATED: 8:00 pm CDT September 23, 2010
Three people were found dead in a Manchester home Wednesday night. Images: Family Found Dead In Manchester Home
The Manchester Police Department received information at about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday that a 26-year-old mother and her sons, ages 1 and 3, were missing. When police arrived at the family's Liberty Court home, they found the three bodies individually wrapped in trash bags in a closet."Gruesome is the word," said Manchester investigator Ray Stewart. "It's the worst one I've seen, and I've been here 30 years.Officials arrested Sgt. 1st Class Matthew Victor Perkins, 30, about 10 miles from the home at the Jameson Inn in Tullahoma shortly before midnight in connection with the case. They contacted him by phone, talked him out of his room and arrested him. He has been charged with murder."We have interviewed him, and he has told us a lot," said Stewart.Police identified the victims as Stephanie, Jathan and Jaylon Hershman. Officers said they believed they'd been killed on Sunday. Someone called police Wednesday to report them missing.Perkins is in Franklin County Jail on $6 million bond and has confessed to the killings, police said. They said he's been calm and cooperative."(He) didn’t offer any kind of remorse," Stewart said.Police said the killings were calculated."He took a lot of time doing what he was doing," said Stewart.Police haven't said how the family was killed or given a motive for the slayings. He doesn't have a criminal history in Manchester, but police said he has a prior DUI charge and a charge for having a weapon.Police said Perkins had known the family for three or four months, police said. The children's father, Jeremy Hershman, is currently incarcerated in the Coffee County Jail on drug charges, Manchester Police Chief Ross Simmons said. Police said he is very distraught.Police said Hershman, who was from Michigan but went to Coffee County High School and worked in Tullahoma, met Perkins while her husband was incarcerated and that the two were a couple. Neighbors said the two shared a loving relationship."I just know she was a good person, and she didn't deserve for this to happen," said Tanya Brown, Hershman's friend. "So it's very sad.""It makes me sick to my stomach," said neighbor Cherie Townsend. "It's so sad. They didn't have to die."A U.S. Army representative said Perkins had been deployed twice: to Afghanistan from April 2004-Oct. 2005 and to Iraq Aug. 2006-Oct. 2007. He had been working as an Army recruiter in Tullahoma since 2008."The U.S. Army is disturbed that one of our soldiers has allegedly committed such a crime," the representative said. "Our first thoughts are with the family of the victims. We will be cooperating with civilian authorities."Investigator Billy Butler said Perkins is separated from his wife of 10 years, Jennifer Perkins. She was at the police station for questioning on Thursday morning, but declined to be interviewed.Butler said the couple have two children and that Jennifer Perkins described her husband as a good father.Clint Orr, who leased a house to the Perkins couple for two years until May, said they had been good tenants."He seemed like a pleasant person," Orr said. "I didn't see anything like what I heard today."Orr said Perkins looked a little intimidating "but he didn't make you feel like he was."Mark Shannon lives across the street from the Hershmans. He said he usually saw Stephanie Hershman on her porch smoking when he was taking his children to school. Some mornings Perkins was there, too."He smiled and waved," Shannon said. "He’d be outside playing with the kids, pushing them on a bike. He seemed like a really nice man."But he hadn't seen anyone at the house the past couple of days. It was normally busy, with people going in and out, he said.He said Stephanie Hershman was nice."We'd see her and her kids out playing and we'd wave back and forth," he said.Of the crime, he said, "It's unnerving, to say the least."Manchester is a town of 10,000 about 65 miles southeast of Nashville. The Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival is held on a farm in Manchester each year.
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• Images: Family Found Dead In Manchester Home
  

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Perkins to undergo mental testing

3/29/2011

Accused murderer Matthew Perkins was ordered to undergo mental evaluation Wednesday by Coffee County Circuit Court Judge Craig Johnson.

Perkins, charged with the murders of Stephanie Hershman and her two young sons last September at their home in Manchester, will be evaluated at a state mental facility.

Perkins entered a plea of not guilty on the charges.

Coffee County Circuit Court Judge Craig Johnson issued an order after Perkins’ attorney Campbell Smoot asked that a determination be made on two questions. The mental experts will determine if Perkins was sane at the time of the triple murder and if he is competent at this time to proceed with his case and assist in his defense.

The bodies of the mother and children were found by police stuffed ina garbage bags in a closet of their Liberty Court home with their throats cut.

Perkins was arrested Sept. 22, 2010, at a Tullahoma motel by Coffee County Sheriff Steve Graves and investigator Danny Ferrell. After a lengthy discussion with officers, Perkins finally surrendered to Tullahoma police investigator Jason Kennedy.

After Wednesday’s hearing, Perkins was returned to his jail cell in the Franklin County Jail where he is being held under $6 million bond.

He is scheduled to return to court on May 18 for further motions in the case.

"A case of this nature will not be resolved quickly," Coffee County District Attorney Mickey Layne said Thursday.

Matthew Perkins guilty of three counts of murder; sentenced to life in prison without parole


Posted on Monday, July 30, 2012 at 11:53 am

File
photo by Josh Peterson - Matthew Victor Perkins is pictured being led
into the Coffee County Jail the night he killed Stephanie Hershman and
her two young children. Perkins plead guilty to all three counts of
first-degree murder and will serve life in prison without parole.
(Editor’s note: The following story contains graphic details that may not be suitable for all readers.)

A former Army recruiter has been sentenced to three life sentences
without the possibility of parole for the murder of Manchester mother
and her two young sons in September 2010.

Matthew V. Perkins pleaded guilty Monday to murdering Stephanie
Hershman, 27, and her sons, 3-year-old Jathan and 23 month-old Jaylon,
at their home off Skinner Flat Road in Manchester.

Assistant District Attorney Ken Shelton outlined the state’s case
against Perkins Monday as members of the Hershman family sat in the
courtroom and listened.

According to Shelton, members of the Hershman family filed a missing
person report with the Manchester Police Department concerning Stephanie
and her two children.

As police searched for them, Coffee County Sheriff’s Investigator
Chad Partin received information from a Tullahoma resident that Perkins
had informed him that he (Perkins) had killed his girlfriend and her two
children and wrapped their bodies in a garbage bag.

File
photo - Pictured are Stephanie Hershman and her two sons, Jathan
(right) and Jaylon. The three were murdered in their home in September
of 2010 by Matthew Perkins.

“He also told Investigator Partin that Matthew Perkins told him that
he had sprinkled powder over and around the bodies and placed them in a
closet in the Hershman home,” Shelton outlined to the court.

Investigator Partin notified Manchester police of the information.
Partin, along with sheriff’s investigators and the Manchester Police
Department, went to the residence and met Stephanie Hershman’s former
father-in-law and grandfather of the children, according to court
documents.

“Investigator Partin then entered the residence and proceeded to the
master bedroom and discovered in the closet three bodies wrapped in
plastic with white power covering the plastic and the bodies,” Shelton
explained to the court.

Perkins was later discovered at the Jameson Inn in Tullahoma, and,
after talking for approximately 45 minutes with Tullahoma Investigator
Jason Kennedy, he surrendered on Sept. 22, 2010.

Shelton told the court that Perkins told investigators that he “first
killed Stephanie by cutting her throat. He then gave details that he
beat Jaylon Hershman to where his eyes began swelling shut. Mr. Perkins
also stated that he cut slits in Jaylon’s eyes because of swelling. He
also stated that he took Jaylon to bedroom and slit his throat, killing
him.”

According to the prosecutor, Perkins told of telling Jathan to run
from the house, and that the child ran out of the back door and across
the backyard.

“Mr. Perkins stated that he went after Jathan and caught him and slit
his throat and threw the body into the field behind the house. He later
retrieved the body and took it back into the house,” the prosecutor
told the court.

According to details provided to the court by Shelton, autopsies
revealed each of the Hershmans had multiple injuries, including multiple
knife wounds. All three suffered injury to their neck area and all
three suffered injury to the jugular veins.

Perkins, who celebrated his 32^nd birthday Monday, told Coffee County Circuit Court Judge Craig Johnson that he accepted the plea agreement.

Then through his attorney Campbell Smoot, Perkins expressed his “sorrow to the Hershman family for the murder.”

Tina Tirmue, Stephanie Hershman’s aunt, stated outside the courtroom that the apology was “empty.”

Shelton stated that the plea agreement was reached with the approval of the Hershman family.

After court proceedings, Perkins was led from the courtroom to a cell
in the Coffee County Jail. He was scheduled to be transferred Tuesday
to the Tennessee Department of Corrections, where he will serve his
sentence.
http://www.manchestertimes.com/?p=3824

I wish I hadn't read this. This plea agreement should never have been accepted. This POS needs to be dead. I hope he is tortured to death in prison.

How sad.