Malta man appeals murder convictions, life sentence for killing Mt. Morris woman, unborn baby

OREGON – A Malta man is appealing his convictions and subsequent life-in-prison sentences for murdering a Mt. Morris woman and their unborn son in 2020.

Matthew Plote, 36, asked the appellate court in an appeal filed Tuesday to reverse his convictions and sentences, acquit him of all charges or remand the matter back to Ogle County for a new trial.

The notice of appeal filed Tuesday by Plote’s trial attorneys Liam Dixon and John Kopp does not lay out his arguments why the convictions and sentences should overturned.

An Ogle County jury found Plote guilty of killing Melissa Lamesch, 27, on Nov. 25, 2020, just one day before Thanksgiving and two days before their baby was to be born.

Jurors deliberated for two hours before finding Plote guilty of four counts of first-degree murder, three counts of intentional homicide of an unborn child and one count each of residential arson, aggravated domestic battery and concealment of a homicidal death.

Calling it a “brutal crime,” Ogle County Judge John “Ben” Roe sentenced Plote on June 27 to life in prison after hearing victim impact statements from Lamesch’s mother, father and sister, and arguments from attorneys.

Roe said he considered all arguments and evidence, and in addition to the life sentence, sentenced Plote to 60 years in prison for the death of the baby and 15 years in prison for setting the Lamesch home on fire in an attempt to conceal the deaths. The sentences will be served concurrently.

Roe said the sentences were appropriate, despite Plote’s lack of criminal history, when considering Lamesch was “fighting for her life and her baby boy’s life” for 4 to 6 minutes as she was strangled to death.

Court documents also show that Plote is now indigent and asked for an appellate defender be appointed as his appeal proceeds through the court system.

Mt. Morris firefighters testified they were called to the Lamesch home on South Hannah Avenue about 4:30 p.m. Nov. 25, 2020, and forced their way into the home, where they found Lamesch laying on the kitchen floor not breathing and covered with soot and debris.

When she was dragged from the burning home and placed into an ambulance, there was no electrical activity in her heart, and she was pronounced dead at 4:54 p.m., firefighters said.

During the trial, detectives accused Plote, a Carol Stream paramedic, of strangling Lamesch because he didn’t want the birth of his son to interfere with his “carefree playboy lifestyle.”

In an initial police interview on Nov. 25, 2020, Plote told detectives that Lamesch had wanted him to be involved with the baby but he initially “wasn’t on board,” but went to her home to “work things out.”

Plote told police he stayed “about an hour” at Lamesch’s home and they talked at the kitchen table before moving to the couch to have what he described as consensual sex. He said he then left the home by walking out the front door.

He chose not to take the stand during the jury trial.

Cassie Baal, Lamesch’s older sister, told jurors that she was on the phone with her sister when Plote appeared at the family’s childhood home the day she died.

“She said she would make the conversation quick and would call me right back,” Baal testified.

Prosecutors argued that Lamesch never called Baal back because Plote had killed her and then set the home on fire.

Assistant State’s Attorney Heather Kruse argued that Plote intentionally put an entire neighborhood at risk when he set the home on fire after killing Lamesch.

She said the crimes were especially “sick” because Plote had been employed in a profession that was supposed to help people.

Kruse argued for a life sentence and said evidence at the trial indicated Lamesch had died while fighting for her life and her baby’s.

A forensic scientist with the Illinois State Police Forensic Lab in Rockford testified that Plote’s DNA was found in fingernail scrapings taken from Lamesch’s right and left hands. He also said semen found in Lamesch’s vagina also fit Plote’s profile as did cheek swabs taken from the dead baby.

Forensic pathologists, Dr. Mark Peters and Dr. Amanda Youmans, told jurors that Lamesch was strangled before firefighters recovered her from her burning home.

They testified that abrasions on Lamesch’s face and scalp and bruises on her legs and thighs all occurred before she died and no elevated levels of carbon monoxide were found in Lamesch’s blood. Her “full-term male fetus” had no abnormalities. Lamesch also had minimal thermal wounds, they testified.

Youmans said Lamesch’s neck, face, eyes and larynx all showed signs of strangulation. Hemorrhages in the muscles in her neck were also caused by pressure being applied to that area, and when she cleaned soot and debris from Lamesch’s body, she discovered more injuries she said were consistent with “blunt force.”

Those injuries, Youmans said, were found on Lamesch’s forehead, head and temple and were consistent with “multiple blows to her head.”

“Her injuries were consistent with her fighting back,” Kruse said during the June 27 sentencing hearing. “The terror she must have felt while she was fighting for her life and her baby’s life, ... this defendant should never be free again. That is a just sentence for this man’s action in wiping out these two lives.”

At the sentencing hearing, Baal said her sister had “joy in her voice” before “evil” arrived at her door. She said she is continually “swimming in grief” and regrets things she might have said during the phone call.

Lamesch’s mother, Deanna, of Malta, said she and her family lived in fear as the investigation into the death took 469 days before Plote was charged. She said she and her family had waited 1,213 days for a guilty verdict and 1,310 days for the sentence.

Dixon said Plote had spent his entire career helping people as a paramedic and had also been an Eagle Scout. He asked the court to consider Plote’s “zero criminal history” before rendering a decision.

When asked by Roe if he wanted to make a statement before the sentence was given, Plote softly said, “I share the pain and loss of Melissa and Barrett.”

Lamesch was a 2011 graduate of Oregon High School and an emergency medical technician at Trace Ambulance Service in Tinley Park. She moved back into the family home in October 2020 and was scheduled to have her labor induced Nov. 27, 2020.