Former boyfriend charged in homicide
Texts show Rogers worried about breakup
Emily Rogers knew it was not going to be easy to break up with her boyfriend, Nicholas Matzen, on April 27.
Matzen, who is also the father of Rogers’ child, had spent the previous 10 days in jail in connection with an unrelated misdemeanor hit-and-run case. Rogers knew he was about to be released, so she texted several friends about her plans.
“I can tell it’s gonna be a (expletive) day,” she wrote that morning.
Almost two hours later, after telling her friends Matzen showed up at her home on the 2500 block of West Becher Street, she informed them she ended the relationship.
When one of them asked if she was OK, Rogers replied ominously. “Not exactly,” Rogers wrote.
Her friend asked what happened. “I’ll call you in a minute,” Rogers answered. “If I can.”
That phone call apparently never happened, leaving her friends worrying for days about what she meant. After Rogers was reported missing April 30, she was found dead near a retention pond in St. Francis nine days later.
Those details were included in a criminal complaint filed Wednesday, which laid out charges of first-degree reckless homicide and hiding a corpse against Matzen, 35 of Milwaukee.
Although Matzen denied responsibility in interviews with police, a pair of brothers who are friends with him told investigators he “lost it” and strangled Rogers after being told the relationship was over.
Matzen made his first court appearance Wednesday. He is being held at the Milwaukee County Jail with bail set at $500,000.
The criminal complaint filed against Matzen implicates at least one other person in the hiding of Rogers’ body, but no other charges were filed in the case as of Wednesday afternoon.
According to the criminal complaint:
After reporting Rogers missing, a friend of hers told police on April 30 she knew of Rogers’ plans to break up with Matzen when she dropped her off at her home on April 26, the day before she planned to break the news.
The friend then went two days without hearing from Rogers. She told police to speak with Rogers’ neighbor, who said they saw Matzen on April 28 with scratches on his face.
Matzen told the neighbor the scratches came from his dog, named “Hennessy,” but the friend thought that was suspicious because her own dog is named Hennessy, and Rogers
and Matzen do not have their own.
Police eventually made contact with a pair of brothers who are friends of Matzen. One of them said Matzen admitted to breaking Rogers’ neck inside her home.
The other brother told police Matzen admitted to strangling Rogers after learning she was leaving him. He then helped Matzen move Rogers’ body from her home to the 1300 block of East Waterford Street in St. Francis.
He said they wrapped the body in a rug, tied it with an extension cord and put it in the back of his mother’s Toyota. After driving to the location, Matzen then rolled the body down a slope near a pond.
She was found concealed underneath a discarded Christmas tree. An autopsy by the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner’s Office said she died from asphyxiation.
In an interview with police Matzen verified Rogers broke up with him the day of his release from custody. But he said he stepped out of the home for 20 to 30 minutes to get some air and returned to find that she had left. He had a visible scratch on his face during the interview, which he said came from a dog.
Detectives then falsely told Matzen that a nearby surveillance camera captured him carrying a body out of the back door of his house.
He then claimed he was carrying a 400-pound sex doll and would not tell detectives where it was.
When one of them asked if she was OK, Rogers replied ominously. “I’ll call you in a minute,” Rogers answered. “If I can.” That phone call never happened. After Rogers was reported missing April 30, she was found dead near a retention pond in St. Francis nine days later.
Matzen’s past incidents
Matzen has had at least one prior incident with Rogers, and he has also had prior run-ins with police.
Matzen pleaded guilty to two felonies after a 2010 incident in which he shot a man nonfatally during a fight between two groups of people in Cudahy, according to court records.
After that incident, he told police he always carries a gun with him because he is a member of the Latin Kings gang. During his sentencing hearing, a Milwaukee County judge ordered him to cease contact with the group as a condition of his extended supervision.
In 2020, Matzen was accused of burning Rogers’ property, but the bumpy prosecution that followed ultimately fell apart when Rogers indicated she did not want to appear at the trial, according to Milwaukee County Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern.
Matzen wasn’t charged in the unrelated hit-and-run case from April 2022 until after he had been arrested in connection with Rogers death. Lovern said that was because more investigative work was required before charges could be filed.
According to court records:
In May 2020, Rogers received a phone call from Matzen’s mother, who was concerned her son was passed out and not waking up. Rogers visited his home in Cudahy, woke him up and learned he recently took Xanax.
Rogers, who later told police Matzen was her former live-in boyfriend, said he began accusing her of cheating on him. He tried choking her, but Rogers easily fended him off because he was still impaired.
Rogers then left the home. But sometime later, she received photos from Matzen through text messages showing him burning her belongings – a laptop, a bicycle and a baby bassinet.
Matzen was arrested and charged with felony arson and misdemeanor disorderly conduct. But at a time when shutdowns were just beginning as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the court case was slow-going at first.
Matzen did not make his first court appearance until February 2021, about nine months after his arrest. He was held in a Milwaukee prison, rather than the county jail, for that entire period because at the time of the arson incident, he was on extended supervision from a prior felony conviction. His arson arrest violated the terms of that release.
Lovern did not know the reason why it took nine months for the first court appearance to be held other than speculating that COVID-19 delays may have been a factor.
Nevertheless, Matzen attempted to get the case moving faster. He alerted prison officials of the situation, and those officials then sent what’s called a “request for prompt disposition” to the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.
Once that request is sent, state law mandates the local district attorney must bring the case to trial within 120 days. Prison officials sent the request in April 2021.
The following August, Matzen’s lawyer asked the district attorney’s office if it received the request. The office initially said no, but found the request two days later.
Claire Zyber, an assistant district attorney, said the request was misplaced as a result of a clerical error and prosecutors assigned to the case were never notified about it. Zyber framed it as a human error “in the era of COVID-19 and work from home.”
By mid-August, the 120-day limit was reached and no trial was brought. Richardson filed a motion to dismiss the case, but it carried on with a trial scheduled for late September.
Before that trial could begin, though, the victim said she did not want to be involved, Lovern said, and the case fell apart.
Additionally, online court records indicate the prosecution failed to arrange the transport of Matzan from the prison to the courtroom on the day of the trial. Lovern contradicted that, saying the transport was arranged but ultimately not needed after the victim didn’t appear for the trial.
On the date of the trial, Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Michelle A. Havas granted the defense’s request to dismiss the charges with prejudice, meaning prosecutors could not retry the case.
In November 2021, Matzen was back on extended supervision and released from prison.
He was arrested again April 17, 2022, in connection with a hit-and-run incident three days earlier outside Rogers’ home, which resulted only in property damage. He was released 10 days later with charges still pending.