Man faces trial in girlfriend’s killing, mutilation

CLINTON TWP. » A suburban Detroit man accused of fatally strangling his girlfriend and living with her mutilated corpse for more than seven months has been ordered to stand trial in the killing.

Matthew Lewinski, 38, was bound over to Macomb County Circuit Court on Thursday on charges of first-degree murder, mutilation of a corpse and concealment of a corpse, The Macomb Daily of Mount Clemens reported.

Lewinski remains held without bond. He is charged in the death of Courtney “Jerri” Winters, whose mutilated body was found in Lewinski’s basement in July 2021.

Lewinski’s defense attorney, Elisha Oakes, told The Associated Press on Friday that she had no comment on her client being ordered to trial.

Clinton Township District Court Judge Sebastian Lucido suggested Thursday that police should have read Lewinski his Miranda rights when they began to question him in a hospital bed in July 2021, before he made admissions about choking Winters.

But he ruled that even without those statements, enough probable cause exists to advance the case to the trial court. Lucido said he was leaving the decision on the issue of the admissibility of those statements up to the Macomb County Circuit Court judge assigned to the case.

Lewinski was taken to a hospital on July 26, 2021, after he was found wandering in his underwear near his home. Winters’ decomposing body was found the next day in Lewinski’s basement, and some flesh had been removed from her corpse.

Lewinski told police he fatally strangled Winters during an argument in his home a few days before Christmas 2020 after they had broken up a month or so earlier, according to testimony.