Matthew Fischer was a sixteen year old from South Carolina who would stab to death a romantic rival. According to court documents Matthew Fischer was hanging out with his girlfriend when the victim texted her. Fisher would start an online confrontation and demanded the victim come over to his girlfriends home so they can settle it. When the victim showed up the two teenagers began to fight before the teen killer pulled out a knife and fatally stabbed the other teenager. Matthew Fischer would be arrested shortly after and plead guilty to manslaughter and be sentenced to eighteen years in prison
Matthew Fischer 2023 Information
Matthew Fischer
Location – Kirkland Correctional Institute
Release Date – 01/25/2033
Matthew Fischer More News
A Snapchat message led to a fatal stabbing in South Carolina on Sunday, Mount Pleasant police say.
Matthew Fischer, 16, was visiting his girlfriend when she received a message from 17-year-old Lucas Bennett Cavanaugh, according to an arrest affidavit obtained by PEOPLE. Messages sent via the Snapchat app are only visible for a brief period of time.
Matthew Fischer then used his girlfriend’s device to respond to Cavanaugh, allegedly writing “Come over” and “I’ll kill you, man,” the affidavit reads.
Cavanaugh got in his Volkswagen Jetta and drove to the girl’s home in an upscale suburban neighborhood, where the two boys got into a fight.
Matthew Fischer allegedly pulled a knife and fatally stabbed the 17-year-old in the torso, according to the affidavit. He fled the scene immediately afterwards.
When police arrived, they found Robynn Davis, the mother of the suspect’s girlfriend, comforting the victim as he took his last breaths, according to an incident report provided to PEOPLE.
After fleeing, Matthew Fischer called his mother, who picked him up and took him back to the scene of the crime, where he was taken into custody and read his Miranda rights, the affidavit states.
Davis told local paper The Post and Courier that she “loved and adored” Cavanaugh, one of her daughter’s closest friends.
“He meant the world to me,” she said. “The world was a better place with him in it.”
Fischer has been charged with murder. Though he is just 16, he is being charged as an adult due to the violent nature of the crime.
Matthew Fischer Other News
As his attorneys stuck to his self-defense account, a 19-year-old from Mount Pleasant who typed text messages about murder before slicing a schoolmate to death was sentenced Wednesday to 18 years in prison for what some called a ruthless crime.
Matthew Fischer was 16 when he stabbed 17-year-old Lucas Cavanaugh during a feud over Fischer’s girlfriend in the town’s Park West neighborhood.
Though Fischer argued he was trying to get out of Cavanaugh’s grasp during a mutual fight — a story that had already failed to prompt a dismissal of his murder charge — prosecutors cited messages in which he talked about killing Cavanaugh a week before the Jan. 18, 2015 slaying.
Avoiding a trial, he pleaded guilty earlier this month to a lesser count of voluntary manslaughter, which carries between two and 30 years behind bars.
During a tearful two-hour sentencing hearing in a packed Charleston courtroom, Circuit Judge Markley Dennis noted Fischer’s youth and mental health struggles at the time of the killing. He said Fischer would need continued help during and after the prison sentence to ensure he “doesn’t slip back into the person he was.”
“It wasn’t self-defense,” Dennis said. “He didn’t need to do it.”
Under state law, Fischer must served 85 percent, or about 15 years, of the total prison term.
Moments before learning his fate, the young defendant turned briefly to dozens of Cavanaugh’s loved ones who had described a widely loved young man who aspired to design cars and start his own business.
Fischer apologized. His father Joey and mother Susan had done the same
I regret it every day,” he said. “I don’t know what I can say. I’m just really sorry.”
Members of Cavanaugh’s family had asked for Fischer to be imprisoned for the maximum term.
“Whatever happens,” his father, Dave Cavanaugh, said, “there will be no justice for Luke. Luke is still dead.”
The three teens involved in the deadly confrontation knew each other from Wando High School.
Fischer was visiting his girlfriend on Baltusrol Lane when she got text messages from Cavanaugh. She would later tell police the texts were sent through Snapchat, a service whose messages disappear after a time. The account proved wrong, and investigators from the Mount Pleasant Police Department found the Apple iPod messages.
Fischer grew angry and jealous, but Cavanaugh insisted that he wouldn’t steal the girlfriend.
“I’ll … kill you,” Fischer texted, taking over the conversation. “Come here right now.”
Cavanaugh drove from Sullivan’s Island to Mount Pleasant.
Defense attorneys continued Wednesday to portray Cavanaugh as the aggressor who charged after Fischer once he arrived.
They fought.
One of Fischer’s lawyers, Peter Brown, said Cavanaugh wrapped Fischer in a headlock. That’s when Fischer pulled out a pocketknife that his girlfriend had given him and sliced at Cavanaugh’s arm, Brown said. Cuts on the sleeve of Cavanaugh’s sweater supported the account, the lawyer said.
The last, fatal blow was a stab to Cavanaugh’s gut. His last sight, his loved ones said, was likely of his own gruesome injury.
Lead defense attorney Andy Savage said Fischer should have kicked and flailed to suppress the “threat” he saw in Cavanaugh.
But he “used a knife in self-defense,” Savage said, “when a knife was not appropriate.”
Prosecutors said earlier text messages expressing thoughts of violence and ill will against Cavanaugh showed that he had carried out malicious intentions that had been brewing for some time.
“Obviously, he had a dark and disturbed side,” Assistant Solicitor Jennifer Shealy said at the sentencing. “He thought of murdering people.”
For more than an hour, Cavanaugh’s supporters describing losing an old soul who had friends young and old, gay and straight, black and white — a remarkable diversity for someone his age. He fixed cars by watching YouTube videos and wanted to earn a college degree in automotive design.
His friends and family miss his dinosaur sounds, his mischievous sense of humor.
One friend turned to drugs to cope with the loss.
His youngest brother, Dirk, still sleeps on Cavanaugh’s bedroom floor.
“He’s irreplaceable,” the brother said.
To remember him, they made quilts of his shirts.
“We have cried years’ worth of tears,” his mother, Beth Cavanaugh, said. “To say our lives will never be the same is an understatement.”
Cavanaugh would have turned 20 years old on Thanksgiving. His father looked around that day, thankful for the family, including two other sons, he still has.
“There’s nothing like having something ripped away from you to make you appreciative for what you have,” he said. “But there’s a huge undercurrent of melancholy and despair.”
And that, loved ones said, will never go away.
Matthew Fischer Other News
New details have emerged in the case against Matthew Fischer, the 16-year-old Wando High School student, who is charged for stabbing his classmate after a fight that allegedly started over a girl on social media.
We were originally told that the victim, 17-year-old Lucas Cavanaugh, was sending messages to the suspect’s girlfriend on Snapchat, which is an app that deletes the message right after it is read.
But after digging through dozens of additional police reports that we just obtained today, we now know the teens were texting using iMessage, which is the standard texting application on an iPhone.
The big difference here is the messages aren’t deleted, and the girlfriend involved in all of this lied to police.
In police reports obtained by News 2, the suspect and Cavanaugh exchanged words, but not on Snapchat as we originally thought…instead on an iPod. Newer models of iPods, such as an iPod Touch, allow users to send messages on iMessage.
According to newly released police documents, that iPod, belonging to the girlfriend of the suspect, went missing after the stabbing incident.
The day after the incident, police told her that iPod was a crucial piece of evidence in a homicide case. The girl then handed it over, telling police that she had hid it under boxes and blankets.
According to the documents, she thought police wouldn’t be able to retrieve the messages if they were on Snapchat.
Fischer explained the texts between him and Cavanaugh to police….
Fischer asks, “Could you stay out of our relationship and shut the **** up” to which Cavanaugh responded, “You won’t say that to my face.”
When Cavanaugh did show up, Fischer told police he ran towards him and a fight began.
Fischer says Cavanaugh put him in a choke hold and when he was released from that chokehold, choke holden he pulled out a 3 inch pocket knife and stabbed Cavanaugh.
Tonight News 2 went to the home of the girlfriend, which is where this all happened.
We spoke with the girl’s mother who held Lucas in her arms in the moments after the stabbing.
The mother didn’t want to go on camera Monday but she did tell us her daughter was caught in the middle of her best friend and her boyfriend and it’s an extremely difficult situation. She also told us she doesn’t know why her daughter hid the iPod.
According to the reports, she said, the iPod contained nude photos and pictures of marijuana.
Tonight, News 2 also reached out to the suspect’s attorney, Andy Savage, to ask whether he will use the stand-your-ground philosophy when this case goes to trial. News 2 didn’t receive a call back just yet, but we’ll continue to follow this story in the coming days.
Fischer is currently at home on house arrest.
Right now, his first court appearance is scheduled for May 29th.
Matthew Fischer FAQ
Matthew Fischer 2021
Matthew Fisher is currently incarcerated at the Kirkland Correctional Institute
Matthew Fischer Release Date
Matthew Fischer is scheduled for release in 2033