Watch on YouTube. Listen on Apple or Spotify.
On the evening of Wednesday, May 1, 2013, 24-year-old Mandy Matula left her home in Eden Prairie, Minnesota to talk to her ex-boyfriend, 24-year-old David Roe, in his car. Although it was obvious that she hadn’t planned on being gone long since she left her phone & purse behind, this was sadly the last time her parents ever saw her.
Mandy Marie Matula was born on January 14, 1989 to parents Wayne & Lisa Matula & she also had a younger brother, Steven. After graduating from Eden Prairie High School in 2007, she went on to receive a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD) in 2011.
She began playing softball in 3rd grade & after playing each of the positions, she realized that pitcher was where she was meant to be. She eventually became a star player & the captain of her high school team, wearing the number 14 throughout her career. She helped her team finish third place in the 2007 Minnesota State High School softball tournament & another 12 years would pass before they qualified for state again.
Mandy was also a member of her division II softball team as a Bulldog at UMD where she played outfielder & pitcher from 2008-2011. Unfortunately, after having surgery to repair a torn ACL, she lost much of her junior year.
According to her mom, Lisa, Mandy was a mischievous girl who was both friendly & fearless.
In 2013 at 24-years-old, Mandy was living with her family in Eden Prairie, a city 18 miles southwest of Minneapolis with a population of about 55,000 at that point. Not only was she a seasonal employee for the city of Eden Prairie parks department, but she also worked at Brunswick Bowling as well as a Herbalife Nutrition Coach who wanted to help others achieve their goals.
Working for the parks department was Mandy’s ideal job since it not only allowed her to be active outside, but it also kept her connected to softball where she coached younger players & mentored those who wanted to follow in her footsteps.
Right around Labor Day 2012, Mandy ended her eight month relationship with David Roe, someone she’d gone to high school with. After graduation, he attended the University of St. Thomas from 2007-2009, where he played football.
After their breakup, they remained friends & in May 2013, he’d been going to St. Cloud State University to become a police officer while working part-time at the Eden Prairie Liquor Store & had recently applied to be a police officer in North Dakota.
At about 11 pm on Wednesday, May 1, 2013, David showed up at the Matula home asking to speak with Mandy. His visit came after they’d been arguing over the phone. Wayne recalls seeing his daughter go outside & climb into David’s 2013 black Ford Escape SUV. He periodically peeked through the curtains to check on her & was able to see that David’s car remained on the driveway for about 20-25 minutes before Wayne headed to bed.
When he woke up at about 2 am, now in the early morning hours of Thursday morning, May 2, he once again looked out the window, but this time David’s car was gone. When he checked Mandy’s room, she wasn’t there, but her cell phone & her purse were sitting on her bed.
He went back to bed & after he got up at his usual time of 5:30 am, he went back into his daughter’s room, but there was still no sign of Mandy. He asked LIsa if she had spoken to her since not only had she not come home, but because she’d left her things behind, it looked like she hadn’t planned on being gone long.
Although they never thought twice about Mandy leaving the house to talk to David the night before, by this time, something just didn’t feel right to them. Not only was their daughter an adult, but she was also a strong-willed young woman who always said that she could handle David & wasn’t afraid of him.
Despite the fact that Mandy had broken up with David about eight months earlier, after her daughter hadn’t come home, Lisa eventually learned that he continued to essentially stalk her, following her around. He hadn’t been physically abusive during their relationship, but Mandy confided in some people that he had been verbally abusive.
According to Wayne, David had loved Mandy & he was trying everything he could to win her back. Although she had no intentions of becoming romantically involved with him again, since she was a very kind, considerate person who recognized that he was hurting, she continued spending time with him.
After Wayne called his daughter’s office at the parks department, he learned that she hadn’t come in that morning, so Lisa called David to see if he knew where Mandy was. He said they’d driven over to nearby Miller Park & while they were talking, they got into an argument.
David explained that Mandy had gotten angry, jumped out of his car & refused to get back in, telling him that she planned to walk home. Wayne & Lisa were highly skeptical of his story since it had been so late at night & also very cold outside.
As Lisa ended her conversation with David, Wayne headed to the police station to report their daughter missing at 8:30 am.
Since David was the last known person to have seen Mandy, a detective from the Eden Prairie Police Department contacted him for information. During their recorded phone conversation, David indicated that they had been seeing each other off & on since December & things hadn’t been the best.
He went on to say that they talked every day despite breaking up & had somewhat of a business together that was doing well, referencing Herbalife. He confirmed that he’d come by Mandy’s house sometime between 10:30-11 pm on Wednesday night. He told the detective that they were in the driveway for a bit, but clarified that they drove off toward the park about three minutes after she’d gotten into the car. This was in contrast to what Wayne recalls as before he’d gone to bed, David’s car had been in the driveway for about 20-25 minutes.
Like he told Lisa, David said that they drove over to Miller Park & parked in the first parking lot to the left on the baseball side.
While they were there they stayed in the car talking & never got out. He indicated that he was home by a little after 2 am which meant that Mandy would have gotten out of his car right around 1:30 am. While they were in the car, they were talking, trying to figure out their relationship since he felt their business involvement in Herbalife was getting in the way of their happiness.
They discussed how they could make things better & their conversation had ups & downs, times they were calm & times they were both upset with one another. He clarified that nothing had gotten out of control, there was no physical violence, but when Mandy got out of the car, he said she was heated.
When the detective asked what the trigger had been to make Mandy feel so heated, David indicated that she said, You’re annoying. You just keep pushing. He went on to say that over the last week, they hadn’t been getting along & during many of their conversations, Mandy said she wanted him to leave her alone. He said she often left him feeling confused since there were times that she wanted to talk & other times she didn’t.
When their conversation began taking a negative turn, David said he finally threw his hands up & said, Okay, fine, leave. When Mandy got out of the car & began walking away, he didn’t think she was serious & only assumed she would eventually get back in.
Based on where he said they were parked, had Mandy gotten out of his car in order to walk home, she would have walked along Eden Prairie Road. He began driving alongside her with the window down, trying to reason with her to get back into his car so he could drive her home.
David claimed that Mandy wanted nothing to do with him & refused to get back in. He went on to tell the detective that when he spoke with Lisa that morning, he could hear Wayne in the background & he sounded mad as hell for allowing her to walk home so late at night. He defended himself, saying that when Mandy gets mad, she wants nothing to do with anyone & he wasn’t going to be able to change her mind.
He claimed to have followed her in his SUV all the way to the intersection of Miller Park & Eden Prairie Road. She told him she would call her brother to pick her up so he turned around & drove back toward his house in Victoria, a little over 15 minutes away.
The detective explained that since Mandy hadn’t shown up for work that morning, they had officers out looking for her. David tearfully said that he had also been looking for her all morning, driving around near the park, her house, by the high school, but he wasn’t able to find her.
When he was asked what he thought happened to Mandy, he began crying harder, saying that he didn’t think she would have walked to a friend’s house. The officer told David that other investigators were getting statements from various people & they would gather all the information in hopes of finding her.
As their phone call was coming to an end, David was asked if he could come to the station for an interview or an officer could come out to his house for a taped statement. He said he would drive out to the station right away, but the officer wanted to be sure that he was in a good emotional place & felt safe to drive. He assured him that he was.
David did as he said he would & drove over to the police department. However, rather than going inside the station & asking for the detective he’d spoken with as instructed, he wrote a note that he left on the front window of his SUV, instructing his family to check his cell phone for a farewell message he recorded. Then he shot himself in the head. He was transferred to Hennepin County Medical Center where he died the following day.
Blood found on a jacket in his SUV as well as on the rear hatch was processed by the Hennepin County Crime Lab & was confirmed to be Mandy’s. On May 4, searchers found an unfired .40 caliber bullet in the parking lot of the Victory Lutheran Church on Eden Prairie Road & Scenic Heights Road only minutes from Miller Park. A ballistics test of markings on it indicated that at some point, it had been in the chamber of the Smith & Wesson handgun David used to kill himself.
The church is in a residential area about a block from where the Matula family lives. During the early morning hours on Thursday, five neighbors recalled hearing popping sounds sometime between 2-4 am coming from the area of the church as well as the sound of an adult screaming. One neighbor in particular, who had been up at the time with their daughter, thought they were hearing the pop of a firecracker at 2:30 am followed by screams & a second loud firecracker noise.
According to Steven as well as others, David had purchased a pistol, two boxes of ammunition & gun range rental time only a week before Mandy disappeared. This was something that wasn’t surprising to his friends since he was going to school to become a police officer & often went to the shooting range with his dad, Christopher.
As word spread around town, everyone who knew him was shocked by what was happening since they always saw him as a nice young man who didn’t seem to have a mean streak. Their friends had described David & Mandy’s relationship as a roller coaster that was unstable & involved arguments, but based on friends & family who were interviewed, no one ever believed that David was capable of hurting Mandy.
David’s best friend, Cory Rablin, had met him for lunch a few days earlier when David mentioned a man who had shot himself in a park. He said that he would be that guy if his relationship with Mandy ended. Cory also said he’d heard rumors of David making suicidal statements on two previous occasions.
After police spent the day searching for Mandy around her last known location based on David’s reports, her family was given the go-ahead to begin searching themselves, which they did. Steven immediately stepped up & began organizing & leading searches for his sister across their town as well as surrounding towns, including Sartell & Rice. As days continued to go by, more & more people joined in, including complete strangers who felt compelled to help.
Each night they came together to plan out the next day & each morning, as many as hundreds of people showed up, coming together in hopes of finding sweet Mandy.
During the first week that Mandy was missing, Steven learned that two other women were also missing, 30-year-old Kira Steger & 27-year-old Danielle Jelinek. He decided right then & there that if they were going to search for his sister, they were also going to come together to help the families of the two other missing women.
With this decision, Minnesota United was born, a community organization that provides support & assistance when a loved one disappears. They not only share information & help with search & rescue, but they also support those that are struggling while their loved one is missing.
However, it wasn’t until 177 agonizing days after Mandy went missing when a Boy Scout leader found her remains in a shallow grave in Mississippi River County Park five miles north of Sartell, Minnesota. This area is 79 miles northwest of Eden Prairie, a drive that would have taken nearly an hour & a half each way.
When the man had been out walking on Saturday, October 26, 2013, he noticed fabric sticking out of the ground. As he began looking closer, he found human skeletal remains wrapped in a blue blanket. The victim’s head was covered with a white plastic bag that was secured with duct tape around the neck.
Since David’s cell phone pinged in the St. Cloud area, about 12 miles south of where Mandy’s remains had been ultimately found, many searches had been conducted around this location throughout the summer.
Although they had to wait for a positive identification through dental records, Wayne confirmed that the ring the victim wore matched Mandy’s Eden Prairie class ring that she often wore as well as a sweatshirt with the University of Minnesota-Duluth Fastpitch #14, Mandy’s number while she was on the team.
The following day, it was confirmed that the remains were Mandy & the medical examiner determined that she died from a single gunshot wound to the head. As heartbroken as they were, Mandy’s family & friends felt a weight off their shoulders that they could finally lay her to rest, feeling relief that their journey had come to an end.
Based on David’s cell phone as well as his financial records, he left Eden Prairie at 3:33 am & bought gas in Maple Grove at around 4 am, two hours after he told the detective he’d gotten home. His phone was turned off from 4 am to 5:49 am & when it was powered back on at 5:50, he was in the area of Mississippi River Park. He turned his phone back off for 45 minutes before it was tracked moving south along I-94.
Later that morning, he used his phone to make a goodbye video to his brother Patrick & then he downloaded a Bible app.
According to a supplementary report by the Bureau for Criminal Apprehension, it’s likely Mandy was shot & killed in the church parking lot based on the bullet that was found as well as the screams & pops heard by neighbors.
After more than a year of investigation that included six months of searching, interviews, research, photos & audio, the Eden Prairie Police Department officially closed Mandy’s case on July 10, 2014.
Rather than sitting in the car at Miller Park talking until Mandy stormed out of the car & refused to get back in as he claimed, David drove her near Victory Lutheran Church & used the .40-caliber handgun he purchased only days earlier at a Mills Fleet Farm, shot her in the head & drove out to Mississippi River Park to discard her body.
According to the documents, David’s autopsy found scratches on his hands as well as acute alcohol intoxication. Alcohol was also found in his car when he shot himself in the police department’s parking lot. Several friends said he liked to drink & when he did, his temper often flared up. Although his dad admitted that he had issues with alcohol, he never considered him an alcoholic. At the same time, he also said he hadn’t received treatment for alcohol use, but he had attended Alcoholics Anonymous meetings for a while.
After Mandy’s death, a letter from him was found in her bedroom in which he was pleading with her to stay with him through their share of downs. Several friends & family mentioned that David had been suspicious that Mandy had found someone new.
Although Steven had been determined to help with the searches of Kira Steger & Danielle Jelinik, who were each missing at the same time as his sister, as he began organizing things, each of their bodies were found.
30-year-old Kira Steger vanished after she was last seen on February 21, 2013 leaving her job at the Mall of America. Her badly decomposed body was recovered from the Mississippi River three months later in May. She was found naked & severely beaten with a head wound, a broken finger, bruising inside her lip & lacerations to her liver. A wad of duct tape was also found in her hair.
Her husband, 39-year-old Jeffrey Trevino had been in custody ever since police found blood spatter in the couple’s bedroom as well as her DNA in the trunk of her car. Jeffrey was convicted of her murder in October 2013 & was found guilty of second-degree murder & sentenced to 27 ½ years with at least 18 years spent in prison.
27-year-old Danielle Jelinek disappeared on December 8, 2012 after spending the night at Aaron Schnagl’s home. Her body was found five months later in May 2013 in a swampy area known as Peterson’s Pond near Aaron’s home. Although the area had been previously searched, her body had been concealed under deep snow.
Sadly, Danielle had been battling an active methamphetamine addiction since high school & had gone into treatment on multiple occasions to get sober. According to her sister Cory, she had gotten sober after her last treatment in 2004 until she met & began dating Aaron.
An autopsy found drugs & alcohol in her system, but no exact cause of death was listed. The jury was told that after Danielle arrived at Aaron’s house, they drank & did cocaine together that he provided her. After she died from an overdose, rather than calling for help, the prosecution accused him of dumping her body in the nearby pond to conceal her death.
However, the defense argued that Danielle purchased the drugs on her own & when she left Aaron’s home under the influence, she fell asleep & died from exposure. Because there was a snowstorm on the night of her death, her body was concealed.
Aaron was found guilty of third-degree murder for providing her with the cocaine that led to her death. The jury did not believe that he tried to conceal her body & instead felt that she wandered off into the snowy, cold night.
A judge sentenced him to more than 13 years in prison in June 2016 with credit for time already served as by that point, he had served 3 ½ years. He’ll serve the more than seven-year sentence concurrently with an unrelated drug charge.
As of the latest available public record from October 21, 2025, he is released from prison under supervision with Ramsey County Community Corrections.
Although the Matula family may not have personally known Kira or Danielle, they came to know them through those who loved them & because of that, they know they were just as extraordinary as Mandy had been.
Danielle’s family describe her as a bright light & feel saddened that she’ll never have the opportunity to get married, have children & live out the remainder of what could’ve been a long, happy life.
For Jay & Marcie Steger, they felt relief that they were able to finally bring their daughter Kira home after months of searching. They will remember her as a young woman with a beautiful smile, someone who was full of life. Although they have answers & justice has been served, they know it’ll never bring Kira back.
Mandy Matula was a 24-year-old whose life was only just beginning. She was a daughter, a sister & a friend, someone who should have had many decades of life ahead of her. Instead, her life was violently taken by someone her family never expected.
To this day, Eden Prairie High School displays a banner with her name & number on the varsity dugout for every home game. The number 14 has been retired in her honor & is no longer worn by high school players. There is a bench & a plaque at Miller Park dedicated to Mandy & each year a softball tournament is held in her memory since she loved softball & it was her life.
If you or someone you know is being hurt or abused, please contact the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 800-799-7233 or text BEGIN to 88788.
References:
- Legacy: Mandy Marie Matula
- ABC News: Missing Minn. woman’s blood found on jacket in boyfriend’s car, unfired bullet matched his gun
- YouTube: Fox 9: David Roe interview with Eden Prairie police
- Twin Cities Pioneer Press: Mandy Matula search: Bullet matches ex-boyfriend’s gun; her blood found on jacket in car
- CBS News: Mandy Matula update: Remains of missing Minn. woman found, report says
- CBS News: Court documents reveal details in Kira Trevino’s death
- CBS News: Trevino sentenced to more than 27 years
- CBS News: Jurors hear two different takes on Jelinek’s death
- CBS News: Aaron Schnagl found guilty of murder in Danielle Jelinek case
- CBS News: Missing Minn. woman’s blood found on jacket in boyfriend’s car, unfired bullet matched his gun
- Newsleaders: Matula’s body found in park north of Sartell
- Kare 11: Matula family gives up on hope for closure
- Kare 11: Man sentenced 13 years in Danielle Jelinek’s death
- Bring Me The News: Prosecutor: Kira Trevino’s body, evidence indicates violent murder
- Cornerstone: Minnesota United: Helping Minnesota’s missing come home for over 10 years
- Facebook: Minnesota United’s post
- EPLN: Mandy Matula remembered by friends, family & teammates
- Sun Current: Mandy Matula investigation finally comes to a close
