The Cold Medicine Killer: The Case of Lauren Hugelmaier
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Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Happy to have you back. So today we're going to be talking about a couple, Matthew Phelps and Lauren Hugelmeyer. They both grew up in Kentucky and they actually met when they were in middle school. However, I'm not sure if they were super, super close or anything. I think they just knew of each other. Lauren was known as someone who was incredibly sweet. She was described by friends and family as being very genuine, very caring, very loving. And she was someone who was very, very close with her

family. Her mom's name is Lori and her dad's name is Dale. And she also has some sisters and one in particular that she was very close with is named Beth. So like I said, she lived in Kentucky, but at some point her family ended up moving to North Carolina. So years go by and Lauren hasn't thought much about Matthew in the time that she's been gone from Kentucky. But one day he pops up in her Instagram DMs and he seemed very interested in reconnecting with her.

And not only that, he went through and liked every single one of her Instagram pictures that she had ever posted. And she posted a lot and you guys know how it goes. Eventually they moved from DM to texting and eventually from texting to phone calls. And as they were talking more and more, things became more serious. And eventually Matt actually made the decision to move to North Carolina to be with her.

She was 29 at the time and she was looking to find her forever partner. She was a very traditional person. She actually was very involved in her church. She was a youth group leader and very well known in her church and took religion very seriously. And she wanted a partner that she could, you know, share life with and share her faith with. So Matt moves there. And at first everything was great. She was super happy to not have the whole long distance thing going on and get to spend time in

person and Lauren's family was pretty accepting of Matt from the beginning especially Lauren's mother she really gravitated towards him according to the rest of the family she even treated him like he was her own son from the beginning Lauren's dad Dale on the other hand was a little apprehensive about the whole thing he thought it was a little fast moving for him to be moving across the country for her so quickly and he just kind of had a bad feeling about Matt he couldn't like quite pin

pinpoint what it was, but he just felt like something was off about the whole thing. Dale and Lauren were really close, especially when she was growing up. So he was very protective of her. Her family was so close that they did dinner together every Tuesday night and Matt always joined them. And Lauren was really happy and impressed by Matt that he was making such an effort to be part of her family and get close with them. And that just meant a lot to her. So

So one night they had Matt over and they were playing 20 questions and it was all fun and games until Matt tells the whole family that he had been married before.

This is something they didn't know and they just said it was kind of an awkward and strange moment the way that he told them. He wouldn't really give them any information or details about the marriage or why it ended and they were curious about why it didn't work out. They thought he was a little young to have a failed marriage and they were worried that maybe something went wrong and since he wasn't giving them a lot of information they thought, you know, maybe there's a reason why it didn't work out that he doesn't want us to know and that just made them worried for Lauren.

The whole family thought it was a little strange, but her father Dale was the one that was really bothered by it. Everyone else kind of moved on and still really liked Matt. It was always super awkward between Matt and Dale. So the two got engaged in 2015 and they had a big engagement party and both of their family and friends came, but it was mostly Lauren's family, which made Matt feel really comfortable and accepted into the family. But strangely enough, his own mother came and his mom was just kind of propped up.

First of all, she showed up to this engagement party in a white dress, which could have been a mistake, but I feel like most people know that you just really don't do that. Any type of marriage thing, you don't wear white 'cause you don't wanna take away from the bride and I'm sure she was wearing white. So that caused a conflict.

And she just seemed kind of rude. Lauren's family said that it just seemed like she didn't like Lauren. She didn't want them to be together for some reason and just was kind of a bitch. And then they married the following year in November of 2016. The two of them were really obsessed with Star Wars and Harry Potter, especially Star Wars though. And they actually had a Star Wars wedding.

All the guys at the wedding had lightsabers with them and they took pictures holding them, but all was good with Lauren and Matt. Other than that, Lauren just really felt not accepted by Matthew's mom. Growing up, Matthew's dad was not in the picture much

And this really affected Matthew. His mom didn't seem like she really wanted him growing up. Like she just wasn't interested in having a kid. And since his dad wasn't around, that left him with his grandparents. He was raised by them and he loved them very much, but it's not the same. And it definitely caused some issues for him. His mom was still in his life, but just not as active as she should have been. While he was growing up, she actually got married several different times. So he had several stepdads.

and he didn't really get close to any of them except for one and they really bonded over watching scary movies together so not the greatest situation because he didn't have a lot of guidance growing up when he got into high school he kind of got in with the wrong crowd and during this time he started using drugs and this was really bad for him

And one of the drugs that he actually used the most was actually cough syrup. Obviously cough syrup can give you like a high if you take too much of it, especially the prescription stuff. And if it's taken often over a long period of time, it can start to have really negative effects on your body. All of this really started to affect him in school. And eventually he was moved to a Christian Academy and his parents thought that that would help him like get on a better

path, do better in school, not getting as much trouble. And apparently it worked like he seemed better to them. Eventually he started really improving his grades and getting into school. And he actually went on to study at the clear Creek Baptist Bible college in Pineville, Kentucky. Lauren, like I said, was very intelligent, very into school, very organized. And she was just super

hardworking and at the time that her and Matt were together after they had gotten married, she was working several jobs. One for a fortune 500 company as an auditor. She also worked as a babysitter and in the church daycare. And she even had her own side business selling candles for an MLM. If you don't know what they are, they're multi-level marketing companies such as

Pampered Chef, Mary Kay, Beachbody, Scentsy, all that stuff is MLM marketing. It's set up like a pyramid and the people at the bottom have to try to sell as much as they can. They're constantly making sales pitches. So she was doing this as her own kind of small side gig, but she actually was trying to sell to people over YouTube. She has a YouTube channel with only a couple videos on it talking about the candles and the wax melts and stuff.

Hi everybody, my name is Lauren Phelps and I'm a Scentsy Independent Consultant. Your friend, Lori Hugelmar, has decided to have a Facebook party because she wants to share with you the love that she has for Scentsy products. So it's super, super simple. You can be in your PJs,

on the go, sitting on the couch, watching TV to be a part of this event. Now, Matthew, on the other hand was someone who had trouble keeping a job and did not like to work. He constantly would jump from one job to another with not much explanation as to why he was leaving or why he was fired. He had a variety of jobs. Like at one point he was a caregiver. Another time he was a salesperson and eventually he ended up working at a lawn care company.

But none of these were important jobs to him. What he actually wanted to do was be a pastor. And of course, Lauren really admired this as a Christian girl. She just thought it was the perfect fit for her to end up with a man who was a pastor. And on the outside, Matt seemed perfect for her.

Both of them had a huge passion for their church. They would spend a ton of time there and they would also do a lot of volunteering. To the outside world, it seemed like they had a really perfect relationship. Lauren would always be posting on social media about how good their relationship was and pictures of them together, but

On the inside, things were not going so well. Six months after they got married, they actually took a road trip back to Kentucky to visit Matt's family there. And during the trip, Matthew's mom was terrible to Lauren. Before they actually went to Kentucky, Matt's mom called Lauren and said, "We're gonna be doing this photo shoot, like family photos, and we want you to wear all blue, you and Matt."

So Lauren picked out really nice blue outfits for them, brought them with them. And when she got there the day of the photo shoot, she wore blue, but all the other girls were wearing white. Matt's mom had actually planned it so the men would wear blue and the women would wear white. And she purposely told Lauren to wear blue.

It's possible she didn't do this on purpose. Lauren's family believes it was intentional though. And I guess if you knew the rest of her personality, you'd probably think it was intentional as well. They said that it was just super, super obvious that she did not like Lauren and did not want her to feel like part of the family. And they felt like she purposely set all that up to hurt her

feelings and Matt's mom threw a big fit about it, canceled the whole photo shoot, made a big scene, was like, it's not my fault that she can't remember things. However, Lauren feels like she purposely told her to wear blue because she did not want her to be like part of

family and to feel kind of left out. And this was just one of the problems that Lauren and Matt were having. Their marriage definitely seemed perfect to other people on the outside and on social media, but things were really unraveling behind the scenes. And it all came to a head on September 1st, 2017. That day around 1am, a call came into dispatch from Matt saying that he had woken up

and found his wife covered in blood with multiple stab wounds and that he had no idea how it happened. Tell me exactly what happened. I think I killed my wife. What do you mean by that? What happened? I had a dream and then I turned on the lights and she's dead on the floor. How? How? How?

I'm, I have blood all over me and there's a bloody knife on the bed and I think I did it. I can't believe this. I can't believe this. When did you wake up to find this? I don't even know what time it is. Are you with the patient now?

Yeah, I can see her. Okay, alright. How old is the patient? She's 29. She's not breathing. Okay. Oh my God. Okay, do you think she is beyond any help?

I don't know. I'm too scared to get too close to her. Okay, just stay on the phone with me, sir. I'm here with you. I'm here with you. I'm so scared. Before you start, where's the knife right now? It's on the bed. I'm not next to it, so I don't have a weapon on me or anything like that. I took more medicine than I should have. What medicine did you take?

Can you see her from where you're at? Okay.

Okay. All you said officers there. I'm a list. Okay. I'm gonna let you go. I'm gonna let you go. I definitely want to know what you guys think of that call in the comments below during that 911 call. You can hear him say that he was on a cough medicine called Cora seed. And he didn't even have a cold. He said that he had taken it before bed because it makes him feel good. He said that he went to sleep and had this crazy dream and then woke up to the scene of Lauren.

Having been stabbed as you heard in the call He said he found her on the floor that she was covered in blood That there was a knife on the bed and that he thinks that he did it but has no memory of it because he was on cough syrup So the police rushed over to the scene when they get there Lauren is on the ground in a fetal position She's holding on to clumps of her own hair. It was obvious that she had been brutally brutally murdered

almost tortured before she died. As they were looking through the house, they found the cough medicine that they were told about on the phone and prosecutors actually argued later on that he purposely set it up there, that it looked like he was kind of staged to be like, "Oh, here's the medicine. Here's why like he had this whole plan." And investigators said they thought it was odd. Matt showed no emotion when they were there. He seemed very matter of fact. He didn't seem

you know, extremely upset. If you had just accidentally murdered someone because you were taken over by some type of drug and you did all this and you woke up and found them, wouldn't you be so traumatized, screaming, crying? What have I done? But Matt was very calm and collected and this immediately struck them as odd. So they rushed Lauren to the hospital. She gets there at about 1.45 and is pronounced

dead. So police then went to Lauren's parents' house to tell them what had happened. But Lauren's mom figured it out right away. I mean, it was the middle of the night. She asked them right away, is it Lauren? And they said, yes. She said, is she dead? They said, yes. And then she asked them, was it Matt? And they asked her, you know, why, why would you ask that? And she said, I just had a feeling. And they said, yes, Matt killed her. And her mom just started screaming, crying and totally broke down. I turned around and I said, did Matt kill her?

And they asked me, why would you ask that? I said, I don't know. I just know. I just know. Told us that he had killed her. And once Lauren was fully examined at the hospital, they found out that she had 123 stab wounds.

Matt was taken into custody almost right away because he was acting so suspicious. And what was so weird is he didn't have like any blood on him. Like he had some on his shoes or his feet, but it was like a couple drops, barely anything. And they think that it would have been impossible for him to not get blood all over himself after stabbing her 123 times. So they think that he tried to clean himself up.

which shows that you know that you've done something wrong and that he probably cleaned himself up before he even made the 911 call. So police also noted that he was completely coherent when talking to them. He did not seem like someone who was still messed up from the cough medicine.

They ended up actually drawing his blood and testing it and it turns out that the amount of cough syrup he had was more than a normal dose, but not enough to make you incoherent enough to murder someone without knowing it. Also, the makers of that cough medicine actually came out with a statement saying that there have been studies on their medication and never have there been any acts of violence or aggression committed by anyone on this drug. Investigators said he was completely fine, like he could have been able to drive.

if he had to at that moment. So very quickly they charged him with the murder of Lauren and he was put in jail. So like I said on the outside their marriage seemed pretty perfect but it turns out there was a lot going on that people didn't know about. So as police are trying to figure out motive they look more into the couple's history and they start seeing some red flags right away. First of all some of their friends came forward and told investigators that they were having some major financial trouble at the time of Lauren's death.

The two of them were fighting a lot over money and spending and what should be spent on and what should be saved. And it turns out most of their troubles were because of Matthew. He would spend tons of money at various stores. One in particular was Best Buy. He would spend thousands of dollars there.

on like gaming stuff and different gadgets. According to Lauren's friends, he would even steal money right out of her purse. And as I mentioned, this couple really loved things like Star Wars and Harry Potter. And so they really wanted to go to Orlando and go to all of the parks, go to Disney World, go to Universal. And they had a savings going for this, but apparently Matt took all the money

out of it and spent it on himself. Her family said that when she married Matt, she had about $10,000 to her name, which is a decent amount for a couple starting out. But at the time of Lauren's death, she had a little less than a thousand dollars to her name and was very stressed out about this.

And Lauren had expressed to her mom how stressed out she was about money and that Matt was spending tons of money. And so Lauren's family actually got involved in their financial issues. They met up with them and talked to them about how they should have a weekly budget and they're gonna have a weekly like dinner together where they talk about their budget for the week.

And according to them, Matt seemed really willing to do this, but it seemed like Lauren was unsure that he would actually fall through. Then investigators found out that the night before Lauren was killed on August 31st, a woman came to their house. Matt had come home from work. Lauren was cooking dinner and talking on the phone to her sister, Beth.

when suddenly a girl named Valerie came to the door. It's kind of confusing exactly what she said because Lauren was on the phone at the time and was kind of confused, but Matt just looked back at her as he was talking to Valerie at the door and said like, "Hey honey, I'm gonna go out with Valerie real fast 'cause she needs my help with something." And Lauren was like, "What do you mean? I just made dinner for you." And Beth can hear all of this on the phone that she did not want Matt to leave with this girl, but he did anyway. This really pissed Lauren off

And this was kind of like the final breaking point for her. She told her sister on the phone, you know, I just made dinner for him and he just left. And she actually kept waiting for him to come back to have dinner with her. But then he eventually texted her and said, go ahead and have dinner without me. I'm having too much fun with her. So this is when Lauren actually texted her sister, Beth and said, it's over. I'm done with him. He's bringing me down. He's ruining my life and I'm over it. They also found out that right before all this, there was some tension in their relationship over this guy named David.

This was a guy that they both knew from their church, but for some reason, Matthew had a feeling that David kind of liked Lauren and maybe she kind of liked him back and they were having a lot of jealousy issues. This is when Matt tells her that he has been hurt before, that when he was married,

to that other woman, she cheated on him. She actually had gone on a mission trip and found another guy and came home and just packed up all our stuff and said, I don't love you anymore. Totally broke his heart. And he started to say, you know, I'm worried you're going to do this with David. However, just to clear that up,

Brooke actually did come forward later on and said that's not how her relationship ended at all. She also had issues with him spending tons of money and barely contributing to their life, and he also had cheated on her multiple times. So even though Lauren was posting all these cute pictures of them on social media and it seemed like they had this great relationship, that really wasn't the case. Lauren had been unhappy in the relationship for a long time, and she had been expressing to friends that she was worried about her future with Matt.

but she was trying to stick with it because she was a religious person and she wanted to make the marriage work, but he was being very difficult as soon as they got married. Lauren had actually expressed to friends and family a few times that she was considering leaving Matt, but he was extremely controlling and she felt like she just

couldn't. Investigators also found out that before Lauren died, Matt had been writing in a journal and in his journal he talked a lot about how he had low self-esteem, how he didn't feel good enough for Lauren and didn't feel like he fit in with her family because they were all really close and Matt grew up in a completely different situation where they really

rough family life. So he was almost jealous of her and her family's closeness. While they were interrogating Matt, they ended up finding out that he was married before. And he told them that not only was he married, but he was also abusive to his past wife unknowingly. He said at one point he ended up dragging her out of bed

in the middle of the night unknowingly. And after they interviewed his ex-wife, whose name is Brooke, they were able to verify a lot of this and found out that he really was very abusive to her and that sometimes he would get so mad at her, he would knock her down onto the ground and pin her onto the floor. So she was very afraid of him and that's the reason why their marriage had ended.

During the investigation, they also ended up speaking to one of Matt's neighbors who he had been kind of flirting with. She said that they were really just friends and that they kind of bonded over their issues with anxiety and depression and could really relate to each other. But then she said things started to kind of take a turn with Matt and eventually he started talking about some really disturbing things. He started talking a lot about suicide and about death in general. This girl actually had a concealed carry license and had a gun and Matt had

Randomly went up to her one time and said, you know I could take that gun from you and kill somebody with it It was just a really weird thing to say so she had actually already started to distance herself from Matt before Lauren was even killed She just kind of got the sense that something was off with him So going into the trial the prosecution had a lot to work with I mean, it's pretty obvious what happened and it's very unlikely that the jury would buy his whole story about cough medicine prosecutors brought up the fact that

Matt was actually really obsessed with the main character in the movie American Psycho, which is a movie about a serial killer. And at one point he even told his friend that he had interest in knowing what it would be like to kill someone. Also, investigators were able to locate a secret Instagram that Matt had running. It was called Marty underscore radical.

And this account was very creepy and dark. It had multiple images and scenes from American Psycho, so very clear he was obsessed with that. And it also included some images of Matt dressed up as Patrick Bateman, who was the protagonist character from the movie. And then he also had a lot of posts just about Satan, demons, the devil, just a lot of anti-Christian stuff, which really freaked out Lauren's family.

And it's just crazy because meanwhile he was telling everyone he wants to be a pastor and was like going to church I mean at some point there must have been a big change in his mindset And then there was one post that he put up right before Lauren was murdered and the caption said everyone thinks I'm a serial killer Hashtag found an angel to kill. So there you go So that really didn't help his case with the jury at all and not only that but

Prosecutors also argued that Matt really knew what he was doing because he had been Googling about the cough syrup before the murder actually took place. Looking up things like how loopy does it make you? How much am I going to be affected by it? Like, does this happen to other people? Even though he had been experienced with cough syrup for a long time since high school.

So he knew what he was doing and he knew that he was going to use that as an excuse. The whole thing was premeditated. I mean, it's pretty obvious. Also, they did a luminol test in the apartment, which basically finds traces of blood that have been cleaned up. And there was traces of blood all over the bathroom, all over the sink, all over the walls. And it was very obvious that he had tried to clean all of that up.

If you're all messed up on cough syrup and woke up to this horrible scene, you wouldn't take time to clean yourself up and the scene before you call the police. During the trial, Lauren's family got a chance to kind of speak their piece. They were able to make statements on behalf of Lauren. As far as the defense goes, there wasn't much that they could say really. They had some letters from Matt's friends and coworkers who said they were super shocked that he did this, that it was totally out of character, and that they never would think he would do something like this.

So they kind of tried to argue that he was just in this depressed state and that he's not normally like this, this was out of character, but who really cares, right? So pretty quickly on October 5th, 2018, the trial came to a close. Lauren's family and a bunch of friends and members of the church came wearing these shirts that said Lauren's Lights, and they also had purple ribbons to represent domestic violence.

violence matt ended up taking a plea deal to committing first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole do you understand that you're pleading guilty to one offense that's the offense of first-degree murder it is a felony it carries the maximum penalty of death or life without the possibility of parole do you understand that yes sir

Do you personally plead guilty to the charge I just described? Yes, sir. And did you in fact murder your wife, Lauren Phelps, by stabbing her multiple times? Yes, sir. Says you're going to plead guilty to the offense I just described. You'll be sentenced to...

life without the possibility of parole in the custody of North Carolina Division of Adult Correction. And no one showed up for Matt at his sentencing. Nobody. No family, no one. During this time, he was able to stand up and give an apology to Lauren's family, which they said just means nothing to them. I am sorry that I took away Lauren's life. Will you ever be able to forgive him? No. I'll take him to my grave, and I'll still hate him. What would you tell Lauren right now? I miss her, and I love her.

I wish I could hold her. They feel like they can never forgive him. They never will. And I totally understand that. It's interesting seeing how victims' family members react. Like I've heard a lot of people talking about how they did forgive the person who killed their loved one because they don't want to be carrying around that like hatefulness in their heart and they want to forgive them for their own sake. And then you see people like Lauren's family who are not interested in that at all.

cannot possibly forgive them and the pain that that person has caused them is just much too strong for them to overcome. I really just can't imagine being in that situation at all, but I don't know how I would approach it. I think it would be incredibly hard to forgive someone for brutally murdering your loved

But I do understand the argument for forgiveness as well. I'm curious what you guys think about that. But anyway, Lauren's family to this day are just devastated that they don't have her. Lauren's mom said that Lauren was a beautiful girl inside and out and that the actions of Matthew James Phelps have forever changed her life.

And I totally get that. I mean, how can life ever go on as normal after going through something like this? Lauren's family has done interviews where they say that they feel somewhat responsible for all of this, which they really shouldn't. And I can't imagine what it's like to carry that type of grief around. But basically they feel that there were more signs and red flags that showed that Lauren was possibly being abused, that they just kind of missed. - I'm sorry I let you down. I should have seen it. All I can tell her, I'm sorry.

i let you down but i ain't gonna let the rest of them down not no more and so now they make it their mission to spread awareness to others about checking in with people that you think are possibly in a bad relationship and how important it is to take those red flags seriously lauren is remembered as a wonderful person she meant so much to everyone at her church and all her friends and her family and it's just so sick

that Matt just couldn't let her go on and live, that he couldn't have just gotten a divorce and left. Instead, he had to take her life because Matt had that mindset of, "If I can't have her, nobody can." I really think it's interesting that Matt had talked about other people thinking that he was a serial killer before all of this happened. It shows that maybe he was starting to think he was a serial killer, and I'm curious what you guys think about that. Do you think some people just have the urgency to kill, that they're somehow born with it?

and that eventually he was going to snap and kill somebody. That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Rae. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there. ♪