Took His Daughters Life To Hide A Dark Secret – The Story of Ana Matias
Before we jump into today’s story, I just want to take a moment to say that the details in today’s case can be very hard to listen to. So before jumping in, please do go in with caution. Viewer discretion is advised.
“Happy Valentine’s Day, Daddy. D-A-D-Y. I love you always. Well, it’s nice that you kept that, but the bottom line is you weren’t there when we needed you.”
When you think about the bond a father shares with his daughter, what comes to mind first? Some may hear that question and words like “protect,” “nurture,” and “trust” come to mind. Years of research show that a father or guardian’s love and genuine interest can impact their daughter’s lives decades into adulthood. Examples of good parents and role models in a young child’s life have been depicted in TV and film for decades, each offering a different look into the bond parents share with their children. When you step away from the family-friendly sitcoms from way back, you’ll see other depictions of family dynamics—some harsher than others, showing a different side of growing up. Growing up with parents who may not be suited for the job, and in some cases, showing the much darker side of a parent’s relationship with their child.
It’s a taboo topic that’s been used as a plotline many times, whether it be comedy, drama, and is more than likely something we’ll see a lot more of in the future. It’s become a common plot device, but every once in a while a story surfaces that reminds everyone that if you have trouble believing in any of these taboo tales, reality can be much more disturbing. Sometimes the most horrific tale you could imagine can be unfolding right across the hall or in the apartment right next to you, and a lot of times the person on the receiving end of that horror is a defenseless child who had nobody to help them escape.
On today’s episode of Evil Intentions, this is “12 Weeks: The Story of Ana Matias.”
Ana Matias was born on December 30th of 1993 in New York City. She was born to her mother and a man by the name of Miguel Matias. According to Miguel’s sister, Ana’s mother and Miguel met as teenagers but had an often troubled relationship. They were together for a while but would separate sometime in 2003 or 2004. Ana was described by friends and family as a lively and well-dressed eighth grader. She had two siblings, plenty of friends in school, and she had dreams of one day becoming a model.
Neighbors who knew Ana and her father stated that Ana seemed to be his favorite child. Miguel’s sister said the same. By all accounts, Matias was considered a good father, known to often take his children to restaurants, buy them clothes randomly, and purchase presents for them. When it came to Ana, he was no different, treating her well and routinely giving her money to get her hair done or buy whatever she wanted. Now, of course, all the material possessions and money in the world don’t make somebody a father. It takes much more than that. You can’t buy the love of your children. But from the outside looking in, there just wasn’t any reason to ever believe that Miguel wasn’t a good father to those who knew him from a distance. Everything seemed to be great, but the truth is that Miguel Matias had a dark side, and it was one that his family had become quite familiar with down the line.
Ana, her mother, and siblings would move to Allentown, Pennsylvania. They would often come back to New York City to visit, that way Matias could see his kids, but it didn’t always prove to be the best idea. According to reports, Matias had a long history of mental illness. On one occasion, said to be sometime in 2004, Matias was institutionalized and spent about a month in the hospital being observed. This was because while the family traveled from PA to Indiana to visit a relative, an argument took place, and in a sudden rage, Miguel took gasoline and poured it all over the car that he and his family were driving in, and he was seconds away from lighting a match and setting it on fire with him and his children inside. The children were obviously horrified, and in anticipation of what felt like the end, Ana’s brother would say goodbye to her, believing that neither one of them would be alive after this. When Matias heard his son say goodbye to Ana, he snapped out of it. He didn’t follow through.
Now, after something as serious as this happening, it would have been justified to keep this man as far away from these children as possible, at least until he had his issues worked out and he was properly evaluated. That way they were sure that he was fit to take care of his kids, and even then supervised visits would have been the smart thing. But somehow, for whatever reason, Miguel Matias was granted unsupervised visits on the weekends, and that one decision would lead to a very horrible ending for Ana.
By this point, it was known that Matias was in need of some type of therapy to try and cope with his issues. According to reports, it was said that people close to the family witnessed Matias’s dark side often. There were times where Ana got home too late, and it would result in Miguel beating her in the hallways while neighbors looked on. He was also said to, on occasion, have beaten Ana’s siblings, and when he hit them, he hit them as if they were grown adults that he was fighting, resulting in them being physically injured, frightened, and depressed. The time that Matias tried to set his kids on fire shed light on the fact that his anger and temperament had reached new levels.
Matias would soon seek psychiatric help because he was very aware that there was something wrong with him. He would apply for Medicaid insurance in order to get the help he needed, but he was denied coverage, so no way to receive help. The history of violence is what destroyed this man’s relationship with Ana’s mother to begin with, and in 2008, Ana’s mother began seeing someone new. She and Miguel were separated, and there was no reason for her to not live her life. But Matias didn’t take this news lightly, and his anger about it would end up resulting in a tragedy that not only shocked everyone who heard about it but also made them sick to their stomachs.
On Friday, February 15th of 2008, Ana and Miguel Matias spent the night on the phone with Miguel’s sister as the three of them played online games on the computer. Miguel and Ana in their apartment, and Miguel’s sister in her own apartment. Miguel resided at 1005 Walton Avenue in the Bronx, which is where Ana would visit him. He was also the superintendent to the building. The night was filled with laughs and nothing seemed out of the ordinary. They hung up the phone and ended the night.
It’s unclear how quickly things escalated, but the result was heinous. It was said that the basement of the building had a room where Matias kept surveillance cameras and a computer. Ana would sometimes lock herself in that room and use the computer to talk to friends. On this night, Matias supposedly walked in on Ana while she was messaging a boy. The nature of the message was said to be explicit, and when Matias saw this, he just couldn’t contain his rage. He would begin to attack Ana savagely, tying a knot on an extension cord and wrapping it around Ana’s neck from behind, pulling as hard as he could, choking the life out of his own daughter. Once Ana was lifeless, he took her body and placed it in the incinerator in the boiler, setting her body on fire. Then he went back upstairs to his home like it was nothing.
The following morning at around 8:30 a.m., Matias made a call to his sister, telling her to come over. When she arrived, he explained that he had brutally taken Ana’s life, and he told her how. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. He also made a call to his cousin, telling him what he had done. His cousin made his way to the location as fast as he could, and he ran straight to the basement. He said he looked for about one second, and what he saw scarred him because he saw Ana’s charred remains. He couldn’t look anymore; he was in shock.
Finally, Matias made a call to 911 at around 10:30 a.m., telling them what he had done. At first, he told officers that he left Ana’s body in a nearby wooded area. They found nothing. But when they searched the basement to the building where he lived, they made the sickening discovery. When police officers found Ana’s body, she was still on fire. Matias was arrested, and when questioned, he continued to talk about what he had done to Ana. He mentioned how his first instinct was to beat Ana to death with a baseball bat, but he didn’t want to get blood everywhere, so he choked her instead. “You wouldn’t believe how heavy a dead body is. I almost [__] my pants carrying her.” He would also say, “I killed my daughter. I want to do 30 to 50 years.”
Authorities who had seen it all were still left stunned at these statements, but the information that would be discovered much later was just about the worst thing imaginable. More than a year later, charges of sexual assault were added to his other charges of second-degree murder, and this is because when they ran DNA tests on Ana, they discovered that she was 12 weeks pregnant, and the father of the child was Miguel Matias, her own father. At some point, Matias began taking advantage of his own daughter, grooming her and engaging in unspeakable acts with her. It’s unclear if she knew that she was pregnant or if he knew.
Miguel Matias would admit to authorities that his entire reason for taking Ana’s life that night was to get back at her mother because she moved on. “The kids were not at fault,” he said. Matias’s sister would also state that she believed this to be the reason, but with the news of his sickening behavior with his own daughter being revealed, many began to ask themselves if this terrible act of rage was really driven by wanting to get back at the mother, or if this man was simply jealous of his own daughter being with someone who wasn’t him.
While holding Miguel Matias would make attempts on his own life, trying to escape the responsibility for what he had done, he was ordered to get evaluated at Bellevue to see if mental instability was truly a factor. He was deemed fit to stand trial. Miguel Matias was sentenced to life in prison for his sickening acts, but he died behind bars in 2011.
When it comes to what it means to be a doting father, words like “protect,” “nurture,” and “trust” come to mind. But what if all that has been lost? What’s a child to do when the person that should be providing them with love and protection is the same person that they need to be protected from? It’s hard to imagine what Ana’s life could have been like had this man done his job as a father. She could have grown up to live out her dream and be a model, or who knows, maybe take a whole new trajectory of life, but she’ll never have that chance. Or things could have gone a much darker route, and she could have had that child, and who knows how that would have affected her for life. It’s truly hard to imagine the suffering that she must have been going through.
More than once, Ana was placed back in the care of a person who displayed all the signs. Why was he given visitation rights when all those around saw the rage that was beginning to slowly build in him? Why was it okay for him to be around these children without being properly evaluated? Why was he allowed to be around these children after attempting to take their lives one time already? Questions I’m sure many are asking themselves as they hear this, but sadly, all the questions in the world can’t bring Ana back. Ana would have been 29 years old. Rest in peace to Ana Matias. You aren’t forgotten.
