A central Illinois man pleaded guilty Monday for his role in the 2017 murder of his friend’s mother whose bloodied body was found near the Sugar Grove Nature Center.
Matthew Isbell, 24, of Marquette Heights pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 12 years in prison. In exchange first-degree murder charges were dismissed.
Prosecutors claimed that Isbell knew his friend, Christine Roush, planned to kill her mother, Teresa Poehlman, when he drove them all in his truck to Funks Grove during Fourth of July weekend in 2017. Roush stabbed her mother to death, and she and Isbell worked together to cover up the murder.
Roush, 22, of Washington, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder a few months after her arrest. Isbell was headed toward trial next month before Monday’s plea deal.
“Matt had a very good chance of getting a not-guilty at trial,” said Alison Motta, Isbell’s attorney. “However, that’s a risk that wasn’t worth taking in light of the negotiated plea we were able to work out. So we’re very satisfied with that plea.”
Isbell told authorities that Roush planned to kill Poehlman and that he watched her do it. Prosecutors said he told authorities the plan was also known to a “third individual” who Isbell feared would come after him. “That belief was unreasonable,” prosecutors said in court Monday.
After Monday’s plea, McLean County First Assistant State’s Attorney Brad Rigdon praised the work of prosecutors Ashley Scarborough and Aaron Fredrick on the case, as well as McLean County sheriff’s department investigators.
“Matt Isbell, in particular, shows what we believe to be the value of the cooperation he provided with the detectives, and that his information that he provided was essential to the successful prosecution of Christine Roush for the first-degree murder, and also resulted to his plea to the second-degree murder charge today,” Rigdon told WGLT.
Judge Casey Costigan denied Isbell’s request for release time before his prison sentence begins so he could spend time with his mother, who Motta said has terminal cancer.
Isbell has spent over two years in the McLean County jail. That means he could be out of prison in just over three years, Motta said.
