Friends mourn victims of West Jordan triple murder, suicide

WEST JORDAN — Friends of Justin and Melissa Matern said they knew the couple was having problems, but they never imagined something like this would ever happen.

"I still can't wrap my mind around it," friend and former neighbor Marques Howser said. "It kills me. I don't know how I will be able to tell my daughter and son how this happened."

"He said, 'I thought this was going to be the best year of my life, and it's been the worst,' " Justin Matern recently told his former neighbor Vicki Hansen. " 'I don't even want to live anymore.' I told him, 'You can't go there. It's not worth it.' I can't believe he would ever do that to the kids."

Thursday night, police say Justin Zachariah Matern, 34, went to his estranged wife's apartment, where he shot and killed Melissa Ann Matern, 31, and their two sons, 6-year-old Gabriel, and 4-year-old Raiden. He then committed suicide.

Before turning his gun on himself, Matern sent text messages to friends and family about 7:30 p.m. Thursday, saying he had just killed his family and was about to kill himself, West Jordan Police Sgt. Drew Sanders said.

Investigators believe the triple-murder/suicide was likely premeditated, because a suicide note was later found at Justin Matern's work, apparently intended for co-workers to find Friday morning.

People who received the texts immediately called police but were unsure where the husband was when he sent the messages. Police said Melissa Matern had only lived in her apartment in the Willow Cove apartment complex near 9300 S. Redwood Road for a few weeks.

Police in Midvale, Salt Lake City, West Jordan and South Jordan searched their areas for the family after receiving the reports.

Vicki Hansen lives next door to the Materns' former Salt Lake house near 1800 S. Main. She heard someone kicking in the door last night and looked out the window to see an officer with his gun drawn.

West Jordan police eventually found the woman's apartment and the grisly scene about 9:30 p.m. There was no sign of forced entry. If not for the text messages, Sanders said, the tragedy might have remained undiscovered Friday.

Sanders did not know how long the couple had been separated, saying only that it had been "recently." Justin Matern was "distraught" over the separation and had expressed suicidal thoughts to others, Sanders said.