RUTHERFORD COUNTY, N.C. (828newsNOW) —
A Rutherford County man will spend the rest of his life behind bars after being found guilty of murdering one person and trying to conceal the deaths of two people by dismembering and burning their bodies.
A Facebook post from Ted Bell, district attorney for Rutherford and McDowell counties, announced on June 21 that Matthew Cooley had been sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder.
Prior investigation showed on Dec. 27, 2021, deputies with the Rutherford County Sheriff’s Office responded to a 911 call at Morningstar Lake Road in the Chase/Sandy Mush area. When they arrived at the scene, they found one person holding Cooley at gunpoint. Cooley then told deputies two people had been killed at the home — Tracey McKinney and Jason VanDyke.
According to the district attorney’s post, Rutherford County authorities and officials with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation (NCSBI) learned at the time that VanDyke had killed McKinney on the back porch of the residence with a hammer. VanDyke and Cooley left McKinney’s body “lying outside the home for more than a day,” the DA’s post said.
“Cooley told detectives that Jason VanDyke was talking about the murder of Ms. McKinney to other individuals, so Cooley made the choice to ‘take him too,’” the post continued. “Cooley waited until VanDyke fell asleep in a chair and hit him in the head with an axe.”
Investigators learned Cooley had dismembered the bodies of McKinney and VanDyke, then burned them in a fire pit.
“No significant portion of the bodies remained, but the Sheriff’s Office forensics team and Sheriff’s Office detectives painstakingly sifted though the fire pit recovering bone fragments and other pieces of evidence,” District Attorney Bell wrote on social media.
After piecing together bone fragments for six months, forensic anthropologists at N.C. State University were able to determine the victims’ causes of death.
Cooley was charged with first-degree murder, two counts of destroying human remains and two counts of concealing/failing to report a death. He pleaded not guilty to the charges.
Cooley’s trial began on June 3, 2024, and lasted for almost two full weeks, according to the district attorney. After deliberating less than an hour, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts.
Cooley was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.