Pasco man faces death after being found guilty of four murders

A Pasco jury found Adam Matos guilty on Thursday of brutally murdering his ex-girlfriend, her boyfriend and her parents in late August 2014.

After deliberating for nearly three hours, the jury reached their verdict, finding Matos guilty of four counts of first-degree murder in the deaths of former girlfriend Megan Brown, her new boyfriend Nicholas Leonard, and Brown’s parents, Greg and Margaret, in late August 2014 in Hudson, according to the Herald’s community partner Spectrum Bay News 9.

Many seated in the courtroom began to weep or grab onto one another’s shoulders as the verdicts were read.

After the verdict was announced, some people inside the courtroom wept and placed their hands on the shoulders of others.

Now Matos faces the death penalty.

“Either way, his life is over,” Daniel Leonard, Nicholas’s father, said to Bay News 9 outside of the courtroom. “That’s basically all we can really ask for.”

The penalty phase of Matos’ trial will get underway at 9:30 a.m. Monday in the New Port Richey courtroom.

For family members of the victims, listening to Matos’ testimony when he took the stand on Wednesday was the most difficult part of the trial. Matos did not denying murdering the victims, but instead claimed it was self-defense.

“There was a lot of anger going on back there,” Daniel said. “We were all pretty upset about it.”

This story was originally published November 16, 2017 at 8:38 PM with the headline "Pasco man faces death after being found guilty of four murders."