Police charge 3 additional people, including twin sisters, in 2017 killing of Silver Spring teen

Closeup view of police car LED lights.(Getty Images/Douglas Sacha)

Montgomery County police have charged three more people they say are responsible for a murder that happened more than four years ago in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Police have charged Leaundra Matthews with helping in the murder of her younger brother Christian in 2017.

Back in 2017, Montgomery County police responded to a call for a suspicious situation and found Christian, 17, strangled to death in his sleep.

According to charging documents, when police arrived at the house in the 1000 black of Mondrian Terrace, they say Leaundra greeted officers and said that she heard a loud commotion in the basement where her brother’s bedroom was.

Officers searched the house at the request of the sisters and found Matthews unresponsive in his basement bedroom with suspicious marks on his neck. He was pronounced dead at a hospital.

Leaundra’s boyfriend, Tysean Lipford, was charged and found guilty of second-degree murder in 2019 and was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Now, Leaundra has been arrested and charged with first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of her brother.

Police have also charged Leaundra’s twin sister Lemae Matthews with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder as well as Lipford’s friend Daniel Juwan Howard.

Charging documents say Leaundra told her mother and her aunt that she helped set up the murder.

Charging documents also say Leaundra confessed to her mother and aunt in 2019 that she helped her boyfriend kill Christian.

She told them that she set it all up — including unlocking their back door and leaving out disposable gloves, according to charging documents.

Valerie Bonk

Valerie Bonk started working at WTOP in 2016 and has lived in Howard County, Maryland, her entire life. She's thrilled to be a reporter for WTOP telling stories on air. She works as both a television and radio reporter in the Maryland and D.C. areas. 

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