Perkins Gets 22+ Years for National Park Execution

CLEVELAND – A calculated journey ended with a life extinguished and a 22-plus year prison sentence. Chelsea Perkins, 35, of Alexandria, Virginia, was sentenced today for the brutal execution of 31-year-old Matthew Dunmire within the serene, yet now tainted, boundaries of Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Northern Ohio.

U.S. District Judge Solomon Oliver Jr. handed down a 270-month (22.5 year) sentence after Perkins pleaded guilty in May to second-degree murder and the use of a firearm during a violent crime on federal property. She’ll also face five years of supervised release upon her eventual freedom, with restitution amounts to be determined at a later hearing. The crime wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment act; evidence paints a picture of cold planning.

Court documents detail a chilling cross-state trip. In March 2021, Perkins drove her husband’s Smart car over 300 miles from Virginia to Ohio, specifically to rendezvous with Dunmire, a man she knew. After a night spent together at a vacation rental, Perkins lured Dunmire into the dense woods of the national park near Valley View, Ohio. The pair hiked deep off-trail, past a cemetery and across treacherous ravines, a deliberate attempt to isolate her victim. There, she callously shot Dunmire in the back of the head with a 9mm pistol she’d brought with her.

The aftermath was as disturbing as the act itself. Perkins didn’t flee immediately. Instead, she drove to Michigan and obtained a tattoo of a noose on her forearm before returning to Virginia. Investigators quickly connected Perkins to the shooting. A search of her Virginia home revealed three 9mm pistols, one found inside a woman’s purse alongside her identification. Crucially, that weapon matched the DNA found at the scene. Even more damning, a deleted note was recovered from Perkins’ cellphone – a fabricated suicide note, purportedly written by Dunmire, created around the time his body was discovered.

Hikers stumbled upon Dunmire’s body days after the shooting, triggering a multi-agency investigation. The FBI Cleveland Division, the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, the National Park Service Investigative Branch, the Valley View Police Department, and the Cuyahoga Valley National Park Police Department all contributed to building the case against Perkins. The evidence, meticulously gathered, left no doubt about her guilt.

Assistant United States Attorneys Scott Zarzycki, Margaret A. Kane, and Adam J. Joines of the Northern District of Ohio successfully prosecuted the case. Perkins’ sentence serves as a stark reminder that even in the remote wilderness of a national park, justice will be pursued, and violent acts will be met with severe consequences. The quiet beauty of Cuyahoga Valley has been marred, but the pursuit of justice has delivered a measure of closure.

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