WHITE CLOUD, Mich. - Matthew Jones has been sentenced to life in prison for killing a Newaygo County girl in 1989.
Matthew Jones was convicted in May of killing Shannon Siders. Siders was 18 when she disappeared. Her body was found a few months after her disappearance in the Manistee National Forest.
Police said she'd last been seen driving in a car with the brothers. After her body was found, the case grew cold. Investigators reopened it decades later.
Matthew Jones was convicted of first-degree murder. His brother, Paul Jones, was convicted of second-degree murder in the separate trials that took place simultaneously this spring. Paul Jones was sentenced to 30 to 70 years in prison for the crime.
The Jones brothers were 17 and 19 at the time of the murder.
After they were sentenced, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette made a statement in response:
"This conviction and sentencing is proof that no case is too cold for a successful prosecution of someone who robbed a young woman of her life," he said, "Justice was delayed for Shannon Siders and her family, but Matthew Jones will never have the chance to harm another young woman and Paul Jones will spend the next 30 to 75 years behind bars."
