Colon-Matias gets two more years for burglary charge

By Linda Cicoira

Two more years in prison were added to the time being served by murderer Edwin Colon-Matias Thursday in Accomack Circuit Court because he was on probation for a “bizarre” 2019 burglary charge when he stabbed a Parksley man to death in 2020.

The 38-year-old Bloxom man was sentenced earlier this year to 40 years in prison, the maximum term for second-degree murder. All but 10 years of that sentence were suspended, resulting in 12 years of active time with the probation revocation.

It was the burglary conviction that led to his arrest in the death of 29-year-old Deandre Arness Abbott of Parksley in February 2024 and his eventual murder conviction in September 2024.

After being convicted of burglary, Colon-Matias was required to provide a DNA sample, which later matched DNA on a cigarette or cigar butt, two knives, and a straw found at Abbott’s murder scene. Colon-Matias also could not be eliminated from material found under one of the victim’s fingernails. Abbott was stabbed several times. A final blow struck his heart. He attempted to drive off but didn’t get far before passing away. His body was found in a car on Bear Town Road in Mappsville.

At sentencing, Colon-Matias contended that he was acting in self-defense when he stabbed Abbott and didn’t realize how badly he was hurt.

When Colon-Matias lived in Greenbush in 2019, he went into a neighbor’s home while a babysitter picked up her special needs son at a nearby bus stop. She said she was gone for about four minutes and left a toddler in the living room with other children. When she returned, Matias was in the bedroom of her house trailer with the 26-month-old girl. The child’s diaper had been removed, and her pants were pulled down.

“I didn’t know what to do,” the woman told authorities. “Nothing like that has ever happened to me before. The man was in the room, the room where I sleep.”

In addition to the toddler, boys aged two months, four years, and six years were left at the home. According to a search warrant, the girl’s six-year-old brother told police, “He witnessed Matias enter the residence, take (his sister) to the bedroom” where Matias removed her diaper and “dropped his pants and … removed his genitals from his underwear. The boy did not see if Matias touched her sexually,” court records stated.