The Tragic Death of Melissa Lamesch: A Story of Betrayal and Justice
A Day That Started with Hope and Ended in Tragedy
November 25, 2020, began as a day filled with anticipation and joy for 27-year-old Melissa Lamesch. Just two days away from her scheduled induction to give birth to her baby boy, and with Thanksgiving on the horizon, Melissa was looking forward to a quiet holiday celebration with her father. That morning, she settled into a long phone conversation with her sister, Cassie Baal, chatting for about two and a half hours about the exciting future that awaited her and her soon-to-arrive son. They discussed baby names, nursery plans, and all the hopes that come with welcoming a new life into the world. But their conversation was abruptly cut short when Melissa glanced out her window and saw someone she wasn’t expecting—and wasn’t particularly happy to see.
At her door stood Matthew Plote, the 33-year-old father of her unborn child. Frustrated, Melissa told her sister, “You gotta be kidding me. He’s freaking here again. I told him he’s gotta stop doing this.” She promised Cassie she would call back after finding out what Plote wanted. But that return call never came. By the end of that day, Melissa’s home was engulfed in flames, and both she and her unborn baby boy were dead. What appeared at first to be a tragic house fire would soon be revealed as something far more sinister—a carefully orchestrated murder that shocked the community and devastated a family who had been counting down the days until they could welcome little Barrett into the world.
A Complicated Relationship and an Unwanted Pregnancy
Melissa Lamesch and Matthew Plote had known each other for seven years, having met while both were in college. They maintained what Melissa’s family described as a casual, on-and-off friendship within a shared circle of friends. Melissa was known for being fiercely independent, unapologetically herself, and someone who followed her own path in life. She had worked in various careers, most recently as a devoted EMT and paramedic—a calling she discovered after a positive experience in an emergency room during her college years. Her father, Gus, was immensely proud of how seriously she took her work helping others.
When Melissa discovered she was pregnant, the dynamics of her relationship with Plote changed dramatically. According to her family, Plote wanted nothing to do with becoming a father and pressured Melissa to have an abortion. When she refused, he essentially ghosted her, cutting off communication and leaving her hurt and confused. This was particularly painful for Melissa because they had been friends for so long, and she had thought Plote was “a pretty nice guy” who would want at least some involvement in their child’s life. Instead, she saw a completely different side of him—one that was cold, distant, and seemingly resentful of the situation.
Despite Plote’s rejection, Melissa was determined to move forward with her pregnancy. Her parents, Deanna and Gus Lamesch, rallied around their daughter, assuring her that she had all the family support she needed. Gus promised to help financially, and Deanna reminded Melissa that if Plote didn’t want to be part of the baby’s life, she shouldn’t force it—the baby would be her child, surrounded by a loving extended family. As her due date approached, Melissa moved back into her childhood home with her father to make things easier. She continued to reach out to Plote periodically, sending him sonogram pictures and updates, hoping he might change his mind. Sometimes he would respond briefly, but mostly he shut down any communication. What Melissa didn’t fully realize was just how deeply Plote wanted to keep the pregnancy a secret—even from his own parents, his coworkers, and his fire chief.
The Investigation Begins: From House Fire to Homicide
When firefighters arrived at Melissa’s burning home on November 25, 2020, they discovered her body on the kitchen floor near the oven. At first, the scene appeared to be a tragic accident—perhaps a cooking fire that had gotten out of control. But as investigators began examining the evidence, nothing added up. Lieutenant Brian Ketter, the lead detective from the Ogle County Sheriff’s Office, immediately noticed that despite the extensive fire damage throughout the kitchen, Melissa’s body showed very little fire damage. This was a critical clue: the fire hadn’t killed her.
Michael Poel, a special agent with the Illinois State Fire Marshal’s Office, was tasked with determining whether the fire was accidental or intentionally set. As he sifted through the debris and examined the burn patterns, he found that the fire appeared to have started in the cabinets above the stove. However, when he inspected the stove itself, he made a crucial discovery—all the controls were in the “off” position. There was no evidence of cooking activity, no electrical malfunctions, and no other accidental causes that would explain the fire. Even more puzzling, the house had multiple easy exit points, and much of it remained accessible despite the fire. For someone like Melissa, who was trained as a paramedic and accustomed to handling emergencies, it made no sense that she would have been unable to escape what Poel described as “a survivable fire.”
As investigators interviewed Melissa’s family, they learned about the phone call between Melissa and Cassie that morning, and how it had been interrupted by Plote’s unexpected arrival. They also learned that Plote was a firefighter-paramedic—someone who would know exactly how to set a fire. When detectives brought Plote in for questioning that same evening, they informed him of Melissa’s death. His reaction was chilling in its lack of emotion: “Oh. OK.” Throughout the interview, Plote remained soft-spoken and seemingly unmoved by the news that the mother of his unborn child was dead. He claimed he had gone to Melissa’s house that day to discuss money and his desire to be present at the hospital when she gave birth. He mentioned that when he left, Melissa had been talking about making lunch—a detail that would later seem like an attempt to establish a narrative about an accidental cooking fire.
The Evidence Mounts: Strangulation, DNA, and Suspicious Behavior
The investigation took a definitive turn when the results of Melissa’s autopsy came back. Two separate examinations revealed that she had normal carbon monoxide levels and no soot in her airways—confirming that she had died before the fire started. More disturbingly, medical examiners found evidence of strangulation, including numerous petechial hemorrhages around her neck—broken blood vessels that are a telltale sign of manual strangulation. Dr. Amanda Youmans, the forensic pathologist who performed one of the autopsies, would later testify that Melissa’s case showed the most petechial hemorrhages she had ever seen in a strangulation case, indicating a violent struggle.
The case was now officially a double homicide—Melissa and her unborn baby boy had been murdered. As investigators dug deeper, they discovered that Plote had called in sick to work the day of the fire, despite having no apparent illness. They learned that he had been juggling multiple romantic relationships and had kept the pregnancy a complete secret from everyone in his life, including his parents, his coworkers at the Carol Stream Fire District, and his fire chief, Rob Schultz. When Melissa took it upon herself to inform Plote’s parents about their upcoming grandchild—hoping they might want to be involved in the baby’s life—Plote was furious that his secret had been exposed.
Perhaps the most damning piece of physical evidence came from DNA testing. When investigators finally obtained samples from Plote and compared them to evidence collected during the autopsy, they found his DNA under Melissa’s fingernails—strong evidence of a physical struggle between them. Combined with the fire marshal’s conclusion that the fire was “most likely incendiary in nature, possibly the result of a fire being intentionally set in an effort to conceal a potential homicide,” the case against Plote was building steadily. However, investigators wanted more than circumstantial evidence—they wanted a confession. This led to an unusual strategy: they asked Fire Chief Schultz to wear a wire and try to get Plote to open up about what happened.
Unusual Tactics and a Slow Path to Justice
Fire Chief Rob Schultz’s initial reaction to being asked to wear a listening device and question one of his own firefighters about murder was shock. “No way,” he told investigators at first. But after thinking about the grieving family desperate for answers, he called back and agreed. On September 9, 2021, nearly ten months after Melissa’s death, Schultz called Plote and asked him to come in for a conversation. The fire station was cleared of all other personnel, and investigators listened from outside and an adjoining office as Schultz tried to get Plote to explain what had happened. “Help me walk through what happened,” Schultz pleaded, appealing to their personal relationship and professional bond. But the nearly two-hour conversation yielded virtually nothing. Plote barely spoke about the day Melissa died, keeping his head down through most of the discussion. Remarkably, he never once said, “I didn’t kill Melissa and my baby.”
For Melissa’s family, the months dragging by without an arrest were excruciating. “We were pestering the police constantly,” Gus Lamesch admitted. They couldn’t understand why, when the evidence seemed so clear to them, Plote remained free. The delays were due to several factors: waiting for the fire marshal’s final report, attempting to retrieve potential audio evidence from an Amazon Echo Dot found in Melissa’s kitchen (which ultimately provided no useful information), and the strategic decision to wait before obtaining Plote’s DNA, hoping he might confess first during questioning.
Finally, on March 9, 2022—more than a year and a half after Melissa’s murder—Matthew Plote was arrested and charged with murder, the intentional homicide of an unborn child, and arson. For the Lamesch family, it was a step toward justice, but nothing could fill the void left by Melissa and the grandson they would never meet. Three weeks after Melissa’s death, the family had held a funeral for both her and baby Barrett, the name Melissa had chosen for her son. Deanna Lamesch described the heartbreaking moment when she touched Barrett’s tiny hand in the casket—”I just remember gasping”—realizing it was something Melissa herself never got to do.
The Trial: A Battle Over Evidence and Interpretation
When Matthew Plote’s trial finally began on March 18, 2024—more than three years after the murders—the prosecution and defense presented starkly different narratives. Prosecutors Allison Huntley and Heather Kruse argued that Plote killed Melissa and their unborn child simply because he didn’t want to be a father and wanted to protect the secret life he had been living. “He was keeping a secret—the fact that he fathered a baby—in the hopes that the child wouldn’t be born,” Huntley told the jury. They pointed to what they called Plote’s “deadline”—a chilling reference he had made during one of his interviews with investigators, saying “there’s a deadline for pregnancy.” With Thanksgiving on Thursday and Melissa’s induction scheduled for Friday, prosecutors argued that Wednesday was Plote’s only opportunity to act, which is why he called in sick to work and went to Melissa’s home.
Defense attorneys John Kopp and Liam Dixon painted a completely different picture of their client. They described Plote as a dedicated firefighter-paramedic who had spent his entire career saving lives, not taking them. They argued that he had gone to Melissa’s house that day simply to discuss finances and logistics surrounding the baby’s birth, and that he left while she was preparing lunch. They challenged the fire investigation, calling their own expert witness, retired firefighter John Knapp, who testified that the cause of the fire should have been classified as “undetermined” rather than arson. The defense accused investigators of having “tunnel vision,” focusing exclusively on Plote without properly investigating other potential suspects or leads.
The trial featured powerful testimony from multiple witnesses. Fire investigator Michael Poel stood by his conclusion that the fire was intentionally set, telling the court he had “no doubt” about his findings despite defense attempts to portray his report as uncertain. Dr. Amanda Youmans described in detail the extensive petechial hemorrhages around Melissa’s neck and testified that Melissa was definitely dead before the fire started. Perhaps most emotionally impactful was Cassie Baal’s testimony about that final phone call with her sister—the call that was interrupted by Plote’s arrival and the promised callback that never came. Jurors also watched hours of Plote’s interviews with investigators, including that remarkable seven-hour session during which he barely spoke and, critically, never once denied killing Melissa or their baby. After a week-long trial and just two hours of deliberation, the jury returned with guilty verdicts on all charges. Three months later, Judge John Roe imposed the maximum sentence: life in prison without the possibility of parole, meaning Matthew Plote will almost certainly die behind bars.
