Man pleads guilty to breaking into 48 different vehicles around town

The four-month stretch between October 2020 to January 2021 was brutal for car break-ins around Milledgeville.

Not in recent memory had so many entering autos been reported in such a short period of time, more that 100 altogether. The break-ins seemed to be clustered in two areas – the Brantley Way apartments off of Ivey-Weaver Road, as well as Irwin Street in west Milledgeville and the college kid apartments in the area.

Then, late one Thursday night, a fed up woman on Irwin Street realized that her car had been rummaged through. She then spotted someone going through her neighbor’s Toyota Camry on Irwin Street. The woman initially went to her car to grab her gun and confront the man, “but realized her gun was missing,” according to an incident report. She then called 911 and city officers responded.

Eventually spotted hiding and crawling underneath a house was Ma’Tyious Matthews, 19 at the time. Numerous items then were reportedly discovered in Matthews’ backpack, including a teal .9 millimeter Glock pistol, a pink and black .9 millimeter pistol, a Louis Vuitton purse and marijuana.

Roughly one year later, Matthews finally had his day in court, pleading guilty to a whopping 48 separate counts of entering auto in Superior Court earlier this month. Matthews was sentenced to 17 years on probation and three years behind bars, with credit for time served since January 2021. Even after he’s released, Matthews will face mountains of restitution from more than two dozen victims who have requested restitution.