CLEVELAND (CHATNEWSTV) — A U.S. Coast Guard veteran-turned-OnlyFans model has pleaded guilty to second-degree murder for luring a man she accused of raping her into an Ohio national park and shooting him execution-style in 2021, federal authorities said.
Chelsea Perkins, 33, admitted Tuesday to killing 31-year-old Matthew Dunmire with a single gunshot to the back of the head at Cuyahoga Valley National Park, according to court records.
Hikers discovered Dunmire’s body the morning of March 9, 2021, in the Terra Vista Natural Study Area. A spent water bottle was found nearby. DNA later confirmed Perkins’ presence at the scene, investigators said.
Four days earlier, Dunmire had told friends and coworkers he was meeting a woman visiting Cleveland for the weekend. Surveillance and license plate records showed he left a bar with a woman who got into a white car registered to Perkins’ husband, the FBI said.
Investigators say Perkins and Dunmire spent the night together at an Airbnb booked on her credit card. The next morning, she messaged a tattoo artist in Michigan that she would “make a stop first” before heading north, according to court filings.
That “stop,” prosecutors say, was the remote hiking trail where she shot Dunmire. Hikers later reported hearing a gunshot and encountering a woman — later identified as Perkins — wandering the area in knee-high boots and looking lost.
Authorities say she then drove to Michigan and days later was tracked to her husband’s home in Virginia, where agents spotted the same white vehicle seen leaving the bar with Dunmire.
Perkins had previously accused Dunmire of rape in Virginia Beach, but local police said there was insufficient evidence to pursue charges.
After her Coast Guard service, Perkins became an adult content creator on OnlyFans under the name “Sabrina Savage,” The Plain Dealer reported.
The killing also triggered a separate, failed vigilante attack by Dunmire’s parents, who were angry that Perkins hadn’t been charged.
In November 2021, Dunmire’s mother, Tommie Lynn Dunmire, and father, John Nelson McQuillen, allegedly drove to Washington, D.C., intending to kill Perkins, federal authorities said. Disguised as a UPS worker, Tommie Lynn Dunmire knocked on the wrong apartment door and shot a woman unconnected to the case. The victim survived.
Tommie Lynn Dunmire later died by suicide as police closed in. McQuillen was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to being an accessory after the fact to assault with intent to kill.
Dunmire was remembered in his obituary as “a free spirit who loved music, loved playing his guitar, and loved being with his friends.”
Perkins is scheduled to be sentenced Sept. 9 and faces between 20 and 25 years in prison.
