Between a nightclub’s security putting a woman out for allegedly having too many drinks and friends who reportedly left her side to head back into the club, one Pennsylvania woman was left to navigate a freezing night in late January alone. What started as an evening at a nightclub with friends turned into a desperate search, a heartbreaking ending and a family demanding answers.
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On Jan. 23, Makea Matthews, 29, went to a nightclub on Delaware Avenue in Philadelphia with two female friends, according to her family, local news channel ABC 7 reported.
The club’s security reportedly told Matthews’ family she was kicked out for being too “intoxicated.” Her friends allegedly admitted they initially left with Matthews, but returned inside to look for something they forgot, according to Fox 29 Philadelphia. Matthews was gone when they returned.
“Makea would have never been missing if somebody would have stayed with her,” Matthews’ sister Bayyinah said, according to ABC 7.
Because she didn’t return home and couldn’t be reached by phone— which her family says was unusual— Matthews’ girlfriend reported her missing the next day around 4:25 p.m. About 20 minutes later, police responded to a separate call on the 2000 block of Richmond Street. That’s when they made the gruesome discovery.
Matthews’ body was found frozen underneath an Interstate 95 overpass. That evening, the city was under a Code Blue Weather Emergency— a temporary alert activated when extreme cold poses a severe risk to life and health. The alert is meant to protect vulnerable, unhoused individuals from hypothermia and freezing temperatures.
Matthews was pronounced dead at the scene.
Her family says they were told Matthews froze to death due to hypothermia, but they still question how she traveled from Delaware Avenue to underneath a highway overpass more than a mile away— with apparent “blunt force trauma to her left side of her face and bruises all over her body.”
Bayyinah wondered why her sister, whom she said “would give you the clothes off her back,” didn’t just walk home from a club she often visited. “There’s something in my heart that’s telling me no, something happened to her,” Bayyinah said, Fox 29 reported. The family says they are also trying to retrace Matthews’ steps on their own in an effort to piece together what happened.
The case remains under active investigation by the Philadelphia Police Department along with the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office.
“I’m trying to put the pieces together and it’s not adding up, none of this is adding up. Nothing that they’re telling me is adding up,” Bayyinah said. “I’m not stopping until I get my closure about my sister. I need closure.”
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