A 42-year-old Clinton Township man convicted for first-degree murder Thursday and will spend the rest of his life in prison for the strangulation slaying of his ex-girlfriend then hiding her body for over seven months.

A Macomb County Circuit Court jury deliberated several hours over two days before convicting Matthew Lewinski of all charges for the 2020 death of Courtney “Jerri” Winters and the dismemberment and concealment of her body. The verdicts followed a five-day trial in front of Judge Rachel Rancilio in the county courthouse in Mount Clemens.

Lewinski will be ordered to serve life without parole at a July 14 sentencing by Rancilio. He will face additional lower sentences for the two additional crimes.

Lewinski was remanded to the Michigan Department of Corrections from the Macomb County Jail, where he has been held since he was charged.

The jury rejected arguments from Lewinski’s attorney, Elisha Oakes, to convict him of the lower offense of manslaughter, punishable by up to 15  years in prison. The jury also could consider second-degree murder, punishable by any number of years up to life.

Assistant Prosecutor Carmen DeFranco told the jury during closing arguments Wednesday Lewinski not only thought about killing her in his residence minutes before he did it but had about five minutes to consider his actions while choking her to death.

“This is not a spur-of-the-moment thing,” DeFranco said. “He has more than a moment. He has five minutes. Every moment he keeps his hand on her throat, every moment he squeezes that life out of her is another choice to continue doing it.”

Lewinski told police during his hospital-bed confession he cried while killing her.

“He’s crying, as he says, because he knows what he’s doing but is continuing to do it. He’s knows its wrong, but and he’s like, ‘Ah, just crying over it but here we go, I’ll take her life anyway.’”

Lewinski killed Winters in the living room of his home at Crosswinds Condominiums off Hayes Road near 17 Mile Road in December 2020 when she unexpectedly visited him about a month after they broke up and after she informed him she had an abortion.

When Lewinski went to the kitchen to make tea for her, she undressed and was sitting naked in a Lazy Boy-style chair when a verbal dispute escalated into exchanged slaps and Winters biting him, he stated. Lewinski said he choked her with one hand. He claimed in his hospital-bed confession she “egged” him on.

County Medical Examiner Dr. Mary Pietrangelo testified Winters would have went unconscious within about 30 seconds, and it would’ve taken at least five minutes for her to die.

Winters’ decomposing, partially cut-up body wrapped in a tarp was discovered by Lewinski’s brother-in-law in July 2021. Lewinski was taken into custody on a report he was wandering around the complex in an apparent state of confusion.

He told police he didn’t call to report the incident because he didn’t trust the police, DeFranco said.

Elisha Oakes contended Lewinski “snapped” in reaction to her informing him of the abortion, and that he had been the victim of “intimate partner violence” by Winters, including threats.

“She pushed him to a point where he snapped,” Oakes told jurors. “I want you to think about being told that your baby was taken from you, your child was taken from you by the act of another person, the one thing you wanted, and in that moment, after months of abuse, being threatened, being told ‘I’m going to blow your f—ing head off,’ all of those things culminated.”

Denise Hines, an associate professor of social work at George Mason University and expert on “intimate partner violence,” testified men are victims of abuse more often than people believe. She said victims of such abuse struggle with “impulse control” and other behaviors, and male victims are reluctant to retaliate or call police.

But she could not say whether Lewinski was a victim of such abuse and conceded she is not a therapist.

Several witnesses testified about potentially abusive remarks or actions by Winters during their year-long relationship. Lewinski called police in 2020 to report Winters had threatened to come to his house with a gun and advised him the locks on his doors, a police officer testified.

Witnesses testified Winters controlled their relationship, Oakes said.

Oakes also noted Winters did not get along with her own family, which hadn’t seen her in several months but didn’t report her missing. It appeared no one from her family attended court proceedings.

She also had an arrest record and “many, many aliases,” six Social Security numbers and 10 dates of birth, Oakes added.

DeFranco countered by beginning his rebuttal with, “We just watched Jerri Winters put on trial. Because she had an arrest record, she should’ve been killed. Because her family had spoken to her for a few months, kill her. Be gone with her.”

DeFranco pointed out Lewinski had not interacted with his family in several years and family members had to “sneak” into his home to recover family possessions.

“Are we to assume Matthew must’ve been a horrible person, too?” he said. “If we use the defense’s logic, that’s the only answer it can be. None of it (defense arguments) had anything to do with the elements of the crime.”

DeFranco noted there was competing testimony that Lewinski controlled the relationship, and one witness said Lewinski was the happiest she had ever seen him when he was with Winters.

“Manslaughter is nowhere near what we have here,” DeFranco said. “There is absolutely no impulse. This is conscious though, five minutes of conscious thought to squeeze the life out of someone. It wasn’t a pull-out-a-gun and shooting in two seconds.”