A U.S. Coast Guard veteran turned OnlyFans model who admitted to killing an Ohio man she said raped her is now pushing back against a court order requiring her to pay restitution to support his children.
Chelsea Perkins, 35, was sentenced in September to 22 1/2 years in federal prison for the murder of 31-year-old Matthew Dunmire at Cuyahoga Valley National Park near Cleveland, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Ohio. She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in May.
In a recent filing, Perkins is challenging nearly $600,000 in restitution. Her attorneys say she agreed to cover Dunmire’s funeral expenses and pay for one of his family members to attend her sentencing, but they argue she should not be responsible for his lost future income.
Under the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA), however, defendants convicted of certain crimes are required to pay restitution for lost wages and future earnings.
“Courts require that the restitution amount represent the victim’s actual loss, not an estimate based on conjecture or speculation,” Perkins’ attorney wrote.
Her lawyers claim the government has not adequately established that loss. Dunmire earned $15 per hour at a screen print and embroidery business and worked 40 hours a week, his employer told the court in a letter.
Prosecutors responded that they relied on “conservative financial figures” to calculate Dunmire’s projected lifetime earnings.
“Importantly, the assumptions provide a basis to show [Dunmire’s] capacity to work in the future,” the government wrote. “Put differently, the Court’s restitution order should reflect what [Dunmire] could have earned had his life not been cut short by Defendant’s choice to shoot him in the back of the head.”
Perkins’ attorney also argued that the proposed figure does not subtract what Dunmire would have needed for his own living expenses.
“When calculating restitution for lost future income under the MVRA, a court must discount future earnings to present value and deduct the victim’s personal consumption (living expenses) so that the award reflects the victim’s actual loss, not gross earnings,” the filing states.
Local CBS affiliate WOIO reported Tuesday that the issue was taken up in a closed-door hearing. The judge has not yet ruled.
At Perkins’ sentencing, prosecutors condemned the killing in stark terms.
“It was a coldly, calculated intention to cause his death,” they said, according to WOIO’s courtroom report.
Perkins alleged that Dunmire raped her years earlier in Virginia, but authorities said there was insufficient evidence to bring charges. Prosecutors said that in the current case they saw “a lack of remorse.”
Investigators testified that Perkins attempted to hide her involvement. Agents said they recovered a fake suicide note on her phone that she wrote and later deleted. They also emphasized that after shooting Dunmire, she drove to Michigan and had a noose tattooed on her forearm.
In court, Perkins said she accepted “full responsibility” for what she had done.
“I was in the Marine Corps and never met anyone as evil or vile,” Dunmire’s uncle, Dan Dunmire, told the judge, according to WOIO.
Members of Perkins’ family also spoke, insisting she is a good person.
Matthew Dunmire’s father addressed the court as well, saying, “My son was a good person, too, and now his children have no father.”
According to a probable cause affidavit, hikers in the Terra Vista Natural Study Area of Cuyahoga Valley National Park found Dunmire’s body around 11 a.m. on March 9, 2021. He had been shot once in the back of the head, and an Aquafina water bottle was lying nearby.
FBI agents later learned that four days before his body was discovered, Dunmire had gone out to a bar with friends and co-workers. He told them he planned to meet a woman visiting town for the weekend. She arrived in a white car, and his boss watched him get in and leave.
License-plate readers showed the car was registered to Perkins’ husband. Investigators determined that Perkins had rented an Airbnb using her credit card, and that she and Dunmire stayed there overnight. The next morning, Perkins messaged her tattoo artist in the Detroit area on Facebook, saying she was in Cleveland and was going to “make a stop first” before driving to Michigan, according to authorities.
Perkins and Dunmire drove to the national park on the morning of March 6, 2021. Hikers reported hearing a gunshot between 11:30 a.m. and 11:50 a.m. Another pair of hikers later encountered a woman — later identified as Perkins — who appeared lost and was notably dressed in knee-high boots rather than hiking clothes.
After leaving the park, Perkins continued on to the tattoo shop in Michigan. Agents ultimately focused on her as a suspect and, weeks later, found the same white car parked outside her husband’s home in Virginia.
According to investigators, Perkins’ DNA was found on the Aquafina bottle and on Dunmire’s body.
After leaving the Coast Guard, Perkins worked as an OnlyFans model under the name Sabrina Savage, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reported. Regarding her rape allegation against Dunmire, police in Virginia Beach said there was not enough evidence to proceed with a case, the newspaper reported.
The case took a dramatic turn in November 2021 when Dunmire’s parents, furious that Perkins had not been arrested at that time, attempted to track her down themselves. According to federal authorities, his mother, Tommie Lynn Dunmire, and stepfather, John Nelson McQuillen, drove to Washington, D.C., intending to kill Perkins.
Tommie Lynn allegedly dressed as a UPS driver and knocked on an apartment door. When a woman answered, she shot her twice in the abdomen.
The woman, however, was not Perkins. She had no connection to their son’s death.
The pair switched license plates on their vehicle, but law enforcement still located them. As officers closed in, Tommie Lynn died by suicide. The shooting victim survived. Federal agents arrested McQuillen, who later pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to assault with intent to kill and was sentenced to three years in prison.
An obituary for Matthew Dunmire remembered him as a “free spirit who loved music, loved playing his guitar, and loved being with his friends.”
