Firefighters, neighbors, ISP investigator testify at trial for Malta man accused of killing Mt. Morris woman

OREGON – Mt. Morris firefighters found Melissa Lamesch face down on her kitchen floor when they crawled into her burning home at 206 S. Hannah St., just one day before Thanksgiving in 2020.

“There was a lot of smoke. You could only see 5 to 6 inches. We were crawling on our hands and knees. I saw her feet and the lower part of her body,” Mt. Morris Fire Captain Ryan Fletcher told an Ogle County jury Tuesday. “We dragged her out the same way we came in.”

Fletcher, a 29-year veteran of the fire department, was one of three firefighters who testified Tuesday at the jury trial for Matthew T. Plote, 36, of Malta who is accused of killing Lamesch, 27, and her unborn baby on Nov. 25, 2020, and setting fire to her home to conceal their deaths.

He is charged with four counts of first-degree murder, three counts of intentional homicide of an unborn child and one count each of residential arson, aggravated domestic battery and concealment of a homicidal death. He has been held in the Ogle County Correctional Center on $10 million bond since his March 2022 arrest, and has pleaded not guilty to all charges.

Lamesch, a 2011 graduate of Oregon High School and an emergency medical technician at Trace Ambulance Service in Tinley Park, was nine months pregnant at the time of her death.

Tuesday was the first day of testimony at the trial, as Ogle County State’s Attorney Mike Rock called seven witnesses on the stand.

Neighbor Debra Branscomb said she called 911 when she saw smoke coming from the Lamesch home about 4:30 p.m.

“I was looking out my picture window when I saw smoke across the street,” Branscomb said. “I walked across the street and I heard the smoke alarms going off and I called 911.”

Another neighbor, Troy Clayton, testified he was watching TV earlier in the afternoon of the fire when he saw a man walking down the street. He said he thought the man was a salesman, but when he walked up to the Lamesch home, he saw Melissa let the man in.

“I saw the front door open up and Melissa let him in,” Clayton said. “I was kind of surprised.”

Later that afternoon, Clayton said he was behind his house when he heard a noise and walked around his home toward Hannah Street and saw smoke “rolling” from the Lamesch home.

He said when first responders arrived he told them there were two adults in the home. “I knew Melissa was in there. Her car was still out front, and I thought he [the man he saw earlier] was still in there, too,” Clayton said. “But they only brought out one gurney.”

Clayton said he could not identify the man as Plote, but remembered the man, whom he believed to be between the ages of 20-30, was wearing a ball cap and carrying a backpack.

Mt. Morris Fire Chief Rob Hough said he responded to the fire and learned someone may be trapped inside the home, which had a “large volume of smoke” coming off its ridge line and eaves.

“There was a substantial event happening in that structure,” Hough said.

He said the front door was locked so firefighters forced their way into the home and found Lamesch. He said she showed no signs of life, so firefighters covered her body with a sheet and moved her to a gurney outside the front door and into an ambulance.

He said he contacted the state fire marshal and coordinated with other law enforcement officials who already were at the scene.

Capt. Mark Lewis, who also is a paramedic, testified that when he attended to Lamesch she was not breathing and was covered with soot and debris. “Her dignity became a priority for us so we covered her,” Lewis said.

When Lamesch was placed into the ambulance, Lewis said they put her on a cardiac monitor. “There was no electrical activity in her heart. There was no reviving her,” he said.

She was pronounced dead at 4:54 p.m., Lewis said.

Lewis said Jeff Thew, a crime scene investigator with the Illinois State Police, put bags around her hands to preserve any potential evidence, and she was transported to the fire station in the ambulance, where she was transferred to the coroner’s van.

Threw testified he took photos at the charred home and collected items to check for fingerprints. He also was at Lamesch’s autopsy Nov. 27, when he collected swabs, hair samples and clothing.

The state’s last witness for the day was Gus Lamesch, Melissa’s father. He testified she had moved back into the family home with him Oct. 11, 2020, because she was nine months pregnant. “She was pregnant and ready to have a child and she needed her family’s support,” Gus Lamesch said.

He said he was at work and stopped to grocery shop in Loves Park in preparation for the Thanksgiving holiday when Mt. Morris Police Chief Jason White called him about the fire.

He said Melissa was scheduled to have her labor induced Nov. 27.

“Because of COVID we were not having a family dinner. It was just going to be the two of us,” Lamesch said, a quiet Thanksgiving because she had been explicitly told not to expose herself to COVID.”

He said his daughter was in good spirits, but never told him who the father of her unborn child was. He said he had never met Plote until he was charged with her murder.

Prosecutors have said Plote was the baby’s father.

The trial is scheduled to continue at 9 a.m. Wednesday and continue through Friday.

Plote’s defense team is Liam Dixon and John Kopp of Sycamore. Judge John “Ben” Roe is presiding over the trial. A six-person jury was selected Monday after Plote waived his right to a 12-person jury.