Matthew Whisman was killed after Steven Gaddis learned he had been cooperating in a Maryland shooting investigation, prosecutors said.
LANCASTER, Pa. — A Lancaster County homicide case that prosecutors framed as retaliation against a cooperating witness has led to a 43 to 100 year sentence for Steven Scott Gaddis, while two other defendants still face trial in the killing of Matthew Whisman.
The legal significance of the case has always been larger than the sentence alone. Prosecutors said Whisman was not killed during a random dispute or a sudden drug episode, but because he had provided information to police in a separate shooting case. That is why Gaddis pleaded guilty not only to conspiracy to commit third-degree murder, aggravated assault and kidnapping, but also to intimidating a witness. The record describes a killing tied to control, fear and the punishment of cooperation.
Investigators said that motive emerged on April 3, 2024, at a house on the 1100 block of Lancaster Pike in East Drumore Township. According to court records summarized by local outlets, Gaddis went through Whisman’s phone and found messages showing that Whisman had been speaking with law enforcement about a shots-fired case in Rising Sun, Maryland. What followed, prosecutors said, was a sustained campaign of domination. Matthew Whisman was beaten inside the home, ordered into a shower and then forced into a vehicle. Alexander Whisman later told investigators that Gaddis had formed a plan to get the victim out of the house and kill him. Absher told investigators Gaddis threatened to shoot people if they refused to comply. The state’s narrative was not just homicide, but intimidation carried out in stages.
That focus on coercion continued after the killing. According to the investigation timeline reported by local media, troopers interviewed Gaddis at Chester County Prison on July 3, 2024, after Whisman’s mother reported him missing. Gaddis denied knowing the victim and denied involvement. Investigators later searched his prison cell and found a note in which he wrote that he had information that could lead to an arrest and that he would provide locations, times, methods, reasons and motive if he received complete immunity. Public reporting on that note gave the case one of its most revealing details: even after the disappearance investigation had begun, Gaddis was still being described as someone trying to manage the story around him. That posture fit prosecutors’ broader theory that the crime was about silencing one witness and controlling everyone else present.
The punishment announced this spring placed that theory squarely in the court record. Lancaster County prosecutors said Judge Thomas Sponaugle sentenced Gaddis to 43 to 100 years in state prison. First Deputy Assistant District Attorney Cody Wade read a statement from Whisman’s mother, who said the defendant had taken away the family’s chance to heal and left a permanent void. The district attorney’s office said Gaddis had been set for trial within days before entering his guilty plea. The sentence resolved his criminal exposure in the Whisman homicide, but prosecutors have continued to describe the wider case as unfinished because Jeremy Absher and Alexander Whisman still await trial.
That unfinished posture matters because the remaining cases may test different parts of the state’s theory. Alexander Whisman was 17 at the time of the killing and has since been ordered to stand trial as an adult. Court coverage has suggested the defense issues may include the degree of his independent participation and whether threats from Gaddis shaped the actions of others in the car and at the bridge. The public record already includes statements from both co-defendants that place Gaddis at the center of the fatal injection and body disposal. But until their cases are resolved, those allegations remain issues for prosecution rather than final findings against them.
Seen through this lens, the case is less about the shock of the creek bank discovery and more about the justice system’s exposure to retaliation. Prosecutors said a man who helped police in one case was confronted, kidnapped and killed before officers even knew he was missing. The sentence for Gaddis marks one answer from the court, but the broader message of the case is still being shaped in the pending prosecutions: whether the state can fully account for how fear, loyalty, drugs and family ties converged in a killing built around the simple fact that someone talked to police.
Where the case stands now is clear in one respect and open in another: Gaddis has been sentenced for decades, and the remaining proceedings will determine how far the rest of the intimidation and homicide allegations go in court.
Author note: Last updated April 19, 2026.