A former Parkland High School student was found guilty Nov. 16 in a Pasco County Court in Florida of murder in the first degree regarding the 2014 deaths of four people and dumping their bodies in a roadside ditch.

According to Pasco County court records, Adam Matos, 32, formerly of Orefield, and 7719 Hatteras Drive, Hudson, Fla., was found guilty of killing Megan Brown, 27, her parents Margaret and Gregory Brown, both 52; and Megan’s boyfriend, Nicholas Leonard, 37.

Matos was a senior at Parkland High School in 2004.

According to a Parkland Press article dated Sept. 11, 2014, Kevin Doll, community relations director for the Pasco Sheriff’s office stated at the time that after receiving a report no one in the Brown family had been seen in a week, authorities conducted a welfare check on the family.

Doll stated the four bodies were found about a half-mile north of the home where they were living.

“Circling birds and the smell of decomposition led deputies to the bodies of Leonard and the Brown family,” Doll emailed The Press on Sept. 8, 2014.

Doll said at the time police had been to the Brown home a week earlier when Matos allegedly threaten Megan Brown with a knife.

“We searched for him that day and subsequent days, but never made contact with him,” Doll stated. “Matos was apprehended by members of our SWAT team and by the Tampa Police Department on Sept. 5, 2014, at the Floridan Palace Hotel in downtown Tampa, where he fled with his son Ismael ‘Tristian’ Santisteban, 4.” Doll emailed.

According to the Parkland Press article, Matos’ son, named after a man who lived with Megan Brown at Hidden Hill Farm, 6587 Central Road, Heidelberg Township, had been living with family members since September 2014.

Margaret and Gregory Brown were using the property as a kennel until the early summer of 2014 when they vacated the property, leaving Bryan Smith in charge of the property before their deaths.

Smith, whom the family left in charge of the kennel, is a friend of Derbe Eckhart, who was convicted of animal cruelty in 2010 after his Almost Heaven Kennel in Upper Milford Township was raided in 2008.

According to a May 11 Northwestern Press article, Pennsylvania SPCA executed a search warrant May 5 removing eight dogs, 35 cats and kittens and five horses from the Heidelberg Township property, which Eckhart was allegedly using as a kennel.

According to Pasco County court records, Matos was placed in Land O’Lakes jail pending sentencing after the reading of the verdict.

As of the morning of Nov. 21, the jury was in the sentencing phase of the trial, deciding between a possible life sentence or the death penalty for Matos.