27-05-2025
Mystery as journalist is found murdered and stuffed in a box after warehouse employee noticed 'foul smell'
An investigation into the mysterious death of a Las Vegas journalist dramatically ended with the suspected killer also dying in a fiery police chase in the Utah desert.
The chilling series of events began earlier this month when freelance journalist Matthew Kelemen, 56, was killed and stuffed in a box inside a storage container in Sin City.
His decomposing body was found on May 20 when an employee discovered a 'foul-smelling odor' coming from the storage container.
Officials have not yet released a cause of death, however Keleman's sister Mikki Zeferatos told the Las Vegas Review Journal that investigators believe he was struck from behind with a hammer.
As cops looked into the gruesome death, they discovered Kelemen's roommate Joseph Del Rivo, 63, had hired the storage container through a luggage storage app called Bounce.
Del Rivo had dropped the box with Kelemen's remains inside at the facility days before, and employees reportedly found the decomposing journalist when a moving company came to pick up the storage container.
As investigators zeroed in on Del Rivo, that same day the suspect was involved in an unrelated police chase when he led the Utah Highway Patrol on a daring pursuit.
The chase ended when Del Rivo flipped his vehicle off the highway and it exploded in a fireball, killing the murder suspect hundreds of miles from where his alleged victim had been found dead hours before.
Kelemen's family say they last heard from the Las Vegas journalist shortly before his death, when his brother Steve said he told him he was getting ready to move out of his living arrangement with Del Rivo.
'He'd only lived there for about six months, but he kept telling my brother what a strange guy this was,' Zeferatos said.
'He said he was really uneasy living there. 'The guy was a disgusting slob,' were his words.'
Kelemen's sister recalled her brother told his family that he planned to tell Del Rivo that he was unhappy with their dynamic, but warned them that he was 'worried about how he's going to react.'
Zeferatos said investigators told her that the Bounce app that Del Rivo allegedly used to try and transport her brother's body is typically used by businesses to transport goods and store them short-term.
He was found in a box inside a large crate, which she believes may have been one of Kelemen's guitar amplifiers.
'Matt played the guitar and he had amplifiers, and it was a big black box,' she said.
Utah authorities said the chase that ended in Del Rivo's death unfolded around 5:45pm when a trooper saw him speeding down Interstate 70.
Cops said in a press release that Del Rivo drove up behind the squad car at 'over 90mph', before accelerating further when the trooper activated his sirens and tried to pull him over.
Del Rivo reached speeds of over 140mph as he led the trooper on a chase for around 10 miles, while other troopers began deploying spike strips down the interstate.
The murder suspect's front tires were destroyed by the spike strips during the chase, however authorities said he still tried evading police and drove with flat tires for another three miles.
The chase eventually came to a dramatic end when a second set of strip spikes were laid on the highway, and Del Rivo attempted to swerve out of the way.
He lost control of the vehicle and flipped it off the interstate, which killed Del Rivo as he was ejected from the car before it exploded into a fireball.
Kelemen was a well-known freelance reporter in the Las Vegas area and had been published in a number of outlets since he moved to the city in 2003.
He had been a staff writer at the now-closed 944 and City Life magazines, and was most recently published in Las Vegas Magazine in a preview for the Memorial Day weekend.
Zaferatos said the discovery of her brother's body was 'horror-movie stuff', and said her family has suffered a 'rough couple of days.'
'I'm barely holding it together,' she said.
