Matthew Allen Bills, a 37-year-old White man from Williamstown, West Virginia, was killed on March 18, 2025, in a shooting at his home on Maple Drive, a case that began as a grim domestic scene and grew into a murder trial built around two sharply different versions of the same violent morning. Deputies were dispatched to the residence and found Bills dead from gunshot wounds, while Barbra “Barbie” Cupp was found inside the house unresponsive with a gunshot wound to the shoulder and was taken for emergency treatment. What unfolded publicly afterward was not a mystery about who had been there, but a battle over why he died and whether the woman left wounded in the house was his killer or someone fighting to stay alive.
By the time the case reached trial in March 2026, prosecutors had cast Cupp as the clear suspect and the only defendant publicly identified in connection with Bills’ death.
According to opening statements, the state alleged that Cupp shot Bills three times, once in the chest, once in the abdomen, and once in the back, and argued that jealousy and the belief that he had been unfaithful drove the killing. Prosecutors said the jury would hear testimony that the couple’s relationship had been turbulent for more than a year, marked by arguments, breakups, and reconciliations, and that a relative would testify Cupp had previously said she would kill Bills if he cheated on her. They also pointed to physical evidence from the scene, including a firearm found with blood on it and evidence that it had been fired multiple times, as they tried to frame the shooting as intentional and personal rather than accidental or defensive.
The defense answered with a completely different story, one that turned the dead man into the aggressor and Cupp into the survivor of a brutal struggle. Defense counsel told jurors that Bills and Cupp had already decided to end their relationship and that she had returned to the home only to collect her belongings. According to that account, she went into the bathroom crying after another argument, and Bills entered holding a. 357 Magnum and pointed it at her head. The defense said the two struggled over the gun, that one shot struck Bills in the abdomen during that fight, and that he then regained control of the weapon and shot Cupp in the chest at close range, shattering parts of her shoulder area. From there, the defense claimed, she somehow regained control of the gun and fired back while trying to save herself, later managing to call 911 and say only that she had been shot. Her attorneys said she suffered serious injuries, including a damaged arm that remained in danger, along with other documented injuries such as a black eye and trauma to her face and head.
As for arrests and charges, the public reporting tied the case directly to Cupp. She was indicted on charges of murder and being a person prohibited from possessing firearms, and by March 2026 she was standing trial in Wood County Circuit Court before a seated jury. No other suspects were publicly identified in the reporting tied to the trial’s opening, and the case, as described in court, centered entirely on whether Cupp unlawfully killed Matthew Bills or acted in self-defense during a life-and-death confrontation. At that stage of the public record, the case had moved through indictment and into trial, but no conviction had yet been reported.
