Alina Sheykhet's friend to killer: 'You will live in misery'

Family members and friends of the late Alina Sheykhet described her as the sunshine of their lives.

On Wednesday, they wished the man who killed the former University of Pittsburgh student nothing but darkness.

“We may not be able to bring Alina back, but she touched so many lives, and she will live on through every single life she touched,” said Marissa Oakley, Sheykhet’s roommate.

Oakley joined a dozen people who addressed Sheykhet’s killer, Matthew Darby, in front of a packed Allegheny County courtroom.

“You will live in misery in a life without parole,” Oakley said to Darby. “It brings me peace at night knowing you will never be able to lay another finger on her again. You took a ray of sunshine away from us all, and now you will suffer in darkness forever.”

Darby, 22, of Hempfield was sentenced to life in prison without parole — a formality, essentially, as he’d earlier on Wednesday pleaded guilty to first-degree murder.

“I almost feel colder. I don’t get as excited. I miss Alina and her presence,” said friend Paige O’Neil. “The most I can do now is watch videos of us laughing, look at pictures, find hidden memories or hope that she visits me in my dreams at night.”

None who spoke held back tears. Other supporters in the courtroom wept as well.

Darby played basketball at Seneca Valley High School and while he was a sophomore at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg in 2015-16, according to the school’s website. He withdrew from the university in 2017. Sheykhet also had been a student at Pitt-Greensburg but transferred to the Oakland campus last year.

Sheykhet, who was 20, graduated from Montour High School in 2015. She aspired to be a physical therapist and work with young children.

Darby killed his ex-girlfriend in the predawn hours of Oct. 8, 2017. He fled to South Carolina but was arrested and brought back to stand trial.

Sheykhet’s roommate’s boyfriend, Zack Dereno, was at the home that morning. He spoke of rushing into the bedroom once her father, Yan Sheykhet, broke down the door, unable to reach his daughter with whom he and his wife had plans that morning.

“As I walked in the room, I only smelled blood,” he told the courtroom. “I saw Alina’s lifeless body laying in her dad’s arms, her dad crying out, ‘What happened? What happened?’”

Her father also addressed the court Wednesday.

“He has taken Alina from us in an unimaginable way,” Yan Sheykhet said of Darby. “He has stolen so much from us, including a future with our daughter.”

With her daughter gone, there would be no graduation, no wedding dress, no children and no family holidays, Ellie Sheykhet said.

“My daughter died,” she said. “It’s a very short phrase, but it’s strong enough to shock and paralyze every single cell of my body when I have to pronounce that phrase.”

She said her mouth was not made for those words, because her brain was not made to comprehend them.

She described how she sat with her daughter in the courthouse after Darby was charged with breaking into her home. She requested and received a protection-from-abuse order. She said her daughter still cared for the man she also feared — she wanted to help him.

Ellie Sheykhet said her daughter told her she didn’t want that PFA, and she didn’t want him to go to jail — she wanted to help him and protect him. She told her mother she wanted him to leave her alone.

She asked Darby if destroying her daughter brought him happiness. She told him that he failed.

“She is more alive than she has ever been — she is even more beautiful and powerful now,” she said.

Following the hearing, Ellie Sheykhet said that as she spoke to Darby, it felt as though her daughter was speaking through her.

“It (felt like) Alina was talking to him through my heart — through my words. I wanted him to hear her last words to him,” she said. “I did deliver my daughter’s statement to him. He could hear her. I felt it. She was talking to him.”

Given his chance, Darby declined the opportunity to speak.

Megan Guza is a Tribune-Review staff writer. You can contact Megan at 412-380-8519, mguza@tribweb.com or via Twitter @meganguzaTrib.