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At 6-foot-7
and 275 pounds, Bob Matthey was not the sort of person a stranger
would pick a fight with. He was handsome in a pleasant, baby-faced
way, with steady blue eyes and a head of dark blond hair in a
short mullet cut.
He was articulate, low-key, but with a self-confidence that occasionally
veered into self-righteousness. He didn't sugar his opinions for
easy consumption, and when he talked to people, he looked them
in the eye.
In a pre-adoption study, in which a social worker reviews finances,
education, upbringing and home life, Matthey described his personality
as "choleric," not a word likely to be tossed around
by the mechanics he supervised as manager of an engine shop in
Bridgewater Township.
Matthey's parents divorced when he was 3. He said he had a good
relationship with his father. The elder Matthey was a mechanic
and a sailor, and Bob fondly remembered, at the age of 13, spending
a week on a boat with him. His father died 11 years ago at age
50.
Bob's mother, Phyllis, took him on day trips, camping, and they
spent a lot of time with her large extended family. He played
Little League baseball and was confirmed in the Roman Catholic
Church.
Brenda Matthey, whose round, pretty face was framed by waves of
brown, shoulder-long hair parted in the middle, exuded a comfortable
earth mother warmth.
Brenda was born in New Brunswick and raised in the Lutheran Church.
Her father, Roy, who worked in the office of the telephone company,
died at 41, when Brenda was 9.
She remembered him as funny and loving and strong, a protective
presence in her childhood. Brenda had an older brother and sister.
She speaks with her brother by telephone and sees her sister on
holidays, but she and her sister don't have anything in common,
she said in the pre-adoption study.
Bob and Brenda were introduced by friends at a party in June 1981.
She was 16 and he was 17. They eloped in March 1983, while Brenda
was still in high school. Bob, who graduated a year earlier, was
in the Navy and completing electronics school in Tennessee. Brenda
joined him there and finished high school.
Bob spent four years in the Navy, most of it in Maryland, where
he worked on aircraft electronics before his honorable discharge.
It was in Maryland that Bob began attending Bible study groups
and exploring Pentecostal religion.
Less than 11 months after Bob and Brenda married, their son Robert
was born, and their next son, Richard, came along 19 months later.
Raymond was born in October 1990, and the youngest, Jonathan,
arrived in February 1992.
By the time Bob and Brenda Matthey started thinking about adopting
children in 1998, their older boys had hit their teens and the
two younger ones were elementary school age, although all were
home-schooled.
In the pre-adoption home study done in 1999 by Bethany Christian
Services, a social service agency in Hawthorne, the Mattheys described
their four children as "strong-willed."
They said punishment came in the form of "time-outs,"
and they believed that when the children erred, the children should
not be told that something was wrong with them; it was their behavior
that was wrong.
Brenda said she took the children to the Bible when they misbehaved
and showed them that what they were doing was wrong. As the children
got older, punishment meant the loss of privileges.
The Mattheys, according to the study, always coordinated their
child-rearing decisions to present a united front to the children.
The home study also said: "They believe in the New Jersey
State law concerning the use of passive means of discipline."
That meant no spanking or physical punishment.
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