His sister, Donna Matthews-Hicks, confirmed his death to the Cape Breton Post on Wednesday and that immediate family have been notified.
“I want people to know that we (the family) won’t stop until we find the ruthless bastard that killed my brother,” she said in an interview conducted on Facebook because she felt discussing her brother through that medium would be easier at this point in time.
She told the Post that Matthews lived with his partner, Stephen Couban in Halifax, and is survived by six sisters.
The 54-year-old, who co-owned Matthews McDonough Financial Planning in Halifax, spent a lot of time in Sydney ‘building on a dream to revitalize the economy’ and business downtown.
“He loved Sydney and believed in Sydney,” Matthews-Hicks said.
“He took his creativity and money to bring life back to Sydney and Cape Breton.”
Police responded to a Prince Street address around 11 a.m. Tuesday after receiving a report of a deceased person.
Upon their arrival at the scene, officers discovered the body of man in his fifties inside his apartment.
As of Tuesday afternoon, police reported the the death as suspicious in nature and were treating it as a homicide.
Calls to police on Wednesday were not immediately returned.
More to come.