Jon Solomon
Audio By Carbonatix
More than a year and a half has passed since Jennifer Gelvin, singer for the Fabulous Boogienauts, and neighbor Katherine Pivoda were stabbed to death at Pivoda’s home by Matthew Madden, Pivoda’s estranged ex-husband.
On June 30, 38-year-old Madden was finally sentenced in Denver District Court for killing Gelvin and Pivoda; he’d pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in April. Judge Nikea Bland sentenced him to eighty years in prison and also ordered him to pay more than $14,000 in restitution to the victims’ families.
Gelvin was killed just a few weeks after her husband, Keith Rouse, the Fabulous Boogienauts’ trumpeter, died from a heart attack. The couple had two teenagers, daughter Jada and son Jaz.
“It has been 663 days since I lost my dad and 639 since my mom’s death,” Jada said at the sentencing. “If I live to the average age of an adult woman, I will spend 21,912 more days of my life without my parents.”
Gelvin had met Rouse before the Fabulous Boogienauts was founded in 1996. Gelvin was one of the original bandmembers; Rouse joined in 2002. “She was my best friend for 25 years,” says Rocky Ramjett, who started the Denver disco band. “It still affects us. That’s never going to go away.”
The Fabulous Boogienauts were a ten-member ensemble known for high-energy and sometimes sci-fi- themed funk and rock and roll. The Boogienauts were the house band for the Denver Nuggets and also played for the Denver Broncos; they released an album, Fully Funktional, in 2013.
Gelvin “was the finest performer I ever worked with,” Ramjett says. “She was on stage even when she wasn’t on stage. She was born to do what she did, a born entertainer.” Rouse “was one of the best workers you could ask for,” he adds, and “made every day interesting.”
Gelvin and Rouse lived near Katherine Pivoda, a 33-year-old fourth-year doctoral student and English teacher at the University of Colorado Denver.
At around midnight on September 29, 2021, Gelvin went over to help Pivoda at her home on the 2200 block of South Marion Street near the University of Denver. Madden had stopped living at the house that summer, according to Denver Police Department records.
A couple living next door to Pivoda called the police to report what sounded like domestic violence; they said they’d heard someone screaming, “Get out, get out!” at around 12:09 a.m. before the house went silent. They then heard someone crying; they thought it was a woman.
It was Madden.
When police arrived at the scene, they found Madden bloody and holding a knife, which he refused to drop. The police tased him, and he was transported to Denver Health, where he was treated for cuts on his neck, arm and chest.
The police discovered Gelvin and Pivoda in the backyard; both had been stabbed to death. Police found Pivoda’s two children, a newborn and a toddler, sleeping inside the house.
In a statement read by his lawyer, Scott Reisch, Madden said, “I don’t know why I did what I did. It’s just horrible…I want to apologize to everyone I harmed that night. I want everyone to know how sorry I am.”
He blamed his actions in part on substance abuse. “I failed everybody that night as a result of my drinking and my use of drugs,” Madden said in his statement. “I learned the horrible consequences that substance abuse can have on the ones you love in the worst possible way.”
Noting that his client had pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder, Reisch pointed out that “there’s no appeals, there’s no post-conviction matters. After today, it’s done.”
But not for the survivors.
Pivoda’s family raised more than $48,000 for her two children through a GoFundMe page. The Gelvin family raised more than $113,000 through a GoFundMe page to support the singer’s two children.
Jada was seventeen when her parents died; Jaz was fourteen at the time. He now plays the drums, though “he wasn’t into drums” when his parents were alive, says Ramjett. “They’ve adjusted well. They’re doing the best they can.”
“Many nights are spent thinking of how much she will and has missed of my life,” Jada says. “She wasn’t at my high school graduation; she won’t be at my college graduation, either. She missed plenty of concerts where I sang songs she loved. She won’t make it to my wedding or help me move into my first house. She’s gone.”
The Fabulous Boogienauts performed live at Herman’s Hideaway on June 16; it was their first concert since a benefit for Jada and Jaz Rouse in December 2021. The band was working on another album with the tentative title Too Funk to Drunktion at the time of Gelvin and Rouse’s deaths. Gelvin had suggested the title, and the bandmembers are continuing to work on the album, using bits of music that Gelvin left behind.
“We want to represent her the best we can,” Ramjett says. “It’s going to happen, but it’ll get done when it gets done.”
This story has been updated to add information from the June 30 sentencing.
