O’Fallon man who killed his childhood sweetheart by setting her on fire is going to prison

An O’Fallon man who killed his wife by setting her on fire was sentenced Tuesday to 57 years in prison.

Andrew McKissick, 40, will be required to serve 100 percent of the sentence imposed by St. Clair County Associate Judge Robert Haida.

McKissick was charged with dousing his wife, Sherry Billups, with a diesel fuel supplement and setting her on fire, just blocks from their O’Fallon home on April 22, 2019. He confessed to his mother, she told the Belleville News-Democrat the day after the crime.

After a number of continuances due to COVID, firing his legal defense, and pressing for a trial despite his admission, he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in February, days before the trial was to begin.

McKissick will be credited with the time he has served since his arrest in 2019. Haida also recommended that McKissick be placed in a substance abuse program.

Billups’ mother, Sherry Matthews, has expressed anger and disappointment that it has taken so long for McKissick to be punished for her daughter’s murder. She could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

Asked for her thoughts on the sentence, McKissick’s mother, Linda McKissick, said,

“He knew it was coming sooner or later. I have said all I can say. I did my part by telling them (Billup’s mother and law enforcement) what he told me. The rest of it was left up to the court system.”

Linda McKissick said her son” brought shame to the family, this is true. But, he brought more shame to himself because he has to answer to God.”

She said she raised her son properly, that he understands morals and values.

“What he did was his choice. He did that,” she said. “Now, the only thing I can say to him is to pray. He has to make peace with God.”

She says she has been praying daily for the Matthews family and will continue to pray for them.

“I offer my deepest apologies and my deepest sympathy...,” she said.

McKissick flees after crime

According to police, officers arrived at the scene near the O’Fallon Family Sports Park at 7:23 a.m. on April 22, 2019, to find Billups outside her car and covered in flames. She died just blocks away from her home in the 600 block of Madison Street.

Billups and McKissick had been sweethearts in an Alorton elementary school, but each moved onto other relationships. They reunited in 2018 and were married in March 2019.

The couple had been married for less than a month and were returning from a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas to visit an uncle. Billups, 35 at the time of her death and known to friends and family as “Lil’ Sherry,” was scheduled for work later that morning at the Collinsville Post Office.

She never made it.

Later that morning, McKissick made a panicked phone call to his mother, Linda McKissick, to tell her what he had done.

“He called me and said ‘Mom! Mom! I messed up. I set her own fire Mom!’” she recalled.

Andrew McKissick was captured in Memphis, Tennessee two days later and charged with first-degree murder and aggravated arson. Even after making the stunning admission to his mother, he pleaded not guilty.

Just before his scheduled trial in February of this year, he called his mother from jail, Linda McKissick told the BND earlier this year.

“I asked him if he thought I was going up there and lie for him,” she said. “I have to stand before God. Holding on to something like that is not right.

“You can’t uphold your child when he’s wrong. He told me what he did. How would I not tell her mother what he told me? … I told him everyone would have to relive this whole situation. ‘Right is right, wrong is wrong. You know what you did.’”

She said that’s when her son changed his mind about going to trial and agreed to a plea deal.

This story was originally published May 16, 2023 at 7:47 PM.