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An Ohio man has been convicted of the attempted murder of his ex-wife, whom he tried to shoot last year while she was dining with her family at a restaurant in Toledo, a harrowing incident caught on chilling surveillance video.
On April 11, 2025, Matthew Exton, a 43-year-old former attorney, was having a drink at Souk restaurant when he spotted his ex-wife, Kada Malone, dining with her parents at the nearby Italian restaurant Sabira, according to the Lucas County Prosecutor’s Office.
He entered Sabira, ordered a drink for Malone’s table, spat in their direction and walked out.
Security footage from the restaurant then shows Exton returning with a handgun before thrusting it to within point-blank range of Malone’s head and pulling the trigger as she reacted, putting her hands up in front of her face.
The gun failed to fire.
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Matthew Exton points a gun at the head of his ex-wife, Kada Malone, while sitting in a Toledo restaurant with her parents on April 11, 2025. (Viral Press)
Prosecutors said the gun did fire because the safety was still on. A waiter tackled Exton from behind before he could try to shoot Malone again.
Authorities noted that there was a round in the chamber and seven more bullets in the magazine.
“The defendant did not come with the intention of having a meal. He came with anger in him and with the intention to commit a public execution of his ex-wife at the restaurant that day,” Lucas County Prosecuting Attorney Julia R. Bates said in a statement. “The employees and patrons who stepped in to stop the defendant that day are heroes.”
Bates also thanked the jury, which found Exton guilty on Sept. 4 of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault and two firearm specifications attached to all three counts.
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Matthew Exton’s booking photo, dated April 12, 2025, the day after he walked into a Toledo restaurant and tried to gun down his ex-wife Kada Malone. (Lucas County Sheriff’s Office)
The two counts of felonious assault applied to Malone’s parents, Jeannie Malone and Charles Malone.
The day the jury handed down their guilty verdict, Exton had an outburst in the courtroom and had to be removed.
During the prosecutor’s closing arguments, they pointed to a voicemail Exton left for Malone prior to the attempted shooting that referenced the Johnny Cash lyric “Sooner or later God will cut you down,” WTOL 11 reported.
Prosecutors said the message was an instance of threatening behavior that spoke to Exton’s motive and state of mind ahead of the crime.
Exton, who appeared to take issue with the prosecutor’s framing of the voicemail, then began screaming the lyrics to “God’s Gonna Cut You Down” as court officers removed him. At another point, he made a gun-like gesture with his fingers and pointed it at assistant Lucas County Prosecutor Rose Mock.
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The jury was instructed by the judge to disregard Exton’s conduct and not let it impact their deliberations.
Exton, a former lawyer and local prosecutor, is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 21, 2026.