Where is Hilbert Thomas now? Whereabouts explored ahead of Real Murders of Orange County on Oxygen

Hilbert Thomas, a Garden Grove, California, real estate agent accused in the 2009 shooting deaths of co-workers Elizabeth Palmer and Matthew Scott of Golden Sun Homes in Stanton, was found guilty of multiple counts of murder and robbery in February 2014. He was later handed the death penalty for the gruesome murders committed to steal a car.

Thomas reportedly entered the Golden Sun Homes sales office in the morning hours of February 9, forced Elizabeth and Matthew to their knees and shot them execution-style in their heads before stealing the former's brand new white 2004 Lexus GS 300. He was arrested months later, after police linked him to the car and murder weapon.

According to the California Department of Corrections, Hilbert Thomas is currently serving time on death row at the San Quentin State Prison.

Oxygen's Real Murders of Orange County chronicles the shooting deaths of Elizabeth Palmer and Matthew Scott. The episode, titled Driven to Kill, recently aired on the channel this Friday, June 2, 2023.

Here's a look at the episode's synopsis:

"When two loyal employees at a family-owned mobile home business are gunned down at work, detectives are left with no hints toward a motive; a hunt for a missing car reveals a killer driven by old-school Orange County, Calif., intentions."

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Real estate agent Hilbert Thomas was sentenced to death for the execution-style double murders

In February 2014, after less than a day of deliberations, a jury convicted Hilbert Thomas, a Garden Grove real estate agent, of shooting two co-workers to steal a brand new Lexus one of them owned. He was subsequently sentenced to death for the heinous crime.

According to prosecutors, Thomas entered Golden Sun Homes in Stanton in the morning hours of February 2009, forced Elizabeth Palmer and Matthew Scott to their knees, and shot them execution-style in the head before fleeing the scene with the car. Elizabeth worked as a secretary while Matthew was a mobile home salesperson and the son of the co-owner.

Prosecutors further claimed that at the time of the murder, Hilbert Thomas had just been recruited by a real estate agency in Lakewood and was dissatisfied because he didn't have a good car to drive his clients around in.

According to the Los Angeles Times, prosecutors alleged that Thomas took Palmer's Lexus keys and drove it around for months with a dealer sticker in the window to avoid suspicion.

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Hilbert Thomas was arrested after a connection was made between him, the victim's stolen car, and a gun he owned

Hilbert Thomas lived about a block and a half from where the crime occurred, but investigators from the Orange County Sheriff's Department couldn't crack the mystery until October 2009, when an officer noticed the Lexus at an Anaheim hotel and checked the car identification number.

Moreover, around the same time, Hilbert had voluntarily handed his 9 mm handgun to police after his ex-wife filed a restraining order against him, following which he was expected to hand over any firearms he owned to the police.

Using forensics, the weapon was linked to the shootings and fingerprints and then, DNA found inside the car in question linked Hilbert Thomas to the crime. Furthermore, witnesses also came forward alleging that they had seen him driving around in the car that Elizabeth Palmer owned days after the double murder.

Hilbert Thomas was found guilty of two felony charges of murder, with special circumstances for multiple murders, and murder during the commission of a robbery by an Orange County Superior Court jury, along with additional charges of robbery, burglary, and car theft.

Thomas was eventually sentenced to death for the execution-style double murders and is now serving on death row at the San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California.

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Real Murders of Orange County revisits the double murders of Elizabeth Palmer and Matthew Scott from 2009.