Matthew Hoffman

Case record: Matthew Hoffman

Background

Matthew Hoffman was an unemployed tree trimmer and had an obsession with trees and leaves. Police documents described his home as filled with leaves, including a living room stuffed with leaves, a bathroom lined with more than 100 bags of leaves, and a freezer that contained only a couple of red popsicles and two dead squirrels.

Before the murders, Hoffman had no job and was collecting unemployment. His car was being repossessed. His girlfriend told police that he had choked her on Oct. 24, and she and her young son moved out afterward, taking any evidence of a family at the home.

Investigators said Hoffman had a prior Colorado criminal history that included arson.

The offence

Matthew Hoffman fatally stabbed Tina Herrmann, 32; her son Kody Maynard, 11; and family friend Stephanie Sprang, 41, in Herrmann's home in Apple Valley on Nov. 10.

While those murders occurred, Hoffman also kidnapped a 13-year-old girl from the home and sexually assaulted her, holding her hostage until authorities rescued her.

Hoffman’s confession described that he entered through the garage door and confronted the woman he found first. He told investigators he used a blackjack to try to knock the woman out, but he began panicking, then stabbed the woman on the bed through her back twice. He then chased and stabbed Stephanie Sprang “a couple times in the chest.” He stated he returned and stabbed the woman “a couple more times,” and he “could tell that both women were now dead.” During the same confession, Hoffman stated he killed the dog because it would not stop barking, and he described processing the bodies and disposing of them inside a hollow tree.

In the confession, Hoffman also described the children returning and the girl running to a bedroom. He stabbed Kody Maynard “in the chest a couple times.” He stated: “I saw the girl was not on the phone, and I could not bring myself to kill her.” He described later that he had bound the teenage girl’s hands and feet with both rope and duct tape and confined her to a makeshift bed of leaves and blankets in the basement.

Police found the teenage girl bound hand and foot and confined to a makeshift bed of leaves. The girl was found wearing “a white plastic bag that had holes cut out for her legs that she was wearing like a makeshift diaper,” according to case files. Investigators found that the basement door had been barricaded with a sewing cabinet.

The girl told police that she was late for school and asked if they could take her to school. Unaware that Hoffman had murdered her mother and brother, she told police that she feared Hoffman had killed her dog. Hoffman later confessed to killing the dog because it would not stop barking. The girl also told police that the “suspect cut her finger with a knife, usually gagged her and that he was going to release her before Christmas,” according to the records.

Investigation

Police officers from Mount Vernon entered Hoffman’s home in November 2010 and discovered mounds of leaves so high they feared bodies could be buried underneath them. One detective described the questions running through his mind: “So much runs through your mind: What if someone is hiding under that pile? Or in this case, I thought, 'Is that where he's hiding the bodies.'”

Detectives found:

• A living room with leaves covering the floor.
• Three floor-to-ceiling rows of bagged leaves hanging on a living-room wall.
• A bathroom insulated by more than 110 bags of leaves, covering the mirror and surrounding the toilet.
• Receipts showing Hoffman bought Sure-Grip gloves, duct tape, and another pair of gloves at Lowe's, and that he ordered the knife online and took it to the house.
• The freezer containing two unskinned squirrels, red popsicles and little else.
• Doodles and markings on walls and doorjambs, including a peace sign on the door, stars on the wall, random names written in marker, and black doodles in the leaf-filled bathroom, including a jack-o-lantern.

Investigators taped hours of conversations with Hoffman that included a plan he described to control information and stage an escape attempt that would lead to him being shot. Special Agent Joe Deitz’s report described Hoffman’s plan and statements about treatment and suicide. Hoffmann later said he made up the story and did not know where the bodies were, but detectives later took Hoffman’s directions to a hollow tree.

A key lead developed during the investigation when police found a Walmart bag containing a tarp and trash bags left behind in Herrmann’s home. Investigators located the transaction by bar code, matched it to surveillance video, and identified the purchaser driving a Toyota Yaris. Investigators ran a database search for all Yaris vehicles in the area, with Hoffman appearing among those driving the model. A deputy had also spoken with Hoffman near a bike trail near Kenyon College, and police later connected the vehicle to him.

Footprints outside Herrmann’s house led investigators to believe someone, a woman or girl with a size 7.5 shoe, had left the house alive with an attacker.

Arrest

Authorities busted into Hoffman’s home about 8 a.m. on Sunday, Nov. 14, four days after the murders. Police found Hoffman asleep on a living-room sofa. Officers searched the home and found the girl in the basement. Hoffman was arrested, and the girl was reunited with her father later that day.

Trial

Hoffman pleaded guilty to multiple felonies. On Jan. 6, Hoffman pleaded guilty to 10 felonies, including aggravated murder and rape, and was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Hoffman appeared emotionless when he answered “yes” to acknowledge his guilty pleas in the dismemberment slayings. He pleaded guilty before a courtroom packed with relatives and friends of the victims.

Hoffman was sentenced by Knox County Common Pleas Court Judge Otho Eyster to concurrent terms of life in prison with no chance of parole.

Sentencing

On Jan. 6, Hoffman was sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole.

Earlier, Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher told Hoffman that he would not seek a death sentence if Hoffman told where he had hidden the bodies and gave a full, written confession. Hoffman agreed on Nov. 18 and directed investigators to a 60-foot-tall hollow tree in the Kokosing Wildlife Area near Fredericktown. Detectives found the mutilated bodies of the three victims inside the tree, as well as the remains of the family dog.

Hoffman was also sentenced to nine years each for guilty pleas to burglary, kidnapping and rape, four years for tampering with evidence, and 11 months for abuse of a corpse; the sentences ran concurrent with the life sentences for murder. Prosecutors took the death penalty off the table.

Appeals

No appeals were described.

Outcome

Matthew Hoffman served a life sentence without parole related to three murders and the kidnapping and rape of the teenage girl.

Aftermath

After the rescue, the teenage girl told police she feared Hoffman had killed her dog and asked to go to school. Moments after the rescue, she asked if they could take her to school.

Her father, Larry Maynard, said she was back in school and working with therapists to get past the tragedy and loss.

Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher said the hundreds of bags of leaves found in the home were not connected to the murders.

Forensic psychologists described Hoffman's obsession with leaves and trees as indications of mental illness and delusion. Dr. James Alan Fox said: “If trees gave him comfort at all and were familiar at at all, that would explain why he would put the bodies in the tree.” Dr. N.G. Berrill said: “It certainly suggests that he is likely to be mentally ill, mentally ill as compared to other killers who show up in the news like serial killers or psychopaths,” and: “Serial killers, from professional point of view, they are not mentally ill. They have character disturbances, but they know what they're doing is wrong. They take too much pleasure, too much gratification to stop.” Berrill also said: “It would take talking to him to find out what it means,” and: “[Hoffman's delusions are] very elaborate delusions related to trees, what trees produce, being in and around on trees, putting people in trees.”

Other details

Victims and hostage

• Tina Herrmann, 32.
• Kody Maynard, 11.
• Stephanie Sprang, 41.
• A 13-year-old girl who was kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and held hostage until authorities rescued her.

Police officers and prosecutors

• Detective Craig Feeney, who entered the home first and described the initial discovery of leaves.
• Detective Sgt. Roger Brown, who asked Hoffman questions during early questioning.
• Special Agent Joe Deitz, who recorded parts of the interview and reported Hoffman’s plan.
• Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher.
• Judge Otho Eyster.

Statements and quotations from the case

Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher said: “Knox County has never seen a case like this before. It has to rank there in Ohio history as one of the worst homicide cases,” and later: “His perception of himself is self-serving, and he may very well believe he treated her like a houseguest, but she was a kidnap victim.”

The teenage girl’s statement read by Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher included: “This has changed my whole life and my family's life, too.” “This is so sickening, Matthew, to know you even had the guts to do this to a family,”

Hoffman’s public defender Bruce Malek said: “The family deserves to know this a random burglary that went terribly, terribly wrong,” and that Hoffman did not specifically target those he killed.

Hoffman said in his confession: “I would not have hurt her. I could not hurt her.” “I planned on giving her more and more freedom until she ran away.” “I did not enter the house to kill those people. I did not know a single one of them. I did not know their names, and I did not know who all lived at the house. ... I did not plan for any of this to happen.” “Heart broken?” “Because of what happened?”

From his confession excerpts given on Nov. 19, 2010: “I parked my car in Howard and walked from there to the house.” “I got to the woods across the street from the house a little after midnight.” “I slept across the street from the house that night in a sleeping bag.” “I woke up at daylight.” “There were two vehicles parked at the house during the night, and I saw that the gray car had left.” “I went back to sleep until around nine on Wednesday morning.” “I stayed there until a woman left in a pickup truck.” “This meant there were no vehicles at the house.” “I walked across the street and tried to enter the front door, but it was locked.” “I then went in through the garage door.” “The garage door was not closed all the way so I slid under it into the garage.” “I kicked the door into the house from the garage.” “By this time it was approximately 10:30 a.m. Wednesday morning.” “I looked around the house to make sure no one was there.” “Even if I did not take anything, there was a certain amount of excitement in being in someone else's home without them being there.” “I was looking for anything of value that could be carried out easily, i.e. money, jewelry, etc.” “I did not find anything of any real value.” “I was getting ready to leave as I had been there approximately an hour, but someone pulled into the driveway.” “I was back in the bedrooms when she entered the house and was unable to exit without breaking a window and trying to jump out.” “I had brought my knife for a certain amount of intimidation in case I ran inot someone and needed to make an escape.” “When she made her way back into the bedrooms I confronted her and made her get onto the bed lying face down.” “I believe that we were in her bedroom.” “I had a blackjack, I was going to try to knock her out.” “I hit her a couple of times in the head, but this would not knock her out.” “It was not doing the job, and I started panicking.” “The next thing that I knew her friend came into the bedroom.” “I have no idea when she got there, what she was doing there, and how she gained access.” “The other woman yelled at me, there were now two to deal with and I did not know what to do.” “I grabbed the knife that I had put down on the nightstand and stabbed the woman on the bed, through her back, twice.” “I chased the other woman down (Stephanie) and stabbed her a couple times in the chest.” “Instead of running out of the house, she had run into another bedroom.” “I believe this bedroom was for a girl due to the contents of the room.” “I then went back to the other bedroom where the first woman was located and stabbed her a couple more times.” “I could tell that both women were now dead.” “At this time I was in a total state of shock.” “I wandered around the house slowly coming to the realization of what I had done and how bad it was.” “During this time I killed the dog because it would not stop barking.” “After a while I came to the conclusion that I was going dispose of the bodies and burn the house down.” “At first I thought about loading the bodies into the vehicle, driving it into Foundation Park Pond, I would swim away as the vehicles sank, but I felt that it was too cold and I might not be able to make it out of the water.” “I decided to process the bodies and dispose of them inside of a tree that I knew was hollow.” “I took the bodies into the bathroom and begin processing the bodies to dispose of them.” “I used garbage bags from within the house and placed the bodies inside.” “Once I had finished processing the bodies, I moved the Jeep into the garage to load up the bodies.” “I still had a couple of bags to load into the Jeep when I heard the children come into the house. ... I confronted the children, and the girl instantly ran to a bedroom.” “I stabbed the boy in the chest a couple times.” “I ran into the bedroom after the girl to make sure she was not on the phone for help. ...” “I saw the girl was not on the phone, and I could not bring myself to kill her.” “I chose the house to break into because there was not any close neighbors, and I noticed the garage door was ajar.” “I chose the house the day before.” “I did not want to kill anyone, and I tried to just knock the first woman out so that I would be able to escape.” “This was not working, a second woman showed up, and things quickly spiraled out of control.” “They kept escalating and I was panicking.” “I only chose to process the bodies to make their disposal easier.”

Prior conviction in Colorado

An Associated Press report described that Matthew J. Hoffman, 30, served a Colorado prison term for arson committed in Steamboat Springs. It said he was convicted in 2001 of arson, burglary, assault and motor vehicle theft in Routt County, and that in August of 2000 he set fire to a townhome in Steamboat Springs to cover up a burglary and auto theft. It said no one was killed, but the fire spread to adjoining units, causing about $2 million in damages. It also said he served an eight year term and was paroled to Ohio, completing his Colorado term in January 2010.

Connections between cases and movement described in confession

Hoffman’s confession described that he parked and walked to the house, stayed across the street, entered through the garage door, killed the people he confronted, processed bodies with garbage bags, moved the Jeep into the garage, and then heard the children return, leading to further stabbing. He stated he intended to dispose of bodies inside a tree he knew was hollow.