by Robert Scott
He went on, “The reason I am pouring my heart out to you in this letter is because you are the only one with the power to give me probation at this reconsideration hearing that is coming up soon. I need to start picking up the pieces of my life and putting them back together.”
Matt Hoffman wasn’t alone in writing letters to Judge Thompson. His mother, Patricia, wrote that her son had been a model prisoner while located near Las Animas, Colorado. She added, “He is determined to turn his life around and put this all behind him.” She stated that in his letters to her, Hoffman spoke of trying to be around people with positive attitudes.
Patricia added, “I am asking that you release him from prison and allow him to come home to Ohio. Matt is lucky to have family that supports him and can help him settle back into society. It will be a great relief to me when he can begin college and get his life back in order.”
Hoffman’s father, Robert Hoffman, also wrote Judge Thompson, stating, “On behalf of my son, I ask that the court impose a structured release program for Matthew. A guidance program consisting of rehabilitation and counseling in addition to a work release program. In Matt’s short life he has caused so much pain and suffering, not only for his victims, but his family and friends and lastly himself. He needs this opportunity rather than continued incarceration.”
Hoffman’s sister, Melanie, wrote the judge too, saying that her brother had made a terrible mistake. It was one that he would never be able to forget. She added, “I love my brother, and I’m interested in him becoming a productive member of society, learning the skills necessary to live the life of a functional citizen and not an inmate in our country’s justice system.”
Melanie added that she believed that her brother, if released, could become a useful member of society and could put to use the computer skills he’d learned while incarcerated. She worried that the longer he spent in prison, the more hardened he would become and might “develop the lifestyle of an inmate.”
The Routt County District Attorney’s Office, by contrast, was unequivocally against an early release of Mathew Hoffman. Deputy District Attorney Elizabeth Wittemyer drew up a seven-point motion against it. Point one stated that a sentence of eight years was reasonable in light of the crimes he’d committed. Point two noted that while Hoffman was declaring a lack of prior felony convictions, that had already been factored into the original eight-year term.
Point three stated that although Hoffman had been enrolled in the Victim Impact Awareness program and computer training, these were not sufficient reasons to lessen his term of incarceration. Point four noted that at no time had Hoffman expressed regret for the danger he’d put tenants and firefighters in when he torched the condominium. Point five brought up the fact that although Hoffman stated he had “come to his senses” and returned to Colorado on his own when presented with the charges, in truth Hoffman had come back to face the charge of theft of the three signs only, not the more serious counts. She declared, “This is a person who was caught and confessed only after he was backed into a corner.”
Point six cited Hoffman’s claim, made in his interview with detectives, that he’d stolen items from the condominium because he wanted to cut corners. Wittemyer wrote, “Once again, through this motion, the defendant is trying to cut corners.”
Point seven addressed the fact that without provocation, Hoffman had robbed and torched a place to cover his tracks. “He put human lives at risk, caused an immense amount of monetary and emotional damage and put a whole community in fear. The People request that the defendant not be allowed to cut any more corners and that he serve his full sentence.”
In the end, Matt Hoffman served six years of an eight-year sentence. Typically, a person must serve parole in the county where they committed the crime, which in Hoffman’s case was Routt County, Colorado. But Hoffman went back to Knox County, Ohio, to serve his parole.
Once back in Ohio, in 2007, Hoffman had a hard time readjusting, although the difficulty seemed to have less to do with his time in prison than with his oddball personality. He managed to make a few friends and land a few jobs, but sooner or later, people would comment on just how “weird” he was. He made them nervous and edgy.
For a while, though, things seemed to be getting back on track. He got the tree-trimming job and had a good relationship with a new, pretty and personable girlfriend. Hoffman was even able to buy a house on Columbus Road in Mount Vernon in 2009. It cost only $37,500 because it needed a lot of work. Hoffman and his girlfriend and her son moved in, and for a few months everything was fine. But as Hoffman’s neighbors later said, he soon began to show very odd traits and to treat his girlfriend badly, culminating in her leaving him in late October 2010. Not long after, he lost his tree-trimming job as well.
So there he was, an ex-con with no girlfriend, no job and bleak prospects. He was by now burning with anger and ready to lash out at the world. It almost didn’t matter to him who would bear the brunt of his anger. Somebody was going to pay, and it was going to be soon.
SEVEN
The Intruder
Starting on the night of November 9, 2010, and continuing for the next several days, there would be a marathon of ducking, hiding and weaving on Matthew Hoffman’s part. He began it all by parking his car at the Gap Trail parking lot, a few miles from Apple Valley, around midnight. From there he walked to a patch of woods across the street from Tina Herrmann’s house on King Beach Drive, arriving sometime around 1:00 AM on November 10. Hoffman already knew that house had problems with its garage door, which would not shut all the way down to the driveway.
Hoffman had some food, a water bottle and a sleeping bag with him. He crawled into his sleeping bag and soon fell asleep. He woke up in time to hear a vehicle pulling out of the driveway of the house very early in the morning, sometime after 3:00 AM. Greg Borders was leaving for work.
Hoffman settled back down in the sleeping bag and fell asleep again. He decided to wait until all the vehicles, and all the inhabitants, had left, and then he would enter the isolated house. It was something he enjoyed doing, and he looked forward to the coming day’s activities. Matt got a charge out of being in places that someone else owned, such as the condo in Steamboat Springs.
He also may have known that a pretty, blond thirteen-year-old girl lived in the house. Hoffman would later claim he didn’t know that fact, but by that point much of what he said could not be trusted. Whether he knew of Sarah Maynard or not, he was now determined to enter that house whenever he felt it was safe to do so.
* * *
November 10, 2010, was just another cool autumn day at Tina Herrmann’s home on King Beach Drive. The only unusual thing about it was the activity Tina had scheduled: apartment hunting. Although she was still living in the house with her children, she and Greg Borders were calling it quits as a couple. Tina was now in the process of looking for a new place to reside, and her friend Stephanie Sprang was helping her in the search. They had plans to go together to look at a rental apartment later that day. There was also some talk of looking at a rental house in the area.
The day had begun very early in the household, when Greg left at 3:40 AM for his job at the Target Distribution Center. Later that morning he spoke to Tina by cell phone while at work, and received a text that the family dog had been fed.
Meanwhile, Sarah and Kody ate breakfast, gathered their school supplies and caught the school bus to East Knox Middle School. Sarah noticed that Kody seemed distracted by something, but he did not tell her what it was. Sarah soon forgot about it and focused instead on the coming day at school.
After the kids left, Tina went grocery shopping at the Kroger supermarket in Mount Vernon, sometime after 9:30 AM. She also bought some gas at the pumps there, and may have even gone to a tanning salon for a while before returning home shortly after noon. She pulled into the driveway, parked the pickup truck she was usi
ng and entered her home.
As soon as Tina walked in the door, carrying bags of groceries to the kitchen, a man came tearing out of the hallway and grabbed her. Before she even had a chance to scream, he hauled her to the master bedroom. He was strong and he was in a rage. Against his large frame, 120-pound Tina didn’t stand a chance.
* * *
The only eyewitness to what happened next was Matthew Hoffman, though mute evidence would tell some of the story.
He may have pushed her down on the bed and hit her in the back of the head with a sap he’d brought along. Or he may have already been reaching for the sharp hunting knife he had with him. In fact, he may have even stabbed her once or twice before he realized another person was in the house. Whatever the circumstances, he was suddenly and unexpectedly interrupted by the appearance of Stephanie Sprang, who had walked into the unlocked house only to find Hoffman bent over Tina with a knife in his hand.
Stephanie’s relatives believed that under those circumstances, Stephanie would have immediately rushed the man with the knife to save her friend. This was the Stephanie they knew, someone who would fight anyone to help a friend. And events may have unfolded in just that way. Hoffman, however, would eventually tell a very different story, but regardless, blood evidence would later prove that whatever occurred between Hoffman and Stephanie did so in Sarah’s bedroom.
After coming upon Hoffman with Tina in the master bedroom, Stephanie either ran to Sarah’s bedroom or was dragged there by Hoffman. Hoffman knew he had to take care of this new woman before finishing off the first one, who lay either badly wounded or dead in the master bedroom.
Stephanie, like Tina, was no match for Hoffman, who overpowered her and stabbed her twice in the chest. The stab wounds were so savage and were dealt with such force that Stephanie died almost immediately. Hoffman didn’t stop there, however: he continued to stab Stephanie several more times to make sure she was dead. Her blood spattered the walls and pooled on the floor of Sarah’s bedroom.
Then he returned to Tina in the other bedroom and unleashed his full fury upon her. Hoffman stabbed her again and again, puncturing her lungs and other vital organs. He then savagely ripped her midsection with a long tearing thrust. He stabbed her many more times than was necessary to kill her.
After making sure both women were dead, Hoffman dragged Tina’s body to the bathroom. As far as he was concerned, his work had just begun. He deposited Tina’s body in the tub and, with only a hunting knife, began to dismember her body. This was no easy task, but Hoffman had some hunting skills and was strong. He knew that the knife would not cut through bone, so he disarticulated the woman’s body at the joints.
It was an incredibly bloody task, and soon the bathtub and much of the bathroom was covered in blood. Hoffman found some plastic trash bags in the house and deposited Tina’s body parts into these. They were not large garbage bags, however, and he had to use quite a few of them.
While he was at his grisly task, the dog in the house would not stop barking. Afraid that the barking might alert someone, Hoffman grabbed the dog, took it to the bathroom and killed it. He then dismembered its body as well and put the parts into garbage bags. Then he turned his attention to the other woman and began to “process” her as well, as he would later put it.
Once finished with the bodies, Hoffman had one more task to do around the house. He found some motor oil and poured it over the worst of the bloodstains and bloody drag marks. He planned to set the house on fire just as he had done to the condo in Colorado, and he figured the oil would burn hot enough to eradicate all the bloodstains and blood trails, even if the whole house did not burn down.
* * *
Unaware of the horror going on in their home, Sarah and Kody rode the school bus back to their street that afternoon and walked to the front door of their home on King Beach Drive. From the outside, everything looked normal at the house.
Once they entered, however, the two noticed something odd. They always took off their shoes just inside the front door, and as they stopped to do so now, they spotted what looked to be blood right at the door. It wasn’t a lot of blood, but there shouldn’t have been any there at all.
Sarah recalled later, “We had a love seat by the door, and Kody was going to take off his shoes there. I saw blood near the door, and Mom wasn’t in the house. She always greeted us when we came home.”
Concerned about this, they both called out, “Mom!”
Instead of hearing their mom’s reply, they were stunned to see a large man come rushing out of the hallway. Before they could even scream, he was on them.
EIGHT
The Girl in the Jeep
As the unknown man hurtled toward them, Sarah just barely managed to slip by him and run to her own room as Kody turned to run out the front door. She slammed her bedroom door and scrambled to find her cell phone.
“He was trying to grab both of us, but [it seemed like] he kind of wanted to do one person at a time. I got by him and ran to my bedroom,” Sarah later recounted. It had all happened so quickly, her recollections would be just a jumble of images.
Before she could dial 911, the assailant burst into her room and grabbed her. He had a large knife with him, and in the struggle he cut her finger. Sarah was sure he would now raise the knife and stab her to death. Instead, he sliced through the electrical wiring of a fan in the room and bound her hands together with the cord. Then he told her he would kill her if she cried out.
Sarah remembered, “He was really angry. His voice was like a yell almost. He was telling me what to do. It was like when someone yells at you, and it’s a command.”
The man found some material to gag her with, and threw her across his shoulder. He was strong, and he carried her down into the basement, where he found an old sled. He cut off the rope that was attached to the sled and bound her legs together. He also put a pillowcase over her head, then hauled her back upstairs and deposited her on the kitchen floor. Before he put her down, the pillowcase fell off her head.
Sarah could not see what he was doing, because of the position she was in, but she could hear him rummaging around for something under the kitchen sink. He seemed to find whatever he wanted, and left the room.
Sarah remembered, “In the kitchen I could see groceries on the floor. It was really weird, because Mom didn’t do things that way.” Tina kept a clean house, and the kitchen was now in a state of disarray.
A hundred thoughts raced through Sarah’s mind as she lay on the kitchen floor. What had happened to Kody? What had happened to her mom? And was this man going to kill her?
After a while he came back into the kitchen and rummaged around again. She could hear water running in the bathroom tub, and every once in a while she could hear the toilet being flushed. The noises from the bathroom seemed to go on and on.
Sarah could see the daylight starting to fade outside the house. The man turned on lights in various rooms and continued doing something in the bathroom. He was in there a long time, and occasionally she could hear what sounded like banging noises.
Sarah recalled later, “When he was in the bathroom, he kept coming out, and he was usually out of breath. He kept opening the fridge. And he kept opening a little cabinet near the sink where cleaning supplies were kept. He got something out of it, and I think he went to the living room. But I didn’t know what he was doing. Then he went back to the bathroom, and I’d hear him turn the water on and off and flush the toilet. I didn’t know what he was doing, but he did it for a long time.”
Her dog should have been barking, but it wasn’t. What had he done with the dog? Sarah wondered. Had he let it out of the house, or had he killed it?
Sarah’s shock was beginning to make way for survival mode. She began to wonder what she had to do to stay alive. Should she try and talk to this man? Should she just stay silent? None of t
hese questions seemed to have an obvious answer. She would have to play it by ear, see what he had to say and go from there. For a thirteen-year-old girl she was suddenly confronted with some very adult decisions to make.
After what seemed like hours, the man came back into the kitchen. He told her not to struggle or make any noise. If she did, he would kill her. He then blindfolded her, picked her up once again and took her down some stairs. Even though she couldn’t see, she soon realized he had placed her in Stephanie’s Jeep. She was inside the Jeep in the garage, and he had left to do something else. She could feel something in the backseat next to her, but she didn’t know what it was. He came back and put blankets over her, covering her up as best he could.
The man left again but returned a short while later. He climbed behind the wheel of the Jeep and backed out of the garage. By now, it was totally dark outside. Sarah could tell, even through her blindfold, which didn’t cut out all light.
The man drove for a time and then parked. He told her to stay where she was and that he would be watching her. He then shut the Jeep door; and she heard him walk away.
Taking a chance, Sarah wiggled her arms and neck, and the blindfold came down a bit. With a shock she realized she was now sitting in the Jeep at a baseball field she recognized, one where her brother Kody had played ball. They were at the Pipesville Road baseball fields. Sarah could also see that there were a lot of trash bags next to her in the Jeep.
Suddenly the man came running back and growled at her, “I told you I was watching!” He pulled up her blindfold and tightened it. Then he said, “If you do that again, I’ll kill you!”