The Girl in the Leaves

by Robert Scott

  Doris D reported that over the weekend, two rough-looking men had come to her door asking about Stephanie. One of them had blue eyes and big arms and was very demanding.

  Jeff S said he worked at the library at Kenyon College and he often walked on the paths near the Brown Family Environmental Center where Tina’s pickup truck had been found. Jeff told an investigator that there were remains of a fire near a path. This was against the rules, and Jeff had learned that Matthew Hoffman had been convicted of arson. Jeff related, “Hoffman may have camped out on the path by the river.”

  Brenda R told an investigator that a pickup truck with a camper shell was parked about a quarter mile from Tina’s residence. According to Brenda, the pickup had showed up two days before the people went missing. Someone told her that Hoffman drove a car, but recently he had been driving a pickup truck as well.

  And Jay S said that on Friday morning, November 12, “I saw a male matching Matthew’s description, walking on Route 229 East toward Mount Vernon. He was just passing where the trail crosses 229 between Duff [Street] and Wiggins Street.”

  * * *

  Monday evening, a private prayer vigil, closed to the media, was held at the South Vernon Methodist Church. Another, public prayer vigil, however, was held at the Public Square in Mount Vernon. Many people who did not personally know Sarah or the others who were still missing gathered there.

  Megan Sowul of Mount Vernon was in that group and said, “We don’t know them personally, but we know people who do know them. It’s really sad. We have a nephew who is ten years old, and we can’t imagine if this happened to him.”

  Jay Berger was there with his wife, Betty, and related, “We have children, and we certainly would want people praying for us. We came because we thought it was our duty, and who else can we turn to except our heavenly father?” The Bergers had driven to Mount Vernon from Mount Liberty, about ten miles away.

  Pastor Dennis Eggerton led the crowd in prayer at the Public Square. His wife, Gennelle Eggerton, was the principal at the East Knox Elementary School and had known both Sarah and Kody personally. In part, Eggerton prayed, “Lord, it’s times like these that people turn to you. Father, with our troubled hearts we come to you. Father, be with them. Give them strength. Keep us as a community ready to come alongside when the time is right, and teach us to bear the burden. We cry out to you at times like this when we have nowhere else to go. Be with the ones who need you the most.”

  Cameron Keller, who was in the crowd, told a journalist what many in the area felt: “We’re all upset. We’re just completely taken aback by what’s happened in our small town. I just can’t believe this could happen in Mount Vernon.”

  TWENTY-ONE

  “I’m a Monster”

  At 9:00 AM on November 16, 2010, in an interview room, BCI&I Special Agent Joe Dietz and FBI Special Agent Kristin Cadieux met once again at the Knox County Sheriff’s Office. Just before Matthew Hoffman was brought into the interview room, he spoke privately with Dietz for a moment.

  Dietz and Hoffman went into the interview room alone, while Agent Cadieux waited outside, and Hoffman told Dietz that he wanted all audio and video devices turned off. Then Hoffman asked Dietz to take him to the restroom. Agent Dietz agreed to do so, and remained in the restroom with Hoffman while Detective Doug Turpen was stationed right outside the door. Once Hoffman and Dietz were inside, Hoffman asked if there were any recording devices in the restroom or if Dietz had any on his person.

  Upon Hoffman’s request, Dietz went outside and handed his two cell phones to Detective Turpen and then returned to the restroom. Hoffman then told Dietz that during the night he had a dream about being at a food-processing plant. In the dream, Hoffman said, he opened up a trash bag and saw human body parts inside. He got a knot in his stomach, he said, and it started coming back to him.

  Hoffman told Dietz that he now recalled some of what had happened, but that he wanted to reveal it in his own way. Hoffman said he wanted to write the location of the bodies down on a piece of paper and then have a legal document created through an attorney, who would hold on to the document until Hoffman was dead. Hoffman continued that he wanted Agent Dietz to arrange for Hoffman to take another drive outside the jail facility. Hoffman added, “I’ll pretend to escape, and then I want you to shoot and kill me. After I’m dead, the attorney will reveal the location of the bodies.”

  Hoffman said he could not live with what he had done, and if this could not be agreed to, he planned to kill himself in jail anyway. He said he did not want to be injected with Thorazine for the rest of his life in prison. He’d rather die now. Hoffman seemed to believe that if he was sent to prison he would be given an antipsychotic drug for the rest of his life.

  Agent Dietz said he couldn’t agree to the drive or to shooting Hoffman, but that instead Hoffman should “relieve the pain in your gut by telling [us] where the bodies were hidden.” Hoffman instead said that he would do so only if his plan were carried out. “I’m a monster and I can’t live with what I’ve done! I just want to die! I saw horrible cut-up things,” Hoffman said.

  Dietz repeated that Hoffman would feel better if he just revealed where the bodies were, but instead Hoffman eventually claimed that he’d actually made up the story about remembering where the body parts were hidden, and added that he’d done that so he could get himself killed in the escape plan.

  After this bizarre interlude in the restroom, Agent Dietz and Matt Hoffman returned to the interview room, where the official interview with both Agents Dietz and Cadieux continued, though with meager results.

  Despite gleaning little useful information, investigators did note that Hoffman seemed more animated with a woman in the room than he had been with only the male detectives there. Detective David Light said later, “Special Agent Dietz and Special Agent Cadieux spoke to Hoffman again on Tuesday, November 16th. Hoffman advised them that he did not want an attorney and that it was in his best interest not to have one. The public defender’s office was assigned to represent him for his bond hearing scheduled that day. Attorney Bruce Malek [of the Knox County Public Defenders Office] went to the sheriff’s office and insisted on meeting with Hoffman immediately. Hoffman was asked again if he wished to see an attorney and he again said that he did not want an attorney.

  “Officers continued to talk with Hoffman until advised by Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher that they must stop the interview. Hoffman was then placed back in the jail, where an attorney made contact with him several hours before the bond hearing.”

  When it was time for the actual court hearing in Judge Paul Spurgeon’s courtroom, Matthew Hoffman wasn’t present. He was videoed from his jail cell, where he sat quietly next to Malek, rather than being escorted into the courtroom.

  Hoffman was wearing a green padded “suicide gown,” which essentially kept him from hurting himself in any manner. Occasionally he stared at the camera lens, but he did not utter a single word while his attorney jotted down notes on a pad. John Thatcher asked for a no-bail amount so that Hoffman would have to stay in jail, saying, “The weight of evidence against the defendant, well, there’s no question as to his identity. He presents a flight risk due to his lack of family ties in the community other than his mother and stepfather. His unemployment and severe nature of the crime of which [he] is accused makes him a grave flight risk.”

  Malek, Hoffman’s attorney, disagreed, saying, “Mr. Hoffman’s sister and father live in northeast Ohio. He does have connections in Knox County as well. Mr. Hoffman is currently without funds, and a minimal bond with ten percent application should be set.”

  The hearing lasted only five minutes, and Judge Spurgeon set bail at one million dollars, an amount toward which Hoffman was unlikely to raise even the minimum amount. Judge Spurgeon also set a preliminary hearing date a little over a week away, on November 23, 2010, at which time Hoffman co
uld enter a plea.

  * * *

  Sheriff Barber gave his usual afternoon press conference on November 16, and again emphasized that citizens with any information about the case should phone the sheriff’s office. “We are getting a ton of calls. Tips, leads and information from the public.” And once again he told the public not to touch any suspicious items but to leave them where they were so that a law enforcement officer could go and check them out.

  He added, “Be assured that all that information, no matter how small it may sound, is being followed up, not only by detectives of the Knox County Sheriff’s Office, but by all the other agencies as well.”

  Barber then showed the media photos of three vehicles he wanted the public to think about: Matthew Hoffman’s silver Toyota Yaris, Tina’s Ford F-150 pickup and Stephanie’s Jeep. Barber said, “We want people to think back to last Wednesday or Thursday. Did you see one of these vehicles? Maybe at a restaurant, maybe parked along a road somewhere. Give us that information and let us follow up on it.”

  And so, as requested, tips kept coming.

  Kelly P reported to authorities that a friend of hers said that her ex-husband had once lived with Matthew Hoffman for a couple of months. Detectives found this ex-husband, who offered to let authorities search all seventy acres of his farm.

  Brenda C said she’d seen a man with a young boy who looked like Kody at a buffet. The adult male was white, with a thin build and wearing a flannel shirt. Brenda took a photo of the man with her cell phone and sent it in to police.

  Elissa T reported that she’d seen Stephanie Sprang’s Jeep parked near Matthew Hoffman’s residence quite often in the previous months. While potentially interesting information, ultimately this could not be verified.

  Crystal G reported that she had been on Amity Road near dark on November 5 and had almost hit Matthew Hoffman, who she said had just been sitting in his car in the middle of the road, staring out into the cornfields.

  Other potential leads came in directly to the investigators.

  Detective David Light spoke with Patrolman Andy Burns of the Mount Vernon Police Department. Burns related that a man named Doug Tucker informed him that in the past August, Matthew Hoffman had been at Tucker’s house for a cookout. Tucker had a large fire pit in his backyard where they were cooking, and Hoffman had allegedly commented, “This would be a good place to burn a body.”

  Burns said that Tucker was currently in Florida but that another friend of his had called him in the previous week and asked if he could use the fire pit to burn something. That raised the question, had Hoffman or the friend burned something related to the crime on King Beach Road in that fire pit? This was checked out, but nothing leading to the crimes was present.

  Lieutenant Gary Rohler received an e-mail from a man named Joe Aldrich, who wrote that he had been friends for nine months with Matt Hoffman while both had been inmates at the Trinidad Correctional Facility in Colorado. Even after Joe was transferred to a minimum security institution, they had kept in touch by mail. At the time, Joe had considered Hoffman to be a good person who had made a stupid mistake when he burglarized and torched the condominium in Steamboat Springs.

  Joe added, “I knew Matt, and he had no friends besides myself, and I don’t know whether in the last five years if he had very many. I hope that you have good leads as to the location of the three missing people, hopefully alive. Matt is a very intelligent person, and very closemouthed, but I hope that he talks to you soon regarding their fate. If I can help in any way, either by possibly having some influence over getting him to open up, or giving you insight into his personality, please contact me.”

  * * *

  A retired police officer mentioned to Lieutenant Rohler that there had been a recent fire that destroyed a business on Millersburg Road in Martinsburg, Ohio. Given Matt Hoffman’s known penchant for arson, the officer wondered if the business had been inspected by an arson specialist to see if Hoffman might’ve been involved.

  Forrest Frazee, the friend of Stephanie Sprang whom Ron Metcalf had mentioned to police, also contacted KCSO and went to the office to write out a statement in person. Forrest wrote that Stephanie had been looking for work cleaning houses. According to Forrest, Tina told Stephanie about a job to clean a friend’s place. Then a few weeks later, Stephanie and Tina went to look at a house on Columbus Road.

  According to Forrest, Stephanie was to clean this house at some point, but supposedly there were plumbing issues that had to be taken care of first. Forrest believed the person whose house Stephanie was supposed to clean was Matthew Hoffman. This person’s mother lived near Tina’s residence, and in fact, Hoffman’s mom did live nearby.

  Forrest continued, “I knew this guy creeped Stephanie out. She would not meet him alone. I do know for sure that Stef and Tina did go to a Columbus Road address on a Friday sometime in the past three weeks. I know Tina was talking to this man at one time.” Forrest even thought Tina might have wanted to go on a date with him but had decided against it. Forrest also wrote that he thought Tina and this man had connected on Facebook.

  This brought a whole new angle to the case. Had Tina actually thought of dating Matt Hoffman and then turned him down? Was that why there was so much blood in Tina’s house? Had he gone through another situation with a woman, like his ex-girlfriend, been rejected and then gone berserk? Or was this new information really off the mark?

  Still, there was some more information to support the possibility that Hoffman had met Stephanie before, at least.

  Detective Craig Feeney learned that Stephanie’s ex-husband, Mike Sprang, had put an addition on Matt Hoffman’s house a few years back, and Feeney was told that “his wife did odds and ends there also.” In other words, Stephanie Sprang might actually have done some cleaning at Hoffman’s residence, at some point.

  This story seemed credible. Patrolman Tim Arnold of the Mount Vernon Police Department was told that Mike Sprang had also done some work on Matt Hoffman’s mother’s residence, and according to the informant, Stephanie had accompanied Mike on some of those jobs as well.

  * * *

  All of Knox County was having a hard time coming to grips with the ongoing situation. Not surprisingly, this was especially true for the schoolchildren of the area. Dr. Rick Stutzman, a psychologist who worked with the Mount Vernon Schools, said, “It evokes the number one fear for both children and parents—the loss of a child or the loss of a parent.” But Stutzman encouraged parents to talk to their kids and be honest even if they didn’t have all the answers. “By encouraging children to ask frank and accurate questions, we are reassuring them that the questions they have are normal and okay,” he said.

  Dr. Christopher Fiumera, a psychologist in Mount Vernon, agreed with Stutzman. He advised parents to “answer their [children’s] questions accurately, but without speculation. Speculation can exacerbate anxiety.” And Fiumera stressed that parents should reassure their children that “there are things we do as a family, or as a school group, to keep [them] safe. Talk about those things in a very reassuring way. And reassure them about the rarity of this type of crime.”

  Fiumera expanded upon this latter point, saying that the very rarity of this type of crime made it hard for parents to explain about what to feel and what to do. Fiumera added, “It’s a unique situation that our day-to-day living skills have not schooled us in because we don’t deal with it very often. But don’t avoid the subject. That’s the worst thing to do.”

  The East Knox School District, where both Sarah and Kody attended school, was feeling the weight of these events. The Ohio Crisis Response Team, some of whom had worked with survivors of the 9/11 tragedy, was working with the school district.

  Sarah’s and Kody’s classmates at East Knox Middle School had been particularly hard hit by the situation, but School Superintendent Matthew Caputo admitted that even teachers and sta
ff were affected. Truth be told, there was hardly a person in Knox County who wasn’t.

  TWENTY-TWO

  “Prepare Yourself”

  Sheriff David Barber closed his statements at the Tuesday, November 16, 2010, press conference by saying, “There’s a ton of rumors out there right now. We can’t speculate on that kind of information. Just be assured that any information received will definitely be followed up on. We’re just not going to speculate as to ‘Did someone do this, did someone do that?’ We’re not going to make up a theory.” Before opening the floor to questions, he reiterated that there were certain things “I can’t discuss, lab results and things like that, that would impede the investigation. I won’t answer any question today that are of a speculative nature.”

  The first question asked was whether Matthew Hoffman was cooperating with investigators, or if his public defender had said anything that might help find the missing people. Barber replied, “Hoffman’s represented by the public defender’s office at this time, so our contact with him is cut off.”

  “Has he said anything at all?”

  “Not since he’s been represented.”

  Someone wanted to know how Sarah Maynard was doing. Barber said, “Everything that we’ve been told from her father is that she’s doing well under the circumstances. I’m looking forward to meeting this young lady in person because she has more friends and fans than she’s ever going to realize. And she is receiving services from the county.”

  A reporter asked what Matthew Hoffman had been wearing when he was videotaped for his court appearance. Barber explained, “That’s a suicide gown,” which raised the follow-up question, “Did he try to commit suicide?”