The Girl in the Leaves

by Robert Scott

  Hoffman’s statement continued with him saying that he had already found duct tape in the house and so he used that to bind Sarah’s hands together and put a pillowcase over her head. Sarah did not say where the duct tape came from, and other individuals commented that Hoffman often had duct tape in his car.

  Then he said he led her to the garage where he looked for rope to tie her up more securely. Sarah denied this and related that he took her to the basement, cut off some rope from a sled and tied her up with that. Hoffman agreed that he did find some rope and used this to bind her hands and feet. After that was done, he carried her back to the kitchen and laid her on the floor. Sarah said that it was at that point that the pillowcase that he had placed over her head fell off.

  He claimed, “I did not want to harm the little girl, and I do not believe she saw anything. At some point in time I learned her name was Sarah from a baseball card on the fridge.”

  After Sarah was laid on the kitchen floor, Hoffman said he “processed” the boy. The boy was taken to the same bathroom where Hoffman had dismembered the bodies of the two women. After he was done with the boy, Hoffman took all the bags to the Jeep and placed them on the backseat. He then gathered up a pile of blankets and placed them in the car as well. Finally he picked up Sarah from the kitchen and put her in the backseat of the Jeep under the blankets and next to the trash bags filled with body parts.

  Hoffman said he drove to the baseball field on Pipesville Road, parked the Jeep there with Sarah inside, locked the car and walked back to where his own car was. He then drove his car back to the ball field and waited until dark to transfer Sarah from the Jeep into his car.

  Matt said that he drove Sarah to his house on Columbus Road, where he claimed, “I felt that she [Sarah] was still sufficiently subdued, and I drove to McDonald’s. I brought back food, removed her bonds and we ate. I tried to comfort her and told her everything would be fine.” Sarah adamantly denied all of this story later, insisting that he hadn’t left her alone, hadn’t removed her bindings, that the only food he’d given her—the cereal with the sour milk—had been after she’d had to beg for something to eat, nor had he comforted her in any way.

  In Hoffman’s version of events, he said that after they ate, he tied Sarah back up and claimed, “I made her a bed out of leaves, covered it with blankets and placed her on the bed.” He also boasted, “She liked that bed, it was extremely comfy.” Sarah’s account differed here; she said that at this point she had been left not on the bed of leaves but on the floor of a cold dark bathroom.

  By now it was 9:00 or 10:00 PM on Thursday, November 10, and Hoffman said he was so exhausted he fell asleep for a couple of hours. He set his alarm clock for midnight and then drove his car up to the hunting preserve where he knew about the hollow tree. He said he drove there with his climbing gear first to scout out the area, and so that if he was pulled over, there wouldn’t be bags of body parts found inside his vehicle.

  Hoffman dropped off his climbing gear at the hollow tree, then he drove the Toyota to Walmart in Mount Vernon where he purchased the large garbage bags and two tarps. He explained that he’d wanted heavier garbage bags because he said there were too many small bags in the Jeep and they were not very strong.

  After these purchases, Hoffman said he drove to a parking lot near the river, then walked to where he’d left the Jeep at the ballpark and drove it to the hunting preserve and the hollow tree. By then it was around 2:30 AM, November 11. It took him awhile to get all the body bags inside the hollow of the tree, so it was almost daylight by the time he finished. Then he drove the Jeep back to Tina’s residence and parked it in the garage. He located gas cans in the garage and loaded them into Tina’s pickup truck.

  Hoffman drove off in the pickup truck with plans to buy gasoline, return to the house and set the whole place on fire. However, he said, the pickup truck was not acting right and would not stay in gear. Deciding the trip was taking too long, Hoffman abandoned the pickup truck at a parking lot near Kenyon College and walked back to his Toyota Yaris on the Gap Trail. It was a greater distance than he supposed, and he did not reach his car until sometime between 9:00 and 10:00 AM.

  Hoffman then drove back to his residence on Columbus Road and, as he put it, “took care of Sarah.” He said she had wet herself and that she did so every time she fell asleep. Hoffman said he let her shower and get into some of his clothes. He said he apologized to her for all of this and then made her breakfast. Sarah denied he ever let her shower and said he certainly didn’t make her breakfast, other than the bowl of cereal with sour milk.

  Hoffman stated that she asked him a lot of questions at this time and he kept telling her everything was fine. He also said he was extremely tired from all his exertions. Hoffman stated that he set up some movies on a DVD player and they watched Iron Man and Iron Man 2 (something Sarah also refuted). He added he wanted to sleep but was afraid to do so, fearing that Sarah might escape. Then he added a line that Sarah would adamantly deny: “I slept a little with my arms around her, and did this [to] ensure she would not leave, while at the same time, not having to tie her up.”

  Hoffman wrote that he then did her laundry, because she wanted to wear her own clothes. He said he had to do this a lot, because every time she fell asleep she would wet her clothes. He would let her shower every time this happened, he claimed, and that he made her bed of leaves very comfortable. He also claimed, “She really did like to be in that bed.” Once again, Sarah denied all of this.

  At around 6:30 PM on November 11, Hoffman drove back to where he had left Tina’s pickup truck, intending to collect the gas cans from the truck and finish his plan to burn down Tina’s residence. But then a deputy came walking over to his vehicle, demanding to know who he was and why he was there. Hoffman handed over his driver’s license and told the deputy that he was waiting for his girlfriend, Sarah, to get off work. The deputy let him go, but not before Hoffman became suspicious that law enforcement already knew about the crimes at the house on King Beach Drive.

  Hoffman said at that point he knew he could not go and burn the house down as planned, so instead he drove back to his own residence where he built a campfire in the backyard, drank a bottle of wine and burned his shoes. He said he then slept for a couple of hours and woke around midnight. After that he went down to the basement and said that he let Sarah use the bathroom. He related that he hoped this would prevent her from having any more “accidents.”

  At this point, Hoffman wrote, he decided he had to go back to the woods near the house on King Beach Drive where he’d left his backpack and sleeping bag, before they were discovered. He drove to a parking lot at Millwood and then rode his bike to the hill behind the spillway of Apple Valley Lake. From there he slowly made his way on foot to the woods to retrieve the pocketknife and ball cap from his backpack and sleeping bag. He wrote nothing of the other things he left behind. By then it was almost daylight on the morning of Friday, November 12. He also saw a lot of police activity at the house on King Beach Drive. Apparently he was not spotted, and Hoffman made his way back to his bike, and then to his car in Millwood. He thought the time by then was 9:00 AM.

  Hoffman again related things that Sarah would adamantly deny, for example claiming that when he returned home, he made breakfast for the two of them and had her do the dishes. He then said the word “ransom” to her and had her look it up in the dictionary. Hoffman added that he would be keeping her for a while, and declared that he had accomplices in all of this and they were already in negotiations with her family.

  He said that he did not want to gag her, so she might hear his accomplices at times outside the house. By contrast, Sarah said she was gagged whenever he left the house. Hoffman related, “I told her all those things so that if she heard voices outside the house, she would not scream for help. I told her that she would not be harmed in any way if she complied with everything. I told her sh
e would most likely be home by Christmas.”

  That same day, Hoffman said he put Sarah in a closet that he could lock from the outside. He wrote that she could read Treasure Island or get some sleep in there. By this means, he said he was able to sleep for a few hours on Friday afternoon. Sarah denied that she’d been given anything to read.

  Eventually he woke up and, he wrote, he once again let Sarah shower, and on Friday night they had hamburgers for dinner (Sarah said this, too, did not happen). Hoffman added that she wanted to go to bed early, so he let her get back into her clothes since she had been wearing some of his clothing. Again he related that he tied her back up and she went to sleep on the bed of leaves in the basement.

  Hoffman declared that Friday night was the first night he was able to get a good night’s rest. Once again he claimed that when he got up, he let Sarah shower and he did laundry. Then he wrote that after her shower they talked and he let her play Wii. Sarah said none of that ever happened.

  He also related that he showed Sarah sexual videos on the computer and that they had consensual oral sex, all of which Sarah adamantly denied. After that, Hoffman wrote, they just hung out together.

  All of Hoffman’s statement up to this point had been typed, but Hoffman later added a handwritten line alleging that this was the day Sarah first complained about the problem of wetting herself. Hoffman said he was going to get her some pull-up diapers the next day, but for the time being he just made her some out of plastic trash bags.

  Later that night, he tied her once again on her bed of leaves in the basement and went to sleep as well. Then in a terse addition, he added, “The police came on Sunday morning, and I was glad that she was able to leave to be reunited with her family. I would not have hurt her. I could not hurt her.”

  Hoffman claimed his intention all along had been to give Sarah more and more freedom until she could eventually run away. Then, Hoffman said, he planned to go on the run himself. He declared that he had not planned far enough in advance as to where he would run.

  Hoffman swore in writing that he had not entered the house on King Beach Drive planning to kill anyone. “I did not know a single one of them. I did not know their names and I did not know who all lived at that house.” This was, of course, counter to statements by others that Stephanie Sprang did know Matthew Hoffman and she may have even done work at his residence. There were some people who believed that he might have met Tina before.

  Hoffman wrote that he’d picked that particular house because there were no nearby neighbors, and because he had also noticed before the events of November 10 that the garage door to the house was ajar. He asserted that “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.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Questions

  The authorities did not believe much of what Matthew Hoffman had told his attorneys to write in the statement, and had numerous questions to which he had to give written answers. Detective David Light noted, “Investigators were able to review the confession and submit questions. After Hoffman answered the questions, his attorneys wrote his answers and he initialed the answers and signed each page.”

  The questions were as follows:

  “Where exactly are the sleeping bag/backpack hidden in the field across from the house?” Hoffman wrote, “See photo.” Apparently he had marked on a photo of the woods where they could be located.

  “You said you went to look for money, jewelry, yet you left jewelry in a purse at the house. Explain.” Hoffman’s reply was, “As the result of being discovered, and the ensuing deaths, jewelry was no longer an issue.”

  “Where were you in the house when you first heard Tina in the driveway? Did she enter the house through garage or front door? Why were you unable to exit through the back door when you first heard her in the driveway?” Hoffman: “I didn’t hear her enter. Assume front door.”

  “What was said between you and Tina during the initial confrontation?” Hoffman: “No conversation. I brandished knife to intimidate her.”

  “Why not tie Tina up to make your escape instead of knocking her out?” Hoffman: “If I had time, I would have. Was interrupted by second woman.”

  “Did you strike woman #2 [Stephanie] or the boy [Kody] with the blackjack?” Hoffman: “No.”

  “How could you tell both women were dead?” Hoffman: “It was evident.”

  “Where was the dog when you killed it?” Hoffman: “Bathtub.”

  “How did you know how to ‘process’ the bodies using only a knife? How did you cut around bone joints, etc?” Hoffman: “It’s general knowledge that you can’t cut through bone with a knife.”

  “When you opened the garage door, did you use the automatic opener or do it by hand?” Hoffman: “Never used the opener.”

  “Where did you find the Jeep keys?” Hoffman: “They were in the ignition.”

  “You saw evidence of children in the house, why did you not get out of there before the end of school time when they would have been expected home?” Hoffman: “Assumed school went later than it did.”

  “What happened to the pillowcase you put over Sarah’s head? Where did you last leave it?” Hoffman: “Fell off in transit from garage to kitchen.” [Sarah said it fell off from the basement to the kitchen].

  “Where did you find rope in the basement?” Here Hoffman crossed out “basement” and wrote “garage” in its place. The rest of the answer was “from a sled.” [Sarah said it was from the basement].

  “How did you learn Sarah’s name including her middle name, when you first asked if she was Sarah Marie Maynard?” Hoffman: “Never asked if she was SMM.” Sarah didn’t know if this was true or not. She was uncertain if he may have seen her someplace in the area before November 10th.

  “How did you get Sarah into your house? Where did you park the Yaris when you did this?” Answer for the first part: “Carried her.” For the second part: “My backyard.”

  “Says you set the alarm for midnight Wednesday, got up and drove to wildlife area to drop gear and check it out. Then went to Wal-Mart on return. But you were at Wal-Mart at midnight (12:08 AM). Is this correct? Is the time off?” Hoffman: “Believe chronology of events accurate. Could Wal-Mart clocks be off?”

  “The video at Wal-Mart showed your car arriving from the east and leaving toward the east. What route did you take from the tree to Wal-Mart? Explain this?” Hoffman: “Skirted city to avoid traffic.”

  “How many of the newly purchased Wal-Mart large garbage bags did you use? Why did you leave them in the garage if the bags with the bodies were already in the Jeep at the ball field?” Hoffman: “They were left there when I returned the Jeep.”

  “Why did you buy the orange and black Halloween shirt at Wal-Mart?” Hoffman: “Because it was only one dollar. It was right by the only open checkout counter. It was an impulse purchase.”

  “What did you do with the clothing you were wearing? Did you clean or destroy any of it?” Hoffman circled the word “clean,” and wrote, “Washed them.”

  “There was no evidence of burnt shoes in the fire remnants in the backyard. Where did you put them after you burned them? Two pairs of shoes, athletic and boots, were found in house matching prints at the scene. Did you put them through the washing machine? Do you have more than one pair of the same shoes?” Hoffman: “Burned in back yard. Did not move ashes. Yes, only pair worn at AV [Apple Valley] house were shoes that I burned. Matching shoes were identical to burned shoes, purchased several months after initial purchase.”

  “Why was it so important to retrieve pocket knife and ball cap?” Hoffman
: “Incriminating evidence.” This did not make a whole lot of sense, since he left so much other incriminating evidence behind there. Why the baseball cap and pocket knife were more incriminating in his mind than the other items, he did not say.

  “Did you watch the house when you went back to the backpack, sleeping bag? What did you see?” Hoffman: “Yes. Deputies stationed at both ends of King Beach Drive house. Illuminated by spotlights and police emergency lights.”

  Questions 25 to 28 dealt with the specifics of the sexual assault on Sarah, a minor. Hoffman’s replies corroborated what Sarah said he had done. She adamantly denied, however, that anything he and she did was consensual. She noted that it was all under duress and she complied because she was afraid he would kill her if she didn’t.

  “After you returned to your house on Friday morning, did you ever leave again before police arrived on Sunday?” Hoffman: “Yes. Retrieved climbing gear. Had been left away from tree, but still in wildlife area. After retrieving gear went straight home. Had groceries in house.”

  “Did you ever join a search party or show up at a meeting of searchers during the event?” Hoffman: “No.”

  “What were you doing for money before and during the last weeks?” Hoffman: “Unemployment compensation.”

  “Did you see the children leave for school? Get on the bus?” Hoffman: “No.”

  “Did you wipe down the truck for prints, evidence?” Hoffman: “No, wore gloves.”