TEN

A Chance Encounter

David Barber had been the sheriff of Knox County, Ohio, for eighteen years by November 2010. He was one of those guys who had come up through the ranks. Before becoming sheriff, he’d been a uniformed deputy sheriff, a detective, a detective sergeant and the lieutenant in charge of the detective division at the KCSO.

He’d won numerous awards over the years, including Ohio’s Distinguished Law Enforcement Service Award in 1999. He was very proud of his office having received CALEA accreditation in July 2007. CALEA stood for Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies, which had been created in 1979 as a credentialing authority through the joint efforts of law enforcement’s major executive associations. CALEA’s goals were to “strengthen crime prevention and control capabilities, formalize essential management procedures, and establish fair and nondiscriminatory personnel practices.” It was also to “solidify interagency cooperation and coordination and increase community and staff confidence in the agency.” In layman’s terms, being accredited by CALEA helped KCSO work more smoothly with other law enforcement agencies in cases of an emergency where a lot of police presence was needed.

Sheriff Barber had no idea on the morning of November 11, 2010, that in a very short amount of time he and his office were going to need all the benefits CALEA accreditation had to offer. All he knew then was that KCSO was the smallest sheriff’s office to ever achieve CALEA standards.

Despite the sheriff’s rightful pride in the accreditation, he did not regularly need to go outside his own department for help. Crime in Knox County was simply not prevalent. In the preceding year there had been only one confirmed robbery, one stabbing, one kidnapping case, and one homicide. Even the number of vehicle thefts had totaled only thirty for the whole year.

* * *

Because of Valerie Haythorn’s initial phone call to KCSO, the first officer to have had any contact with the King Beach Drive residence was Deputy Charles Statler of KCSO’s Patrol Division.

The Patrol Division, headed by Captain David Shaffer and comprised of three sergeants and eighteen deputies, was responsible for protecting the sixty thousand people in the county, spread out over 525 square miles. Cities like Mount Vernon had their own police departments, but all the rural areas, including Apple Valley, where Tina, Sarah, Kody and Stephanie lived, were patrolled by KCSO units.

Because of the disturbing circumstances at the home on King Beach Drive, the matter was taken on by the KCSO Detective Division. This division was headed by Lieutenant Gary Rohler, and included Detective Sergeant Roger Brown, and Detectives Thomas Bumpus, David Light and Doug Turpen. Prior to that November, almost all the deaths investigated by the KCOS detectives were the result of accidents.

On November 11, 2010, the detectives weren’t quite sure what they had on their hands at King Beach Drive. It became case number 10-2071, and one of the lead investigators was Detective David Light. He noted early on, “Deputy Chuck Statler tried to contact the residence but was unable to contact anyone. On Thursday, November 11, 2010, officers were again unable to make contact and also found that Tina [Herrmann]’s children, Sarah and Kody Maynard, did not go to school November 11th.”

After Valerie Haythorn’s discovery of the blood in the house on King Beach Drive, Sergeants Tom Durbin and Al Dexter of KCSO were sent to Tina’s house to investigate. The sergeants entered the house looking for someone who might be injured, but what they found was extensive amounts of blood on the front room carpet and what appeared to be bloody drag marks to the bathroom. There was also blood in the basement and a Jeep that did not belong to Tina in the garage.

The sergeants immediately called for KCSO detectives. Detective Light responded, as did Detective Sergeant Roger Brown. Brown noted that he arrived at Tina’s house at 4:36 PM on November 11, and met with Sergeants Durbin and Dexter in the yard. The area around Tina’s house was soon secured with crime scene tape.

Detective Light called Stephanie’s house, and by that time someone was home. Light noted that Tina’s friend, Stephanie Sprang, was also missing. Stephanie’s live-in boyfriend, Ron Metcalf, told detectives that neither he nor Stephanie’s children had seen or heard from her since 12:30 PM on Wednesday, November 10, when Ron had last spoken to her by phone. Ron told Detective Sergeant Brown that Stephanie had not been home when he arrived there later on November 10. Ron added that he’d made several attempts to reach Stephanie via her cell phone, but had only gotten her voice mail.

Ron also informed Detective Sergeant Brown that Tina and Stephanie had had plans to look at apartments the day before, because “Tina was going to leave Greg and move out.” Tina and Stephanie were supposedly going to look at an apartment complex owned by a man named Tony, though when Brown contacted Tony, he claimed he had never heard from either woman about renting an apartment.

After the discoveries at the house, Detective Sergeant Brown contacted Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher and requested that he prepare a search warrant. Thatcher replied that if Brown could find Tina’s boyfriend, Greg Borders, he could get permission to search from him.

As it turned out, Brown didn’t have to go looking for Greg Borders. Greg arrived at the house on King Beach Drive at 5:30 PM. Greg explained to the detectives that a family member had told him about the police activity at his house and he’d hurried home to find out what was going on. Apparently Greg hadn’t had his cell phone on earlier, and had been unaware of the police presence until he’d gotten word about it from an uncle.

Greg explained to the officers that he’d left the residence on November 10 at 3:00 AM to go to work. Greg said that he worked throughout the day and then stayed with a friend that night. Greg added that he and his friend had been golfing all day on November 11, and he hadn’t seen Tina since he went to bed on November 9.

Detective Sergeant Brown read a KCSO Permission to Search form, and Greg said that he understood it and signed the document. Brown then instructed Greg to remain on the back porch, and he and Lieutenant Gary Rohler entered the house by an unlocked back door. Whether Valerie Haythorn had unlocked that door on her way out, or an assailant had, the detectives didn’t know at that point. Brown later documented what he saw: “As I looked into the kitchen and living room areas, I observed what appeared to be blood and drag marks on the living room carpet and what appeared to be blood on the linoleum at the top of the basement stairs. At this time, Lt. Rohler and I exited the residence to await BCI&I Crime Scene Agents.” BCI&I was Ohio’s Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation.

Brown next received verbal consent from Greg Borders to examine his arms, hands and torso for scratches and injuries. After the examination, Brown noted that Greg did not appear to have any injuries on him.

The actual affiant for the search warrant, the person responsible for detailing the warrant’s purpose, was KCSO Detective David Light. Even though Greg Borders had given a verbal okay to search the residence, it was best to have a written search warrant signed by a judge. Detective Light began by stating that he had been with KCSO since 1993 and had been a detective since 2008. In his time with the sheriff’s office, he’d investigated twelve cases involving felonious assault, one kidnapping and twenty deaths.

The main part of Light’s search-warrant request included the lines, “At approximately 4:15 PM on November 11, 2010, Sergeant Tom Durbin and Sergeant Dexter responded to Ms. Haythorn’s call, entered Ms. Herrmann’s residence where they observed bloodstains on the living room and hallway carpet, apparent drag marks in the bloodstains on the hallway carpet going in the direction of the bathroom and a large amount of blood around the tub and toilet area. And they observed a gallon jug of what appeared to be [motor] oil in the hallway with a ten inch trail of liquid leading from the hallway to a bedroom.” In fact, the motor oil had been dripped on the rugs in several portions of the house.

Light added that Sergeants Durbin and Dexter had also observed bloodstains going down the stairs to a lower-level garage where a light gray or green 1996 Jeep Cherokee with Ohio plates was parked.

The Jeep Cherokee was known to be driven by Stephanie Sprang, but the registration listed a man named Jeremy Biggs as the owner. Just how Biggs fit into all this, the investigators did not yet know.

KCSO deputies spread throughout the neighborhood, questioning neighbors about the missing individuals. Investigators noted immediately that no houses were right next door to the King Beach Drive address—it was fairly isolated, with a patch of woods across the street and farmland across Magers Drive.

* * *

Even before the search team began processing Tina Herrmann’s house, miles away Matt Hoffman was deciding to put into action his plan to burn down the house on King Beach Drive.

After first making sure that Sarah Maynard was completely restrained and could not get away, sometime after 6:00 PM on Thursday, November 11, Hoffman drove his Toyota Yaris back to Gambier near Kenyon College and the parking lot where he had left Tina’s blue pickup truck. He was going to collect the gas cans from the truck, fill them up with gasoline and then go to the residence. But before he could access the pickup, fate intervened.

Hoffman had abandoned the pickup at the Kokosing Gap Trail parking lot off of Laymon Road and State Route 229, an area used as a launching spot for canoes on the Kokosing River. At 6:55 PM, KCSO Deputy Aaron Phillips was driving around on his routine patrol when he spotted the blue pickup truck. Deputy Phillips already knew that Deputy Charles Statler had spotted a similar pickup truck in Tina Herrmann’s driveway at around 11:15 PM on November 10. What was it doing here now?

Then Deputy Phillips spotted something else unusual. There was a silver car parked near the edge of another nearby lot, even though the lot was now closed for the night, and a man was sitting in the car behind the steering wheel.

Deputy Phillips approached the vehicle and asked the man what he was doing there and asked to see his driver’s license. The man cooperated and handed over his license. Deputy Phillips checked it and noted that the driver was Matthew Hoffman who lived on the 3000 block of Apple Valley Drive, and that his driver’s license had just been renewed on October 26. Phillips asked Hoffman if the Apple Valley Drive address was close to King Beach Drive, and Hoffman said that his mother lived there, but added that he now lived at 49 Columbus Road in Mount Vernon. Asked once again what he was doing there, Hoffman said that he was waiting for his girlfriend, Sarah.

The name Sarah didn’t mean anything to Deputy Phillips at that point, and he told the young man the parking lot was closed after dark. Hoffman said okay and left.

* * *

The incident with Deputy Phillips had effectively thwarted Hoffman’s plan to retrieve the gas cans from the pickup truck. Hoffman felt as if he’d dodged a bullet at the parking lot, though, at least law enforcement officers weren’t looking for him—yet. But time was ticking away and he still had to burn down the house and all the incriminating evidence inside.

Since Hoffman didn’t want to drive his Yaris directly to the house on King Beach Drive, he returned home to think over what his next move would be. Not only was there a problem with his entering that house, but he’d also left several items in the woods across the street from the house. What if officers decided to look in the woods? He had to retrieve those things, or they could lead directly back to him. Matthew Hoffman had a lot more work to do before all of this was over.