NINETEEN

A Flood of Tips

Authorities continued their work at Hoffman’s house, photographing, collecting and cataloguing a variety of items. In addition to the strange drawings on the bathroom wall that Sarah had noticed, the most unusual were the many bags of leaves, which were attached to the walls and scattered around the house. Every square inch of open space along the walls was taken up with these bags. There were also loose leaves scattered around the floor, and bags that had not yet been filled. It was as if the purpose of the whole house was to become a repository for leaves. None of the leaves had been there when Hoffman’s girlfriend moved out only weeks previously.

Items were being seized from Matt Hoffman’s silver Toyota Yaris as well. These included a used roll of duct tape, a Lowe’s store receipt in a trash bag and a receipt from a Mount Vernon Duchess Shoppe (a gas station convenience store). There was a receipt from McDonald’s, a sandwich container on the backseat and a Walmart bag. Also seized was a small suitcase with tree-climbing gear inside. One of the more ominous findings was a folding saw in a suitcase on the front passenger seat.

Every bit of evidence was looked at, no matter how small. Anything could hold a clue as to where Tina, Kody and Stephanie were. The items were like scattered pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, and the investigators still had no idea what the total puzzle looked like.

On November 14, a strange call came in to KCSO at 7:36 PM. A message sheet was notated, “Detectives, Captain or Whoever—Ron Metcalf is demanding to speak with someone about yesterday and wants a protection order.” Just what the protection order was all about was not mentioned on the form.

Around the same time, a Kelly G left a message for Captain Shaffer: “There is a smell outside the humane society. It smells like something decaying.” And a woman who would not give her name told detectives to check the Caves Campground.

A man named Mike M reported, “I was friends with Matt Hoffman before he went to Colorado. Matthew is very familiar with the Apple Valley clubhouse area and also the spillway area.” Then Mike said that Hoffman had been hanging around with a certain male friend since getting back from Colorado, and Mike gave that person’s name.

Matt Cox, principal of Mount Vernon Middle School, related that a student told him that he used to go swimming with Matthew Hoffman and “do other things” with him. KCSO later contacted this student.

Larry H told the dispatcher at KCSO, “Friday evening, by Riverside Park, there was a guy, tall and thin, looking over the bridge. He had a kid with him who looked to be about six to ten years old.”

And Carolyn H noted that on Thursday night after dark, at 7:00 PM, she heard a vehicle stop by a tan house to the right of hers, directly behind which were some woods. She heard someone get out of the vehicle. The person was nearby, and she could hear a lot of rustling of leaves. It scared her so badly she ran back into her house.

People also called to share specific details about Matthew Hoffman. A man told KCSO, “Matthew Hoffman likes to cut through Foundation Park with his car. He almost hit me there one day.”

Kathy M said, “Heard a long thud and loud scream at about 3:30 AM in the morning earlier in the week.” This was in an area near Hoffman’s residence.

An individual named Mike B related that on Wednesday, November 10, between 3:00 and 4:00 PM, he was on the Kokosing Gap Trail heading west just past the railroad bridge and there were two people below the bridge. Mike said, “There was a girl sitting on her butt with her hands behind her. A man was kneeling in front of her. The female had some clothes laying in front of her.”

Mark M contacted authorities and said, “Across the street from a rental equipment company is a white barn. Behind that are four-wheel trails. Matthew and I used to go back there and hang out. We were back there all the time.”

Another person got in contact with an officer and related, “Check trees for evidence. Matt talked about living in trees. He always carried ropes and a chain saw in his trunk.”

Some of the tips were coming in from much farther afield than the local community. Ron F of Chicago claimed to have spotted the two missing women and boy in Chicago. Stanley O of Chattanooga, Tennessee, was sure he’d spotted the women and boy at a Raceway Gas Station there.

Another strange tip came in from a woman named Cornella K from Rhode Island. She stated from the photograph she saw, Matthew Hoffman appeared to have “a very peculiar messed-up nose and twisted ears. Genetic abnormalities which affect the physical body to such an extent tend to also affect the brain and glands.” Cornella thought that Hoffman’s lawyer should become involved so that he could find an expert analyst in such abnormalities. This expert might persuade Hoffman to reveal where the missing three people were. Cornella signed off, “Doing all in the name/reputation of the Lord Jesus the Christ.”

Gary C of Long Beach, California, claimed, “I’m a psychic from California. Kokosing Gap Trail at the intersection of State Route 36 goes under State Route 36 southwest and northeast. Take the trail south for one thousand feet. Another small trail runs along that trail. Go east to Howard Street in Howard. Where two trails branch off is where bodies are covered with red plastic.” A later note by authorities related that the Knox County Emergency Management Agency director Brian Hess went there, but found nothing.

Another psychic phoned in and said, “The three others are still alive. They are being held by a white male forty-five to fifty-five years old. He is of medium build and rough looking. He is unemployed and staying in a house owned by his mother. This is in an adjacent county, probably east of Mount Vernon. He knows the family or a family friend, and has done work around the house. He used a weapon to get them in an older van or SUV. The suspect in jail knows this subject and will crack during interrogation.”

* * *

KCSO by Sunday evening was nearly overwhelmed by the amount of work they were now tasked with. Assignments included the ongoing search of Matthew Hoffman’s residence and seizure of items therein; the interrogation of Hoffman, who had yet to divulge what had happened to Tina, Kody and Stephanie; the taking in and logging of the tips; the coordination of volunteer search efforts; and the dispensing of news to the hoard of television and print journalists whose news vehicles and satellite trucks were camped out in the KCSO parking lot. This last matter was a huge headache for the office in general and for Sheriff David Barber in particular. Nothing like this had ever happened in Knox County before.

To help in this regard, FBI Special Agent Harry Trombitas made a list of suggestions about how to deal with the media and what information to dispense to them. Sheriff Barber was grateful for the advice and used it as a template in his remarks to reporters.

Trombitas started out by suggesting that the sheriff release this statement: “Based on evidence discovered at the two crime scenes and what investigators have learned through various interviews, the Knox County Sheriff’s Office is moving into a new phase of the investigation, and we are now conducting a two-pronged investigative approach.

“Prong one deals with the blood at the initial scene and the recovery of Sarah. Investigators are considering the possibility that the three missing persons may have in fact been killed.” Trombitas added that because of what was known so far, the bodies of the three may have been moved to an undisclosed location by Matt Hoffman or someone helping him, and suggested that KCSO now ask all citizens of the region to think back to the afternoon of Wednesday, November 10, or Thursday, November 11, and report any unusual sightings of suspicious persons or activity they may have witnessed. Citizens of the county, especially in rural areas near Mount Vernon and Apple Valley, should search their properties for recent tire marks or places where a person could have driven in with a vehicle, especially in areas where there was concealing foliage or outbuildings. The statement also instructed people not touch anything that looked suspicious, but to call KCSO immediately.

Prong two dealt with the chance that Tina, Kody and Stephanie could still be alive. Trombitas told Barber, “Now may be a good time to give the media photos of the three known vehicles involved—the Toyota Yaris, the pickup and Jeep. Sometimes seeing an image is far superior in jogging the memory of a citizen than just a verbal description.”

Trombitas ended his message to Sheriff Barber by stating he would advise not giving out any additional information about the two crime scenes—Tina’s home on King Beach Drive and Matt Hoffman’s residence on Columbus Road—and he also suggested that Sheriff Barber schedule formal press conferences at specific hours each day.

* * *

Larry Maynard and his family had their own challenges dealing with the swarm of media that surrounded their home. Never in their wildest dreams had any of them ever imagined they would be placed in such a position.

Larry recalled, “There were news vans and satellite trucks all up and down [our] street. The reporters were constantly ringing the door bell, and at first I just told them I wasn’t giving any interviews. After a while I put up a sign, ‘Don’t ring the doorbell or knock. Please respect our privacy.’ It didn’t help. They kept ringing the door bell and asking for interviews anyway.

“Phone calls were coming in from everywhere. Local news stations and national ones. We were even getting calls from overseas. And talk shows were calling as well. The phone wouldn’t stop ringing. We felt like we were trapped in our own house. It was horrible!

“We were hunkered down like prisoners in our own house. We had Sarah back, (she was at home with Larry and his family at that point) and that was great. But we couldn’t stop worrying about Kody, Tina and Stephanie. I could barely eat. I could barely sleep. I’d just go from a daze into kind of half-sleep. Even then, it was mostly just falling into a daze in a chair.”

* * *

At 7:15 PM on November 14, an interesting development took place. BCI&I Special Agent Joe Dietz convinced Matthew Hoffman to take a ride with him in an effort to refresh his memory about what had occurred. As Dietz wrote in a report, “Detective [Doug] Turpen, Special Agent [Kristin] Cadieux and I accompanied Hoffman on this drive to different parts of Knox County.”

The investigators’ reports later stated precisely when and where they had gone, noting that they left the sheriff’s office, drove to Hoffman’s mother’s house and then by Tina Herrmann’s house. They went down Magers Road, turned around and went by Tina’s house and again by Hoffman’s mother’s house once more. Then they drove to the ball fields at East Knox Middle School and later by the baseball field in Howard. They stopped off at a Burger King for some food, went on to Foundation Park and finally back to the sheriff’s office.

Alas, the trip was a bust, as Hoffman did not reveal anything as to where Tina, Kody and Stephanie might be found. Attempts to have Matthew Hoffman answer questions continued into Monday, November 15. Detective David Light noted, “He would occasionally drink some water, but would not even answer if he wanted a bathroom break. The efforts to have him speak included FBI Agent Kristin Cadieux, but he would not talk much about the incidents that led to his arrest.”

Though investigators were determined to get information out of Matthew Hoffman, and they tried all the interrogation techniques standard in these kinds of interviews, Hoffman remained absolutely silent.