TWENTY-FOUR

The Hollow Tree

Aside from his strange bathroom conference with BCI&I Special Agent Joe Dietz, Matthew Hoffman had been as silent as a sphinx since his arrest on the morning of November 14, 2010. But there were changes in the air by the end of the day on November 17. Behind the scenes, even as tips continued to come in and searchers fanned out throughout the community, Prosecutor John Thatcher had started working out a deal with Matthew Hoffman and his attorney.

Hoffman had told Special Agent Dietz on November 15 that he wanted to die; he wanted Dietz to arrange a situation where Hoffman could appear to attempt an escape and then be shot dead. By late November 17, however, Hoffman seemed to have lost his interest in dying. In fact, in exchange for the prosecutor’s taking the death penalty off the table, he agreed to tell authorities where he’d hidden the bodies of Tina Herrmann, Kody Maynard and Stephanie Sprang.

Before any legal documents could be signed with Hoffman and his attorneys, Prosecutor Thatcher met with the victims’ closest relatives. Even though the final judgment was his, Thatcher wanted them to know what was happening and allow them to give their input.

Several people were initially against Matthew Hoffman being allowed to escape the death penalty. But Thatcher convinced them that making this deal was their only real means of finding their loved ones’ remains. Otherwise, Tina, Kody and Stephanie might not be found for years, if ever. Eventually all agreed that this was the best they could hope for.

After the meeting, Thatcher began writing up the all-important agreement for Hoffman and his attorneys to sign. The first stipulation on the list was that the prosecutor’s office would not seek the death penalty if “all conditions were met.” Second was that Hoffman would lead investigators to the remains of Tina, Kody and Stephanie within twenty-four hours of the acceptance of the agreement. Third was that all remains would be found, except for those that might have been moved by “animal activity.”

The fourth point was that Hoffman had to give the Knox County Sheriff’s Office a full written statement, dictated to his attorneys, including written responses to questions submitted by KCSO. Fifth was that Hoffman would plead guilty to the charges of aggravated murder, burglary, tampering with evidence, abuse of a corpse, kidnapping and sexual assault. Sixth on the list was that the State of Ohio and the defense would jointly recommend to the judge a prison sentence of life without parole.

After consultation among all the would-be signatories, the document was signed by Prosecutor John Thatcher, Matthew Hoffman, Sheriff David Barber, and Hoffman’s public defenders, who now included not only Bruce Malek but also assistant public defenders Brandon Crunkilton and Fred Mayhew.

Detective David Light later noted, “On Thursday, November 18, 2010, Matthew Hoffman and his attorneys reached an agreement with Knox County Prosecutor John Thatcher, to reveal where the bodies of Tina Herrmann, Kody Maynard and Stephanie Sprang were located. Hoffman disclosed the location through his attorneys.”

In essence, Matthew Hoffman wasn’t going to accompany investigators to the location, but would give them directions to the spot.

* * *

Unaware that Hoffman had struck a deal with the prosecutor, volunteer searchers continued to comb woods, fields and stream banks. Even if they had known, perhaps they would have continued anyway; there was always the possibility that Hoffman could’ve been lying.

About three hundred volunteers gathered at the Premier Theatres parking lot on Thursday morning, November 18, to be assigned their tasks for the day ahead. This was the third day of coordinated searching. It was a very cold, blustery day. Many volunteers had accepted the likelihood that the missing trio would not be found alive. Still, they persisted in the search. As volunteer Charles Christopher, a student at Central Ohio Technical College put it, “I came out to help no matter what.” Many of the volunteers were off-duty police officers, firefighters, EMT workers and even a mounted search team from surrounding counties and communities. For some of them it was the second or third day of volunteering. At the KCSO headquarters, eighty canine officers with their dogs were briefed by Deputy EMA Director Matt Sturgeon.

Volunteers were warned that the weather would be very cold and that in some places they’d be working in rough terrain. They were also told to take their time and be careful. And once again, they were instructed that if they found anything that looked like it might be related to the case, not to touch it but to call KCSO so an officer could come out and collect the item.

Doug McLaman, operations manager of the Knox County Park District, commented about the volunteers, “This is what makes Knox County unique, is that we have so many people willing to come out when the weather’s like this.”

To assist and support the searchers, various area restaurants were donating coffee and snacks, and other volunteers supplied homemade sandwiches. Among the latter group was Brittany Peck of Mount Vernon, who said, “We came to help out all these searchers that are freezing. Many of them have come out to help someone they don’t even know.”

* * *

Before noon on November 18, the news of the plea deal’s imminent signing reached investigators. Detective Sergeant Roger Brown recalled, “I was advised that Matthew Hoffman agreed to disclose the location of the bodies of Tina Herrmann, Kody Maynard and Stephanie Sprang. Lt. Kohler and I followed Knox County Assistant Public Defender Brandon Crunkilton, Knox County Public Defender’s Office Investigator Avery Dyer and Special Agent Dietz to the Kokosing Wildlife Area on Yankee Street, Fredericktown, Ohio.” This was about eight miles north of Mount Vernon.

Around the same time, Agent Joe Dietz met with other BCI&I agents at the Knox County Sheriff’s Office. He told them that all the families had signed off on the deal put together by the prosecution and defense, where in exchange for taking the death penalty off the table, Matt Hoffman would disclose where the bodies of Tina, Kody and Stephanie could be found.

Dietz later recapped in his report the meeting with Hoffman’s defense team, “I met with Assistant Knox County Public Defender Brandon Crunkilton and Public Defender’s Office Investigator Avery Dyer. Mr. Crunkilton advised that he had received information from Matthew Hoffman as to the location of the missing victims and wanted to check the location to verify the accuracy of the information he was given. I then rode with Mr. Crunkilton and Mr. Dyer in their vehicle to locate the place where the bodies of Tina Herrmann, Kody Maynard and Stephanie Sprang were located.”

Dietz documented that Lieutenant Rohler and Detective Sergeant Brown were following them in a separate vehicle. Dyer drove to a wooded area of public land in the Kokosing Lake Wildlife Area in the Yankee Street and Waterford Road locale outside of Fredericktown, Ohio; this was the area that Hoffman had indicated they should go.

Lieutenant Rohler picked up the narrative. “As we were pulling in to the wildlife area, an officer with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Wildlife, flagged us down. Sergeant Brown explained to the officer the situation, and the Wildlife Officer was shown the map that was provided by Matthew Hoffman.”

Luckily, the wildlife officer was very familiar with the area and explained in detail to the others how to get to the location that Hoffman had indicated. Without his help, the exact spot might have been very difficult to find, since to the investigators one tree looked very much like another in the area.

Detective Light, who had come on the trip as well as the others, continued, “Officers had to drive the winding path for approximately one half mile, then walk into the woods a short distance.” There they found what they were looking for: “A tree with a large opening, approximately thirty to forty feet up was pointed out.”

It was actually Public Defender Avery Dyer who first spotted the tree in question. It was a beech tree with a large hole about forty feet off the ground, as Detective Light described.

Special Agent Dietz noted, “The tree was approximately seventy feet tall and had obviously living branches and leaves at the top. Mr. Crunkilton indicated based on information provided to him by Mathew Hoffman that the beech tree was the likely location of the missing victims’ bodies. The tree was solid and intact, although approximately forty to fifty feet above the ground, the main section of trunk divided and a large opening was visible. This opening appeared to provide access to the main trunk of the tree which appeared to be hollow.”

At this point, Dyer knelt down so that Special Agent Dietz could stand on Dyer’s back and peek into a small hole more than five feet off the ground. This was a separate hole from the much larger one forty feet off the ground. With the aid of a flashlight, Dietz was able to confirm that the tree was indeed hollow, with an interior space of about thirty inches in diameter.

The interior was littered with bark chips, but Dietz could also make out three small sections of plastic bag material, which appeared to be similar to the trash bags Matthew Hoffman had purchased.

It appeared that Hoffman had led them to the right place.

* * *

At that point, crime scene agents Ed Lulla, Gary Wilgus and George Staley were called to the scene. The Ohio BCI&I special agents had been told to standby at the Knox County Sheriff’s Office until the other agents located the tree. Around 1:00 PM, they got the call that the tree with the plastic trash bags had been found. The agents headed out immediately and arrived at the scene around 1:50 PM.

Once there, the trio of BCI&I agents were briefed by the others, and began their precise measurements. The beech tree was eleven feet, six inches in diameter near its base, and thirty feet up to its lowest branch. From there, it extended approximately another thirty feet up to its crown. Special Agent Staley stood next to the tree to provide scale as another agent photographed the tree. Staley was dwarfed by the large beech tree.

The small opening into which Agent Dietz had peered measured three inches wide by six inches tall, and was located five feet, six inches off the ground. A professional tree trimmer was called to the scene to make the actual cuts into the tree, as the agents did not want to accidentally harm the evidence in any way. The tree expert was a man named Jan Laymon.

Once Laymon arrived on scene, the agents and investigators stood nearby while he started making his cuts with a chain saw. After there was a wide enough opening, Special Agent Wilgus began to remove the plastic bags from the interior of the tree. He noted, “Due to their location deep inside the tree, two additional cuts in the tree had to be made to reach all of the plastic bags.”

Lieutenant Rohler continued, “Special Agent Gary Wilgus carefully and respectfully removed the large trash bags from the hollow beech tree and placed them on a tarp. Numerous garbage bags were removed.”

Detective Sergeant Roger Brown added, “The agents removed the trash bags from the tree as I took photographs” of the gruesome contents, which Special Agent Wilgus confirmed “contained various dismembered body parts including the heads of Kody Maynard, Stephanie Sprang and Tina Herrmann. The remains of a small dog was also found inside one of the garbage bags, along with bloodstained towels, clothing, a hat and shoes. Upon examining the backs and torsos [of the victims], numerous deep lacerations were observed.”

At some point later, Knox County Coroner Jennifer Ogle arrived on scene and the trash bags were opened for her inspection. Once all the garbage bags had been opened and the body parts identified, they were placed in official-issue body bags and released to employees of Snyder Funeral Homes to be transported to the Licking County Coroner’s Office for autopsies. The Licking County Coroner’s Office would be aasisting Ogle in her task.