TWENTY-SEVEN

Matt Hoffman’s Statement

The formal written confession by Matthew Hoffman came on Saturday, November 20, 2010. Detective David Light said, “Hoffman’s attorneys typed his confession and he signed it as well as making several corrections.” Matthew Hoffman had to write a statement about what he had done in connection with Tina, Sarah, Kody and Stephanie. When it was finished, the authorities believed it was a combination of the truth, half truths and downright lies.

Hoffman began by saying that he had parked his car in Howard (Apple Valley) and walked to the area of Tina’s residence. He then went into a patch of woods across the street shortly after midnight on November 10. He had a sleeping bag with him and slept in it during the nighttime hours.

Hoffman related that there were two vehicles parked near the house, and he said he woke up when one of them, the gray car (probably Greg Borders’s), left during the early morning hours. Hoffman said that he then went back to sleep until around nine in the morning. He added that he stayed in the woods until the woman of the residence left in the pickup truck.

Since there were no more vehicles at the house, Hoffman walked across the street and tried entering the front door, but it was locked. He then went to the garage door and found it was not closed all the way. He slid under the door and entered the garage, then kicked in the door from the garage to the interior of the house. By that time it was around 10:30 AM as far as he could tell. The investigators believed this was probably true, since Tina Herrmann was known to be out of the house at that point.

Hoffman’s statement continued, “I looked around the house to make sure that no one else was there. Even if I did not take anything, there was a certain amount of excitement in being in someone else’s home without them being there.”

Hoffman wrote that he was looking for anything of value that he could easily carry out of the house, items like jewelry and money. He searched around the house for about an hour and stated that he didn’t “find anything of real value.”

Hoffman said he was getting ready to leave when he heard a vehicle pull up in the driveway. If this is correct, he stayed in the house almost two hours before anyone came home, which is unusual in a burglary. Hoffman said he was in a back bedroom and couldn’t exit the house without breaking a window and jumping out. He added, “I brought my knife for a certain amount of intimidation in case I ran into someone and needed to make an escape.”

When Tina Herrmann made her way to the back bedroom, Hoffman confronted her and made her lie down on the bed, facedown. He said he had a blackjack and was going to try and knock her out. He hit her in the back of the head a couple of times, but it did not knock her out; he claimed that then he started panicking and before he knew it, the woman’s friend came into the bedroom. This second woman yelled at him and his sense of panic increased.

Hoffman grabbed his knife, which he said he’d put down on the nightstand until that moment, and stabbed the woman on the bed (Tina) through her back twice. Then he chased down the other woman (Stephanie Sprang), who had run into Sarah’s room, and stabbed her a couple of times in the chest. Hoffman believed this was a girl’s bedroom, based on the room’s contents. In many ways, Hoffman’s claim that Stephanie ran to Sarah’s bedroom didn’t make sense, since Stephanie knew that house, and knew that Sarah’s bedroom would be a trap with no exit. It’s quite possible he was lying about this, and had actually dragged Stephanie into that bedroom to kill her. The only reason she may have run into Sarah’s bedroom was that she panicked and fled to that area of the house.

Hoffman said he made sure the woman who had yelled at him was dead, and then returned to the bedroom where the first woman was still lying facedown. He stabbed her again and again until he was sure she was dead as well.

Hoffman claimed that by then, he was in a total state of shock. He wandered around the house “slowly coming to a realization of what I had done and how bad it was.” There was a dog in the house that would not stop barking, so he killed it too. Eventually, Hoffman said, he decided to dispose of the bodies and burn the house down.

At first he considered loading the women’s bodies into the Jeep parked in the garage and driving them to a Foundation Park pond. He said he planned to drive the Jeep into the pond and then swim away as the vehicle sank. But then, he wrote, he realized that the water would be very cold and he might not be able to make it to shore. Hoffman continued, “I decided to process the bodies and dispose of them inside of a tree that I knew was hollow.” By “process the bodies,” he meant dismember them into small sizes that he could put into trash bags.

Hoffman claimed that he dragged the women’s bodies into the bathroom, where he began “processing” them. He said he used garbage bags he found in the house and placed the body parts inside of them. Once he had finished cutting up the bodies, he moved the Jeep into the garage from the driveway where it had been parked, to load up the body bags. From the time he killed Tina and Stephanie until the kids got home from school, was at least an hour and a half. He still had a couple of bags left to load when he heard children come into the house. He knew there was a small amount of blood on the floor at the front door due to his having placed a bag there before he decided how best to load all the bags into the Jeep.

Hoffman said he was in the hallway when the children first came into the house, and quickly decided he had to do something. He ran to the front door, and the girl slipped past him and ran into a bedroom. Hoffman related, “I immediately stabbed the boy in the chest a couple of times.” That would indicate that Kody hadn’t turned around toward the door before he was killed. Sarah thought that he had turned and was making his way toward the door. Evidence, seemed to prove that Sarah was correct. The fatal stab wound to Kody was in the back of his head and there was another stab wound to his back.

Hoffman then ran to the bedroom where the girl had gone to make sure she wasn’t calling for help and added, “I saw the girl was not on the phone and I could not bring myself to kill her.” This was in direct contradiction to Sarah, who said that she was on the phone but he grabbed her before she could use it.

Hoffman wrote that the girl said she thought he was going to kill her, but he told her he wouldn’t and “everything was fine.” She was suspicious about blood in her bedroom, but Hoffman had already dumped motor oil on those blood spots to try and change their appearance. Or that was at least his version now. He told her they were not blood spots but rather something else. Sarah did not believe him about the blood. Then he said he lied and told her that he had “tasered” her brother, who was still alive. Sarah did not believe him about this, and in fact, he may have not mentioned this tasering at all to her during the actual events of November 10th. More likely he was just inserting this now, since Sarah did not mention the taser comment at all.

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 she 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.”