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:

1. “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.
2. “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.”
3. “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.”
4. “What was said between you and Tina during the initial confrontation?” Hoffman: “No conversation. I brandished knife to intimidate her.”
5. “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.”
6. “Did you strike woman #2 [Stephanie] or the boy [Kody] with the blackjack?” Hoffman: “No.”
7. “How could you tell both women were dead?” Hoffman: “It was evident.”
8. “Where was the dog when you killed it?” Hoffman: “Bathtub.”
9. “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.”
10. “When you opened the garage door, did you use the automatic opener or do it by hand?” Hoffman: “Never used the opener.”
11. “Where did you find the Jeep keys?” Hoffman: “They were in the ignition.”
12. “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.”
13. “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].
14. “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].
15. “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.
16. “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.”
17. “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?”
18. “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.”
19. “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.”
20. “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.”
21. “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.”
22. “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.”
23. “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.
24. “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.

1. “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.”
2. “Did you ever join a search party or show up at a meeting of searchers during the event?” Hoffman: “No.”
3. “What were you doing for money before and during the last weeks?” Hoffman: “Unemployment compensation.”
4. “Did you see the children leave for school? Get on the bus?” Hoffman: “No.”
5. “Did you wipe down the truck for prints, evidence?” Hoffman: “No, wore gloves.”
6. “Where did you put the blankets you had wrapped Sarah with in the Jeep?” Hoffman: “Used for bed at Columbus Road.”
7. “How many pair of gloves did you take into the house? Did you use other gloves from the house or from other sources over the course of the event?” Hoffman answered that he took only one pair of gloves into the King Beach Drive residence, and that he used two pairs of gloves during the whole four-day episode. This was counter to the evidence that two pairs of gloves were used in the house.

After the questions were answered, Detective David Light and Special Agent Joe Dietz signed the bottom of the agreement between Hoffman and his attorneys and Prosecutor John Thatcher.

That same day Detective Doug Turpen and Lieutenant Gary Rohler received information from Matthew Hoffman via his attorneys indicating where he had left clothing and other items in the woods across the street from the King Beach Drive address. The officers went there and found two empty water bottles, a backpack and a camouflage jacket stuffed under some weeds.

Quite a few additional items were seized from the woods. These included a gray pullover top, camouflage sweatpants, a pair of boot socks and a green headlamp. A blue lighter and matches were found, as well as a tube of camouflage makeup, one apple and assorted candy and peanut wrappers. Why Hoffman left these items and came back only for the ball cap and pocketknife remained a mystery.

* * *

As mentioned earlier, many people did not believe the particulars of Matt Hoffman’s statement or his answers to the investigators’ follow-up questions, considering Hoffman’s recollections to be a combination of half truths and outright lies. Larry Maynard was definitely in that group. He did not believe Hoffman’s claim that he had picked Tina’s residence at random. Larry speculated that perhaps Hoffman knew or had previously met Tina or Stephanie, or maybe he’d seen Sarah at the house. Whatever the reason, Larry firmly believed that Hoffman had purposefully targeted the house, and not just to rob it.

“What kind of burglar spends all that time in a house, not knowing when a person will come back home?” Larry questioned. A thief, he reasoned, would “want to get in and out of there as soon as possible. And with many valuable items in the house, why didn’t he take them after he had killed Tina and Stephanie? He had plenty of time to leave before Sarah and Kody got home. His first action should have been to get out of the house as soon as possible. From just looking around the house, he had to know that a boy and girl lived there.” Larry was particularly disturbed that Hoffman had left Tina’s purse behind. “I could never figure out why Hoffman left Tina’s purse in the garage. It contained two rings and the gold necklace with the dolphin on it. These were expensive items. If he had been there to rob the place, then that should have been the first things he carried out with him when he went with Sarah in Stephanie’s Jeep to the baseball-field parking lot. Why leave that purse in the garage? That’s where the detectives found it.

“In my heart I don’t believe Matthew Hoffman went there to just rob the place. I mean, why did he stay around all that time before Tina ever got home? And then he spent all the extra time in the house until the kids got home from school? He knew how much more risky that made his situation. He said he’d seen Greg drive off in his vehicle that morning. How did he know that Greg wasn’t coming home [later]?” Larry felt the entire scenario had been preplanned. “I believe he was just marking time until the kids got home so that he could kill Kody and snatch Sarah. He even said that he saw her photo on the refrigerator in the house. So he knew she lived there, and wasn’t surprised at all when they came home from school.

“And I don’t believe anything he said about treating Sarah well when he had her at his house. He claimed he let her shower, fed her well and watched DVD movies with her. Sarah told me none of those things happened. He just wrote all that stuff to make himself look better. I believe that most of the stuff he said, other than his timeline of moving vehicles and things like that, was all a lie. He just wanted to make people think things had spun out of control. I believe that as soon as he stepped foot inside that house, he planned to kill. Otherwise, why bring the blackjack and the knife? He said it was just to threaten, but he was big enough to threaten Tina, Stephanie, Kody or Sarah without a knife.”

Ultimately, Larry said, “There were a lot of other items in that house that Hoffman didn’t take. Why not, if it was just a burglary? None of that made any sense. He had to have other reasons for going in there and doing what he did. More than anything else, those reasons drive me crazy thinking about them. I can’t believe it was just a random act—that he picked that house out of all the houses in the area. There had to be a reason—but I don’t know what it is. And very little of what he said in his confession can be taken as the truth.”