Kidnapped Girl’s Rescue Exposes Murder Tree

We saw this letter on the table, like, "Oh my gosh, and then he came and snatched us." I'm afraid that what they're saying is true and that it's supposed to be a lost truth. In my entire law enforcement career, I have never experienced something like this. Share Barbers Office. Hi, my name is Valerie Vapeorn, and I work at a dairy queen on the general manager out there. One of my employees did not show up for work this afternoon at four o'clock, which is totally uncharacteristic of her. She's not answering her phone, which is totally uncharacteristic. She's not answering her chest. The missing employee is 32-year-old single mother, Tina Herman. Tina and her two kids, 13-year-old Sarah Maynard and her 11-year-old brother Cody live in Apple Valley, a bucolic lakeside community nestled in the rolling hills of Knox County. At her manager's request, a Knox County sheriff's deputy drives out to Tina's house on King Beach Drive to perform a wellness check. When he arrives, Tina's blue pickup truck is in the driveway, but when he knocks on the front door, there's no answer. The deputy appears inside the house. He doesn't see or hear anything suspicious, so he leaves. The next day, Tina's a no-show at work again. This time, her manager takes matters into her own hands. "This is the deputy's home. I can help you." "Yes, this is Valerie Vapeorn. I called in last night about Tina Herman being missing. I'm not at her house now. I just went in and out of home because I'm so worried about her. There's blood everywhere." "Okay. Okay. Just give us a few minutes and we'll be in room. Okay. Okay, so don't go back in the house." When officers arrive and enter Tina's house, they're confronted with a scene straight out of a horror movie. There's blood in the living room, in the hallway, in one of the bedrooms and all over the bathroom. As they continue to search the premises, police find bagged groceries in the kitchen, and a vehicle parked in the garage. Only it's not Tina's pickup truck. It's a Jeep. Police run the tags and discover it belongs to Tina's neighbor, 41-year-old Stephanie Sprang. Officers attempts to make contact with Stephanie are fruitless. It's as if she, Tina, Sarah and Cody have vanished into thin air. With a house full of blood and four missing people, the Knox County Sheriff's Department mobilizes quickly. They request assistance from the Bureau of Criminal Identification and Investigation and the FBI and swiftly organize search parties to canvas the area. Within hours, news of Tina, Stephanie, Sarah and Cody's disappearance spreads like wildfire through Knox County. Residents are shocked and scared. Nobody has a bad word to say about Tina or kids or Stephanie. The idea that anyone would hurt them seems unfathomable. With no obvious suspects or motive, investigators start by taking a look at the two people closest to Tina and Stephanie, their boyfriends. Under questioning, both men provide alibis, stating they were at work all day, and they deny any involvement in their disappearances. Based on interviews with their employers, police are able to verify they're telling the truth. Both men are cleared. That brings the investigation right back to square one, until authorities uncover a crucial new clue. Inside Tina's garage, police find a shopping bag filled with several items, most notably garbage bags and tarps. The receipt is inside the bag. It's dated November 11th and it's timestamped at 12.08am. That means whoever bought these items did so hours after Tina's boss first contacted authorities. Detectives obtain a warrant and collect the store's surveillance video from November 11th. Just after midnight, cameras capture a man grabbing garbage bags and tarps off the shelves. He pays for them with cash and then leaves. Parking lot cameras show the unidentified man exiting the store and driving away. While investigators can't make out the car's license plate, they can see it's a silver Toyota Yaris. Using vehicle registration records, authorities compile a list of every person who owns a Toyota Yaris in Knox County. One by one, they rule out everyone on the list until they land on a suspect. Thirty-year-old Matthew Hoffman. Not only does Matthew fit the physical description of the man captured on tape and is even wearing the same shirt from the surveillance footage in his driver's license photo, he's got a criminal record too. In 2000, the Ohio native was convicted of burglary and arson in Colorado and sentenced to eight years in prison. Records indicate that after his release, he returned to Knox County. Recently, Matthew found himself in trouble again. He was fired from his job at a tree trimming company, and this past October, his ex-girlfriend filed a report with the Knox County Sheriff's Office accusing Matthew of strangling her. Ultimately, she decided not to press charges. Police find no connection between Matthew and the missing victims, but Matthew's current address puts him in Mount Vernon, just 20 miles from Tina's home. Investigators discover another red flag. Matthew's mother owns a home in Apple Valley, less than half a mile from the crime scene. That means he's familiar with the area, which makes him an even more possible suspect. The next morning, SWAT teams descend on Matthew's house in Mount Vernon and his mother's house in Apple Valley simultaneously. To their surprise, when they knock on Matthew's door, he answers. Officers detain him, and he's transported to the Knox County Sheriff's Office for questioning. When authorities proceed inside Matthew's home, they're immediately struck by a bizarre sight. The room off the entryway is filled with leaves. In the kitchen, they make an even more chilling discovery. There's a decapitated squirrel inside Matthew's freezer. As they continue searching the house, police notice some furniture blocking one of the doors. They move the furniture and open the door. It appears to be the entrance to the basement. Inside the basement, officers make an incredible discovery. There, on a pile of leaves, is 13-year-old Sarah Maynard. She's alive. Officers free Sarah, and she's transported to a nearby hospital for examination. At this point, even though they know the odds of finding them alive or slim, police need to locate Tina, Cody and Stephanie. It is Sunday November the 14th. It's about 8.57 a.m. At the Sheriff's Office, investigators cut straight to the point with Matthew. Thank you. Know what we want to talk about, but we need to find some, find some people. Matt, can you hear me? Matt, do you know by Matt or Matthew? We'll give you a man, a man if you need to think a little bit. This tells when you're ready. Tell me what I can do to help you. We'll start wherever you want us to start. We want to talk about the water. We'll do that. Just tell me where they're at. I'll court talk. Minutes turn into hours, and Matthew refuses to say a word. We have two families here that are going through hell right now, and you control the strings. You have the ability to help them keep wild. You have the ability to make them feel at ease. You have that ability to do that, and we're here asking you to help us and help them. And ultimately, it will help yourself. You will sleep better again, Matt. You will sleep better again, but you're going to have to own up to what's happened here. You're going to have to take responsibility for what's happened, and you're going to have to show us that you care that you give a ****, Matt, that you honestly do have a heart. Tell me what you're going to do. After almost three hours of silence, detectives issue Matthew, an ultimatum. We're going to give you one more opportunity before I walk out of this room. So tell me where I can go get Cody, Tina, Stephanie. One more opportunity. But it's no use. Another investigator steps in and gives it a shot. Hey, Matt. I'm, I'm Chaudi, some a special agent in my investigation. I just came in down here. These guys out a little bit. This morning I've been since the time they came into your house. I've been down with Sarah. I don't know if you do her name, Sarah. But I've been down trying to take care of Sarah, helping her out at the hospital, getting the examination and all that stuff done. And we're doing everything we can to help her understand. and what's happened, you know, at least, you know, as much as we know at this point. Yeah, it's obviously going to be a bit rough for, you know, she had some questions. I wasn't able to answer, but I'm trying to, I told her that I would try and, you know, at least talk with you and see if we could get a couple of answers. But Matthew, Stonewall's him too. Do you remember her asking you about what happened to her mom and her brother? Has she said that she asked her a couple of times? Do you remember that? I wasn't talking to her. Although Matthew won't talk, Sarah does. At the hospital, the traumatized but brave young girl tells officers she doesn't know where her mother, her brother, or Stephanie R, or what happened to them. Sarah says when she and her brother Cody came home from school on November 10th, Matthew was waiting inside the house. We saw this butter on the table like, oh my gosh, and then he came and snatched us. Cody ran off and Sarah ran to her bedroom. Matthew chased her down and held a knife to her throat. He tied her up, blindfolded and gagged her and forced her to lie face down on the kitchen floor. Terrified Sarah says she remained there for what seemed like an hour. Then Matthew picked her up, carried her to the garage, put her into a car, and drove off. Eventually they ended up at Matthew's house. Once they got there, he took Sarah down to his basement, shoved her onto a bed of leaves, and left her there, scared in the darkness. Over the next several days, as she remained imprisoned in his basement, Sarah says Matthew sexually assaulted her and repeatedly threatened to kill her if she tried to escape. Right up and terrified, she had no other choice but to obey him. The next day, as the search for Tina Cody and Stephanie continues, authorities devise a new interview tactic. Yesterday when Matthew was being processed at the Sheriff's office, he willingly chatted with a female deputy. So they bring in FBI agent Kristen Kadoo, hoping she can connect with Matthew and convince him to tar. If you want me to take the bus off, you can actually put this on and you just want it around it. Do you want the pants? It's not, is it? No? Okay. Well, they're here if you do. Okay. All right. The sunny sugar in there. Oh, that has a little chili in here. I've got one that's got a sweater on, so I can see the pain I said, it's just kind of over there. You seem to be alone with all of it, and you don't have to be blind to help you. Instead of taking a hard line with Matthew, agent Kadoo employs a calm and sympathetic demeanor. Their strategy seems to work. It's got to feel better, you still let it out, I know it is for me. I'm afraid you could know what it was, I did. You're afraid you'd have me know what you were? Matthew decides he'd rather be the one asking the questions. So did you go to college? I did. With that just training? Yeah. I was there about four months. That's what you had to do. You have to graduate from to get in to a neighbor business. About your parents are proud of me, I hope so anyway. Eventually their conversation turns back to the crime. You seem very sincere and genuine, crime wishes that I could help you, and a part of me is afraid to just know what happened. I'm afraid that what they're saying is true and that it's just for the monster. I don't think that I ought to care monster at all. I can't hurt people, I can't. How did you have to have her, have Sarah at your house? I heard her. Just when it seems like Agent Cadu is making inroads, Matthew shuts down again, but Agent Cadu doesn't give up, they take a break and she tries another angle. But I have something from him for you, I don't know if that looks familiar, but I can tell you the good thing, it's not a bad thing. It doesn't make a difference to you that your mom is going to be there in a bad way. Are you concerned that no matter what, is there still a fear of that? I think in a lot of ways she's probably already about to work and she's still willing to support you. So I don't think you have to worry about how bad it really is and how she's going to feel about that. I think she's going to respect you as a man so much more than it becomes straight with it. And it allows us to bring the people home one way or the other that we can bring them home. And that's going to mean so much more. We know that they're out there and that they're most likely dead, but still you can bring closure to the family. We have to add the bodies so the families can have closure and that you can get a better deal with this, which is very important for your family and for your mom so that you can be there for her. I think it's just plain heavy on you and you're afraid that if you tell us it's going to hurt you in some way with the case and it's the exact opposite. Despite her best efforts, Matthew won't admit to anything. He's going to decide to call it a day. Forty eight hours after Sarah Maynard was discovered alive in Matthew Hoffman's basement, police still don't know what he did with her mother Tina, her brother Cody and their neighbor, Stephanie Sprang. After two days of indulging Matthew's self-pity and stall tactics, investigators have had enough. They are telling me that they are pushing and they're pushing the prosecutor pushing to have you come and have you hearing and this is your last chance to talk to us literally. That's what they're pushing for, what you're saying, you're saying you don't, you're still on to talk to us without an attorney but that's what's being done now as far as pushing for that. So this is your last chance right now to talk to us. us. I don't make the decisions for you. Yeah, literally. They make it sound like it's your freedom that you don't give me that. She wants to go into my best interests to talk without a lawyer. It's your best interest. Well, if you, again, hopefully we built some trust to know that we're not mine to you when we tell you that it does help you in the end. You kind of think of your family and you, yourself, and how that's going to work. They're going to be the ones you have to face in the end. And how they're going to view that your mom has been pressing to say, just do the right thing and tell us where they are. And she will be there for you. That's what's going to get her pride knowing that you were honest. And this is your last chance. Still, Matthew refuses to divulge any more information. But two days later, with the death penalty on the table, he changes his mind. In a written confession, Matthew says he came up with a plan to rob Tina's house. On the night of November 9th, he parked his car at some nearby ball fields and camped out in the woods across from Tina's house. The next morning on November 10th, he watched and he waited until he was sure Tina and her kids had left for the day. Around 10.30 a.m. he entered the house through the garage. While he searched the home for money and jewelry, he heard Tina's truck pull into the driveway. He ran and hid in one of the bedrooms. When Tina walked in, all hell broke loose. He struck her multiple times in the head with a blackjack. Suddenly, Stephanie Sprang appeared in the house and started yelling at Matthew. In a state of panic, he grabbed a knife and stabbed both women to death. He carried their bodies into the bathroom and began dismembering them, placing their body parts in garbage bags he found inside the home. Before he could finish, Sarah and Cody arrived home. When they saw him, they both ran. Matthew caught Cody first and stabbed him to death. He found Sarah hiding in one of the bedrooms, but he couldn't bring himself to kill her, so he kidnapped her instead. He transported Sarah to his house and left her in his basement. Around midnight, he drove to the store where he purchased garbage bags and the tarps. Then he returned to the crime scene to finish what he'd started. Once he was done dismembering the victims, he loaded their body parts into Stephanie's Jeep and drove to the cacosing wildlife preserve. There, he rigged a pulley and hid the victim's bodies inside a hollow tree trunk. Next, he drove the Jeep back to the crime scene and parked it in the garage. His plan was to take Tina's truck, go get gasoline, come back and burn the house down. But there was something wrong with Tina's truck, so he abandoned it nearby, got back into his car and left. That same day, aided by Matthew's written confession and a hand-drawn map, authorities descend upon the cacosing wildlife preserve. Inside a 70-foot tall, hollowed-out tree, they recover multiple garbage bags. Inside those bags are the bodies of Tina Herman, her son Cody Maynard and their neighbor, Stephanie Sprang. Afterwards, at a press conference, Knox County Sheriff David Barber issues a statement. As a sheriff of this county for the past 18 years, I have never experienced a case this big, this serious, and this tragic. And in my entire law enforcement career, I have never experienced something like this. The following evening, Knox County residents gather together to hold a candlelight vigil in remembrance of the victims. On January 6, 2011, Matthew Hoffman pleads guilty to multiple charges. "It's been indicated to me that she desires to enter a guilty plea to counts one and counts two of the indictment charges of aggravated murder and unclassified felony." Is that a quick statement? "It's also been indicated to me that she desires to enter a guilty plea to count three of the charges of aggravated murder under a different statute and unclassified felony." Is that a quick statement? "It's also been indicated to me that she desires to enter a guilty plea to count four of charges of aggravated burglary, a first-degree felony." Is that a quick statement? Yes. "The desire to enter a guilty plea to count five of the charges of kidnapping a first-degree felony." The judge sentences him to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Over a decade later, even though justice has been served, the senseless brutality of this case still haunts Knox County residents and investigators alike. Even though she's a grown woman now to those who remember this tragic case, Sarah will always be the young girl who survived the unthinkable.