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The House of Leaves - Matthew Hoffman Convicted Murderer · Murder Files Unsealed

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  Speaker 1: Welcome back everyone. You know what we do here?
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  Speaker 2: Another deep dive and this one, well, this one's a
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  tough one. The Matthew Hoffman case.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, real downer. This case sticks with you, it really does.
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  Speaker 2: It got to me too, Not gonna lie, just reading
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  it all. Okay, So we're in Ohio, a small town
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  called Howard, right right, November twenty ten to twenty ten,
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  and Tina Herman disappears with her son Cody he was eleven,
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  and a friend, Stephanie Spring.
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  Speaker 3: It's just awful a disappearance like that, and early on
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  nobody really knows what happened. No obvious signs of any
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  kind of struggle or anything, just gone.
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  Speaker 2: So a real mystery from the start, and the waiting
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  I can't imagine waiting for answers.
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  Speaker 1: How long before they found out what happened?
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  Speaker 3: Days later, days later they find them. It was horrific hidden.
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  Can you believe this? Inside a tree, a tree, a tree,
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  a hollow tree sixty feet tall. They found Tina, Cody
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  and Stephanie.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my god, so discurb it? Why even, I mean,
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  why hide the bodies like that?
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  Speaker 3: Well that's what gets everyone thinking, right, Why, Like you said,
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  why hide the tree? There had to be some planning there, right.
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  It wasn't random, that's for sure. Somebody wanted to make
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  sure they weren't found, at least not for a while.
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  Speaker 2: So at this point, the police, I mean, they've got
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  a triple homicide on their hands, plus a missing child, Sarah,
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  Tina's daughter. Where did they even begin?
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  Speaker 3: Well, they got lucky. Sometimes it's the little things, you know.
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  They found a Walmart bag.
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  Speaker 1: A Walmart bag, like they got him buying the murder
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  weapon at Walmart.
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  Speaker 3: Not exactly. No, it had tarps in it and trash
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  bags the stuff they think he used to wrap the bodies.
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  Speaker 2: Uh okay, I mean Walmart bags are everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: So how does that help?
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  Speaker 3: Well, back then, remember this is twenty ten. People weren't
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  shopping online as much, you know. Yeah, so a bag
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  from a specific store that narrows things down. Yeah, And
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  they had this description of this guy. Witnesses had seen
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  him around the time Tina and the others disappeared. So
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  the police they go to the Walmart near where it happened.
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  They pulled the security footage, hours and hours of tape,
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  and they're looking for anyone who matches the description they
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  had buying tarp and trash bags.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, did they find him?
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  Speaker 3: Bingo? There he is on the tape buying the stuff.
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  Turns out, this guy, Matthew Hoffman, lived not far from
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  Howard in a town called Mount Vernon.
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  Speaker 1: And that's when they find Sarah.
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  Speaker 2: Right, it's kind of hard to believe that a Walmart
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  bag of all things is what led them to him.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, you think with how careful he was with everything else,
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  you know, hiding the bodies and all. Yeah, you think
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  he'd be more careful.
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  Speaker 2: So they know where he lives. But they've still got
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  Sarah to worry about, right, I Mean, that's got to
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  be nerve wracking knowing she could be in there with him.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely, the pressure was on. They had to get her out.
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  But they couldn't, you know, they couldn't just barge in there.
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  One wrong move and who knows what could have happened.
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  Speaker 1: So what did they do.
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  Speaker 3: They got a warrant, obviously, and then they planned the
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  whole thing out, the raid really carefully, every little detail.
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  Speaker 1: I'm dying to know. Did they find her?
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  Speaker 3: They go in right, room by room, the tension reading
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  about it, you can just feel it. And then in
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  the basement she was there.
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  Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, it must have been there.
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  Speaker 3: She was.
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  Speaker 1: What a relief.
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  Speaker 3: It was incredible finding her alive like that. But and
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  this is the hard part. You know, she was alive,
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  but she'd been through a lot. Being held captive like that,
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  it does something to you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially at that age es usually.
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  Speaker 3: At that age, thirteen years old, and she was the
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  only one left, you know, she saw what happened to
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  her family. Awful, just awful. And on top of all that,
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  there's well, the evidence suggests she was actually assaulted too.
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  Speaker 1: Oh god, did he ever say why he did it?
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  Any of it?
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  Speaker 3: He did? He wrote this letter, a confession ten pages long.
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  Can you believe that?
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  Speaker 1: Ten pages?
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  Speaker 3: Ten pages? And it's not what you'd expect. I mean, yeah,
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  he admits to everything, the murder, is, kidnapping Sarah, all
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  of it. But he doesn't really seem sorry, you know,
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  what do you mean? Like with Sarah? For example, he
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  actually says he treated.
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  Speaker 1: Her well, treated her well. He kidnapped her, I know.
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  Speaker 3: But he talks about letting her watch TV, play video games,
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  even made her this bed out of leaves. Leaves, yeah, leaves.
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  And that's not even the weirdest part. The police when
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  they searched his place. It was full of leaves, bags
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  and bags of them everywhere, Like he insulated the walls
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  with them. Even Okay, that's just creepy, that's nuts, right,
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  So yeah, they're thinking, like, what's with this guy and leaves.
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  Some psychologists they think it might have been about control,
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  you know, like leeds are nature. Right, he couldn't control
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  what happened in his life, but maybe he thought he
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  could control nature by hoarding all these leaves.
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  Speaker 1: It's scary how someone's mind can work like that, it
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  really is.
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  Speaker 3: And the thing is, this wasn't even the first time
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  Hoffman had been in trouble with the law. Turns out
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  he had this whole past years before any of this
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  happened in Ohio.
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  Speaker 1: Right, You were saying something got Colorado, right.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, Back in two thousand he was working as a
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  tree trimmer out there in Steamboat Springs, got fired, and
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  to get back at his old bosses, he broke into
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  their place, stole some stuff, and then get this, he
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  burned the whole house down.
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  Speaker 1: He set it on fire, so he was no stranger
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  to fire. Then, huh, what exactly happened?
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  Speaker 3: Well, like I said, he got fired from this tree
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  trimming job, and he broke into his old boss's place.
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  Bold move, Yeah, stole a bunch of stuff, and then
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  to cover his tracks, I guess he torched the place.
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  Speaker 2: So wait, are we talking like he lit a candle
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  and left? Or are we talking like poured gasoline everywhere
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  and lit a match?
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  Speaker 3: Oh? Full on arson the works. He actually ended up
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  serving six years for that.
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  Speaker 1: Six years.
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  Speaker 2: See that's what gets me. That's a long time to
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  think about what you did. Maybe turn things around, you.
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  Speaker 3: Know, right, you'd think so.
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  Speaker 2: And then what like three years later he goes and
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  does this whole thing in Ohio. Makes you wonder if
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  there was something they missed back in Colorado.
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  Speaker 3: It's definitely a pattern, isn't it. And you got to
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  figure that Colorado case that had to play a part
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  when it came to sentencing for the Ohio case, right,
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  I mean they had to take that into account, Oh
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  for sure.
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  Speaker 1: So did he get the death penalty?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah?
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  Speaker 2: For what he did to Tina and the kids to Sarah, Well,
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  they made a deal.
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  Speaker 3: He told him where the bodies were, and in exchange,
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  they took the death penalty off the table.
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  Speaker 1: Wow, I bet that one Overwhell was controversial.
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  Speaker 3: To say the least. But in the end he got
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  life in prison and no parole, so at least there's that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess, but it still doesn't really feel like enough,
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  does it, knowing what he did right.
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  Speaker 3: And that's the thing about this case, you know, even
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  with the confession, even with him locked up, there is
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  still so many questions, like what was going on in
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  his head? Why Sarah? Why the leaves? We may never know.
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  Speaker 2: It's like we see the monster, but we don't really
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  see inside the monster, you know, we don't really understand
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  it exactly.
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  Speaker 3: And that's scary in itself. I think the idea that
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  some things are just beyond our understanding.
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  Speaker 2: It's a good reminder though, right to pay attention, look
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  out for the warning.
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  Speaker 4: Signs all that, absolutely, because sometimes the smallest things, a
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  weird obsession with leaves an arrest for arson, they can
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  be a sign of something much darker lurking beneath the surface.
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  Speaker 2: Well said, and on that note, that wraps up another
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  deep dive. Join us next time when we'll be well,
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  let's just say it's another case that'll keep you up
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  at night.