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Interrogation Raw Season 1 Episode 1
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00:00A mystery that grows stranger by the minute, an entire family just vanishes.
00:13Four people disappear, leaving behind a bloody trail.
00:17It felt like something you would watch on a scary movie.
00:22I haven't slept all freaking night.
00:25We also have officers on quad runners checking fields.
00:29Tell me a little bit about Tina. We bite heads.
00:32The clock is ticking and lives are on the line.
00:35She could be being tortured. She could be locked up somewhere, tied up somewhere.
00:40Investigators searching for answers in the interrogation room.
00:44Cody alive, Matt? Stephanie alive? This is a game to him.
00:48The clock was running and we were running out of time.
00:59Every suspect accused of a crime has the right to remain silent.
01:04Many agree to be interrogated anyway.
01:07But they can stop the interview at any moment, making it a race against time.
01:13Justice hangs in the balance.
01:28Sheriff Barber's office.
01:31Yes, this is Valerie Haythorn.
01:34One of my employees did not show up for work this afternoon,
01:37which is totally uncharacteristic of hers.
01:39I am out of her house now.
01:41I just went in her home because I'm so worried about her.
01:44There is blood everywhere.
01:46Don't go back in the house.
01:48I'm not going to you. I'm staying in the driveway.
01:51Okay.
02:03Tina Herman had two children, a 13-year-old girl, Sarah, and an 11-year-old boy, Coldy.
02:10She had not come into work on Wednesday.
02:13She was a very dependable employee.
02:15It was unusual for her not to show up.
02:17When Tina failed to show up for work again, the manager came over to the house.
02:22She let herself in through a rear window.
02:26There was blood leading from the front door through the hallways,
02:31back into the rooms and into the bathroom.
02:39She had groceries on the floor in the kitchen that she had apparently just carried in.
02:44And they contained items that would have normally been refrigerated immediately.
02:51We begin tonight with a developing story, a mystery that grows stranger by the minute.
02:55An entire family just vanishes.
02:57Tina's two children who had been in school on Wednesday had not been in school the following day.
03:06And that, of course, heightened the concern because Tina wasn't accounted for and her children were not accounted for.
03:12We started seeing distinct patterns.
03:15We saw three separate bloodstain patterns in three different rooms.
03:21And we saw drag marks from each of those bloodstain patterns that converged into the bathroom.
03:27Oil had been poured down, and it looked to be as if it might be an attempt to set the scene on fire.
03:38So the motor oil led to a significant amount of footwear impressions that were found in the residence.
03:44They were able to find that that was a seven-and-a-half air walk.
03:49We made our conclusion that it was most likely the 13-year-old girl who had walked out of there.
03:54And we hoped that she was still alive.
03:56I met Tina Herman, and we worked the same shift together.
04:06She loved to do anything with her kids.
04:10Both kids were involved in sports.
04:13She never missed a game.
04:15Took them to the movies.
04:18Everything was always about the kids.
04:21We also learned that one of Tina's close friends, Stephanie Sprang, also was missing and had not been accounted for since that previous Wednesday.
04:36Stephanie was a very loyal friend.
04:39If she knew someone, was going through a rough time in her life.
04:43And Stephanie was going to be there to help her through.
04:47Stephanie was probably Tina's closest friend that she had.
04:52She lived down the street from Tina Herman.
04:56We were told that Tina was in the process of looking for an apartment.
04:59Stephanie came over to the house to go apartment hunting with Tina.
05:03As the search intensifies, so does the fear in this community.
05:18I think everyone's just kind of really scared that something like this could happen so close to home.
05:23It felt like a nightmare.
05:25It was like something you would watch on a scary movie, not something that would happen to people that you do.
05:32You know, I'm a father, man.
05:49My kids are my life.
05:51All I would ever want to do is protect them, you know.
05:53And I just got this weird, creepy feeling that, you know, something is wrong with my kids, man.
06:00And I haven't slept all freaking night.
06:02I haven't even, I haven't been to bed since, you know, since any of this.
06:05Well, she didn't show up for work Wednesday.
06:08And nobody could get a hold of her.
06:11Her phone was off and we're like, okay, what's going on?
06:14I talked to her Tuesday night and I talked to her Wednesday at 1210.
06:20I know Wednesday, that was the last time I talked to her.
06:22That was on the phone?
06:23That was on the phone.
06:24Tina Herman was in a relationship with a man by the name of Greg Borders,
06:41a live-in boyfriend that they had been living together in this house for some period of time.
06:45I just know things weren't the best between the two of them.
06:49She was looking to move out and leave him.
06:52A major concern was that her boyfriend, you know, was not at the scene until late in the day on Thursday.
07:00It seemed, you know, unusual.
07:02It's cold.
07:03How are you doing, Greg?
07:04How are you doing, Greg?
07:05How are you doing, Greg?
07:06I'm glad you're here.
07:07I'm glad you came in.
07:08I don't know, have you been calling and stuff?
07:22Yeah.
07:23Okay.
07:24You've got to understand.
07:26I know you're worried and I would be worried too.
07:29I was trying to see if there was something I could do to help with like a search or something.
07:35When the boyfriend was interviewed by the Knox County Sheriff's Office, I was able to observe from another room during that interview.
07:41He said I had no clue what was going on.
07:43You said that you're sleeping on the mattress out in the living room?
07:46Yes.
07:47Why is Tina looking for an apartment?
07:49I don't know if she was or not.
07:51That's just what I heard.
07:52Okay.
07:53Can you tell me a little bit about Tina?
07:58I can summarize our relationship.
07:59I mean, it's an on and off again.
08:00We butt heads.
08:01We've been split up for the past month.
08:02I know it didn't sound good with everything that's going on.
08:03I could just tell she wanted to get back together and the way she was acting towards me when I left Wednesday morning, she was mad.
08:05She knew I was going to stay with my friend that night and she thought maybe I was going to see a girl or do something.
08:06What day was that?
08:07Wednesday morning.
08:08Wednesday.
08:09And that's what time did you leave?
08:10I left the house around...
08:12...the last night.
08:13I know it didn't sound good with everything that's going on.
08:15I could just tell she wanted to get back together and the way she was acting towards me when I left Wednesday morning, she was mad.
08:23She knew I was going to stay with my friend that night and she thought maybe I was going to see a girl or do something.
08:28What day was that?
08:29Wednesday morning.
08:30Wednesday.
08:31And that's what time did you leave?
08:33I left the house around 340.
08:37I had woken her up.
08:39I mean, I know we had our problems, but I still love her and I still care about her.
08:43Well, you know what?
08:44I love her kids.
08:45I mean, I've raised them for the past five, six years like they're my kids.
08:49I just went to bed to find her because it's killing me.
08:54I just keep picturing them out in the woods and...
08:58He had a, what was a very easy to check out alibi.
09:03He said that he had left for work very early, which is his normal routine.
09:07I said he worked an hour and a half away in a large warehouse.
09:10That he had made plans with another worker to go golfing on that following Thursday.
09:14He was invited to spend the night at the friend's house.
09:17The initial response in terms of both his demeanor and the story that he was telling suggested that he was not involved.
09:24I'll walk you out.
09:4411825, code 6.
09:46We had basically run out of suspects.
09:49We were thinking, well, where do we go from here?
09:51Just about that point, I was actually, I think, driving back toward the sheriff's office when I got the call.
10:04Friends and neighbors scouring a wooded area looking for any sign of a missing family.
10:09So in the garage, there was a shopping bag, and inside that shopping bag were two tarps and a package of heavy-duty garbage bags.
10:36The name of the store was on the bag.
10:39If this store might be able to do some research and find out if someone purchased these items in this timeframe we're looking at.
10:47They were able to find that purchase, find a video of that person.
10:53The video cameras caught the offender going into his car and leaving.
10:57Couldn't get a plate from that vehicle, but it was a unique-looking compact car.
11:02The security person actually said that he thought the vehicle he was driving was a Toyota Yaris.
11:07So I thought, well, how many Toyota Yaris's could there be in Knox County?
11:11And on the first page for that search, the last one on the page was Matthew Hoffman.
11:16He looked very much like the subject in the video and was actually wearing the same shirt in his driver's license photo that he was wearing at the store.
11:28Matthew Hoffman had an interesting past.
11:31He was convicted of arson, which involved a home invasion, and said that he committed the arson to cover up his tracks.
11:40They went in through the front of the house and they found him asleep on the couch in the living room.
11:58And immediately took him into custody.
12:02Mr. Hoffman had what I would call a fetish with leaves.
12:08He was a tree trimmer for a while, and he was oftentimes known to climb trees and be sitting in trees.
12:16I mean, the whole house was full of leaves.
12:19He had collected a large amount of leaves, had them tacked to his walls.
12:23I don't know if he was using them for insulation or what, you know, in bags, but there were just huge piles of leaves all through the house.
12:32They started doing a room-by-room search, and they didn't find anything else on the ground floor.
12:39They didn't find anything else on the second floor.
12:42And then they noticed that there was a dresser pushed against the basement door leading to the basement.
12:48You know, it was strange what's down in his basement.
12:56And it was only on removing that dresser and going down into the basement that they discovered Sarah.
13:05And I could hear Joe yelling, they found her, she's alive, she's alive.
13:09And in this basement area, there was a large pile of leaves.
13:12And then he had placed a number of blankets on top of that.
13:15And that's where he was having Sarah sleep.
13:18She was tied with bungee cords wrapped around her feet, her ankles, and her wrists.
13:24And she also had, you know, like work gloves over her hands with duct tape.
13:28In the beginning, there wasn't a lot of hope that anybody would be alive.
13:42It was just pure elation for all of us.
13:45It did give us some hope that there would be others somewhere else.
13:48Sarah said that she and her brother had arrived home from school on that Wednesday.
13:57That they had come in the front door.
14:00And, you know, seen blood on the floor.
14:03And that then this guy just appeared from around the corner.
14:07That she ran back into her bedroom.
14:10She was there in the house for a while.
14:13She heard noises coming from the bathroom.
14:16She said that she suspected that they had been killed.
14:19She was afraid she was going to be killed.
14:21But that he had told her that, you know, he had not killed them.
14:24You know, that things would be okay.
14:27Sarah did confirm in her interview after she was rescued that he had sexually assaulted her.
14:34Through her account, it gave us a better timeline as to how things occurred.
14:57Any time you're involved in an interrogation, the first thing you want to do is establish communication.
15:03That it's just a matter of trying to come up with the right way.
15:06To have that person identify with you.
15:08Trust you to some degree.
15:12Hey.
15:19I think you know what we want to talk about.
15:22But we need to find some people.
15:26Matt.
15:28Can you hear me?
15:31Matt, do you go by Matt or Matthew?
15:40We'll give you a minute, man, if you need to think a little bit.
15:43Just tell us when you're ready.
15:53Matt, we want to give you a chance here.
15:54We know there's reasons for everything.
15:56Okay.
16:00Tired, Matt?
16:02Matt, are you here with us?
16:07Matt.
16:10We work towards him caring about his own family, his own mother.
16:13And this would give her closure and give her respect.
16:17I'm not here passing judgment on you, man.
16:23All we're trying to do is help out some families, okay?
16:26Including your own.
16:27The detectives were trying several different types of questions for him.
16:31At times would try to appeal to his empathy towards the victims.
16:36Sarah's going to be okay, Matt.
16:39I want you to think about what you would be doing if you was the family member.
16:45And what you would be going through right now.
16:49They also tried to be a little bit more stern with him.
16:53Cody alive, Matt?
16:55Stephanie alive, Matt?
16:58You screwed up, brother.
17:01You made a mistake.
17:03Or you're cold hearted and you don't deserve to walk the streets.
17:07I'm not sure which.
17:09Right now, you're looking pretty cold hearted.
17:12You've got this anxiety of, you know, there could be people alive hidden somewhere.
17:18This is a very public case.
17:21The local public defender knew that we had a guy in custody.
17:24So they were trying to basically force their way in, figuratively, not literally, to get access to him, to basically be able to counsel him.
17:35Which, you know, I mean, that's their role.
17:37We knew that he was going to have a first appearance in court eventually because he was being charged.
17:41The clock was running and we were running out of time.
17:43Sunday, 13-year-old Sarah Maynard was found, bound and gagged, but alive in the basement of a Mount Vernon home.
17:59And deputies arrested Matthew Hoffman.
18:01We have a lot of officers out and around. I think we need your help and you need ours.
18:18He almost seemed comatose in that interview.
18:24It was something I had not seen in 22 years in law enforcement, the way he reacted.
18:28There's family members out there of other people and all they want is closure. That's all they want.
18:49They've been up for days like you and I have, you know?
18:56Heart? Hurts? I don't know. Is that your heart? Your sin heart? Broken? Your heart's broken? Because of what happened? No? Someone broke your heart? Why is your heart broken?
19:17It was obvious we were hitting a chord with him.
19:21I think he was probably trying to resist a connection initially as far as doing some form of sign language and trying to resist that.
19:29At least it was communication. That was a big breakthrough given the fact that he'd been absolutely almost catatonic up until that point.
19:42I kind of look like this is a game to him. This whole thing's a game.
19:47Well, it has to be a guy that can sit there that long with his eyes closed wishing we would go away.
19:58My having come from having talked with Sarah, who had spent the last couple days with him, let me go in and talk to him about her.
20:07About the fact that she's concerned about what's going on with the rest of her family members, to just try and work the young girl angle to him.
20:16Hi, Matt.
20:23I'm, uh, I'm Joe Deets. I'm a special agent at the office of home investigation.
20:27I just came in down here to help these guys out a little bit.
20:29My short-term goal was just to get him to respond.
20:32You know, we had rescued Sarah. I thought maybe there's something going on here.
20:38I mean, if you have any feelings for her at all, that if we could just handle this issue, I mean, I think she probably knows what's happened, but now it is.
20:49You always hold out hope.
20:51If you didn't care about her, you know, you wouldn't have had to let her take a shower.
20:56You wouldn't have had to feed her.
21:01A lot of times you just have to wait, you know, because they become uncomfortable with the silence.
21:12I mean, you could have done things a lot differently.
21:15So you must have some feelings for her.
21:26If you didn't care about her, you could have just killed her too.
21:35What must they?
21:37I knew I must have done something wrong.
21:40And I found her in my house.
21:42She tied up.
21:47And so I took care of her.
21:51At what point did you find her tied up in your house?
21:53Thursday.
21:55Thursday.
21:57Thursday.
21:59Did you ask her? Did you speak with her about, you know, what happened?
22:03How did you get here? You know, anything else then?
22:06She said I'd done it.
22:08I figured I had done something I didn't know.
22:11I just could try to put pieces together.
22:15In this interrogation, as in any interrogation, the person who controls our ability to continue talking,
22:22with the subject is the subject.
22:26In other words, they're the ones who basically at any time can say, I want an attorney.
22:29Okay.
22:30And, you know, we knew that any attorney that he was going to get was going to immediately tell him to stop talking.
22:34And I knew we were coming to a close here, so I wanted to give him something to think about overnight.
22:38Okay, Matt.
22:40Here's my number.
22:41Don't make me reach over there to try and slide it in between your handcuffed hands.
22:51I'm trying to keep an open line of communication.
22:53Here's my information, make some kind of a personal connection, because tomorrow we're going to be back to fight another day.
22:58Have a seat.
23:23I don't think it was a coincidence that he picked that home with a 13-year-old girl in it.
23:40He chose not to kill her and to take her instead, so we thought, let's see how he will behave with a female interviewer.
23:48Hi, Matt.
23:53Hi, my name is Chris.
23:55I wanted to talk to you for a second if I could.
23:57The day before, the gentleman had had a table between them.
24:01So we changed up the room so that we put a chair close together.
24:06I had my hair in a ponytail, and we actually talked about me looking, trying to look a little younger,
24:12and looking more relaxed and more comfortable, so that he felt more relaxed and off guard.
24:19You look pretty exhausted.
24:21Were you able to sleep last night?
24:23Going at him hard didn't seem to work.
24:27We decided we were going to go very slowly and a soft approach.
24:31He was actually shivering pretty significantly, so I'm trying to get him relaxed to think that I'm interested in how he's handling the situation right now.
24:42So that was just a way to try to put him off guard, to break down those barriers so that I can get to that backstory.
24:48Where is the silence coming from?
24:59I think I'm crazy.
25:02Why do you think that?
25:07Because I wish I'd done something bad.
25:10I wouldn't be here if I didn't.
25:13It's okay.
25:14As we were going through the day, I thought,
25:18I don't know who these other people are.
25:20I don't know who these other people are.
25:25What other people?
25:27Who is those guys grilled me about yesterday?
25:31Well, I'm concerned about you right now.
25:35It's okay.
25:37As we were going through the day, I thought,
25:39well, you know, he's got to be hungry.
25:41Okay.
25:43He wants to be taken care of. He wants to be paid attention to.
25:45Do you want some pizza? I'm going to put it on there.
25:48Especially by a female. And I just fed into him giving him that focus and giving him that attention so that he would bring his guard down.
25:53People will forgive if you're honest.
25:58And try to help as much as you can.
26:00It goes a long way with most people.
26:03And I think it was a long way with most people.
26:05How does he give him a man?
26:06I don't want to be taken care of.
26:07He wants to be paid attention to.
26:09He wants a pizza? I'm going to put it on there.
26:12Especially by a female.
26:13and try to help as much as you can.
26:18It goes a long way with most people.
26:23This is too big for forgiveness.
26:27There was a girl who walked up in my house.
26:29How could I be forgiven?
26:32I don't even forgive myself for that.
26:34How did that happen?
26:39These people had been missing since Wednesday,
26:41and there'd been a great deal of searching going on.
26:43Given the fact that we had significant signs
26:45of struggle, trauma, injury,
26:47it heightens the concern and the anxiety.
26:56After five days of searching,
26:57Knox County Sheriff's deputies
26:59finally find 13-year-old Sarah Maynard alive.
27:0332-year-old Tina Herman, 11-year-old Cody Maynard,
27:06and Tina's friend, 41-year-old Stephanie Sprang,
27:09are all still missing.
27:19All right, going again.
27:20I feel like I'm losing you again.
27:21I felt when the spa team came in in the morning.
27:32All right.
27:33Relieved that she could go back to her family,
27:36and then I didn't know what to do.
27:39What do I do to this girl?
27:41What do I, how did this even happen?
27:43What's going on?
27:44Well, anything you know about that could help her
27:48and relieve her worries since you were there for some of it.
27:54I tried to just tell her that everything's
27:56going to be OK.
27:57I didn't know if everything's going to be OK or not.
28:02Just trying to appease her fears.
28:03Mm-hmm.
28:11Hoffman, outright lied about what happened with her.
28:18Basically saying, you know, he just took care of her
28:20while she was there when we know that he had sexually assaulted her.
28:24But I wasn't going to confront it.
28:25I think it's very important for him to hear that I'm not going to judge him
28:29in any way, so I can, you know, be his, you know, partner in this,
28:34so to speak.
28:40When is it?
28:423.16.
28:47But time is just so important, what we're talking about.
28:50People that are out there in the unknown.
28:54There really is urgency to find out where they are.
28:59I don't really want to go back to my cell.
29:02OK.
29:06I'm sitting for too long.
29:07OK.
29:18He would completely shut down.
29:20We did get nuggets of information that we certainly
29:22could have used against him.
29:24We knew that if he doesn't say this,
29:26we probably will never find them.
29:27So we need to get him talking.
29:42Everyone at work was very hopeful.
29:45But as the days went on, we were feeling less and less.
29:51It was like a roller coaster.
29:53I was always hopeful that they would find them all alive.
29:59I was fearful that they wouldn't.
30:01The two clocks that were running in our mind were, one, how long he was going to agree to continue to talk to us, and two, the point at which he was going to have an appearance in court at which time he was going to be given a lawyer.
30:16We started hearing that the defense attorney's office wanted to communicate with him.
30:18We were hitting a point where we need to push now because we only have so much time left.
30:23We just appreciate you coming down again and wanted to talk to you again, but just know that, you know, it's your choice.
30:30If you don't want to talk to us at any time, if you don't want to talk to us at any time, just let us know.
30:37You guys just starting your day out?
30:39Well, pretty much.
30:40It's about 9.30 a little bit earlier.
30:42Do you normally know an early riser, or do you stay up late and sleep at him?
30:45I'm not sure.
30:46I'm sure he's been at the airport.
30:48And I'm sorry.
30:49Right.
30:50All right.
30:51We're back.
30:52We're back.
30:53We're back.
30:54We're back.
30:55We're back.
30:56We're back.
30:57We're back.
30:58We're back.
30:59We're back.
31:00We're back.
31:01We're back.
31:02We're back.
31:03We're back.
31:04or do you stay up late and sleep in?
31:07I get up early.
31:09His whole demeanor has changed.
31:12He's now much more comfortable
31:14and kind of, you know, calling the shots in a sense.
31:18What are your thoughts today after things we talked about
31:21and kind of left it last night with you
31:23feeling like you wanted to do what you could to help?
31:31The day before, he said he wanted to talk with me
31:34alone.
31:42My first thought was, well, this is a test.
31:47Yeah.
31:48Right.
31:49Now, you're not going to try and overpower me
31:51to take my gun or anything, right?
31:52No, you might.
31:53If you want to, you can give it to someone.
31:55Okay.
31:57So we didn't know what he was going to want to do.
32:00I mean, literally all the rules are off, and he knew that.
32:04I'm going to follow him down to the bathroom.
32:16If you want to just join me.
32:17We go down to the bathroom down the hall.
32:33It's a small one-john, one-sink, you know, room.
32:38And, you know, he wants me to go in with him.
32:45Obviously, he knew there were no cameras.
32:46So we didn't know what he was going to want to do.
32:52And then he says that he's had this dream about working in a meatpacking plant.
32:57And he saw cut up body parts.
32:59And it all came back to him.
33:03The whole discussion, again, confirmed the worst fears that those people were, in fact, deceased.
33:09So he wanted to tell us where the bodies were, but it was only going to be under a certain set of circumstances.
33:18Then we would agree to take him out, to have him show us where the bodies were.
33:22And that while we had him out, he was going to try to escape.
33:26And we would agree to shoot him and kill him.
33:30We finished in the bathroom and went back down to the interview room.
33:34And, you know, brought Chris back in and let's have this discussion.
33:38At this point, all the evidence was there.
34:03You know, I have enough information in front of me to know we had him.
34:07He knew he was guilty.
34:09He knew he was caught.
34:10He knew this was over.
34:12So we just started trying to push even harder and get him to admit it without giving him anything back.
34:29I just see it right on the tip of your tongue.
34:32I see it.
34:32You want to do it.
34:33And I imagine you're just afraid.
34:39Can you tell me what it is that's stopping you?
34:42The one thing he had any control over, the last thing in his life he was going to have control over, was this stretch of time.
35:04By basically dragging this out.
35:06So I was going to, you know, just start to turn up the heat more.
35:09I made up that just so I could...
35:11Yeah, I don't believe that, Matt.
35:13I don't believe it.
35:14I think that you know.
35:16I was told that the prosecutor had said that he's going to get arranged soon.
35:21And we knew we were on a time crunch and it wasn't working as the way we wanted it to.
35:27And the reality is that he's not telling us the truth.
35:30So, I mean, this is realistically our last opportunity.
35:33You've got to think of your family and you, yourself, and how that's going to work.
35:40They're going to be the ones that you have to face in the end.
35:46I can also take some of the other people that are, you know, being affected by it.
35:51Sorry about that.
35:52Okay.
35:53We're done.
36:10We apparently are told we are done.
36:12We have to stop.
36:14I had never had that happen before.
36:16I've had long interviews before, but I've not had them stop the interview.
36:21It can be frustrated when somebody else comes in to stop the process when the individual is still willing to talk.
36:51Apparently, between the Knox County prosecutor and the attorneys, they had decided on the deal of taking the death penalty off the table.
37:00Once the deal was made, that's when he was willing to give up where the bodies were.
37:05We headed out to this, the coasting wildlife refuge area.
37:22There's this large beach tree there, about 70 feet up.
37:33The branch is kind of wide out.
37:35I could see that about seven foot above the ground, there was what appeared to be a knothole.
37:40I could see that there was a black garbage bag in there.
37:43And, obviously, that was confirmation we needed to believe that that was, in fact, a tree.
37:54This is the tree investigators say Matthew Hoffman left the remains of his victims.
38:00The hole you see here, cut by investigators to retrieve the three.
38:04I remember investigators saying they brought a dog out there, and the dog didn't hit on the tree, because it was so thick.
38:26He went up to the very top of the tree, and he dropped the bags the whole way down to the bottom.
38:32They had to pull all the bags out and open them all up and basically make sure we had every body part.
38:47That scene is not something that you can forget.
39:02He said that he had just identified the house the day before, that he had gone and spent the night across the street in a sleeping bag.
39:14Tina left, and he felt like she had gone to work and she was going to be gone for a while.
39:18He stuck with his story that this was simply a home invasion for theft.
39:21And Tina came home unexpectedly.
39:30He said that he just wanted to hit her over the head and knock her out, but she wouldn't go unconscious.
39:36And in the midst of attacking her, Stephanie just came into the house.
39:41She just walked into the place, came upon this, and then when there were two people there,
39:46he basically felt out of control and had to start stabbing people.
39:53He says he didn't expect the children to come home so early, and he heard them coming in and accosted them at the door.
40:01When he got down to just having the 13-year-old girl, he believed he didn't need to kill her because he felt he could subdue her.
40:08So that's why he did that, out of basically the kindness of his heart.
40:14Mr. Hoffman described how he took care of the bodies by processing them.
40:20Then he thought, well, I'll put them in the tree.
40:22You know, he knew of this tree, he spent a lot of time in the woods,
40:24and that then he would go get gasoline and come back and burn the house down.
40:28I was impressed through the entire case, how Knox County Sheriff's Department handled the situation,
40:41and it was good old-fashioned police work, how they found Matthew Hoffman,
40:45and they did a fantastic job in getting to where this case was so quickly.
40:50Finding the pleas to be voluntary, the court accepts the pleas and finds the defendant guilty.
41:08Life in prison is not enough justice for Matthew Hoffman,
41:11but there's also Judgment Day, so he's got Judgment Day coming.
41:20The funeral was held in a church in Columbus.
41:31There was no sitting room.
41:34There was people standing.
41:37I'd say there was probably at least 500 people, if not more.
41:43There's not a day that I don't think about him.
41:46I just want people to know, you know, that they were mothers, that they were friends, that they were amazing people.
41:56I just never thought that life would ever not have Stephanie in it.
42:02I just wish that everybody could really know how wonderful she was.
42:06Sarah, she's doing a lot better now.
42:10She has children of her own.
42:13The last time I talked to her, she was getting ready to go back to school again.
42:21This case stands out in the fact that the 13-year-old girl was saved, and that rarely happened in the cases that I worked.
42:27This case really made me realize that there's some cases where you're really going to make a difference.
42:33When you do interrogations, you have to have the mind of the eternal optimist.
42:38Because a lot of times, you're not getting a lot, but you have to believe in your heart and in your mind that you're going to get it.
42:45I have no regrets about this case whatsoever.
42:47I mean, you know, the fact that Matthew Hoffman was a complete whodunit and got away, you know, with the girl.
42:53The fact, you know, that we got, you know, what we did, bringing a quick conclusion to it and having him get life in prison without parole.
43:00There was a part of me that just felt like, Matthew Hoffman, you're no longer in control.
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