Hi, welcome back to give us more leave. I'm Megan, and I'm
so sorry it's taking us this long. Yeah, well we only missed one
week, which is like for us, at least we're doing it again.
You know, Usually we're like, ah, you know what, the break
was really nice? Are you proud of us? Guys? We didn't We
didn't take a whole month this time, although this one is kind of last
minute because like today is Friday, the thirty first of March, and you
will be listening to this by the end of today. So random applause from
Megan. I woke up this morning and I was like, yes, day
off work, I get to record the podcast because my alarm went off and
I just well, like as soon as alarm goes off, I'm triggered.
Like I'm like, I'm pissed already. Then I ordered my little Starbucks,
which is not empty, but it was so fucking good. I got um
an iced Oh Bran sugar iced Oh Shaken espresso. You first of all,
health Queen for the oat milk. Secondly, it doesn't take much to impress
me. Secondly, I wish I could order. Sorry, I have to
fix my computer so I can see you better. I wish I could order
Starbooks to my home, but I can't because we don't have that in our
tiny little town. Honestly, it's one of the little pleasures of living here.
I could be like crying about missing my family and friends. I got
to start boom, but I can order Starbooks to my home. I have
a question for you, Actually, what do you order when you go to
Starbooks? I do like a bran sugar shaken and fucking espresso. It is
chef's kiss and an iced white Smoka is also very good, but I haven't
tried it, Like I don't think I've tried it. So is it good?
Like is it sweet? And it is sweet? But it is good.
I like it. And then and listeners at home at home, every
on the radio and listeners at home phone in, what is your Starbucks order?
Tell me? I am I'm not very adventurous. I won't lie though,
my Like, you know, when you don't know what to get,
so you just get kind of like a comfort one that you just know that
you will enjoy. And it is a basic, bitch one. And I'm
well aware that it is very basic. Okay, you don't need to tell
me it is. I know it is. I like an iced caramel macchiato.
Oh, it's got caramel drizzle in it. So as you're like sucking
it up, you're getting like little clumps that You're getting little clumps of caramel
and it's just tasty. Do you know what? I don't like a pumpkin
spiced latte. I can't remember if I've ever tried one. I tried one
because I wanted to see what the hype was. You know, m I
am a fall girl. I'm a fall girl. I love fall slash autumn.
So I was like, this is the like autumn drink. I have
to try it? Mm hmm. It was fucking foul. It's like,
the fuck is this shit? Why are people drinking this fucking sacrilege? You're
gonna be absolutely you're canceled. Hal. I don't think I'm I don't think
I'm allowed to be a fall girl anymore. Also, can I just say
chi chai latte? Chi chi tea whatever? Fuck Chaila? No, I've
never tried it, and I wanted to try it. It tastes like um,
it tastes like winter. You know when you get a piece of fruitcake
at Christmas? Gross? Yeah, that's what it tastes like in my opinion.
Anyway. I don't know if you follow or see a girl on TikTok
and a star or something like that is her name, and she does the
she goes to star Bees and she's like, just give me what you want,
yeah, what you would get, and she always gets these amazing drinks.
But in Ireland we don't have some of those ingredients. We don't have
most of them. To be honest, I see some of those Starbucks orders
and I'm like, what the fuck? But luck listen, I wouldn't be
able to. Actually, I don't have the confidence to go into a Starbucks
and be like, Hi, can I get a child latte with sweet vanilla,
cold foam? Three pumps vanilla, two pumps chocolate. I just don't
have it in me to go in and be like, Hi, yeah,
can I have this really intense specific order? To be honest, I feel
like in Ireland, if you ask for cold foam, the barista would hop
over the counter and punch you. Swear in the face, yeah, you
can tell it when you ask for an iced one, when you're like,
Hi, can I get an iced caramel maccietto they're like, iced, you
fucking dick, thank you, love you so much, thank you. Yeah.
So, anyway, tell us what your goal to drink is and maybe
we'll try it. But if it's pumpkin, spice, batte or chilte,
we will not be trying it. No, no, we will not.
So two things before we get in, and one of them is, if
you haven't already checked out Megan's episodes with that's so fucked up, make sure
you do so Gi Little extra GI, Little extra Megan your life Extra Meg.
Why does that sound rose? Doesn't it sounds fabulous? Yeah, and
go listen to those. And then the last thing is the shooting in Nashville.
M let's talk about it. Okay, they were nine years old.
The three students that died, was it? What was it? Three students
and a teacher. Three students and three teachers, and all three teachers were
in their sixties and the three kids were nine years of age. And currently
America is more focused on trying to trying to reverse lgb t Q plus laws,
trying to ban books that talk about race and religion and other books that
talk about LGBTQ plus. And I saw a TikTok and I have to say
it was a very powerful TikTok and it was of a like a senator or
a politician anyway over in America, and he's arguing about why are we banning
these books? You know, he's just like, what home is it going
to do if students read these kinds of books and they're not like out their
books. I don't know what one's there, but they're not like like,
hey, you should be trends or you know, they're just talking. Yeah
he was. He just turned around at the end of his argument and was
like, put jokes on you because dead kids can't read. And you know
what, he has a point like when when is it when? Like how
many school shootings? Is too many school shootings? When I hear people make
the argument about how they want to keep their guns in one way, I'm
like, Okay, I see your point, but also it's not a good
enough point for them to be so easily accessible. That this shooter had something
like seven guns they had brought. I'm not sure. I'm actually not sure.
I'm confused on whether they were. I think she had transitioned to she
to she. I wasn't sure if she had transitioned from she to he or
from he to sheep. They were able to buy something like seven guns from
five different shops, like five different firearm stores. Like, how is that
actually legally possible? Do you know what I mean? Because obviously it's like
all over internet. And one politician was like, do you know what what
an A or it was like an A or fifteen or something that she used
I believe in one of her guns anyway that she purchased, And it was
like, do you know what that does to a person? Like you don't
shoot deer with that kind of gun because it destroys the deer. There's been
nothing left of the deer. So why does anyone of the public need a
gun like that? Because what's that? Like? Whatever about? You know,
like a shot not a shotgun, a handgun, a handgun that like
you I can like I can get that, I get it, and I
can I can understand if you are like a single woman and you live alone
in a rough neighborhood. Now if you just want to protect your family,
like if you as long as you keep that gun and you follow guns safety
protocols and completely understand having a handgun locked away safely in your home for in
case there was ever in a treader or anything like that. What do we
what does like a society like that need shotguns, rifles, a salt rifle,
AsSalt like assault rifles, Like what do they need those kind of weapons
for? I don't know. This is not like, let's suppose it is.
I wanted to say that this is not us giving a political stance.
Obviously we have like no right to talk about really what's going on over there
because it's not our country, we're not living in it. But at the
same time, as Europeans, I don't think we can sit here and comprehend
why this needs. These shootings happen so often it just boggles their mind.
So our hearts go out to the victims of every shooting in Americas so far
this year, obviously, and to the kids and teachers that were involved in
in any school shot shootings. I can't remember. I can't like, oh,
I think yeah, I think it was Monday or Tuesday. Am.
I can't fathom what it would be like as a parent to have Anna in
school. No, like you you just dropped Anna off to school right now?
Like sorry you cry, no, because I guess actually terrifying, like
you're they're sending kids to school with backpacks that are bulletproof, and they're on
about like trying to build safe rooms in classrooms so that if this happens,
that they like pull this thing out of the wall and it turns into like
a safe like a panic room. Why are you building that instead of banning
guns? Just banning guns and you don't need the panic rooms. I'm sorry.
What's more important your right to own a gun or to have your child
alive? See, So, yeah, I just wanted to mention it.
Obviously, it's a true crime podcast. We have a platform to talk about
these kinds of things, and we shouldn't be silent, you know. Obviously
there's nothing we can say that's ever going to change anything. And I'm sorry
if this conversation is fucking pissed you off, But I'm sorry, there's a
there's grieving parents. I hope it's pissed you off in the right way that
if you live in America and you hear this and you get riled, I
hope it riles you in the correct manner that you then are like, let's
go fucking sort these gun laws at Yeah, so let's talk about our case
today. Our case today is a very interesting one, and I think I'm
just going to get right into it because we don't have a whole pile of
time. On Wednesday, November tenth, twenty ten, Valerie Haythorn called police
to let them know that her co worker at Dairy Queen, Tina Herman,
had not shown up for work. Tina was a thirty two year old mother
of two who was known for her reliability, so this was so when she
didn't show up to work, they were like, oh, something the fuck
is wrong. And Valerie Haythorne reminds me of do you remember in the Chris
Watts case there was a friend that came to the house and immediately knew that
Chris had done something. When Tina missed her four PM shift, Valerie drove
out to the house in Apple Valley, Ohio. The lights were on and
Tina's car, as well as another truck were at the front. It didn't
sit right with Valerie that Tina still wouldn't answer calls or texts, which is
why she called to the police to ask for a wellness check. Smart friend.
Neither of Tina's two children, thirteen year old Sarah Maynard and eleven year
old Cody Maynard had been in school the next day, Thursday, the eleventh
of November. That same day, Valerie was told by a man named Ron
Metcalf that he had not seen his girlfriend, Stephanie Sprange, forty one,
since the morning of the tenth of November, about twenty four hours previous.
This is shrouded in mystery. I know. Stephanie Sprange was a neighbor of
Tina's, and her last known movements were that she was going to Tina's house
to help her move, as Tina and the kids were living with Tina's then
boyfriend, Greg Borders, who had left the house early on Wednesday morning at
about three forty five am to get to his job as a Target warehouse worker
in a town a couple hours away. Oh, Greg, I already something
like the scent of you, Poor Greg. You'll see, I doesn't always
assume as the boyfriend. That's That's exactly what happens. So then Greg was
going to continue on to meet his friend and stay with him for a couple
of days to hang out and play golf. See, the thing is that
Greg and Tina were actually in the middle of breaking up. There's been in
all abuse or anything like that. It was as amicable as a breakup can
be. I know it's shocking to the world, but sometimes just people just
fall out a lot and are like, look, listen, I think it's
best to be separates, and they're like, yeah, I think it is
best to be separate. Let's go. Yeah, Like I think that there
had been anger, and there had been fights obviously, but it wasn't like
it wasn't it too, Like, yeah, people can get angry and have
fights, but not like getting physical or abusive. Yeah, exactly. And
that was the same kind of split that Tina had when she went through when
she was going through the divorce with the father of her children, Larry Maynard.
Oh, Larry, I already till like the Sunday any man's name.
You're just like, I don't like the sound at you. Tina and Larry
met when they were both only fifteen. Larry saw Tina when he was at
cycling one day and he tried to set up like a little bit of a
little cute, like a meat cute cute and by just cycling past her repeatedly,
which like adorable. It's like, notice me on my bicycle. I
don't even have stabilizers anymore. Look at me fifteen. I hope the fuck
he doesn't have stabilizers. Well it must have worked anyway, like whatever he'd
done, because they did start hanging out, and they eventually started dating a
few months later. Quote. There was just something about her that made you
like her. Not just me, but lots of kids at school you hear
about someone lighting up a room. Tina was one of those people. It's
a quote from Larry. Larry. I'm sorry I said it, and like
you earlier. No, it's okay, we can hate Larry, Okay,
never mind Fuqui Larry. They moved in together after school to an apartment in
Columbus, Ohio. When they were both only nineteen, Tina gave birth to
Sarah, who came into the world six weeks early and weighed only four pounds
and nine ounces. Tiny. I know, but they obviously cared for her
super like. They done a really good job, and before long she was
a healthy wait for her age, and it says she was just like a
little raised unshine. She was just a happy kid. Sarah was only two
years old when Tina gave birth to Cody, her little brother, who also
came prematurely, weighing only five pence and seven ounces. Yea, I know,
But as they had managed before, they got Cody to a normal weak
too. It wasn't long after Cody's birth that Tina and Larry's relationship started to
get a little bit strained. They were both so intensely focused on building it
a great life for their kids and both working to achieve that that they kind
of forgot to nurture their actual, their partnership, their relationship. Larry got
a well paying job as a long haul trucker for a florist, and Tina
was busy picking up shifts at a grocery store called Meyer Major m e I
j e er Yeah. But um, Larry says that it was like the
two were becoming strangers to each other. Like he'd be walking in the door
and she would she'd be walking out. Yeah. They were just like two
passing ships in the niche geez, Okay, that's the thing, is it?
Yeah? For like when you when you never see each other, you're
just two passing ships in the night. I kind of like it. Um.
At the time, the family were living with Larry's grandmother, but as
the pair drifted apart, and anger came to the surface, as it does
in a breakup or divorce. Tina and the kids moved out. The divorce
itself was like normal. It was at first like anger, resentment, the
typical like fuck you, you're not taking my kids away from me. No,
fuck you, They're living with me. I'm their mother. Well,
this is the thing. They actually wouldn't use the kids against each other because
because of Harry was a long haul trucker, he knew that he was never
going to be able to have to take really Yeah, so they did go
to live with Tina, and no matter what they thought about, like,
they never thought about the kids or in front of the kids. And I
think that just speaks to how hard they were like trying to give the kids
a really good life. Yeah, Like whatever was going on between the two
of them, it never had anything to do with the kids. And like
if the kids were around and they were like, oh two dad, Like
that is that is unreal parenting? Yeah, co parenting at its finest.
Honestly, yes, so many people need to learn that. True. And
like I'm sure that they I'm sure I'm sure the divorce affected the children,
but at this stage they were both doing really well at school. Boats and
Cody were athletic from a very young age, and Cody played football at school
and Sarah was a cheerleader for the same team. Isn't that just adorable?
God team? Can you imagine, Like how nice of a bonding experience that
is to get home from a game and you're literally both on the same team.
You're both cheering to your same team. You're a boat like on a
high being like, oh my god, we did so wow. Yes,
I'd say it was like really really nice and something that you can like bond
with your sibling about. When I was younger, I so desperately wanted to
be a cheerleader. We don't have cheerleaders in Ireland, by the way,
Like it's not a thing. So my dream was never gonna happen. Give
me a gee, imagine it to do. Give us Mark take forever,
give me, give me an give me a give me an m give me
so we're just don't give Mark. Larry said that Cody was the type of
kid who would make friends with the unpopular kid at school, Like if you
saw somebody getting bullied, He's like, no, none of my way.
We're going to be friends. Okay, Flay, I know, and I
think again that speaks to Tina and Larry's parenting. Yeah, you leave nobody
out. M things were going really well for everyone, it seemed. Larry
met and married a woman named Tracy, and the two welcome to son Aj
in two thousand and six. The three of them would soon become neighbors of
Sarah, Cody, and Tina and Tina's new boyfriend Greg. I mean,
I get it being neighbors because it's like handy for the kids and stuff like
that. But at the same time, I would not want my ex living
right beside me. Yeah, no, I get that, But that's the
same time. I think they were like still once they've gotten past the bitterness
of the divorce, they were like chill with each other. I get it.
I do get it. I get why people do that, just personally
for me. Can you live like in the next estate, Well, I
don't know how close they lived so, because I don't understand that area,
but I'd imagine it's like not too much different from like living in our town
and seeing your X or end. And this is an almost perfect situation for
them because, like you said, the kids can see both of their parents
and their new sibling. So sure, yeah, it kind of like does
make sense a little bit. And then of course the recession hit and Larry,
Tracy, and Aj ended up moving miles away to Florida for work.
Tina had found a new job after losing hers at the grocery store, and
she did consider following them to Florida, but she decided against it, and
instead she moved into a place called Apple Valley. Apple, And instead she
moved to a place called Apple Valley in ment Vernon, Ohio, about forty
miles from Columbus. And it's a tourist trap and for good reason. Like
I looked at this place up on Google Maps and there's like you can't even
on Google Maps, you can't go down like certain roads and stuff. And
it is beautiful. It's kind of like a small community, like if you
couldn't think in my head, I'm thinking like Gilmore Girls ESK, except a
different setting, yes, okay with me. And there's this big, massive
lake which is the valley, and then there's like houses and woods kind of
surrounding it. So it's like homely. Yeah, and so is the house
on King Beach Drive. And it looks normal. It's not that far from
the lake, and it's almost totally surrounded by woods. My dream, I
know. And when I'm trying to like fall asleep, or when I'm trying
to relax myself, if I'm feeling anxious or whatever, I close my eyes
and that's where I go. I go to a house in the woods.
Yeah, like you go to somewhere like that. Yeah, yeah, and
it and now it's it's been solely you know what I mean by what happens?
Oh God, Okay. With Tina being outgoing and friendly, it didn't
take long for her to make friends with the neighbors. She got close with
Stephanie Sprang, who lived close by and Maker's Drive with her boyfriend and three
children, Michael, Tricia, and Seth from her previous Marriach, and she
absolutely doted on them. She herself was pretty athletic and she ran tracking cross
country before, and people say like her main priority was always her children,
and she loved nothing more than just like being around her family and like just
chatting with them, like talking talking about anything at any sort of social event
or gathering. Like she's just as out going as Tina was in early twenty
ten, Larry was able to move back to Ohio and was able to see
the kids more often. Cody was starting baseball and Sarah had just joined softball.
And they're doing all of this while they're both really focused on their studies
at school. They sound like angel kids. Yeah, they are angel kids.
Yeah. And they even got a new sibling. Larry and Tracy had
another son, who they called Peyton in two thousand and eight. Cute.
And then again, things seemed to be coming together, rebuilding after the recession,
except for Tina, who, like I said, was in the middle
of her break up with Greg and Tina was currently sleeping on the catch.
I had heard that Greg was like, the bed is mine and the couch
is yours. Like, if we're going to do a separation, then that's
what we're doing. Greg. I knew I didn't like you, but yeah,
that was that's what was going on. Because they had bought the house
together and at this point Tina was she wanted to move out and start fresh,
and that's why Stephanie was going over to her house that day on the
tenth, the Wednesday to go at her apartment hunting. So back to the
wellness check, the zone had gone down Before an officer made his way down
to King Beach Drive for the wellness check, Charles Statler received it's no answer
when he knocked on the door. At this time, there were no cars
in the driveway and it just seemed as if nobody was home. Again,
later that night, he drove by at around eleven pm, and this time
the lights were on and there was a two thousand and four four pickup in
the drive, so he did not approach the house again. He didn't complete
his wellness check then, well, because he went to the house before and
he was like, oh, nobody's home, And then when he went back,
there's a car at the front. Like this town Apple Valley, Like
the crime rate is so small, so I know, yeah, but even
but to complete like a wellness check, like you have to make sure that
the person's fucking alive and himself. But I think they can go to the
house and if nobody answers, they can't force themselves in. No, Like
that's fair. But the next time he went back to the house and saw
that someone was home, he should have rung the doorbell and been like,
kay, is everything okay? I've been requested to do a well check.
I mean yeah, but also it was the end of his shift, so
he was probably like, oh, they were just out, like they're they're
fine right now. At this point, all he knows is that Tina didn't
show up for work. That's all he knows. The kids had been in
school that day, Wednesday, the tenth, it was just teenage that didn't
show up. So then it's the next day, the kids don't show up
to school. So that day, the next day is we're talking about November
eleventh, When she still had not shown up for work, Valerie became desperate
and she called the sheriff's office again. The sheriff found out that the kids
hadn't shown up for school on that day, and Valerie had spoken to Ron,
Stephanie's boyfriend, who assumed that she had just spent the night la Tina's
because like neighbors. Yeah, yeah, apartment hunting ran late and they got
caught up in time or whatever, so she just fell asleep, Yeah,
which is which is something that you would especially if they were close friends and
neighbors. I'm sure it's something that has happened before. So yeah, so
he didn't think too much of it. Again, officers went back out to
Tina's noticed that the Ford pickup that had been there last night was no longer
there, and again the officer did not approach the house. Determined fabibly met
ron at the house, and remembering that Tina always left a window cracked in
the back, she climbed in. She found a her endless scene which it
was a literal blood bath. She immediately left and called to the police.
When police arrived, they found blood in almost every room of the home,
including the bathroom, bedrooms, and basement. In the bath there was a
ring of red indicating that blood had been at least two inches deep in the
tube at one point. Goods a lot of ament of blood, like the
bath to hold about two inches of blood, and then blood in every other
room. That's like draining actual blood bath. Yeah, you're not surviving.
No, you're not surviving that lost blood. There were drag marks from the
hallway to the bathroom, and bleaching motor oil had been like kind of like
splashed in different spots of the house, like on the blood marks on the
walls and stuff like. It was like somebody had tried to clean up and
then they were like, oh, fuck it, and then they got the
motor oil, and we'll see in a bit what they were planning to do
with that motor oil. Oh god, some footprints and blood had been created
by someone wearing air walk shoes, which kind of looked like vans, like
they're like a skate shoe, And this actually gave officers hope because they then
found a box for a pair of air walks for a shoe looking to be
about the same size in Sarah's closet. So Sarah the thirteen year old daughter
of Tina. Oh, okay, so that means that she's walking around in
it at some point. So she's They're like, okay, she has to
be alive, because yeah, the footprints were going out to the garage,
so okay. Yeah, so it's like she has to be Yeah, she
was at least alive at some stage during the literal blood, black blood,
black blood bath. Yeah. So they'd found all of this blood and all
of this mess, but they didn't actually find any of the missing people or
the family dog, a pincher named Tanner, not the God. The most
interesting piece of evidence they found was a Walmart bag, right, a fucking
Walmart bag with a receipt in it for trash bags, terps, a Halloween
T shirt that was a dollar, and a turkey sandwich. You mean to
tell me that this damn fool purchased items to get rid of bodies, a
T shirt and a sandwich, a turkey one. At this point, Greg
had actually not returned back home from his trip with his friend, and he
didn't really know what was going on. Like somebody called him and was like,
hey, there's like police outside your house, Like you need to get
back home. So he raises and he's met at the scene by police.
He gives them like verbal permission to enter the home and to take evidence,
because I think they needed to get a warrant. But verbal permission from him
was like okay at first, something like that, I'm pretty sure you don't
fully need a warrant or you don't need scene. If you're a crime scene,
you don't need like a full blown warrant. If the owner of the
house is like, yeah, no, you can do whatever. M And
they checked him over for like scars or scratches or anything like that, and
they found none. He was clean, so and his alibi was pretty good.
Like he was hours away. He was hours away with a friend that
evening, a patrol car was driving past the Coco Saying Gap Trail parking area
when he saw a truck similar to Tina's, which was missing from the scene.
Not far from it was a man sitting in a silver Toyota Yarus.
The officer asked this young man behind the wheel what he was doing, and
the officer was told that this man was waiting on his friend, who was
called Sarah, and the officers like, okay, what's Sarah's last name?
And he's like, I don't know, because we just started dating. I
don't know. The police officer also asked for the idea of this man,
checked it and sent him on his way. And so I know that the
truck actually being fund here completely sent things into a frenzy because it was found
near a university and like the high school is kind of behind the university from
what like Google Maps kind of showed me. So there was a full lockdown
because truck was found there, because they were like, there's obviously from the
scene, like there's obviously a fucking madman running around, so let's get everybody's
safe and everybody go home. Larry Maynard at this time had actually not been
informed by police, what was going on? Oh, I mean his two
kids are missing. His two kids and his ex wife are missing. You'd
think that they would be like, hey, Larry, have you seen down
here? Yeah? Like have you seen your ex wife and your two children?
But it was actually Greg Borders and Greg called him in a friendzy being
like where are they going nuts? And Larry's like, what the fuck are
you talking about? So Greg kind of filled him in and then Larry put
on he had to find out everything from the news more or less. Oh,
that's not nice, Like, no, I'm confused as to who'd done
it. So if Larry is, if you are innocent, Larry, it's
not nice that you found it through the news. What about a secret third
option? So even from like so, even if Larry's innocent or whatever,
right, even from the point of view of the police, you would have
thought that they would have wanted to question him. Yeah, I don't know
what was going on there, because you would your your go to, like
in in cases like this, the go to is to the partner or the
like ex partner, m like, they're like the first people that you question.
So Larry was questioned alone as well as Greg Ron Stephanie's ex Mike and
her son Michael. They were all questioned anybody that could have close to the
family. Yeah. Now, throughout all of this, the house and King
Beach Drive is being thoroughly processed, and police were even using like infrared helicopters,
like infrared equipment on helicopters to see if they could see anything in the
woods below. Yeah, because they're like, where the fuck of these like
four people gone. Yeah, they're just like disappeared. Volunteers came out in
force, searching high and low as well, so like the community rallied around
too. Yeah. It was a couple of days later, November the thirteenth,
when detectives contacted Walmart for more information on the receipt that they had uncovered
at the scene, because at first they were like, could this be Tina's
or Greg's. Well, let's just check it out. Yeah. The person
who purchased the items terp bin bags, Impulse fucking Halloween t shirt, and
a Turkey sandwich paid in cash, so they requested the secure already tapes from
that time. The description of this man makes me, it sends me.
It's absolutely hilarious. Oh god, So they watched a man about twenty five
to forty. It's like, that's a that's a big old age gap that
you have a big age range that's twenty years. You can look so different
in twenty years. But like, I find it hilarious because you know when
you see people and you're like, you're either thirteen or you're sixty, I
have no idea what age you are. Yeah, that's literally what that is.
They're literally like they might as well have just said age unknown. That's
not the best part. This guy is wearing a camouflage shirt eyeglasses, so
he's wearing glasses and and I'm not laughing at people with this, but because
it's this guy, I'm not gonna it's karma and a receding hairline. I
love the way that they added that into the description. Yeah, and we
all know how bad CCTV footages. I think that like they're like and a
receding hairline. They watched him make the purchase and then go into the car
park and get into a silver Toyota Yaris. Sarah's boy. Exactly, I
just did air coat and that's for everybody. And that's what they were able
to quickly figure out, is they were able to figure out like who had
a registered silver Toyota Yaris in Knox County, and one man stead stood out
as the same man in the tape even were in the same camal shirt the
whole and that man was thirty year old Matthew Hoffman. Before we get into
who Matthew Hoffman is, we're going to take a quick ad break. Okay,
we're back, and let's talk about Matthew J. Hoffman a bit so.
Matthew J. Hoffman was born on the first of November nineteen eighty to
his parents, Robert and Patricia. He originally grew up around the Warren area
in northeast Ohio before I moved into Apple Valley in Knox County with his mother
after his parents got divorced. People that knew him and his adolescence say that
he was a strange kid, but he just kind of seemed unemotional and just
unhappy and like not fully there, like he would just stare at you,
like just kind of weird. But he did really seem to love the outdoors
and he enjoyed spending a lot of time outdoors, Like he would spend time
in treehouses and like climbing buildings to get to roofs, roofs roofs and stuff
like that. Like he just he was a kid that liked to be outside.
He was an adoorsy kid, but also somewhat an unhappy kid. Yeah,
at the same time, there's nothing wild or crazy that stick said about
his childhood, Like it seems relatively normal. He was just a weird kid.
Yeah. In two thousand, when he was about nineteen, Matthew graduated
from Knox County Career Center and moved to Steamboat Springs in Colorado. On the
twenty eighth of August two thousand, Matthews set fire to a condo building after
breaking in to rob it, like he'd been in the home previously because he
was doing plumbing work. And when he was doing that work, he stole
a set of keys from a drawer to get it normal, so it's pre
planned in the first place, and then really gets there because he knows the
owner is like out of town for a while. He stays for a while,
He relaxes, he eats some food, he watches their TV, he
uses their Kuzy like he's having a grand old time. He caused playing having
a normal life. Right now, Jesus Christ, what's it like to be
rich. I don't know, let's go and rob this house and sitting there
jakus in the and then he left. But then he realized, oh fuck,
I probably left a shipload of evidence behind that I was there, probably
left every single type of DNA behind. Yeah, exactly. So you know
what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna go and buy ten gallons or ten leaders
I think it's the same, I don't know, a fuel of petrol,
and I'm gonna bring it back, pour it all over the place and set
the fucking place on fire, because then nobody will know I was there.
That's that's a lot of it's a lot of fuel, you know, Like
you don't need that much, Like are you trying to set the whole fucking
state on fire? Or Well, it did do quite a bit of damage,
and but luckily nobody was hurt. Sixteen people were evacuated, and he
had caused about two million dollars worth of damages, but nobody got Hurt's well,
thank god nobody got hurt. Two million damages? She's christ. Yeah,
Like I think there was smoke damaged two of the condos, and then
there was like eight houses or something surrounding that people had to be evacuated from
something like that. Apparently in late September of the same year, Matthew also
stole some of the ten signs that said Welcome to Steamboat Springs that were also
pretty expensive, and I believe like stealing those signs actually carries a pretty heavy
weight. Why would you steal that might be a felony. Why would you
steal them? What do you need them for? I don't know, Like
we've all seen people that have like, you know, signs hanging up in
their bedroom that they've stolen from like crossroads since so, I mean, I
guess I just but like I think this is actually a pretty big, hefty
sign. It's like welcome to Steamboat Springs, you know, as you're driving
in probably cause fucking thousands. And he's just like that will go nice in
my sitting room. I may not have making cups, but I have a
welcome to Steamboat Yeah. I don't know if his interior decorating skills are very
good, and we'll actually see more of that later two, but his interior
decorating so he of course was caught and in two thousand and one he was
given an eight year sentence for the fire, and he was told that he
would need to pay back some of the money for restitution. He got out
after only six years for good behavior and was on parole. He was allowed
to move back to Apple Valley in Ohio in two thousand and seven under the
conditions that he lived with his mother. And he had just paid about five
K back. Now somehow, I don't really know. I think it was
cheap, but my he managed to buy at home. And it's like,
if you're being ordered to pay back like two mill how are you getting a
fucking loan? Like, how did you get the money for this for to
buy at home? His mother probably got the loan. I was like,
get the fuck out of my HAPs. Probably, I'd say there was some
kind of like I don't know, fucking around that went on there, but
he did. And it was listed as a second address. And I think
the first address that was listed was belonging to him in like the DVLA or
whatever the fuck's called, and was like his mother's address or an address that
belonged to his stepfather. I heard two different things, yeah, or not
to his steff father, to his father. Anyway, Matthew lived in this
house with his then girlfriend and her child. It's a normal two story home
in what was reported as being a quote lower middle class neighborhood. The neighbors
said that initially he was nice. He was like absolutely lovely. He'd bring
the kids home for movies and hang out with them and just super chill.
But this actually stopped when he made one of the neighbor's daughters uncomfortable by bringing
her on a like a long route home one night, like an out of
the way way. Yeah, and she was like, yeah, never again,
You're not coming near my fucking kids. Yeah. Then his dogs disappeared.
I believe he too, and the neighbor is convinced that he killed him.
I just girded the fucking dogs. And it wasn't long after that that
it became very apparent that Matthew was killing squirrels to eat them, because obviously
they're in a wooded area. Yeah, they're very Yeah, why eat Matthew.
Matthew, honey, Okay, this has to do with him, like
thinking, Ada, he's a hunter. M b. He's quite cheap.
You can buy minutes for cheap. I'm sorry, you can get cheap cheap
meat at the butcher's why, like even deer. You you're allowed to hunt
deer. That would be a bit better. That would be a bit better.
You want to eat squirrels, It's pretty sure they carry diseases. No,
probably do people say they're like the rats of the trees, not as
pigeons, rats of the sky the trees. That's me. I'm pretty sure
rats of the trees are just rats. Yeah. And then he would get
up and he would just sit in trees for hours. That's not just like
no, he would perch himself up there and just watch, like out of
all the things that you could have said, that is not what I thought
was coming like that. He just would climb trees and sit there for a
while and be like hey, yeah. So one thing about Matthew is he
really fucking loves trees and he really loves leaves. And I don't know if
it's like a sexual thing. I don't know if he was, like you
know, at this day and age, it probably fucking is in sexual because
he sends like a little fucking freak. Well, there's a name on it.
It's called dendrophilia. Of course, there's a name for it. Yeah,
And I don't know if that's if the trees brought him like an innocence
type of comfort, or if they were a sexual comfort. If I don't
know if the trees gave him would either way, Matthew, there's no need
to go climbing and sitting in them, being like no looking me into the
neighbor's garden too, And it got to a point where the neighbor was like,
no, kids, you're not allowed outside. If Matthew is outside,
no way, like that's okay. So I could not find any information on
who Matthew's girlfriend at the time was, and to be honest, I didn't
really look that hard because she's not involved. The only thing I will say
is that in October of twenty ten, so a couple of weeks I think
it was like three weeks before Tina's disappearance, Tina and the kid's disappearance and
Stephanie's his girlfriend. The X did file a report against him, stating that
he had assaulted her and when she returned back to the house because they had
broken up and she went back to the house to get her car and then
he just lost it. Assaulted her, like he choked her. He used
his forearm and like pushed up against the wall and then like jumped on her
basically, and she she genuinely thought like always going to kill me, but
he let her go and he was like, oh my god, I don't
know what just come over me. And she was like, I'm Eddie here.
Around the same time, Matthew lost his job as a tree trimmer because
he had completely exagger yeah, you know, he completely exaggerated his experience and
had apparently made the supervisor uncomfortable. And he was probably Triman the leave like,
oh yeah, maybe you like that. Oh no, no, no,
of course he got a fucking job, Triman leaves. Yeah. Yeah.
When you think about it, you're like, that's like, I don't
know, why would you even compare that too. That's like it's not as
a stream, it's not as extreme, but it's like a pedophile getting a
job and a fucking crash or something I did. I was gonna. I
was thinking that it's like not as extreme obviously because his thing is trees,
but like, so that's Matthew and that's where we're at right now. Detectives
started to piece things together and realized the man an officer had pulled up on
before, like in the arrows said that he was waiting on Sarah Yeah in
a silver arrows like next to ten years car. On November fourteenth, twenty
ten, a swat team descended an On Hoffman's house on Columbus Road. They
had gotten a no knock warrant and used a battering ram to break in the
door before throwing a flashbang device in to stun anyone inside. They found halfman
asleep on the couch in the living room. A detective took him outside while
the rest of the house was searched, and they found a lot of questionable
things in this yes, And to start, the first thing they noticed was
leaves absolutely fucking everywhere. Why is the leaves inside this man's home? Oh,
my grant, what is wrong? Why? No? Why is he
actually so fucking obsessed with treason ly? That's fucking weird. I don't know.
And can you imagine the fucking bugs and shit that come with that?
Like no smell, sweet baby Jesus, what is wrong with that? When
I tell you there are piles that are like they look to be like waist
high. That's not even the worst of it. Leaves he had bags,
some of these in grocery bags. And if you go into the bathroom.
His whole all his bathroom was completely lined with grocery bags full of leaves.
It's not normal, it's not it's not. I guess I can't. And
yeah with you, Matthew, I can't. And if you think about it,
like the SWAT team through in a flash bang device, they're very fucking
lucky nothing went on fire. That I mean, they honestly weren't expecting a
fuck ton of leaves to be inside this man um. They did also find
an inactive weed firm in one of the bedrooms, so like even more like
the store leaves even more different types. Yeah, and you know what,
he probably wasn't even smoking the weed. He probably just wanted to grow it
to look at it. Yeah, Like, I'm imagining this guy like rolling
around and ladies, you know, the way you see dogs running rent and
as tim day and day out, and he's like rolling around in it with
like childish glee. The SWAT team then moved a bookcase or kind of cabinet
thing to the side that then uncovered a door to the basement where they found
thirteen year old Sarah Maynard and with the yellow rope and duct tape wearing a
makeshift nappy over her clothes. Oh God, she's lying. She's also lying
on a bed of leaves by the way, and her first words to officers
were quote, I have to get to school. Oh it's like four days
later, she was immediately taken to the hospital to be checked over and answer
some questions. She had no idea what had happened to the rest of her
family and to Stephanie, but was sure that they had been killed. She
and Larry were reunited here. Larry said he remembers, and this broke my
heart. He remembers getting the call that they had found Sarah, but they
didn't mention Tina and Stephanie or Cody, and he was obviously ecstatic to go
and see Sarah. But he did make note of that that they didn't mention
anybody else. He was like, oh, you only found like not only
but like pank, God, you found her, but she's the only one
you found. Yeah. Halfman was taken to County jail and was charged initially
with kidnapping Detective Joe Deeds and Special Agent Kristen Cadell. I believe it's how
you say your second name. We're there to question Matthew, who stayed mostly
silent, and he tried to use his hands to try and communicate, like
he's like knocking on his chest to be like hurt. And then he was
like making this movement with his hands to be like broken. And Joe's like,
are you trying to tell me that your your heart's broken? But Matthew
won't talk. Okay, you're going to try and play crazy now, Matthew.
Yeah, And they don't have time, Like time is of the essence
because they still have three missing people. They need to know if these three
people are still alive, like they're obviously because they found Sarah. They're hopeful
that maybe the other three or just somewhere else. Yeah, exactly. Now,
at the same time they kind of that they are likely dead. You
do have to have a certain ment of hope. So no matter what,
they don't try and build a report didn't work. And when he did talk,
Hawfman was just talking about how much of a monster he is if he's
done the things that they're telling him he's done. Oh, give us a
break. You know exactly what you've done, Matthew. He says that he
doesn't know how Sarah got into his house, but when he realized that she
was there, that he took really good care of her. He led her
shower, he fed her. Did you did you? That's so kind of
you. What about the fact that you fucking murdered her brother, mother and
her mother's friend and her dog. He's like, no, I fed her,
we got we had burgers, I let her shower, I washed her
clothes, we played the wee together. I gave her a book. Like,
but Sarah, obviously you know, She's like, no, none of
that happened. He kept me downstairs and he was just really fucking weird.
He offered to give me squirrel to cook me earl, and when I said
no to that, he gave her sour milk and cereal and she was like,
well, I had to fucking eat it, because yeah, because she
was to eat nothing else was coming my way. Oh god, oh.
On the morning of the sixteenth of November, Hoffman changed his tune. After
his breakfast of a McMuffin and coffee, he asked in the interrogation room if
everything was being recorded. Then he asked if he could go to the bathroom,
quote because this coffee is getting to me, which like same, I
mean, okay, I'll get that happens to me too, and we'll find
out what happened in the bathroom after this quick at break, Okay, and
we're back. So Deats brought him to the bathroom, where Hoffman confided in
him that he had had a nightmare the night before that he would that he
was at a food processing plant and he opened a bin bag and saw severed
body parts inside. He said that he would reveal the location of the bodies
by writing them on a piece of paper and giving them to his lawyer.
The lawyer would be instructed to only provide the letter to law enforcement after Hoffman
would be shot to death by police on an escape attempt. So he's like,
So he's like, I'll tell you where the bodies are, but if
you kill me right now and don't make me go to trial. Yeah,
he's like, I want you to. I want you to kill me.
I'm going to try and escape and then you're going to shoot me and I'm
going to die, and then you can find out where the bodies are.
And obviously this request was refused. Yeah, they're obviously like, no,
we're not going to kill you. No, we're not going to give you
exactly what you want and not even know then what happened. And then after
that was refused to Matthew confess that he just made that whole thing up,
the dream about being at the food processing plant, just so he could get
started on his escape plan. Matthew was held and on one million dollar bail,
showing up to the hearing in a suicide gown or an anti suicide smock,
which is like a green padded dress which doesn't allow for much movement and
it can't be ripped. The gas thing is the tho. I'm sorry,
but there was no way he was actually ever going to harm himself. He
just wanted to be all like, wait till you hear, Wait till you
fucking hear. Oh my god, you hit the nail on the head.
Because even though at one point Matthew wanted nothing more than to die and be
shot, it was ultimately his will to stay alive that traced police back to
Tina. Cody and Stephanie Hoffman signed a deal that took the death sentence off
the table if he provided their location. See, he doesn't actually really want
to die. He just wants the fucking feel thory for me, because I
feel bad about what I did so like I should. Yeah, toads die.
Please don't give me the death penalty. He's just a fucking master manipulator.
He's just a fucking scumbag, and I don't know. I don't get
him. But on November eighteenth, police were given directions to a spot in
Cocoasing Wildlife Area where they found a large tree with a whole cut in the
shaft was in a fucking tree yep. Using a flashlight, officers were able
to see the inside of the tree, where there was black plastic bags.
The detectives gently cut a hole out of the tree to make it easy for
them to pull the bags out, and multiple black bin bags were recovered containing
the dismembered body parts of forty one year old Stephanie Sprang, thirty two year
old Tina Herman, eleven year old Cody Maynard, as well as Tannered the
dog. Hoffman wrote out a long confession where he explained what he had done.
He liked to break into people's homes, and he realized that the house
and King Beach Drive did not have a lot of neighbors. He set up
camp on the night of November ninth, sitting in the woods across from the
home, watching the comings and goings of the house. He slept there that
night, having even brought his own sleeping bag. I'm going to read and
excerpt from the confession. I parked my car and Howard and walked from there
to the house. I got to the woods across the street from the house
a little after midnight. I slept across the street from the house that night
in a sleeping bag. I woke up at daylight. There were two vehicles
parked at the house during the night, and I saw that the Gray care
had left. I went back to sleep until around nine on Wednesday morning.
I stayed there until a woman left in a pickup truck. This meant that
there were no vehicles at the house. I walked across the street and tried
to enter the front door, but it was locked. I then went into
the garage door. The garage door was not closed all the way, so
I slid under it into the garage. I kicked the door into the house
from the garage. By this time it was approximately ten thirty am Wednesday morning.
I looked around the house to make sure no one 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. I was looking for anything
of value that could be carried out easily, money, jewelry, etc.
I did not find anything of any real value. I was getting ready to
leave, as I had been there approximately an hour, but someone pulled into
the driveway. I was back in the bedroom when she entered the house and
was unable to exit without breaking a window or trying to jump out. I
had brought my knife for a certain amount of intimidation in case I ran into
someone and needed to make an escape. When she made her way back into
the bedrooms, I confronted her and made her get onto the bed, lying
face down. I believe that we were in her bedroom. I had a
blackjack. I was going to try to knock her out. I hit her
a couple of times in the head, but this would not knock her out.
It was not doing the job, and I started panicking. The next
thing that I knew, her friend came into the bedroom. I had no
idea when she got there, what she was doing there and how she gained
access. This other woman yelled at me. There were now two to deal
with, and I did not know what to do. I grabbed the knife
that I had put inn on the nightstand and stabbed the woman on the bed,
threw her back twice. I chased the other woman, den Stephanie,
and stabbed her a couple of times in the chest. Instead of running out
of the house, she had run into another bedroom. I believe this bedroom
was for a girl to the contents of the room. I then went back
to the other bedroom where the first one was located, and stabbed her a
couple more times. I could tell that both women were now dead. At
this time, I was in a total state of shock. I wandered around
the house, slowly coming to the realization of what I had done and how
bad it was. During this time, I killed the dog because it would
not stop barking. After a while, I came to the conclusion that I
was going to dispose of the bodies and burn the house down. At first,
I thought about loading the bodies into the vehicle and driving it into the
foundation park pond. I would swim away as the vehicle sank, but I
felt that it was too cold and I might not make and I might not
be able to make it out of the water. I decided to process the
bodies and dispose of them inside a tree that I knew was hollow. I
took the bodies into the bathroom and begin processing the bodies to dispose of them.
I used garbage bags from within the house and place the bodies inside.
Once I had finished processing the bodies, I moved the jeep into the guard
to load up the bodies. I still had a couple of bags into the
jeep when I heard the children come into the house. I confronted the children,
and the girl instantly ran to a bedroom. I stabbed the boy in
the chest a couple of times. I ran into the bedroom after the girl
to make sure she was not on the phone for help. I saw the
girl was not on the phone, and I could not bring myself to kill
her. End quote. He then brought Sarah back to his hell hole,
where he sexually assaulted her and tied her up. He was sentenced to life
in prison without the possibility of parole. In court, he stated loudly guilty
for all of his other fucking families, which was like ten, but once
it got to the sexual assault charge, he barely spoke up. Knowing what
happens two men like that in prison, the community really rallied and started to
grieve together, also celebrating the very full lies that the victim's led. A
memorial was set up near the house, with people leaving gifts behind. The
dairy Queen that Tina worked at donated a portion of profits from ice cream and
sales to have fun set up for the surviving children. The tree was cut
down to avoid it becoming a spectacle, to which I thought was great.
Yeah, that's good because it can there's people out there that would be like,
oh my god, let's go see the tree, the murder tree.
And in court, Sarah wanted to make a statement to Matthew to the court,
but they didn't think that it would be good for her to do that.
So she wrote one and then the prosecutor read it out loud, and
it's really nice, she said. Quote. Some memories of Cody. He
was a left handed pitcher and he was really good. A whole bunch of
people always told him how good a player he was. In life, he
wanted to be a helicopter pilot in the coast Guard. Some memories of Mom.
She always made sure we were happy, and she went out and did
stuff with Cody and me, even though she didn't have that much money.
She always made sure we had heat in our house to stay warm, made
sure we had food on our plates, nice clothes on, and that we
had shoes on our feet. She was a really caring woman and when someone
needed help, she would take her time to go help them. I loved
her as a mother, even though there were times we didn't get along.
She loved dolphins and sunflowers. One thing she said to me quote Sarah,
when I die, I want you to send me with the dolphins, and
I will tell you a little bit about me. I played softball for three
years. I was so good at it. I pulled in the outfield,
and I played on the All Star team over the summer. I loved it.
I'm almost fourteen. I enjoy my new school and the people there.
Which that was her statement. So she's like, fuck, you have not
ruined my life. She's like, what you did is horrible, but it
doesn't change the fact that, like my family were amazing and like I am
amazing. Yeah, right, because for like, that's a that's a powerful
statement for thirteen fourteen year old to make to write in the first place.
It's really amazing and a lot of the family statements. They they literally told
him like, I hope you burn in hell. Like it was nothing but
the worst for Matthew, which like he deserves, you know, he deserves.
Yeah, Like it was literally just like he didn't even know these people.
No, he just literally picked the house because it didn't have neighbors and
because it had an easy point of access because the guard shore was broken.
Yeah, that's it. That's it, And just one last thing. Obviously,
Sarah went to live with Larry and Tracy after this, but in May
of twenty and thirteen, she actually reported them both for abuse, reporting that
Larry had punched her in the back and that Tracy had pushed her down the
stairs. Oh my god, Now she lives. I think now she lives
with her grandmother. She might also I think she's going by a different name
too, which is fair enough. She probably wants to not be associated with
the crime, if you will, so that people that aren't oh my god,
are you the girl that Yeah, like that's changing your name or anything
like that. It's not going to change the fact that you knew these people.
That was your mother and your brother and your friends. Well, it
just stops people like strangers from asking you about it, like when you are
trying to move on with your life exactly. And I don't believe that,
like Larry and Tracy were prosecuted for the abuse allegations, but it's a shitty
ass thing to do, and like they paraded her around doctor Phil and talk
shows and shit like that. That's wrong. That's wrong. Hm okay,
but yeah, that's it. It's a crazy fucking story. That is a
crazy story. And I hope you really enjoyed it, and we'll I know
next week. Yeah, and don't forget to check us out on Instagram,
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all eight, have a nice day. Clauncha