Matthew Hoffman's house

This is Matthew Hoffman's former house.

It is located at 49 Columbus Road in Mount Vernon, Ohio.

Hoffman (30) was an unemployed loner who developed an unhealthy fixation on trees and began filling his home with leaves.

The former tree trimmer made ends meet by collecting unemployment and burglarizing properties.

However, his motivation for breaking and entering extended beyond financial gain, as being inside other people's homes excited him:

"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."

Murders and kidnapping

In November 2010, he began scoping out the rural home of 32-year-old Tina Herrmann.

On the night of November 9, he camped in the woods beside the property and kept watch.

The following morning, he saw Herrmann leave. Once she was gone, he approached the garage door, which had been left open.

Roughly one hour later, Herrmann and her friend, Stephanie Sprang (41), returned while Hoffman was still inside the house. Hoffman claimed he felt so surprised and "cornered" by their arrival that he panicked and stabbed both of them to death.

As he was preparing to dispose of their bodies, Herrmann's two children, Kody Maynard (11) and Sarah Maynard (13), returned home from school.

Caught off guard for a second time, he stabbed Kody to death just inside the front door. Meanwhile, Sarah fled to her bedroom.

After murdering Kody, Hoffman pursued Sarah and tied her up with electrical cord. He then put the teenager and the three bodies into Sprang's Jeep before driving back to his residence in Mount Vernon.

Once he had secured Sarah in his basement, he drove out to the Kokosing Lake Wildlife Area near Fredericktown, where he used a pulley system to hoist the three bodies into a 60-foot hollow tree.

Over the next 24 hours, Hoffman drove Sprang's Jeep, Herrmann's Ford pickup truck, and his own Toyota Yaris to various locations while attempting to cover his tracks.

He later abandoned Herrmann's truck at the Kenyon College environmental center in the nearby town of Gambier, Ohio.

Discovery

The following afternoon, Herrmann's boss, Valerie Haythorn, visited her house to find out why she had missed two days of work. Sensing something was wrong, Haythorn climbed in through an unlocked window at the back.

After finding a substantial amount of blood, she alerted the police, who immediately launched a full-scale investigation.

Later that day, the authorities found Herrmann's abandoned truck at the environmental center in Gambier.

The speed at which the police became involved caught Hoffman off guard, as he believed he had another day or two before someone raised the alarm.

Hoffman planned to drive Herrmann's truck to her house and set it on fire. However, when he returned to the road where he left the vehicle, he was shocked to see that the police were at the scene.

To assess the situation, he pulled his Toyota over beside a nearby trail.

When a deputy noticed him and asked why he was parked in the area, Hoffman claimed he was waiting to pick up his girlfriend.

At the time, the officer had no reason to suspect he was involved in the disappearances. Consequently, he allowed him to leave.

Investigation

During the search of the victims' home, investigators found a receipt for a tarp and some heavy-duty garbage bags. After tracing it to a local Walmart, investigators reviewed surveillance footage from the store and saw Hoffman purchasing the items.

The footage also showed that he drove a Toyota Yaris.

After identifying Hoffman and retrieving his driver's license photo, one of the deputies remembered speaking to him near the environmental center where Herrmann's truck had been abandoned.

Confident that they had their man, the police headed to Hoffman's house and broke down his front door while he was asleep on his living room sofa.

When the police entered the house, they found the walls were covered with shopping bags full of leaves.

After going down into the basement, they saw Sarah tied up on a makeshift bed that lay on a pile of leaves.

Following his arrest, Hoffman confessed to the triple homicide. In exchange for being spared the death penalty, he agreed to lead the police to the tree where he had hidden the bodies.

The tree was situated in the Kokosing Lake Wildlife Area, near the intersection of Yankee Street and Waterford Road.

Although he claimed that he had treated Sarah well by cooking her food and allowing her to play video games, the teenager contradicted this account, revealing that he had sexually assaulted her.

In January 2011, Hoffman pleaded guilty to rape and murder and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.