it was disgusting because you're not in my stomach so often i was hoping i couldn't do it some excuse for you guys to kill me after several days of being interrogated by the police 30-year-old matthew hoffman finally broke his silence and started talking but no one was ready for the horror of what he had to say i mean it's one thing to love the great outdoors but matthew took his obsession with trees and leaves to a lethal level and hiding in the roots of this case is a chilling confession you won't believe tina herman was a hard-working 32 year old living in the quaint town of apple valley ohio with her two children beyond being a devoted mother she was an incredibly reliable employee at the local dairy queen who never missed a day of work so naturally when she failed to show up for her shift in november 2010 alarm bells ran off right away tina's absence was so unusual that her manager valerie haythorne decided to go drive by her home and make sure everything was okay she noticed tina's truck was in the driveway with another unknown car and that some lights were on inside the house so she figured all was well and left when tina missed another day of work valerie went back to her house and reportedly knocked on the locked front door several times but all she got in return was an eerie silence on the other side the lights inside were still on but strangely tina's truck was now gone from the driveway and only the unknown vehicle was left valerie figured she could just climb in through a back window to see what was going on a decision she would soon come to regret as soon as she entered valerie stumbled upon a gruesome scene the house was in complete disarray and a large amount of blood coated the floor enough to warrant an urgent 9-1-1 call authorities rushed to the scene and it was quickly determined that tina her two children 13 year old sarah and 10 year old cody and the family dog a miniature pitcher named tanner were all missing furthermore the car in the driveway belonged to tina's 41 year old friend stephanie sprang who was also nowhere to be found an intensive search began immediately detectives spoke with tina's boyfriend but he explained that they were in the middle of an amicable breakup so it wasn't strange that he hadn't seen her recently with nothing connecting him to the disappearance police focused on the children's father larry maynard but he too appeared genuinely distressed over the situation and had a rock-solid alibi it was another frustrating dead-end for the investigation detectives then turned to the public for help giving photos to the media and pressing those close to the family for information finally after putting out an alert on tina's truck there was a small break in the case the missing vehicle was discovered roughly seven miles away from the family home in the kenyan college parking lot as they combed the scene investigators couldn't help but notice an out-of-place man creeping around the parking lot he said his name was matthew hoffman and that he was waiting for his girlfriend to get off work so they let him go without any further questions due to the alarming circumstances surrounding the disappearances the police recruited divers boats and helicopters to aid in the search yet everything they needed to crack this case wide open was right inside tina's home investigators found walmart shopping bags containing two tarps and a box of heavy-duty trash bags now anyone who knows true crime will tell you that these items are usually not a good sign and they would be right in this case but still they found one other thing a receipt detectives wasted no time requesting surveillance footage from the local walmart and wouldn't you know who they saw purchasing the tarps and trash bags creepy parking lot guy matthew hoffman three days after the four individuals were reported missing the swat team descended on matthew's home after throwing a flash grenade officers barged in through the front door and found matthew sleeping on a sofa but only once he was restrained and taken into custody did they notice what was covering the floor leaves and lots of them matthew was completely obsessed with trees and leaves some sources even say that he was often spotted by neighbors sitting in the branches of a tree the main living space was buried under a few feet of leaves with over a hundred more bags of leaves lining the walls of the bathroom but here's the weird thing well maybe not quite as weird as his fixation with the leaves but there were only two trees near his house so he would have had to go to great lengths to bring that many leaves into his home police were initially concerned that the huge pile of leaves stuffed into the living room might be hiding something sinister like a body disturbingly they also discovered two dead squirrels next to a few red popsicles in his freezer police rummaged through the mounds of foliage but initially came up empty-handed that is until they enter to the basement keeping all those leaves in the house is extremely bizarre and is evidence that matthew was mentally ill he may have had some strange beliefs or delusions about leaves which led to him collecting them tina's young daughter sarah maynard was discovered bound and gagged on a bed of leaves while she didn't appear to be injured she wore a makeshift diaper made from a plastic bag and seemed very confused telling officers she was late for school and asking about her pet dog sarah had no idea what had happened to her mother and brother but she did say that matthew cut her finger with a knife usually gagged her and that he was going to release her before christmas with tina cody and stephanie still missing sarah was placed in her father's custody after being thoroughly questioned and examined meanwhile back at the police station detectives were getting to know matthew hoffman starting with his twisted backstory he grew up in the warren area in northeastern ohio with his parents and moved to a different part of the state in 1997 following their divorce one of his childhood neighbors remembered him as seeming very unhappy all the time stating he was really lost he was on a bad path matthew was regarded as unpredictable and strange by the few people who knew him some stated that he would kill squirrels to eat light fires in his yard and climb trees to spy on people police also learned that in 2001 he had been convicted of first-degree arson theft and burglary for lighting a condominium complex on fire in an effort to cover up the robbery he served eight years in prison for these crimes matthew has a significant history of odd behavior which escalated to major crimes roughly one month before his arrest matthew and his girlfriend broke up after he allegedly choked her during an argument non-fatal strangulation is a major sign that someone will commit murder in the future roughly one month before his arrest he was fired from his job as a tree trimmer for making his supervisor uncomfortable oh and his dog had recently run away clearly things weren't going great for him however the information investigators really craved wasn't about matthew they wanted to know where the other three victims were but he wouldn't budge matthew was placed under 24-hour watch after crying and threatening to harm himself on the evening of his arrest he then sat in excruciating silence for hours refusing to answer any of the interrogators questions it's been a rough couple days for all of us i'm sure you'd like to get some sleep i'd like to get some sleep but eventually he started talking so i had a really horrific dream last night it was disgusting clearing it out in my stomach but so awful this is some really disgusting stuff but still matthew wanted to do things his own way so he attempted to make a bizarre deal with investigators he said that he would write down the location of the three bodies on a piece of paper and then fake an escape attempt so officers could shoot and kill him some excuse for you guys to kill me he wanted total control of the release of information obviously the police weren't cool with his idea but matthew ultimately came clean anyways in his written confession he claimed to have murdered tina stephanie and cody due to a burglary gone wrong saying i did not enter the house to kill those people i did not know a single one of them he claimed to have slept in the woods across the street from tina's home the night before the attack he then snuck in through the garage sometime the next morning after everyone had left but when stephanie and tina returned home sooner than expected he snapped and ambushed them the kids returned home from school later that day to find a terrible scene matthew killed cody and tied sarah up using an electrical cord he found in the kitchen then he used tina's truck to move the bodies he has a pattern of committing a more serious crime to cover up a lesser crime the arson he was convicted of in 2001 was his attempt to cover up his burglary in the current case he claims he only murdered tina stephanie and cody because he got caught in the act of burglary matthew is trying to justify his actions and is not taking responsibility for what he did he exhibited extreme impulsivity when he chose to murder them when he was surprised by the victims returning home early it's possible that he broke into their home not necessarily to steal valuables but instead because he got a feeling of excitement by being in someone else's home uninvited if he was only looking for things of monetary value it's more likely that he would have gotten in and out quickly and he would have been less likely to encounter the family he told police that he couldn't bring himself to kill sarah but he admitted to stabbing the other three to death inside the house and processing their bodies to make their disposal easier oh and in case you were wondering what he meant by processing well he dismembered the corpses put them into trash bags and then concealed them in a 60-foot tall hollow tree as if that wasn't horrific enough he also confessed to killing tanner the family pet because he wouldn't stop barking matthew carried on divulging that he had assaulted sarah several times during her captivity but as if trying to demonstrate what a great guy he is he also told police he kept her well fed let her watch the movie iron man and lent her his copy of the book treasure island although he said he couldn't bring himself to kill sarah it's more likely that he wanted to keep sarah for himself he shows a complete lack of remorse for assaulting sarah and is seemingly indifferent to her suffering he justifies what he did by listing off the relative positives such as feeding her letting her watch a movie and letting her borrow a book these were grooming behaviors in order to gain her trust but in matthew's mind he thinks that what he did was okay because he felt like he took care of her matthew agreed to lead police to the tree where the bodies were in the cocosing wildlife area saying he had used a rig and pulley system to drop them inside investigators located the three missing people and the deceased family dog and they were finally laid to rest by their loved ones hiding the bodies inside a hollow tree also fits into his strange delusions about trees and leaves forensic psychologists have explained that the leaves in his home may have been comforting to matthew and that he may have chosen to put the bodies inside of a tree because it was also comforting and familiar to him on january 6 2011 matthew avoided the death penalty by pleading guilty to ten felonies instead he was sentenced to life in prison without the chance of parole his foliage-filled home went into foreclosure later that month with experts noting his particular obsession with trees as delusional ambulance service is the patient breathing no they're not breathing no okay and who was it we're talking about um lex issues three she's three so yeah okay so she's unconscious and she's not breathing so help has been arranged okay they say it takes a village and is a single mom of two young girls luis porton knew that all too well but in the space of just three weeks both of her daughters tragically passed away yet in the 9-1-1 call luis appears oddly calm as she explains to the operator that her toddler is unconscious and not breathing did you hear the voice of a shocked and anguished mother or is there something evil hiding below the surface let's find out shall we our story begins in rugby warwickshire where 23 year old louise porton grew up and lived with her two daughters 17 month old scarlett vaughan and three-year-old lexi draper luisa lived in walsall west midlands for a short time with her partner chris draper but when she was pregnant with their second child the couple split up and she moved back to warwickshire luis reportedly denied chris any access to his children and tragically he never even got the chance to meet little scarlet luis was an aspiring model who didn't shy away from x-rated photo shoots and spent a ton of time promoting herself on the website purple port under the name lollipop however money was tight and she often struggled to get by as a single parent as the stress mounted luis became increasingly irritable and began frequently leaving her children with family members and neighbors so she could go out on the town while the circumstances weren't easy several reports stated that the little girls appeared happy and well cared for but that all changed on january 2nd 2018. luis brought lexi to a local hospital for breathing problems and doctors diagnosed her with a chest infection but it wasn't quite that simple and the truth was almost too horrifying to consider two days later luis called emergency services in the early morning hours explaining that she had gone to check on her sleeping daughter and found her unresponsive paramedics rushed to the scene and transported lexi to the hospital but no one could understand why she was so ill the toddler was clearly in pain and having trouble breathing but with no other explanation doctors again treated her for an infection and sent her home but then on january 15th luis called emergency services once more saying that lexi was alive but not feeling well when paramedics arrived they found the three-year-old pale and mottled with blue lips and ricker mortis already taking effect it was clear that she'd been deceased for quite some time at that point but what really stood out to everyone was luisa's odd behavior she seemed unfazed by her daughter's death with one onlooker noting she seemed more like someone who had lost their goat fish furthermore surveillance footage from the night before death showed lexi looking full of life as they entered their home luis explained that she thought lexi might have caused her own death by hitting herself in the head with toys but this tragedy was only the beginning it's possible the two times luis took lexi to the hospital for breathing problems were just a test to see if she would be suspected of hurting lexi when her daughter was sent home with her both times luis may have thought she could get away with murder it is really difficult for people to believe that a mother could kill her own children she may have waited to call paramedics until she was absolutely certain that lexi would not be able to be revived which is why rigor mortis had already started she wanted to ensure that there was no chance that lexi would be saved while planning for lexi's funeral people were very bewildered by the supposedly grieving mother as she was reportedly heard laughing and using facetime to make arrangements with an unknown man however no one could have predicted that yet another tragedy would occur just two days later and only 18 days after lexi's death on february 1st louise summoned an ambulance to help scarlett who she claimed had now fallen ill like her sister but before they could dispatch anyone luis said she was too worried to wait for them and that she would just drive to the hospital strangely luis didn't seem to be in much of a hurry as she stopped at a nearby petrol station to fill up on gas and make a small purchase before pulling over and finally calling for an ambulance paramedics came and discovered baby scarlet lifeless in the back seat with pale skin and blue lips she was formally declared dead upon arrival at the hospital with no explanation for what caused her sudden demise sensing that something was very wrong paramedics contacted the warwickshire police who commenced a full murder investigation into the two deaths and no one could believe the true horror they would uncover luis may have felt that it was less suspicious that the children died in separate incidents several days apart she may have also been emboldened by the fact that she felt she had gotten away with lexi's death right away investigators searched luis's internet browsing history and it yielded much more than they had anticipated in the hours before lexi's death she searched how long after drowning can someone be resuscitated and how long does it take for a dead body to go cold up to the shoulder oh and worst of all she contacted 41 different people on a dating app just one day after lexi died call me crazy but that doesn't exactly fit the profile of a grief-stricken mother the browsing history on luis's computer is evidence that she didn't commit the murders in a moment of anger for example shaken baby syndrome often occurs in the heat of the moment when a caregiver is so frustrated that they shake their child on the contrary luis carefully researched and planned in advance how she would kill her children this was a very calculated decision with this new information investigators ordered post-mortem examinations of the girls and what they found sent shivers down their spines the medical examiner revealed that both lexi and scarlett had died from deliberate airway obstruction and that they each had unexplained physical injuries louise kept up with her social media accounts after the deaths but naturally people were skeptical of her story and soon she began receiving hateful messages her mother sharon porton remained supportive of her daughter but when she tried to talk to her about the investigation luis allegedly got angry and punched her in the face just months after her daughters died louise posted on facebook to a swap sell buy things and rugby page that she had two bins filled with little girl's clothing that she was trying to sell she added a photo that showed two garbage bags overflowing with lexi and scarlett's clothes for 20 pounds per bag apparently no one responded to buy anything from her even when she knocked five pounds off the prize on march 20th 2018 luis was arrested on suspicion of murdering her two daughters but it wasn't until 2019 that she was charged luis maintained her innocence but during the trial she appeared emotionless while the girl's father chris draper could barely hold it together he stated in court i can't understand why my two little girls were taken away because louise wanted to sleep around prosecutors argued that evidence proved luis mercilessly suffocated and strangled the two little girls to death moreover doctors testified that lexi's symptoms during her first two hospital visits were consistent with deliberate airway obstruction still they weren't suspicious of louise simply because they couldn't fathom a mother inflicting such terrible pain on their own child what they didn't know at the time was that luis had been taking topless photos in the hospital bathroom answering requests for paid favors and flirting with security guards while lexi was fighting for her life just a few steps away doctors and nurses are what are referred to as mandatory reports this means that they're required by law to report any reasonable suspicion of abuse while it might seem unfathomable to a normal person to think that a mother could intentionally hurt her children it occurs more often than we would like to think sadly if these recurring hospital visits had been reported and investigated things may have ended differently for this family now you also might have wondered why scarlet and lexie had different last names and let me just say that the answer to that question does nothing but further illustrate what an awful human being louise porton truly is following her breakup with chris a newly pregnant louise quickly moved on to form a relationship with a man named jason vaughn who she somehow tricked into believing scarlett was his biological child one of her relatives stated she told him he was scarlett's father but she was lying that's the sort of person she is i grew up with her and she was vile another relative disclosed that luis was never a normal child and that when she became a teenager she would have violent outbursts and steal from her grandparents the close source also said she regularly bragged about the money she made working as a prostitute even more disturbing truths emerged during the trial including that scarlet was already dead in the back seat of luis's car when she stopped at the petrol station in addition court records showed that she had sent a message to someone that same night requesting money so she could take her to the hospital frustratingly it was also uncovered that several people made reports about luis to warwick's or social services in the time leading up to lexi's death but they obviously failed to intervene there was likely a prior history of physical and or emotional abuse by louise toward her children before the murders were actually committed luis read a statement in her own defense saying my children were never an inconvenience to me and i accommodated my lifestyle and personal life around them yeah sure the trial lasted 28 days and luis was found guilty of both murders upon sentencing the judge stated one way or another you squeeze the life out of each of your daughters only calling emergency services when you knew they were dead louise porton was sentenced to a minimum of 32 years in prison more than a year after the untimely deaths chris draper finally got to lay his daughters to rest in a beautiful walsall funeral unfortunately however luis managed to inflict one more tragedy from behind bars on the second anniversary of her granddaughter's deaths louise porton's mother took her own life never able to come to terms with what her daughter had done now if this case didn't have you absolutely fuming then i don't know what will but fortunately with luis locked up there's one less cold-hearted criminal among us when eleven-year-old shauna howe left home for a girl scout halloween party her parents could have never imagined that it would be the last time they'd see her alive nearly 10 years later dna evidence led investigators to a local man named ted walker who was finally ready to reveal the horrifying truth but there are far more frightening things than witches ghosts and vampires lurking around on halloween our final story takes place in oil city pennsylvania where shauna howe lived with her mother lucy and her stepfather john on the morning of october 27 1992 shawna left for school dressed as a gymnast in a turquoise bodysuit with black stripes later in the day the fifth grader had plans to sing for senior citizens in the community with her girl scout troop before heading to a halloween party at the local church at just before eight in the evening shauna began the familiar half-mile walk home from the party but police received a bone-chilling 9-1-1 call just minutes later dan payton an oil city resident claimed he had just witnessed a kidnapping he said a slender scruffy-looking man smoking a cigarette snatched a little girl and he heard muffled screams as he forced her into a boxy rust-colored car and sped off down the road meanwhile shauna didn't make it home in time for her eight o'clock curfew so john called lucy who was at work to tell her the unsettling news lucy began calling shawna's friends and anyone she might be with while john scoured her regular walking route but there was no sign of her anywhere finally when two hours passed and she still hadn't returned home her parents frantically called the oil city police department and reported her missing suddenly the sleepy little town was abuzz with police officers and fbi agents desperately trying to locate the missing scout oil city residents took notice and quickly joined in the search efforts two days later shawna's uncle discovered her turquoise and black bodysuit in the woods on the edge of town her family struggled to hold on to hope but unfortunately the worst was yet to come the next morning searchers located shawna's body in a creek bed below an abandoned railroad bridge just a few hundred yards away from where her costume had been found the previous day she was lying face down between a log and a rock with obvious signs of physical trauma to her head chest and arms additionally state troopers noted that her shoes had been neatly placed on the bridge above leaving her socked feet partially submerged in a shallow stream shauna's uncles were handed the grueling task of identifying the body which they tearfully confirmed to be their beloved niece as oil city police began launching a formal homicide investigation they canceled halloween indefinitely and urged parents to keep a close eye on their children now the circumstances surrounding shauna's murder were odd to say the very least it almost seemed like someone was taunting them because searchers had combed the exact area the day before and found nothing an autopsy uncovered traces of seminal fluid on shauna's bodysuit and concluded that she'd been assaulted before being thrown from the bridge the young girl suffered a broken arm and dislocated shoulder which indicated that she was still alive and trying to break her fall making things even more horrific she also suffered multiple rib fractures from hitting a concrete pier on the way down her cause of death was listed as severe blunt force trauma to the head and chest detectives questioned everyone close to shauna even collecting dna from her 12 year old brother but their efforts yielded no results so they turned their attention to any men in the area matching dan's description of the kidnapper that's when 33 year old eldred ted walker came into the picture beyond looking the part ted also owned a car suspiciously similar to the one dan saw that night however he denied knowing anything about shauna's murder and willingly submitted a dna sample that did not match the one found at the crime scene so while it looked like a solid lead at first he was free to go and from there the case seemingly hit a dead end then exactly five years later on october 27 1997 another little girl went missing in oil city four-year-old shanae freeman was abducted from her front yard and after a harrowing all-day search seventeen-year-old nicholas bowen confessed to assaulting and murdering her nicholas led investigators to her body which had been hidden under a pile of leaves in the woods and he was eventually sentenced to life in prison without parole oil city residents were still tormented by shauna's murder when little shanae was taken and they couldn't help but notice the similarities between the two cases still there was no evidence to suggest that bowen was also shauna's killer and the case went cold for another five years it also seems unlikely but not impossible that bowen could have killed shauna five years prior when he would have only been 12 years old someone threw shauna who was still alive and likely struggling off a bridge which would have required a lot of strength it would have been extremely difficult for someone who was a similar age as shauna to have the physical ability to do this by 2002 dna technology had improved tremendously so detectives requested a new examination of a swap taken from shawna's mouth it matched the seminal dna found on her clothing but they didn't know who it belonged to yet then after catching wind of an inmate named timothy o'brien bragging about killing shauna to a cellmate at the venongo county jail investigators jumped at the chance to get his dna timothy and his brother james lived in oil city but were not initially suspects in shauna's case because they were both believed to be in jail at the time of the attack unfortunately timothy's dna wasn't a match but detectives couldn't shake the feeling that he was somehow involved in shauna's murder when the chief investigator on shauna's case retired it was handed off to a new detective who decided to review files from back in 1992 and what he found was stunning the brothers had actually made bail just before shauna's abduction and were not detained at the time of her slaying officers raced to get a dna sample from james who was serving time in prison for an unrelated attempted kidnapping charge he agreed and when the results finally came back from the lab all jaws hit the floor it was a positive match to the samples taken from shauna's body suit and mouth however with neither brother matching the eyewitness description investigators knew they needed to plan their case carefully and gather more evidence to secure conviction so they called in ted walker beyond looking the part he was known to hang around with the o'brien brothers believing he may have served as an accomplice detectives grilled him on his relationship with the o'brien brothers and learned that the three were closer friends than they originally thought who all shared a hatred for the oil city police department when investigators formed ted about the dna evidence against james he stated that some really bad people might have entered his home to do a disgusting thing he then confessed that all three had participated in the kidnapping of shauna as a prank to make the police appear foolish ted explained that he saw her walking down the street and approached her asking about girl scout cookies and hugging her then he put his hand over her mouth and pushed her into the car with the o'brien brothers before they took off when asked why they were using his vehicle ted told police he was letting them borrow it temporarily ted claimed he went home separately and that james and timothy later arrived with shauna he said they brought her upstairs while he made spaghetti and that he could hear the little girl screaming get off me let me up let me go he allegedly demanded that the brothers leave his house with shauna and they supposedly did ted adamantly claimed to have played no role in her death now it's important to note that ted's story changed several times throughout the investigation but this is the one he stood by during the trial ted walker ultimately accepted a plea deal that involved testifying against the o'briens in exchange for a lesser sentence he pleaded guilty to third degree murder and kidnapping and was given a punishment of 20 to 40 years in prison it seems unlikely that ted was only a participant in the initial kidnapping and then was not involved at all in the assault or murder he had a pretty good motivation to lie about the extent of his involvement as he would get a lesser sentence by testifying against the other two it's a common practice in multi-defending criminal cases for a prosecutor to offer a lesser sentence to one defendant if his or her testimony is necessary to convict the other defendants in the case here the prosecutor may not have had enough evidence without ted's testimony to secure a conviction for james and timothy while it isn't ideal to give a criminal a lesser sentence than they may deserve sometimes it is the best way to ensure the more culpable people involved get convicted finally in 2005 james and timothy o'brien stood trial for kidnapping and murder charges while they were both acquitted of first-degree murder charges the brothers were found guilty of second and third degree murder as well as kidnapping and conspiracy during sentencing the judge stated this world was a better place because of shauna and it will be a better and safer place without the both of you walking free ever again at long last justice for shauna came when james and timothy o'brien were sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole you
2022-03-06