All language subtitles for Interrogation Raw.S01E01.Lost in the Leaves.720p.WEB.h264-DiRT - HI

(suspenseful music)

A mystery that grows
stranger by the minute,

an entire family just vanishes.

[Narrator] Four
people disappear,

leaving behind a bloody trail.

It felt like something you
would watch on a scary movie.

I haven't slept
all freaking night.

We also have officers on,

quad runners checking fields.

[Detective] Tell me a
little bit about Tina.

We butt heads.

[Narrator] The
clock is ticking

and lives are on the line.

She could be being tortured.

She could be locked up
somewhere, tied up somewhere.

[Narrator] Investigators
searching for answers

in the interrogation room.

Kody alive, Matt,
Stephanie alive?

[Detective] This
is a game to him.

The clock was running and
we were running out of time.

(suspenseful music)

*INTERROGATION RAW (2022)*
Season 01 Episode 01

Episode Title: "Lost in the Leaves"
Aired on: May 19, 2022.

[Narrator] Every
suspect accused of a crime

has the right to remain silent.

Many agree to be
interrogated anyway,

but they can stop the
interview at any moment,

making it a race against time.

Justice hangs in the balance.

(soft suspenseful music)

(phone rings)

(soft suspenseful music)

(suspenseful thumping music)

Tina Herrmann
had two children,

a 13-year-old girl, Sarah,

one 11-year-old boy, Kody.

She had not come into
work on Wednesday.

She was a very
dependable employee.

It was unusual for
her not to show up.

When Tina failed to
show up for work again,

the manager came
over to the house.

She let herself in
through a rear window.

There was blood leading
from the front door,

through the hallways,

back into the rooms
and into the bathroom.

(suspenseful music)

She had groceries on
the floor in the kitchen

that she had apparently
just carried in,

and they contained
items that would've

\hnormally been
refrigerated immediately.

We begin tonight with
a developing story,

a mystery that grows
stranger by the minute,

an entire family just vanishes.

Tina's two children who had
been in school on Wednesday,

had not been in school
the following day.

And that, of course,
heightened the concern

because Tina wasn't
accounted for

and her children were
not accounted for.

We started seeing
distinct patterns.

We saw three separate
blood stain patterns

in three different rooms.

(tense music)

And we saw drag marks

from each of those
blood stain patterns

that converged
into the bathroom.

Oil had been poured
down, and it looked to be

as if it might be an attempt
to set the scene on fire.

So, the motor oil led
to a significant amount

of footwear impressions that
were found in the residence.

They were able to
find that that was

a seven and a half Air walk.

We made our conclusion
that it was most likely

the 13-year-old girl who
had walked out of there.

And we hoped that
she was still alive.

(taut mellow music)

I met Tina Herrmann and we
worked the same shift together.

She loved to do
anything with her kids.

Both kids were
involved in sports.

She never missed a game,

took 'em to the movies.

Everything was always
about the kids.

(tense mellow music)

We also learned that one
of Tina's close friends,

Stephanie Sprang,
also was missing

and had not been accounted for

since that previous Wednesday.

Stephanie was a
very loyal friend.

If she knew someone
was going through

a rough time in her
life, and Stephanie

was going to be there
to help her through.

Stephanie was probably Tina's
closest friend that she had.

She lived down the street
from Tina Herrmann.

We were told that
Tina was in the process

of looking for an apartment.

Stephanie came over to the house

to go apartment-hunting
\hwith Tina.

(tense mellow music)

[Reporter] As the
search intensifies,

so does the fear
in this community.

I think everyone's just
kind of really scared

that something like this
could happen so close to home.

It felt like a nightmare,
was like something

you would watch
on a scary movie,

not something that would
happen to people that you knew.

(tense mellow music)

You know, I'm a father, man.

You know, my kids are my life.

All I would ever want to do
is protect them, you know?

Well, she didn't show
up for work Wednesday

and nobody could
get a hold of her.

I talked to her Tuesday night

and I talked to her
Wednesday at 12:10.

(taut music)

Tina Herrmann was in a
relationship with a man

by the name of Greg Borders,
a live-in boyfriend.

And they had been living
together in this house

for some period of time.

I just know things
weren't the best

between the two of them.

She was looking to
move out and leave him.

A major concern was that
her boyfriend, you know,

was not at the scene until
late in the day on Thursday.

It seemed, you know, unusual.

(suspenseful music)

When the boyfriend
was interviewed

by the Knox County
Sheriff's office,

I was a able to observe
from another room

during that interview.

(tense mellow music)

He had what was a very
easy to check out alibi.

He said that he had left
for work very early,

which is his normal routine.

He said he worked an
hour and a half away

in a large warehouse;

That he had made plans
with another worker

to go golfing on that
following Thursday;

That he was invited
to spend the night

at the friend's house.

The initial response in
terms of both his demeanor

and the story that
he was telling

suggested that he
was not involved.

(suspenseful music)

(radio chattering)

We had basically
run out of suspects.

We were thinking, "Well,
where do we go from here?"

Just about that point,
I was actually, I think,

driving back toward
the Sheriff's office,

when I got the call.

[Reporter] Friends
and neighbors

scouring a wooded area,

looking for any sign
of a missing family.

(suspenseful music)

So in the garage,
there was a shopping bag.

And inside that shopping
bag were two tarps

and a package of
heavy-duty garbage bags.

The name of the
store was on the bag.

If this store might be
able to do some research

and find out if someone
purchased these items

in this time frame
we're looking at.

They were able to
find that purchase,

find a video of that person.

The video cameras
caught the offender

going into his car and leaving.

Couldn't get a plate
from that vehicle,

\hbut it was a
unique-looking compact car.

The security person
actually said that he thought

the vehicle he was driving
was a Toyota Yaris.

So I thought, "Well,
how many Toyota Yarises

could there be in Knox County?"

And on the first
page for that search,

the last one on the page
was Matthew Hoffman.

He looked very much like
the subject in the video,

and was actually
wearing the same shirt

in his driver's license photo

that he was wearing
at the store.

Matthew Hoffman had
an interesting past.

He was convicted of arson,
which involved a home invasion

and said that he committed the
arson to cover up his tracks.

(soft suspenseful music)

They went in through
the front of the house

and they found him asleep on
the couch in the living room,

and immediately took
him into custody.

Mr. Hoffman had what I would
call a fetish with leaves.

He was a tree
trimmer for a while

and he was often times
known to climb trees

and be sitting in trees.

I mean, the whole
house was full of leaves.

He had collected a
large amount of leaves,

had them tacked to his walls.

I don't know if he was
using them for insulation

or what, you know, in bags,

but there were just
huge piles of leaves

all through the house.

(suspenseful music)

They started doing a
room-by-room search,

and they didn't find anything
else on the ground floor.

They didn't find anything
else on the second floor.

And then they noticed
that there was a dresser

pushed against the basement
door, leading to the basement.

You know, it was strange,
what's down in his basement?

(suspenseful music)

And it was only on
removing that dresser

and going down into the basement
that they discovered Sarah.

(tense mellow music)

And I could hear Joe yelling,

"They found her, she's
alive, she's alive."

And in this basement area,

there was a large
pile of leaves.

And then he had placed a number
of blankets on top of that,

and that's where he
was having Sarah sleep.

She was tied with bungee cords

wrapped around her feet,
her ankles, and her wrists.

And she also had, you
know, like work gloves

over her hands with duct tape.

(tense mellow music)

In the beginning, there
wasn't a lot of hope

that anybody would be alive.

It was just pure
elation for all of us.

It did give us some hope

that there would be
others somewhere else.

Sarah said that
she and her brother

had arrived home from
school on that Wednesday,

that they'd come
in the front door

and you know, seen
blood on the floor.

And that then, this guy just
appeared from around the corner,

that she ran back
into her bedroom.

She was there in the
house for a while.

She heard noises coming
from the bathroom.

She said that she suspected
that they had been killed.

She was afraid she was
going to be killed,

but that he had told
her that, you know,

he had not killed him.

You know, that
things would be okay.

Sarah did confirm
in her interview

after she was rescued

that he had sexually
assaulted her.

Through her account, it
gave us a better time line

as to how things occurred.

(soft suspenseful music)

Anytime you're involved
in an interrogation,

the first thing you wanna do
is establish communication.

That it's just a matter
of trying to come up

with the right way
to have that person

identify with you, trust
you to some degree.

We work towards him
caring about his own family,

his own mother, and this
would give her closure

and give her respect.

The detectives were trying

several different types
of questions for him,

at times would try to appeal

to his empathy
towards the victims.

They also tried to be

a little bit more
stern with him.

You've got this
anxiety of, you know,

there could be people
alive, hidden somewhere.

This is a very public case.

The local public defender knew

that we had a guy in custody.

So, they were trying to
basically force their way in,

figuratively, not literally,
to get access to him,

to basically be
able to counsel him,

which, you know, I
mean, that's their role.

We knew that he was gonna have

a first appearance
in court eventually,

'cause he was being charged.

The clock running, and we
were running out of time.

[Journalist] Sunday,

13-year-old Sarah
Maynard was found,

bound and gagged, but alive

in the basement of
a Mount Vernon home,

and deputies arrested
Matthew Hoffman.

(taut mellow music)

(suspenseful music)

He almost seemed
comatose in that interview.

It was something I had
not seen in 22 years

in law enforcement,
the way he reacted.

It was obvious we were
hitting a cord with him.

I think he was probably
trying to resist a connection

initially, as far as doing
some form of sign language

and trying to resist that.

At least it was communication.

\hThat was a big
breakthrough given the fact

that he'd been absolutely
almost catatonic

up until that point.

(soft suspenseful music)

My having come from
having talked with Sarah,

who had spent the last
couple days with him,

let me go in and talk
to him about her,

about the fact that
she's concerned about

what's going on with the
rest of her family members,

to just try and work the
young girl angle to him.

My short-term goal was
just to get him to respond.

You know, we had rescued Sarah.

I thought maybe there's
something going on here.

A lot of times you just
have to wait, you know,

\hbecause they become
uncomfortable with the silence.

(suspenseful music)

(sniffling)

In this interrogation,
as in any interrogation,

the person who
controls our ability

to continue talking with
the subject, is the subject.

In other words, they're
the ones who basically

at any time can say,
"I want an attorney."

And you know, we knew
that any attorney

that he was gonna get
was gonna immediately

tell him to stop talking.

And I knew we were
coming to a close here,

so I wanted to
give him something

to think about overnight.

I'm trying to keep an open
line of communication.

Here's my information.

Make some kind of a
personal connection

because tomorrow, we're gonna
be back to fight another day.

(soft suspenseful music)

[Detective] Have a seat.

(soft suspenseful music)

I don't think it
was a coincidence

that he picked that home

with a 13-year-old girl in it.

(suspenseful music)

He chose not to kill her
and to take her instead.

So, we thought let's
see how he will behave

with a female interviewer.

The day before, the
gentleman had had

a table between them.

So we changed up the room

so that we put a
chair close together.

I had my hair in a ponytail

and we actually talked
about me looking,

trying to look a little younger

and looking more relaxed
and more comfortable

so that he felt more
relaxed and off guard.

Going at him hard
didn't seem to work.

We decided we were gonna go
very slowly and a soft approach.

He was actually shivering
pretty significantly.

So I'm trying to
get him relaxed,

to think that I'm
interested in how

he's handling the
situation right now.

So that was just a way to
try to put him off guard,

to break down those barriers

so that I can get
to that back story.

As we were going through
the day, I thought,

well, you know, he's
gotta be hungry.

He wants to be taken care of.

He wants to be
paid attention to.

Especially by a female.

And I just fed into him,
giving him that focus

and giving him that attention,

so that he would
bring his guard down.

(suspenseful music)

These people have been
missing since Wednesday

and there'd been a great
deal of searching going on.

Given the fact that we had
significant signs of struggle,

trauma, injury, it heightens
the concern and the anxiety.

[Reporter] After
five days of searching,

Knox County Sheriff's deputies

finally find 13-year-old
Sarah Maynard alive.

32-year-old Tina Herrmann,
11-year-old Kody Maynard,

and Tina's friend,
41-year-old Stephanie Sprang

are all still missing.

(soft suspenseful music)

(Matt sniffling)

(suspenseful music)

Hoffman outright lied
about what happened with her.

Basically saying, you know,

he just took care of
her while she was there,

when we know that he had
sexually assaulted her,

but I wasn't gonna confront it.

I think it's very
important for him to hear

that I'm not gonna
judge him in any way,

so I can, you know, be his
partner in this, so to speak.

Okay.

He would completely shut down.

We did get nuggets
of information

that we certainly could
have used against him.

We knew that if he
doesn't say this,

we probably will
never find them,

so we need to get him talking.

(suspenseful music)

Everyone at work
was very hopeful,

but as the days went on,

we were feeling less and less.

It was like a roller coaster.

I was always hopeful that they
would find them all alive.

I was fearful that
they wouldn't.

(suspenseful music)

The two clocks that were
running in our mind were

one, how long he was gonna
agree to continue to talk to us,

and two, the point at
which he was gonna have

an appearance in
court, at which time

he was going to
be given a lawyer.

We started hearing that
the Defense Attorney's Office

wanted to communicate with him.

We were hitting a point
where we need to push now

because we only have
so much time left.

His whole demeanor
has changed.

He is now much more
comfortable and kind of,

you know, calling the
shots, in a sense.

The day before, said he
wanted to talk with me alone.

My first thought was,
well, this is a test.

Okay.

So we didn't know what
he was going to want to do.

I mean, literally all the
rules are off and he knew that.

(taut mellow music)

So, we go down to the
bathroom down the hall.

It's a small one john,
one sink, you know, room.

And you know, he wants
me to go in with him.

(suspenseful music)

Obviously, he knew
there were no cameras,

so we didn't know what he
was going to want to do.

And then he says
he's had this dream

about working in a
meat packing plant.

And he saw cut up body parts,

and it all came back to him.

The whole discussion again
confirmed the worst fears

that those people
were in fact deceased.

(suspenseful music)

So he wanted to tell us
where the bodies were,

but it was only gonna be under

a certain set of circumstances.

(suspenseful music)

Then we would agree
to take him out,

to have him show us
where the bodies were

and that while we had him out,

he was going to try to escape

and we would agree to
shoot him and kill him.

We finished in the
bathroom and went back down

to the interview
room and, you know,

brought Kristin back in and,
let's have this discussion.

At this point, all
the evidence was there.

You know, I have enough
information in front of me

to know we had him.

He knew he was guilty.

He knew he was caught.

He knew this was over.

So, we just started
trying to push even harder

and get him to admit it without
giving him anything back.

The one thing
he had any control

over the last thing in his life

he was gonna have control over,

was this stretch of time,

by basically dragging this out.

So I was gonna, you know,

just start to turn
up the heat more.

I was told that the
prosecutor had said

that he's gonna
get arraigned soon.

And we knew we were
on a time crunch

and it wasn't working as
the way we wanted it to.

And the reality is that he's
not telling us the truth.

(knock at door)

(tense music)

I had never had
that happen before.

I've had long interviews before,

but I've not had them
stop the interview.

You can be frustrated
when somebody else

comes in to stop the process

when the individual is
still willing to talk.

(door bangs)

(taut mellow music)

Apparently, between the
Knox County prosecutor

and the attorneys, they
had decided on the deal

of taking the death
penalty off the table.

Once the deal was
made, that's when

he was willing to give
up where the bodies were.

(suspenseful music)

We headed out to this
Pocosin Wildlife Refuge area.

(suspenseful music)

There's this large
beech tree there,

about 70 feet up, the
branches kind of wide out.

I could see that about
seven foot above the ground

there was what appeared
to be a knot hole.

I could see that there was a
black garbage bag in there.

And obviously, that was
the confirmation we needed

to believe that that
was, in fact, the tree.

[Reporter] This is
the tree investigators say

Matthew Hoffman left the
remains of his victims.

The hole you see here,

cut by investigators
to retrieve the three.

(suspenseful music)

I remember investigators
saying they brought

a dog out there and the
dog didn't hit on the tree,

'cause it was so thick.

He went up to the
very top of the tree

and he drops the bags the
whole way down to the bottom.

(suspenseful music)

They had to pull all the bags
out and open them all up.

(suspenseful music)

And basically make sure
we had every body part.

That scene is not something
that you can forget.

(suspenseful music)

He said that he had
just identified the house

the day before, that he had
gone and spent the night

across the street
in a sleeping bag.

Tina left, and he felt
like she had gone to work

and she was gonna
be gone for a while.

He stuck with his story
that this was simply

a home invasion for a theft.

(suspenseful music)

And Tina came home unexpectedly.

He said that he just
wanted to hit her

over the head and knock her out,

but she wouldn't go unconscious.

And in the midst
of attacking her,

Stephanie just came
into the house.

She just walked into
the place, came upon this,

and then when there
were two people there,

he basically felt out of control

and had to start
stabbing people.

(suspenseful music)

He says he didn't
expect the children

to come home so early.

And he heard them coming in

and accosted them at the door.

When he got to down to just
having the 13-year-old girl,

he believed he didn't
need to kill her

because he felt he
could subdue her.

So that's why he did that out of

basically the
kindness of his heart.

(suspenseful music)

Mr. Hoffman described how

he took care of the
bodies by processing them.

Then he thought, "Well,
I'll put them in the tree."

You know, he knew of this tree,

spent a lot of
time in the woods,

and that then he
would go get gasoline

and come back and
burn the house down.

(taut mellow music)

I was impressed
through the entire case,

how Knox County Sheriff's
Department handled the situation

\hand it was good
old-fashioned police work,

how they found Matthew Hoffman.

And they did a fantastic job

in getting to where this
case was so quickly.

(suspenseful music)

Finding the pleas
to be voluntary,

the court accepts the pleas

and finds the defendant guilty.

(taut mellow music)

Life in prison is not enough
justice for Matthew Hoffman,

but there's also judgment day.

So he's got judgment day coming.

(soft somber music)

The funeral was held
in a church in Columbus.

There was no sitting room.

There was people standing.

I say there was probably at
least 500 people, if not more.

There's not a day that
I don't think about 'em.

I just want people
to know, you know,

that they were mothers,
that they were friends,

that they were amazing people.

I just never thought
that life would ever

not have Stephanie in it.

I just wish that everybody

could really know how
wonderful she was.

Sarah, she's doing
a lot better now.

She has children of her own.

The last time I talked to her,

she was getting ready to
go back to school again.

This case stands
out in the fact that

the 13-year-old girl was saved,

and that rarely happened
in the cases that I worked.

This case really made me
realize that there's some cases

where you're really
gonna make a difference.

When you do interrogations,

you have to have the mind
of the eternal optimist,

'cause a lot of times
you're not getting a lot,

but you have to believe in
your heart and in your mind

that you're gonna get it.

I have no regrets about
this case whatsoever.

I mean, you know, the
fact that Matthew Hoffman

was a complete
whodunnit and got away,

you know, with the girl;

The fact, you know,
that we got what we did,

bringing a quick
conclusion to it

and having him get life
in prison without parole.

There is a part of me
that just felt like,

Matthew Hoffman, you're
no longer in control.

(tense music)