Casefile Archives 3: Tina Herrmann, Kody Maynard & Stephanie Sprang

January 24, 2026·1 hr 8 min·5 clips

Investigators discover 13-year-old Sarah Maynard duct-taped and buried under a massive pile of dead leaves.

The encounter started without drama. Deputy Phillips found Matthew Hoffman sitting in a closed parking lot, calm and cooperative while he answered questions. His license pointed to his mother's address. When Phillips brought up King Beach Drive, Hoffman said the listed address was his mother's and that he lived in Mount Vernon. Nothing about that sounded especially strange yet. Hoffman said he was waiting for his girlfriend to finish a shift at a nearby hotel, then left after Phillips told him the lot was closed. Phillips wrote it down. A few days later, investigators on the King Beach Drive case had that note, and the small details looked different. One answer stood out. Hoffman said he had only just started dating his girlfriend and did not know her surname, but her first name was Sarah. That name mattered. Tina's 13-year-old daughter, Sarah Maynard, was still missing, and Hoffman's offhand explanation made finding him more urgent. Investigators got a search warrant for Hoffman's house, with the grim possibility that four missing people might be inside. The entry was forceful. Investigators, members of the County Sheriff's Office, and the Mount Vernon Police Department SWAT team used a no-knock entry, breaking through the front door with a battering ram. A flash grenade went in first. The team moved through the residence and found Hoffman asleep on a couch in the living room. He did not show his hands. Whether he was confused, groggy, or refusing to comply, officers took him down before arresting and removing him. The moment was blunt. A quiet trail of notes, names, and addresses had led straight to a forced entry.

As heard by us

A tense Casefile installment where an ordinary deputy's note tightens the case around Matthew Hoffman.

A routine parking lot encounter becomes the hinge in Casefile Archives 3, as Deputy Phillips' notes on Matthew Hoffman suddenly matter to investigators working the King Beach Drive case.

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Why you'd press play

One first name from a closed parking-lot stop -- Sarah -- turns a minor deputy's note into the detail investigators cannot ignore.

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