Hoffman pleads guilty in deaths of three found in tree

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Jan 7, 2011
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MOUNT VERNON, Ohio (AP) -- A Columbus-area man will spend life in prison with no chance for parole in the deaths of three people whose remains were found in a hollow tree.
Thirty-year-old Matthew Hoffman was sentenced after he pleaded guilty Thursday to aggravated murder and other charges.
Prosecutors in central Ohio's Knox County did not pursue a death sentence at the wishes of the victims' families.
Hoffman was charged with aggravated murder, burglary, kidnapping and rape.
An indictment alleged the unemployed tree-cutter killed a Tina Herrmann, her son Kody Maynard, and neighbor Stephanie Sprang during a November 10 burglary last year.
Sarah Maynard was later found bound and gagged but alive in Hoffman's basement.

Maynard was in the courtroom yesterday. In a statement read by the prosecutor, the teen said she's no longer scared of Hoffman.
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