The Girl in the Leaves Read online

  Larry knew that he could make a good long-haul truck driver, but he also knew the job would be a double-edged sword. Even though the money was good, it would take him away from Tina and the kids for extended periods of time. At the kids’ young age, they would be changing all the time, and Larry wouldn’t be able to see those changes for weeks at a time.

  Larry recalled, “I began trucking all over America. Mainly because I wanted Sarah and Kody to have a nice home. The company was based in Florida, and I would haul roses and other plants to mom-and-pop florist shops all over the eastern states. I’d also drive out to California and other western states. There were times I wouldn’t be home for six to eight weeks, because I’d be driving a load to some place and then picking up another load there. That way, I wouldn’t be driving empty trailers on a return trip.

  “All of this put a lot of stress on me and Tina. She was working too, at a Meijer’s [grocery] store by that time, and also having to raise the kids a lot on her own. It got to be like Tina and I were passing by each other right in our own home. I’d be there for just a little while, and then back on the road again. Even when I was home, I was pretty tired. It was like Tina and I were becoming strangers to each other.”

  Tina and the kids lived with Larry’s grandmother in a nice house in the township of Hamilton, south of Columbus. It was a pretty suburban area surrounded by fields and orchards. The locale had a small-town feel to it, much as Reynoldsburg had.

  From Ohio to New York or Florida, from Ohio to California and Washington State, Larry’s trucking took him on multiweek runs. He began to know the inside of his truck cab better than he did his own home. There were still good times with the family, trips to the Columbus Zoo, rides for the kids at amusement parks and barbecues. But these times were like islands in an ocean.

  Cracks started developing in the relationship between Larry and Tina, and as time went on they became wider and wider. Tina wanted a man who was there to help her raise Sarah and Kody. She felt frustrated and lonely. For his part, Larry wanted to provide for Tina and their two kids but had to be on the road in order to do so. The arguments between Larry and Tina became cyclical and seemingly unsolvable, and they were inexorably drifting apart.

  Finally the rift was too large to patch any longer. In anger and frustration, Tina moved out of the house with Sarah and Kody. Larry was devastated. He recalled, “There was real anger between us at first. I felt betrayed and so did she. There was some yelling and accusations. It was not a happy time.”

  One thing neither Larry nor Tina ever did was use Sarah and Kody as bargaining chips against the other. They both knew that no matter what, they were still the children’s parents.

  As time eased the bitterness, both Larry and Tina realized that it was circumstances more than character flaws that had driven them apart. At heart, they were both good people who wanted the best for Sarah and Kody, and at some level, they still both loved each other.

  Larry said later, “I couldn’t stay angry at Tina. She was the first love of my life. She was the mother of my children. There wasn’t a mean bone in her body. But the truck driving was just too much for the both of us.”

  THREE

  Sarah and Kody

  Tina, Sarah and Kody got an apartment in the town of Hilliard, a suburban area like Reynoldsburg and Hamilton, on the west side of Columbus, Ohio. Even though they were no longer under the same roof, Larry said, “I wanted to see as much of my kids as I could. I was really proud of both of them. They did really well in school, and both Sarah and Kody were very athletic.

  “You know how kids can be pretty mean at times. Excluding others from their group. Unpopular kids are kind of pushed to the side. But when Kody saw that kind of thing, he would go out of his way to include those kinds of kids. And he wouldn’t allow any bullying around him.

  “That was the thing about both Kody and Sarah. They had kind hearts. Maybe it was because they were generally upbeat and happy, that they didn’t like to see sadness in other kids. I got together with them every chance I got.”

  Despite seeing his kids once in a while, Larry was also lonely. In 2005 he met a pretty, dark-eyed brunette named Tracy, and before long they started dating. Tracy had a sweet way about her, was charming and always wanted others to feel comfortable. Where Tina was rambunctious and outspoken, Tracy was quiet and calm. The women, however, did have at least one characteristic in common: a caring nature—they were very loyal to friends and family, and good people at heart.

  Shortly after they started dating, Larry and Tracy married and began a new life together. A son, AJ, was born in 2006; like Kody, he was a good and caring boy, and he loved his big brother, Kody, and big sister, Sarah.

  Life for Tina was changing as well. She met a man named Greg Borders who worked at the Target Distribution Center where she was employed, and they began dating. After a while they moved into an apartment together with Kody and Sarah in Hilliard, and as luck would have it, they soon had new neighbors down the street—Larry, Tracy and their baby boy, AJ.

  By now, any acrimony between Tina and Larry was a thing of the past. He said later, “We had matured by then. And we both loved our kids. We didn’t want to argue in front of them or about them. Both Tina and I wanted the best for them.”

  In a lot of ways it was a convenient situation. Larry got to see Sarah and Kody more often than he had in the past few years. In fact, by 2006 it was one of the happiest times of his life. Larry was driving now locally rather than on the long-distance trips that had taken him away for weeks at a stretch. Larry said, “We’d have Sarah and Kody over for three or four days at a time. I was driving locally, so I got to see them a lot.

  “I’d toss a football around with Kody, and we’d do things together like any father and son. I was real proud of my kids. They both did well in school and were just happy-go-lucky kids. Sarah and Kody would squabble about things, as a brother and sister will do, but basically they got along. When Kody played junior league football, Sarah actually became a cheerleader for the team.”

  Tina’s mother, Barbara Herrmann, recalled of Tina around this time, “She was a fun-loving hard worker and very caring mother. She loved dolphins and sunflowers, but most of all she enjoyed watching and cheering on her children as they participated in sports. Kody was a good student and loved playing guitar in his spare time. And Sarah was very athletic.”

  Everything might have gone along in that manner, but then the economy intervened. The boom times in America were over. In 2008 Tracy lost her job. Soon thereafter, Larry was also laid off. Desperate for money, he decided to take a truck-driving job in Kentucky. Once again he knew it would take him away from Sarah and Kody for long periods of time, but now he had Tracy and AJ to take care of too.

  Larry and his family moved down to Kentucky, and he began hauling fuel for a mining company there. His visits with Sarah and Kody were now confined to birthdays and around the holidays. It was disappointing, but times were very lean, and Larry and Tracy were happy to just have a roof over their heads and a paycheck coming in.

  This situation went on for about a year and a half, and then Larry was offered a truck-driving job in Florida. Despite being even farther from Ohio, Larry decided that it was worth the better pay and the better environment for his family, so he, Tracy and AJ moved down there.

  One day out of the blue, Larry received a surprise phone call from Tina. She said she was thinking of moving down there with Sarah and Kody to live near him in Florida. She said nothing of Greg being part of the move, and Larry assumed that meant she was breaking up with him. Larry was all for this move, since he would be able to see his kids more often. He encouraged Tina to start making plans to move there.

  But Tina got other advice from her father. He said she should hang on to the new job she had found after getting laid off in 2008. Good jobs were not easy to find in Florida in
a bad economy. Perhaps swayed by this reasoning, Tina decided to stay in Ohio.

  She did make one profound move, however. Looking around for a nice area in which to raise her kids, she decided on Apple Valley, an upscale community five miles east of the county seat of Mount Vernon in Knox County, and about fifty miles northeast of Columbus.

  Greg, Tina, Sarah and Kody moved to Apple Valley, a picturesque spot located on a beautiful lake. There were several beaches for swimming, and large stretches of water for boating and fishing. Some of the more luxurious homes were lakefront properties, with boat docks and piers. The surrounding area, marked by rolling hills and myriad trees, offered lots of space for kids to run around, and the town had a good school system. It was, simply, a great place for kids to grow up.

  Their new home was situated on King Beach Drive, with a large backyard for the kids to play in. It was somewhat isolated from the other homes, with farmland beginning just across the road that ran on one side of the house. Instead of houses across the street, there was a large patch of woods. Nonetheless, the area seemed like a safe environment for the kids. Nothing really bad had ever happened in Apple Valley.

  Not only was the location ideal, Tina quickly became very good friends with Stephanie Sprang, forty-one, who lived only two houses away on Magers Drive. Stephanie was just as lively as Tina, and the two got together to go shopping, took turns watching each other’s kids, and enjoyed just hanging out with one another. Sarah and Kody would often play with Stephanie’s three children. The elder boy, named Michael, was in his late teens; her daughter, Trish, was a little older than Sarah; and her other son, Seth, was younger than Kody. All of the kids got along well, which made the friendship between Tina and Stephanie even better.

  Tina and Greg did go in together on buying the house, but there was a downside: while Tina’s job at a Dairy Queen restaurant was local, Greg had to drive almost sixty miles each way to the Target Distribution Center. It meant he had to get up around three in the morning, which was no small inconvenience, but he endured it.

  In 2010, Larry’s grandmother moved into a nursing home, leaving him the house in Hamilton. He’d always had fond memories of the place, and he and Tracy decided to leave Florida and move there. It was a very nice suburban house with a large yard, and even though Columbus was just up the highway a few miles away, the new home felt as if it was more in the country than in the city.

  And as luck would have it, Larry got a job offer to deliver fuel to gas stations in the region. It seemed like an ideal opportunity. Not only would he, Tracy and AJ be able to live in an area they liked, but Larry would again be able to see Sarah and Kody on a more regular basis.

  Sarah and Kody continued to do well in school, and Sarah joined the softball team. She was very good at it, and her team even played in a regional competition.

  Kody took up baseball and by the age of ten, was an excellent pitcher. One of Larry’s favorite photos of Kody was of him winding up on the pitcher’s mound.

  Tina spent more and more time with her friend Stephanie Sprang. Stephanie, just like Tina, was bubbly and the life of the party. One of Stephanie’s cousins echoed Larry’s words about Tina when she said, “Stephanie would walk into a room and light it up. She just had that kind of personality. She laughed a lot and seemed like a happy person. Stephanie and Tina were the best of friends and did everything together around Apple Valley.”

  Stephanie had worked at a golf course for many years, but by 2009 she did odd jobs around Mount Vernon and Apple Valley to make extra money. One of those jobs took her to Columbus Road in Mount Vernon to work at the house of a strange young man. A young man who liked climbing up into trees.

  In August of 2010, Larry and Kody had one of their most memorable experiences. Kody had always told Larry he wanted to go night fishing. One evening Larry got some bait, loaded up an ice chest with hot dogs and soft drinks and took Kody out to a lake. Larry later said, “He had a blast. Kody was the only one to catch some fish, and he was real proud of that fact. And they were good-sized fish. It was something that was just fun for a father and son to do. I looked forward to a lot more times like that with him. Just me and Kody going out to do fishing or whatever. That August, I thought we had all the time in the world to do things like that.”

  There was another trip, in October 2010, that Tracy Maynard recalled fondly. She said later, “On October 24, 2010, I took Sarah, 13, Kody, 11, AJ, 4, and Payton, 2, [Larry and Tracy’s youngest boy who was born in 2008] to the Columbus Zoo. It was ‘Boo at the Zoo,’ a Halloween event for kids. All the kids enjoyed riding the rides there, and they didn’t want to leave until the zoo closed. On the drive home, we laughed and talked about everyday things. I dropped [Sarah and Kody] off at their mom’s house and gave them a hug good-bye. I told them we’d soon go to the Wild Lights at the Zoo, which was a pre-Christmas event.”

  But fate would intervene before that took place.

  * * *

  The small city of Mount Vernon was a picture-postcard kind of town. Compared to the inner city problems of Cincinnati, Cleveland or even nearby Columbus, Mount Vernon’s troubles were few and far between. With its large brick courthouse, post office, city hall and churches, it seemed a small-town paradise where residents reveled in a sedate, comfortable way of life. Crime was so infrequent, many people still left their doors unlocked day and night. If there seemed a constant in the area, it was a feeling of contentment.

  But there was one individual in its midst who was not content. Matthew John Hoffman was a troubled and angry young man, living in his two-story house on Columbus Road. He felt he’d been dealt some bad cards in his life, and there was a fire burning deep inside him, about ready to burst out of control. And by November 2010, that explosion was only hours away.

  FOUR

  Young Matt

  Even from an early age, Matthew John Hoffman liked being in trees. Like other boys his age, young Hoffman played baseball, but the subject with which he seemed almost obsessed was trees. He loved going out into the woods and climbing them. Perhaps he saw climbing a tree as an opportunity to get away from whatever was troubling him; perhaps he viewed the trees as a safe haven where he could forget the cares of the world, at least for a short time.

  Matt Hoffman was the son of Robert and Patricia Hoffman, and grew up in the Warren area of northeastern Ohio. According to his mom, Patricia, he was a good boy, but high-strung. He was smart and had lots of energy, but he was also headstrong and rebellious. When he wanted his way, he tended to dig in his heels and not be swayed in the matter.

  Bright and intelligent, he could also be alarming at times. The things he said to people were off-kilter and confusing. If someone said “Good morning” to him, Hoffman was apt to respond with “What’s so good about it?” More than one person would later recall how they would ask him a normal question and get “an off the wall” answer in return.

  In 1997 Hoffman’s parents divorced, and Hoffman moved with his mother to the Mount Vernon area in Knox County. One neighbor, Alice Morelli, recalled Hoffman as a teenager, fourteen to sixteen years of age. She thought that he always seemed unhappy and acted strangely. Morelli said later, “He was really lost. He was on a bad path.”

  Hoffman did get into trouble around that time, when he and some buddies climbed onto the roof of Lakeview High School. When caught by the police, his only explanation was that he just wanted to see if he could do it. Hoffman would also jump off his own roof onto a trampoline. There seemed to be something about heights that intrigued Hoffman.

  Morelli’s dog hated the teen, constantly barking at him when he was in the yard. In response, Hoffman would merely stare, blank-eyed, at the dog. It really concerned Morrelli, who thought there was something wrong with the boy. His antics, she felt, went way beyond the usual childhood pranks.

  Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hoffman did not take well to high schoo
l, though he did graduate in 1999, and went on to study industrial electrical engineering at Knox County Career Center. Afterward, he went through a long list of jobs in a very short period of time, never seeming to settle down to anything.

  In 2000 Hoffman left Mount Vernon and moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, where his grandmother lived. The town was about as different from Apple Valley, Ohio, as could be imagined. At an elevation of around five thousand feet, Steamboat Springs was an up-and-coming resort city, geared to outdoor activities, especially skiing. In fact, Steamboat Springs was one of the fastest-growing cities in Colorado. Not unlike Vail and Aspen, it had become a hot spot for both winter and summer sports.

  Steamboat, as it was called by locals, had good restaurants, a thriving art scene and lots of new condominiums in town and on the surrounding mountains. Some of the most luxurious new homes in the area were starting to sell for five or six million dollars or even more. These homes were up on the ridge with commanding views of the whole area. People who owned these properties could fly their private jets into the local airport.

  Not that Hoffman was living in one of those expensive houses. He was working as a plumber’s helper by this time, and his abode in Steamboat was the inexpensive D Bar K Motel. It was the kind of place where a lot of other low-income workers also lived, mainly construction workers, maids and other service-related individuals.