Lawyer: Slaying suspect off suicide watch

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

The only suspect in a kidnapping and triple-slaying in a rural Ohio community is off suicide watch and maintaining a positive attitude in jail, his lawyer said Wednesday.

A grand jury that met this week did not indict Matthew Hoffman, but additional charges could come soon, defense attorney Bruce Malek said.

State and national media descended on the small Ohio city of Mount Vernon, about 50 miles east of Columbus, for a week as authorities searched for four people who disappeared from a nearby home Nov. 10. On Nov. 14, one of the missing people, 13-year-old Sarah Maynard, was found bound and gagged but alive in Hoffman’s basement.

Four days later, using information provided by Hoffman through his attorneys, authorities found the dismembered bodies of Maynard’s mother, Tina Herrmann; her brother, 11-year-old Kody Maynard; and Stephanie Sprang, a friend of Herrmann’s.

The county coroner said the three were stabbed multiple times and their dismembered remains put in garbage bags and lowered into a hollow tree. The remains of the family dog also were found in the tree.

Hoffman is the son of Robert and Patricia Hoffman. He grew up in the Warren area and attended Lakeview High School before moving with his mother to Knox County in 1997 when his parents divorced.