Kidnap suspect with ties to Valley called peculiar

Associated Press

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio

Neighbors and acquaintances of Matthew Hoffman — who has ties to the Mahoning Valley — never knew what to make of him. He was controlling, peculiar and smart in a scary way, they said.

The 30-year-old, who spent six years in a Colorado prison before returning to Ohio, is charged with kidnapping a 13-year-old girl who was found bound and gagged in his basement.

The girl’s mother, brother and a family friend remain missing and are feared dead.

Hoffman grew up in Northeast Ohio and spent his first two years of high school in the Cortland area before moving to the central part of the state, where he attended a career center.

After graduation in 1999, he moved to Colorado and worked as a plumber in Steamboat Springs.

Hoffman has been in jail since Sunday, when authorities rescued Sarah Maynard from the basement of a home he bought a year ago. They believe she had been held there since last Wednesday.

He did not speak and yawned at one point Tuesday during a court hearing where he appeared by a video link from the county jail. A judge set his bond at $1 million.

His public defender, Bruce Malek, said Hoffman worked sometimes as a tree trimmer. The county sheriff said Hoffman was under suicide watch.

Search teams in the air and on the ground continued looking through vacant buildings, wooded areas and along roads for Maynard’s mother, 32-year-old Tina Herrmann; Herr-mann’s 10-year-old son, Kody Maynard; and her 41-year-old friend, Stephanie Sprang.

They haven’t been seen since last Wednesday. Knox County Sheriff David Bar-ber said Tuesday that though there’s a chance they are still alive, the evidence and the amount of time that has passed mean “the likelihood is, of course, that they are not alive.”

A deputy searching Herr-mann’s home last week found an “unusual” amount of blood inside. Barber said Tuesday that items found in the home, including a tarp and trash bags, are significant to the investigation.

Barber said he has been told by Sarah Maynard’s father that the girl is doing well, under the circumstances.

Authorities in Ohio have said very little about Hoffman’s background, but he has had several legal scrapes.

His former girlfriend claimed he choked her, pushed her against a wall and used his forearm to pin her neck during an argument at his house Oct. 24, according to a police report obtained by The Associated Press.

The woman told investigators she thought he was going to kill her, she but did not want to press charges.

In 2000, when Hoffman was living in the Colorado ski resort town of Steam- boat Springs, he was accused of stealing a Chevrolet Suburban and other items from a home and returning the next day with 10 gallons of gasoline to set it on fire as a cover-up, the Steamboat Pilot & Today r eported.

Two townhouses were destroyed, and eight were damaged.

He was sentenced to eight years in prison.

Hoffman returned to Ohio after he was released from prison in 2007. He often behaved strangely, his Ohio neighbors said.

He would sit in a tree or atop his roof and watch them, they said.

He collected leaves at a park across the street from his home and would stuff them into trash bags, hanging the bags on the inside walls for insulation.