Thaindian News

Jan 7 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Thirteen year old Sarah Maynard is bravely proving herself not to be a victim, but a survivor as she faced the man who had kidnapped her, bound, gagged, and raped her, keeping her for four days, while he killed and dismembered her mother, brother, and mother’s friend, and stuffed their bodies into a tree in Ohio. Sarah was only saved when a SWAT team found her tied up and gagged in the basement of Matthew Hoffman’s home.

Hoffman had plead guilty to the charges, a move which some reports claim was part of a deal with the prosecution which prevented him from facing the death penalty. Others reports say that family of the murder victims asked that he not be given the death sentence, but rather life in prison.

In what the defense is calling “a robbery and break in which went horribly horribly wrong”, Hoffman went into the home of Sarah’s mother, Tina Herrmann, who was thirty two years old. Before his crimes were completed, Matthew had killed Sarah’s mom, her eleven year old brother, Kody Maynard, and her mom’s friend, forty one year old Stephanie Sprang.

In a statement read by the prosecution, which was written by the brave survivor of this horror, thirteen year old Sarah told Hoffman, “This has changed my whole life and my family’s life, too,” and went on to say, “This is so sickening, Matthew, to know you even had the guts to do this to a family.” But her strength was apparent as the little girl faced her monster… “I’m not scared of you, Matthew. I’m going to stand up for myself and live my life.”