Free The Girl in the Leaves by Robert Scott, Sarah Maynard, Larry Maynard

handed over his license.
     Deputy Phillips checked it and noted that the driver was Matthew Hoffman who lived
     on the 3000 block of Apple Valley Drive, and that his driver’s license had just been
     renewed on October 26. Phillips asked Hoffman if the Apple Valley Drive address was
     close to King Beach Drive, and Hoffman said that his mother lived there, but added
     that he now lived at 49 Columbus Road in Mount Vernon. Asked once again what he was
     doing there, Hoffman said that he was waiting for his girlfriend, Sarah.
    The name Sarah didn’t mean anything to Deputy Phillips at that point, and he told
     the young man the parking lot was closed after dark. Hoffman said okay and left.
    * * *
    The incident with Deputy Phillips had effectively thwarted Hoffman’s plan to retrieve
     the gas cans from the pickup truck. Hoffman felt as if he’d dodged a bullet at the
     parking lot, though, at least law enforcement officers weren’t looking for him—yet.
     But time was ticking away and he still had to burn down the house and all the incriminating
     evidence inside.
    Since Hoffman didn’t want to drive his Yaris directly to the house on King Beach Drive,
     he returned home to think over what his next move would be. Not only was there a problem
     with his entering that house, but he’d also left several items in the woods across
     the street from the house. What if officers decided to look in the woods? He had to
     retrieve those things, or they could lead directly back to him. Matthew Hoffman had
     a lot more work to do before all of this was over.

ELEVEN
    A Footprint in Blood and Oil
    Because Tina’s pickup truck had been found so close to Kenyon College in the town
     of Gambier, the school was put into a state of lockdown. At 10:15 PM November 11, e-mails and phone calls were sent out to students and faculty. All of
     the messages warned people to stay in place, which meant no wandering around the campus
     grounds. Students not already in their dormitories were escorted there by campus security
     officers. Students residing at the Brown Family Environmental Center, near where Tina’s
     pickup had been found, were transported to Weaver Cottage on the Kenyon campus.
    Additional campus security officers were brought in to help secure the campus, and
     the sixteen hundred students cooperated during the lockdown. Mark Ellis, communications
     director for Kenyon College, later said, “We were contacted by the Knox County Sheriff’s
     Office, who [informed us] of a crime at Apple Valley and the possibility that a dangerous
     person might be on campus.” This lockdown was taken seriously by students and faculty.
    Back at the Kokosing Gap Trail parking lot, investigators were busy taking multiple
     photos of Tina Herrmann’s pickup truck and scouring the surrounding area for evidence.
     Once they finished the onsite investigation, they loaded the pickup onto a car carrier
     and took it to a police impound yard. There it would be searched in a more thorough
     manner under very controlled conditions. Of vital interest to the investigators was
     whether any blood could be found in the pickup, as well as any fingerprints that did
     not match those of Tina, Sarah, Kody or Stephanie. Meanwhile, Hoffman moved Sarah
     down into his dark basement and onto a bed of leaves that he had constructed for her,
     and removed her blindfold. She recalled later, “I was really afraid when I was first
     taken there. It was so dark, you couldn’t see anything. There were no windows, so
     you couldn’t tell if it was day or night.
    “He would come down there sometimes and just stand there and stare at me. He didn’t
     say a word, just stared. And then he would go back upstairs. I don’t know which was
     worse—him not saying anything or him saying something. I couldn’t figure out what
     he wanted when he didn’t say anything. It was hard to tell what he was thinking that
     way. Mostly I just laid alone in the dark. And even though