Original subtitles

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[archived voices speaking]

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[man] The thing inside of me, it's like the appetite.

It's like a wolf that's...

...feeling...

...the hunger.

[reporter] Two women and two children are

reported missing, as Knox County Sheriff's Office say

they found blood inside this home.

While it's yet to be determined whose blood was found,

investigators say Tina Herrmann has seemingly vanished,

along with her two children, 13-year-old Sarah, and 11-year-old Kody,

along with a family friend, Stephanie Sprang.

A big development in this missing persons case over

the weekend, though.

A 13-year-old girl who was also missing found alive yesterday.

[reporter] Police found 13-year-old Sarah Maynard yesterday bound

and gagged in the basement of this man, 30-year-old

Matthew Hoffman.

After getting a tip, SWAT team members moved in,

rescuing the teen.

A massive search underway of nearby woods and lake to find

Sarah's mother, Tina Herrmann, her brother, Kody,

and family friend, Stephanie Sprang.

They are still out there missing.

As far as Sarah, she was taken to a hospital where we're told

she's in good condition.

They enter Matthew Hoffman's home and they find something

that's incredibly unusual.

There are piles of leaves that go upwards of three feet high

throughout the house.

And most disturbingly and concerning, one of the four

missing victims has now been found, thankfully alive,

but she's been able to share quite a bit of information with

law enforcement.

She's talked about the fact that she's been repeatedly

sexually abused and traumatized by Matthew Hoffman.

No doubt law enforcement were preparing for a significantly

violent human being, an impulsive human being,

and also not being clear on how many victims, if any, are in

Matthew Hoffman's custody and still alive.

[Dr. Saraiya] I think his communication style

is his particular flavor of control.

As psychopaths often do, he's trying to control

the narrative and kind of tell his story.

According to reports, we know that he had recently

lost his job as a tree trimmer and that his girlfriend had

broken up with him, at least in part, because he had gotten

violent with her.

I think his pantomiming the broken heart is definitely

an indicator of being connected to this recent rejection.

It speaks to him not really taking responsibility for

the situation and more so emphasizing, this was something

that was done to me.

[Dr. Sahni] The detectives are frustrated.

They want to find these victims.

All that's doing is serving to inflate his sense of ego.

He holds all of the authority in this situation,

and that seems to actually be something that's further

empowering him.

It's keeping him going, and it's potentially serving as

stamina for him.

[Dr. Fox] He has such stern convictions to his willingness to wanting

to dominate over these detectives, to his willingness

to say, you know, I'm in control of this.

That that supersedes even his impulsivity.

[Dr. Sahni] Every hour that goes by, they don't know if these

victims need medical attention, if they're already dead.

They are completely at the mercy of Matthew Hoffman.

[sniffs]

[Dr. Saraiya] Any individual, sort of psychopathic or not,

it's sometimes in their best interest to leave open the idea

that, perhaps, there was an aspect of mental illness

at play here.

He's clearly aware what people are suspecting him of,

but it's like he's doing all he can to distance himself from

every aspect of it.

He feels brazen and confident enough to

challenge her credentials.

He's disrespectful, and that's where you see

his narcissism starting to come out.

Now it starts to lend a little more weight to the fact that

this selective mutism is all about power and control.

[siren wailing]

[Dr. Sahni] Maybe the plan to go to Colorado and ski was that

whatever lack of feeling or emptiness he was

experiencing, this is somebody who's showing an escalating

need for impulsive, thrill-seeking behavior.

He needs more and more to get that high.

So then he decides to turn his attention to

thrill-seeking, that's criminal behavior.

[sobbing]

[Dr. Sahni] Hoffman's showing us some displays of what we might

traditionally think of as emotions.

He sounds like he's crying, he's sniffling,

his voice is shaky.

But if we dig beneath that surface, what we can't ignore

is that this is Hoffman

manipulating every single one of them.

And he's getting the detective to collude with this idea that,

no, you're not a monster, you're misunderstood.

He's not showing any concern for that 13-year-old victim.

As soon as this FBI agent turns the conversation from being

about Matthew's emotions and pushes him a bit about

giving some information that could be useful in

the investigation, he needs to literally leave the room,

go back, think of his next batch of lies or how he's going

to handle it, and then essentially decide

from there, OK, what am I gonna do next?

[Dr. Fox] Psychopaths tend to view things in terms of transactions,

because they don't have any other type of

connections or emotions.

So the only currency they really understand is,

well, there's something in it for me.

And so you see that on display right here, where he's finally

willing to give up information, but only under the condition

that he gets something that he wants.

The case is closed after a man admitted he murdered three

people in Knox County.

The bodies of Tina Herrmann, her son Kody Maynard,

and neighbor Stephanie Sprang were found inside

a hollowed-out tree.

This morning, Matthew Hoffman admitted to killing them

and attacking a 13-year-old girl.

I did not plan for any of this to happen,

I did not want to kill anyone,

and I just tried to knock the first woman out so that

I'd be able to escape.

This was not working, and a second woman showed up,

and things quickly spiraled out of control.

It kept escalating, and I was panicking.

I only chose to process the bodies to make

their disposal easier.

I instantly stabbed the boy. At best a couple times.

I saw the girl was not on the phone,

and I could not bring myself to kill.

I bound her hands, pillowcase over her head,

and led her into the garage.

[Dr. Sahni] This letter that is wrought with details,

but also minimizations, and a lack of really willingness

takes deep responsibility.

Matthew Hoffman has complete detachment from the impact of

that reality, the significance of his crimes,

and you don't hear any deep remorse, any real remorse.

You hear nothing but, "I did what I had to do because

the circumstances kept changing."

I tried to comfort her, and told her everything would be fine.

I made her a bed out of leaves, covered it with blankets,

and placed her onto the bed.

She liked the bed, and it was extremely comfy.

I would not have hurt her.

I could not hurt her.

[Dr. Fox] What happened to Sarah, I don't even think he views as being

that bad, because he thinks he treated her very well.

I think he even thinks that she saw some

great things in him.

That's a lot of times what narcissists believe.

Well, they think highly of themselves, so why would

somebody else not?

So I think that he really bifurcated this crime into

two elements.

And in one way, he thinks he did really nothing

wrong to Sarah.

And for what he did to her family, well, so be it.

[reporter] 30-year old Matthew Hoffman entered the courtroom shackled

and shoeless, facing a packed room of

still-mourning family members --

and the 13-year-old victim he let live.

The judge listened, and her relatives weeped as

the prosecutor read a letter the young girl wrote

to her attacker.

[Prosecutor] All I was thinking about is if my family was OK

and if I was going to be able to live.

Especially when he was putting

the ropes on me, I said, "Ow, that hurts."

He said, "I don't care if your arms and legs turn purple."

I want you to know that you will never be forgiven by me.

And I'm not scared of you, Matthew.

I'm going to stand up for myself and live my life.

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[killer speaking]