Darin Schilmiller was sentenced to 99 years for "catfishing" a group of teens to murder their friend, a killing he solicited "for the mere thrill of it” a judge said Thursday.
Cynthia Hoffman was 19 when she was lured to her death in 2019 by a group of teens she believed were her friends.
Four torturous years later, the mastermind of her murder was sentenced Thursday to 99 years in prison.
Darin Schilmiller, now 25, cried in an Alaska courtroom before Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson announced his fate.
“This was intentional, premeditated murder for hire,” Peterson said. “You plotted with other co-defendants to kill somebody you never met, for no reason other than the sheer thrill of controlling others and seeing it be done.”
Schilmiller will not be eligible for parole consideration until he turns 70, according to his sentencing terms.
“One down," the victim's father, Timothy Hoffman, told reporters Thursday outside court, referring to the remaining suspects charged in connection with his daughter's killing.
During the sentencing hearing he described Cynthia as his "right-hand man" who helped with his contracting business, and said she had wanted to make friends more than anything in the world.
Schilmiller, an Indiana man, was accused of soliciting murder and rape in an online "catfishing" scam in which he posed as a man from Kansas, using a fake photo of young, handsome man and offering millions for videos of murder, rape and child pornography, authorities said.
In Alaska, several teens took the bait, and ultimately lured Hoffman, a vulnerable girl who was developmentally disabled, on a nature hike, police said. Instead, she was bound with duct tape, shot in the back of the head on an isolated trail and dumped in the Eklutna River.
Schilmiller had pleaded guilty last year to one first-degree count of solicitation to commit murder. His scheme included claiming he had recently won the lottery, and would pay $9 million for video showing a real-life murder, authorities said.
Several teenage accomplices were charged in connection with Hoffman's murder. Denali Brehmer, now 23, pleaded guilty in February 2023 to first-degree murder. She had coordinated the killing, authorities said.
“She was the main perpetrator, the one that was able to come up with the plan and manipulate everybody else into following it,” Anchorage Police Det. Leonard Torres testified this week during Schilmiller's sentencing hearing.
The victim, who was ecstatic after meeting Brehmer in high school, considered the girl her best friend.
"She came home and bragged, ‘Dad, I finally have a friend,'" Cynthia's sobbing father testified this week.
Brehmer's sentencing hearing is scheduled for Feb. 12.
Caleb Leyland, now 24, pleaded guilty in November to one count of second-degree murder. He had loaned his truck to Brehmer and another alleged accomplice for the killing, in exchange for a promise of $500,000, prosecutors said. Leyland's sentencing hearing is scheduled for June 10.
Kayden McIntosh has been charged with murder and tampering with evidence. He has pleaded not guilty to both charges and is being held without bail while awaiting trial, authorities said. Police allege McIntosh, who was 16 at the time, pulled the trigger on a 9mm handgun used to kill Hoffman.
Two other teens have been charged in juvenile court in connection with the killing, authorities said. Those cases are not open to the public.
Related Stories
