As a catfish promised her millions of dollars to give him pictures and recordings of the crime, a lady admitted to murdering her “best friend.”
According to the Alaska Department of Law, Cynthia Hoffman, 19, was shot in the back of the head in June 2019 after being the target of Denali Brehmer, 22.
The corpse was later discarded in the Eklutna River, 27 miles northeast of Anchorage, by Brehmer and her companions.
He killed a student with a samurai sword, abducted her, and shot another.
According to the Anchorage district attorney’s office, Brehmer, who was 18 at the time of the crime, started preparing for the murder after a guy she met online promised her money in return for information about her committing a homicide.
Brehmer recognized the guy as Tyler, but he was really a catfish who had fabricated a bogus identity as a Kansas billionaire. According to the authorities, he is really Indiana native Darin Schilmiller.
According to court records, Brehmer and Schilmiller plotted many crimes for cash, including the “rape and murder of someone in Alaska.”
Brehmer picked Hoffman as the victim and enlisted the assistance of pals Kayden McIntosh, Caleb Leyland, and two other young people, offering them “significant amounts of money.”
Hoffman was asked by Brehmer and two of the youths to go hiking at Thunderbird Falls, but instead they tied her wrists, feet, and mouth with duct tape, shot her, then dumped her corpse in the adjacent river.
According to investigators, Brehmer texted Schilmiller pictures and videos as the crime was being committed.
The gang burned some of Hoffman’s belongings after the execution and texted her parents to claim they had dumped her off in a park.
According to the police, Hoffman was not the victim of any sexual assaults.
Brehmer “accepted the facts included in the complaint first filed in the case,” according to a statement from the Alaska Department of Law.
Brehmer was detained in 2019 and charged with two counts of second-degree murder as well as two counts each of first-degree murder, first-degree conspiracy to commit murder, first-degree solicitation of murder, and tampering with tangible evidence.
During a conversation with a catfish acting as a Kansas billionaire, Denali Brehmer devised the murder scheme. (Photo: KTVA)
The other accusations were withdrawn when the defendant admitted guilt to first-degree murder. When she is sentenced in August, she may spend anywhere between 30 and 99 years in prison.
Online court documents show that Schilmiller was detained and charged with five murders while McIntosh and Leyland were charged with four murders.
The three are awaiting trial after entering not guilty pleas.
According to Hoffman’s family, she was singled out because of a learning issue that “placed her at a lower developmental age than her 19 years,” according to The Anchorage Daily News.
»Woman admits to killing best friend after catfish “paid £7m” for murder tape«