December 12, 2024 • 49 mins
The body of Melody Hoffman is discovered on a cold February morning. The person who finds her body calls 911 and describes her beautiful skin, she has all kinds of marks on her back, "like slashes" and her hands are curled in a way they shouldn't have been. She has been left in the freezing cold with nothing on but her underwear. Joseph Scott Morgan will explain how it is possible that the 20-year-p; has slashes across her back and has lost a lot of blood, but that isn't what killed her. Dave Mack digs into the different relationships that led to the murder of a 20-year-old woman who just wanted a boyfriend to care about her.
Transcript Highlights
00:01.16 Introduction
04:29.89 Melody Hoffman is missing
09:45.20 Melody might have been pregnant
14:30.41 Buy killing supplies
19:19.24 Picture on phone of Melody beaten, crying, tape over mouth
25:49.51 Murder happened February 18th, very cold
30:46.08 Does weather impact dead body
35:26.44 How much abuse had boyfriend put her through
39:39.14 Melody was strangled to death
47:58.86 Why was body left where it would be found
Conclusion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Quody Dins, but Joseph's gotten more. The first office that
I ever had was actually adjacent to a levee that
overlooked the Mississippi River. And now if you've never seen
the Mississippi River, it's certainly something to behold. It's massive,
(00:21):
and it doesn't look like it's moving until, of course,
you get immediately adjacent to it. Then you can see
the flow. Some days, it's very powerful. And you know
what's really weird. In South Louisiana, when the springtime melt
would occur way back up river, back in Minnesota and Iowa,
(00:43):
you would see huge blocks of ice that would flow
all the way down to the city of New Orleans.
Now that's not something you would expect to see, but
I have actually seen it. They say that many rivers,
many creeks, flow into the Mississippi River, and today on
(01:06):
this episode, we're going to talk about a location named
after one such creek. That creek, of course, and of
course it's now relation is Morgan Creek, and Morgan Creek
flows into the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and
of course Cedar River flows into the Mississippi River. But
(01:33):
back to Morgan Creek, that tiny little tributary. There is
actually a park in Cedar Rapids named after that little creek,
and within the boundaries of that park are found the
remains of a young woman who, according to reports, had
to mind though she was twenty of about a fourteen
(01:55):
year old, and she was brutalized beyond anything that most
of us can imagine or care to comprehend. I'm Josephcott Morgan,
and this is Bodybags, Dave. I have memories of the
(02:18):
first time I ever saw the Mississippi River, and it
was not in New Orleans, actually it was I was
with my mother, and my mother had a nineteen sixty
seven Candy Apple red three speed Mustang fastback. I loved
(02:40):
that car, and she had it for a number of years.
And I remember, you know, back then when we were little,
you know, you run in the front seat, and of
course you had no seat belt, and there was a
lot of sit down that you would hear coming. And
it was just me and my mom and you know,
and I rode around that car with her, and I
remember crossing the Mississippi River bridge probably when I was
(03:05):
about three or four, I guess in Vicksburg. Vicksburg Mississippi,
where you're going from the Louisiana side to the Mississippi side,
And I remember looking down you could look over the
edge of that old bridge and it was steel back then,
(03:26):
and you could see how vast that river is, and
that bridge is so high you look down on it,
and particularly, you know when your little things look so
massive anyway, but even by today's standards, it would look huge.
And you think about now, at this age, I think
about the flow of that river and the stories that
are told all along the banks of it, going all
(03:48):
the way up to the headwaters in Minnesota, and it
tells a story in and of itself, and it has
for years and years, and people have been entranced by it,
it seems to me, and of course I'm kind of partial.
The stories all seem to come to rest down in
the delta. But for our case today, this starts all
(04:09):
the way back up upriver, you know, over a thousand
miles away up in Iowa, Dave. And what a.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Tragic case, you know, McKinley, Louisma and Melody Hoffman were
involved in an intimate relationship. Most of our stories, not most,
A lot of our stories start like that. And I
wonder sometimes, how can people that have spend enough time
together to enjoy one another's company, to be involved in
(04:41):
a relationship for an extended period of time, how it
can end so badly that you and I end up
talking about one of the people involved in it. Because
that's what we're doing again. McKinley Louisma, while he was
in a special relationship with Melody Hoffman, was also in
a relationship with another one. So there you go, the
(05:02):
triangle once again complete.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, the relationship don't sound nothing special time till the truth.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, it's kind of a sad reality of what we
end up with. But Melody Hoffman goes missing. Yeah, that's
the first part of the story, you know, that's what
gets out in the news. We have a missing woman.
Everybody be on the lookout, and then you find out, well,
her boyfriend has another girlfriend, and that one thing leads
(05:29):
to another, and we discovered that McKinley Luisma has told
investigators that he and Dakota Van Patten put Melody Hoffman
in the trunk of a car at Morgan Creek Park
in Northwest Cedar Rapids and then dumped her body at
(05:52):
a man of Lily Lake about sixteen miles away before
picking up Melody her significant other McKinley Luisma, And it
could have been Patten. They went to Walmart picked up
you know, what do you do when you're going to
a creek area, a place with water and you know,
(06:14):
beachy areas. You pick up things to sit on the
grass and maybe cook out. Right, Yeah, no, not these guys,
McKinley Luisma, And it could have been Patton go to
Walmart and pick up two machetes and gloves. Two machetes
and gloves, because that's what you take on a romantic
picnic by the pond, right.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, uh yeah, what a horror show too. And
just to back up just a little bit here, I
gotta I gotta speak to to Melody Hoffman for one second.
Melody Hoffman was twenty years old, and Dave, you know
(06:59):
she she has been described as being slow mentally and
emotionally underdeveloped, that she's been described as being having kind
of the emotional development of a fourteen year old. And
I think the really sad thing about this is that
(07:20):
she was lonely and had always wanted a boyfriend and
never had had had one. And if you've I think
that it's a longing you know that sets in with somebody.
You want to be loved, You want to be you
want to be made to, You want to feel special,
you know, and if you're absent that in your life,
(07:45):
that's a dangerous thing, particularly in the world that we
live in today, because it makes so it's so easy
to be taken advantage of.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You mentioned, she's fourteen mentally emotionally a young keeen and
if you remember that time period, it's this really cross
between a little girl and a young woman and it's
a period of time where both those types of attributes coexist.
(08:14):
But not for her. She was twenty, but she was
at a younger age emotionally and mentally. So she's a
fourteen year old where she can still see, you know,
unicorns and pink clouds and stuff like that. And wasn't
past that she was being taken advantage of by her
boyfriend slash ex boyfriend. However, you want to look at
(08:36):
McKinley Luisma, he was taking advantage of her because she
was a little bit underdeveloped that way, that's how they
could lure her into the situation of getting her separated
and out by herself without fear There's another part of
all this show that came up that I was going
(08:56):
to ask you about. Was she pregnant.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
There's been some indication that she had either according to
the forensic pathologist, she had either been recently pregnant or
was currently pregnant. But you know, the examination of her system,
of her body at the time did not reveal a
(09:26):
fetus at this point in time. You know, that doesn't
mean that she wasn't pregnant, but there was a hormone
that was present in her system hCG. And that's like
when a blood test is done for pregnancy. You're looking
for ACG HG, and so it's there. But given circumstances,
the pathologists could not necessarily totally rule it out, or
(09:51):
that maybe she had been pregnant and lost a child
that can still and so you're a woman's system even
in a post natal state. If she's, say, for instance,
had a miscarriage at some point, tom, that hormone would
(10:15):
still be present there and the body has not purged
itself completely.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Wow, there's so much to unwrap in this story, but
ultimately it's a relationship that went bad, and rather than
breaking up and moving on, I guess That's something that
seems to be happening in so many different stories, like, really,
this was your best decision. Look, nobody likes to be
in a situation where they have to break up with
(10:41):
somebody that they no longer have the feelings for. And
I get that, okay, but I'm just thinking, how many
movies have we watched and it never turns out good?
Isn't there a little indicator here that just maybe we
got to think of something other than murder somebody you
(11:02):
care about, somebody that you've had an intimate relationship with
that you're done with. Granted it might be cold and
all that, but look, you really think your best decision
is to kill this individual?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah? That that's a very uh, I don't know, it's
a it's a very uh horrific but yet simplistic way
of looking at life. Uh. What What's what's so amazing
to me is the fact that you can uh involve
yourself in such at such an intimate level with someone.
(11:37):
I mean, let's face it, where you know you're you're
involved in a physical sexual relationship with someone, uh, and
you go back to them tom and Tom again to
engage in this behavior and maybe you're telling them that
you do in fact care for them, but yet you
can dispose of them as if they're garbage. Uh. And
(11:59):
those two things don't seem to correlate with one another,
at least in my mind. And you know, you talk
about how, how is this the best decision that you
could have come up with at this moment in time. Well,
of course, uh, for this individual. Uh, it would seem
that this individual felt as though, uh, that it was
(12:23):
best for him to do this. And not just him,
but he's he's also you know, involved an acquaintance of
his in in the circumstances. So what you have here
is that somebody that is has quit somebody because they
have another girlfriend, uh that they have that that individual, Uh,
(12:48):
they've created a life with uh, and they've grown tired
of melody. And so you you go and you confide
in your friend. Look, you know, I I'm over this,
I'm tired of her. I want to get rid of her.
And you drag them into the circumstances as well, and
to dispose of a life, to end a life and
(13:10):
then try to dispose of her mortal remains in such
a horrific way is something that I don't I don't
know that we could really plumb the depths of effectively here,
but it really leaves you scratching her head. Why would
you want to destroy this poor this poor girl like
this and completely demolish her family in the wake of
(13:34):
what you've done, It's almost as if it's almost as
if you could care less about her as a person.
And of course, what it all comes down to is
you care more about your immediate satisfaction than you ever
could about a life that is yet to be completely lived. Dave,
(14:08):
I was reflecting on a case that you and I
have talked a lot about that you probably have learned
more about, and I didn't really want to know that
much about, but I've subjected subjected you to it, and
you know, God bless you, my friend. But that's the
piked In piked In massacre, and the Piked and Masker
actually has uh has one little bit in common with
(14:31):
the case of Melody Hoffmann, and that involves a trip
to Walmart. Uh. You know, you remember in the Pike
and Masker case where uh uh uh, the the mama
goes to Walmart in order to purchased unused shoes so
that her, her husband, and her two boys can commit
(14:54):
commit to these crimes with quote unquote virgin souls. Uh
so as O l e on their feet, and you know,
isn't it interesting?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You know?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I think in a recent episode I mentioned to you
about seeing bags along the side of the road, and
you know, you see things alongside the road and you think,
I wonder what's in that bag. Have you ever gone
to Walmart, Dave and walked past people in store and
you think, I wonder what they're buying in there? Or
what is what is this person? What is this person about?
(15:27):
What exactly are they doing? Because you know, you see
all shapes and sizes, as you well know. I had
a buddy of mine one time said the most entertaining
place in the world would be Walmart. If you had
a lawn chair in a case of beer laid on
a Friday night and you just sat there and watched
it would be better than cable television. You never know
(15:49):
what's going to happen, you know, with people coming and going.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And I just think you looked at yourself in the
mirror before you left the house and thought that was okay.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Really yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Based on that decision, I know whatever's in the bag
is not something I want to see.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, I know, but you know what, what what can
I say? I'm not a big of I'm not a
big where we can drop the public.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
About piked In, you know, and about that was really
shocking to me was the trip for Walmart to buy
the shoes. It was something I never would have thought of.
And you guys go check out the episode. Joe's done
a lot of a lot of shows about that piked
In massacre. We did one here and that was something
I never would have thought of. The shoes.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh, you know, we just did
an episode involved in uh well I think, yeah, I
know what it was. It was because Billy Wagner is
about to go to try right, Yeah, so we had
to revisit that again. But you know the one thing
and what got what got Mama Wagner caught in that case, Dave,
we'll CECTV, which we know that Walmart is fully equipped with.
(16:57):
And let me give you some advice. Next time you
go to Walmart, look at the ceiling. Look at the ceiling.
You'll see the little pods that are up there. Yeah,
and this thing is covered from front to back. And
let me tell you something else. Walmart does not play
(17:18):
when it comes to shoplifting either. If they catch you shoplifting,
they will charge you or they will have you charge
and they don't drop the charges either. Wow, they do
not negotiate over that. So at least they did in
the past. I can't speak you know, in recent history,
and we won't go down that road however.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
But interesting, so, you know, at least in the Piking
case show, when they went to Walmart to get supplies,
they were buying something to actually draw attention away from
them as possible suspects. But here we have we have
these two guys going there buying machetes.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, and I think that they also bought paracord as
where as well, if you don't know what paara cord is,
it's a braided synthetic rope that you can use it
for any number of things. In the military, you know,
you use it to lash things together, you can use
it to depend upon the type, you can use it
for repelling all these sorts of things and securing things.
(18:19):
And so the pair of cord plays into this case.
But also macheties certainly play into this case as well.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Dave, Yeah, there's you know, the nine one one call
to report the body of Melody Hoffman is shocking. And
when you couple that call with the autopsy report Joe,
which we're going to get into both of these, because
(18:49):
she's described the description of Melody Hoffman. She has such beautiful,
pure white skin. That was part of the nine to
one one call when a woman calls it there's a
dead body here. I see a dead body, and the operator,
you know, well, do you think the person is breathing? No,
this is a dead body, but she has the most
(19:09):
beautiful skin. And then conversely, I thought of a picture
that was found on McKinley Luisma's phone. On his cell
phone is a picture of twenty year old Melody Hoffman
shows her face with duct tape over her mouth, a
(19:32):
bloody nose. She'd apparently been crying, and he took a
photo of her like that and kept it on his
phone so he could revisit the look.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Joe, Yeah, I'm thinking about this now, you know, in
light of the appearance of the photograph, and to me, Dave,
this is indicative of someone that's not just trying to
(20:02):
kill somebody and get them out of their life. This,
this is a whole other level of horror when you
think about this, why is it that you would want
to document this uh that that look of fear. There's
been a number of these cases over the years that
(20:23):
involve uh what I refer to is as uh uh
as sexual sadism. And you you have individuals out there
that uh that love to uh photograph individuals. Uh and
(20:44):
in these these horrible sets of circumstances. UH. One guy
comes to mind in particular for me out of Kansas
City from many years ago, named Robert Burdella, who would
photograph his his victim that he had kidnapped and uh.
And I've seen these photographs over the years, certainly, and
(21:06):
before the evolution of the the internet, you know, I
saw them conferences people that were talking about these cases.
And he operated essentially from eighty four till about eighty seven,
I think, and he would he would abduct and torture individuals.
And there's there's kind of a what's it, Bethany Marshall
(21:26):
cause of feticization, I think, I don't know if I'm
pronouncing that correctly, But they go back and they revisit,
you know, things like this. It's one thing if you're
going if you're going with with your friend to you
know that you've entered into an agreement with them to
kill somebody and dispose of their mortal remains. But why
(21:47):
under heaven would you do this to this poor girl?
And remember she has the mind of a fourteen year
old child, and all she ever wanted was a boy
friend and to have your buddy stand by, you know,
as this is going on as well, Why why, why
is it that you would want to revisit this on
(22:10):
any level? This really goes to a deep, very dark
dark place, Dave.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
When I saw the picture, you know, was on his phone,
I thought, I wonder if it was taken that day
or if it was from an earlier beating. You know,
anything's possible. But I know that when police recalled about
the dead body, the deputy who showed up and wrote
(22:39):
the initial report gives a cursory view of what he finds,
and she appears to have suffered extensive injuries. He notes
that now I guess you need to I mean, when
you see a body, I guess sometimes the person could
look like they're dead, but maybe they've only got a
bullet hole somewhere that you can't really see, or maybe
(23:00):
they've had a heart attack and falling over. I mean,
there are options to this that don't have to say
the person looks like they have extensive injuries. So she
was laying face down on the ground. Would that yell
somebody something if you're invesciating.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, it could. And she's found essentially on the ground
with and one of the interesting things that they talked
about that kind of stands out is that her hands
were curled in a way that they shouldn't have been.
And that came in from the reporter. The lady that well,
I say, reporter, what I meant is the finder, And
(23:38):
we've talked about the role of the finder, and you know,
she talked about the hands being in a curled in
a way that they shouldn't have been. And I'm really
wondering if this wasn't a reaction to perhaps the fact
that she was strangled and that she's going through a
(24:00):
seizure like event and her hands remained in this position,
you know, in the wake of this. But here's something else,
you know, when the finder observed observed her, you know,
she did talk about, you know, this this beautiful, pale,
perfect skin, and she defined her actually bears a witness
(24:22):
to this on the stand, and she talked about her
glorious curls. And when you see Melody, she's got this
long brown hair and it's very very curly, you know,
it's kind of like ringlets that that kind of pour
down her back. And the only thing she's wearing are
her underwear. Again, when you find women in particular that
(24:43):
are clothed only in a pair of underwear, this goes
to a level of I think at least a level
of humiliation when you do this and you've absented them
of all other coverings that they might have on their person.
(25:04):
And Dave, let's reflect back to where this was. This
was in Iowa, and I don't know if you've ever
been to Iowa in the wintertime, and this happened February,
February eighteenth, Iowa. Iowa is cold. I mean it is
bone chilling cold. Beautiful but cold. And you know, so
(25:27):
again you've got this this young woman who is naked
save her underwear. She's been brutalized and she's without any
source of comfort. You know, I use Maslow's hierarchy a lot,
you know, when I'm thinking about the way people are
(25:48):
treated at scenes in particular, you know that our basic
needs that we have of clothing and comfort and you know,
shelter and those sorts of things. And when you can
deprive people of things that like a real base level
like this, I think that it goes to the mentality
of the individual that's doing a great harm. It begs
the question, doesn't it you know, what became of the
(26:12):
rest of her clothing? Where were they and for how
long did Because the term torture keeps coming up in
this case, Dave, And if you're going to torture someone,
that means that you have to have an isolated location
and you have to have time, Dave, and.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Very quickly her hands in an unnatural way. You mentioned
a seizure. What kind of injuries would you suffer that
could bring about a seizure that would cause that to happen.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Well, I think that there's two things. Famously, where just
a couple of weeks ago, you know, we're coming on
the heels of an injury that Trevor Lawrence is aimed
where he sustained his head injury, and you can see
his arms go stiff in this event, and it's like
(27:11):
a seizure response that individuals have where you'll see their
hands will kind of contract, they'll grasp their thumbs. I've
seen this actually in people that have videotaped themselves when
they hang themselves, and you can have this event that
will occur with oxygen deprivation as well as head injuries
(27:32):
as well. I don't know that that's necessarily what happened here,
but I just find it interesting in passing that the observer,
the finder in this case, made a lot of this
on the stand in this case where she talked about
that her hands, Melody's hands, at least, we're in an
unnatural position, and so that gives you the idea that
(27:55):
they're probably curled in a backwards manner. Now that can
also come about. I think perhaps maybe she had been
restrained and the restraints were cut at some point in time,
Maybe that cord was taken away. I don't really know,
but and you know, riger has set in at that
point time. But you know, Melody was found within a
(28:17):
very short period of time of when she was last
seen alive. So she's not you know, she's she might
still and I would think there would still be some
remnant of post war changes going on her body that
would be appreciable at that moment in time.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Would cold weather prevent the onset of the changes that
take place in death you mentioned Roger Mortis. I mean,
is it delayed because of the how cold it is?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It can be, Yeah, it can be. But I think
that in a case like this, where you're outdoors like
this and she is, I think that at best it's
going to be negligible, probably in this case. And also
keep in mind that somebody that's engaged in this kind
(29:03):
of vigorous physical activity, because I don't know if there's
anything more vigorous in the world than someone being tortured.
You've got the metabolic activity that is increased, and of
course you know this, this would have still to a
certain degree, have remained if she died in the wake
(29:24):
of this torture. I don't think that it would have
slowed it to the manner where it would not have
been appreciable. I think that if she had been laying
in stasis in bed, perhaps like an elderly person in
the room had been cooler, perhaps that you know, the
(29:46):
temperature would probably retard, retarded compared to say summertime where
things are warmer, you know. But no, I don't think
to any great degree. But I do know this that
when the observers, in this case, the Finder and certainly
that police officer that first arrived at the scene, not
(30:09):
only did they see not only did they see that
as she described the finder the most quote beautiful, pale,
perfect skin and glorious curls, she also saw something else.
She saw what appeared to be all kinds of marks
(30:33):
on her back, like slashes. This is what happened to
Melodiy Hoffmann. What is it that? What is it that
(30:56):
she had done to someone that would have driven them
to the point where they would want to get a
sharp instrument, multiple sharp instruments, and torture her, because this
is what this is, by slashing her across her body
(31:18):
and then using a piece of what's referred to as
paracord to strangle her with. I don't know that we
would necessarily have the answer to that, but I have
my suspicions, Dave, when you think about maybe the individual
that wanted just merely to be shed of this woman's life, you.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Know, looking at pictures of her and thinking about twenty
year old life in front of them, the whole nine,
and then looking at what this person who she had
been in a relationship with and I'm having trouble matching
it up. You know, people being so young and going
to this degree, not that age should have a lot
(32:03):
to do with doing something so destructive to another human being.
I don't know why. It just strikes me as this
one just seems like there's something missing, like we're not
getting the whole story. We've got the basics. We know
that Melody Hoffman was murdered. We know that she was
a simple girl with a little bit of a mental
(32:23):
or emotional maturity at about the age of fourteen. But
when you look at the investigation, Joe, you know, I
mentioned the picture earlier of where it looked like she
had where Melody had duct tape over her mouth and
she had been crying, noses bloody, some things like that,
(32:44):
And it was a photo that was on McKinley Louisma's phone. Well,
when they did some research, they found out that they
believe she died around midnight on February seventeenth. At four
five am February eighteenth, he accessed that phone, that photo
(33:06):
on his phone at four So if she died around midnight,
four hours later, he's looking at that photo of her. Now,
I know that there's plenty of evidence in the data
has evidence in it. You know that our phone, the
pictures rather have data that tells them when the picture
was taken and everything else. Because I think I'd mentioned
(33:27):
did he do this tour before? Had he tortured her
like this before? Joe? And then I don't know. I'm
just totally bum fuzzled that the guy took a picture
of her while she's alive and crying and keeps it
on his phone, and then based on this timetable, he's
looking at it four hours after he's killed.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
He feels real comfortable with this because he's involving friends
in it.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Dave, Yeah, that's you know, the code of empacth.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, this is the other thing. There's also a third
individual that he had turned I think a Logan Kempton,
that he he had turned over all of these items.
This is Luisma had turned these items over that had
been purchased to get rid of them. So this individual
is an accessory in this homicide as well. And the
(34:15):
reason I'm saying this is it's ghastly that they would
be involved in it, but it's the idea that this
perpetrator felt so comfortable doing this. And I think this
goes to a greater point. How was this the ultimate
escalation and ongoing abuse? I think? And was there any
(34:38):
evidence found on her remains that she had been subject
to abuse? You know, she lived with her mother, Melody
did she lived with her mother? Her mother had been
trying to get in contact with her, had texted her
to try, you know, to get back home, because she
had cameras at the house that she witnessed her leaving
the house, and she had pined her to tell her
(35:00):
to come back home, come back home, and of course
she didn't. She never comes back home. And you know
the fact that this individual that did this to her.
I wonder how much awareness the mother has had, you know,
over what perhaps Melody had been subjected to at the
(35:21):
hands of this of this perpetrator, McKinley Louisma. How much
other abuse had he subjected Melody to over a period
of time. Was there a lot of verbal abuse? Had
he been smacking her around at all? Was there evidence
of healed injuries for instance? You know that that you
could put a time frame on moving forward, and I
(35:43):
don't know that that was necessarily discovered. But one of
the things that's that's quite interesting that they were able to,
you know, kind of track I think with digital evidence
here is his movements. Are their movements relative to to
what happened to her? Because you talked about they were
(36:06):
at the park, I think at the Morgan Creek Park
from about twelve nine to about roughly twelve twenty five
on the eighteenth, which is when they believe she was killed.
And they believe she was killed there at Morgan Creek Park.
Now she's then placed into a vehicle, his vehicle, they believe,
(36:31):
and driven out to this Lily Pond Park. What's fascinating
to me is that when her body was deposited at
Lily Pond Park, she was not deposited in the pond itself.
She was deposited deposited adjacent to the pond. Now, I
(36:52):
don't know what status of the pond was. I don't
know exactly how far away she was, but we do
know that she was essentially approximating the shore. Was their
eyes on the pond because we're talking about February, you know,
So is it possible that they just could not have
gotten her sufficiently out in the water. Maybe they're afraid
of water. I don't know. Maybe they can't swim. I
have no idea to be and that this was the
(37:13):
most expeditious thing that they could do. But Dave, that
chilling part that you mentioned where he's obviously reflecting back
on this imagery, you know that he has is he
fantasizing at this point in time, because dude, this is
in the wake. This is just in the wake of
(37:34):
what has happened to this young woman.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
That's why I was overly curious. Yeah, I mean, normally
something like that just I kind of get it and
just file it, right, But this one caught me different
because I'm going, wait a minute, either he tortured her
before and kept this photo to remind him of what
he had done previously, or this is a picture of
her right before he killed her. Or yeah, and you
(38:01):
mentioned the digital evidence, Joe, and I thought, oct when
you access your phone and you access stuff online with
social media, you have to get online to do that,
and so they can track our phones, you know, from
the different pings that they hit. But interestingly enough, they
actually were able to in this particular case. McKinley Luisma
(38:26):
gets on his phone and uses Wi Fi, but he
uses a Wi Fi hotspot that was created by Dakota
van Patten on his phone. That put them both at
the location at the time of the death. Now, one
of the things we mentioned about Melody Hoffman laying face
(38:47):
down when she was discovered, she had marks on her back, Joe,
And at this point we haven't even got into how
she actually was killed. Was she killed with the machete knives?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
No? No, that that's why these marks are. Some have
described them as slashes. I've heard slashes. I've heard uh
one individual refer to the mistab ones and listen, it
would not surprise me if both existed. Now, a machete
is not a stabbing tool, Okay, it is a slicing
(39:22):
or cutting tool. You know, people traditionally have used them
to cut brush. Are you know members of our military
have carried them on the rucksacks for years and years,
particularly those that are in in densely wooded areas, are
in jungle canopy? Uh? Are you know our guys in Vietnam,
you know, carried them all everywhere. Everybody have machetes back
(39:45):
then because you'd have to cut through elephant grass and
all that sort of stuff. Uh. And they're primarily used
to swing in order to slice through things. Uh No,
what what actually brought about her death, Dave, was this
this pair cord that had been wrapped around her neck.
Now Here, here's the thing again that that goes to
(40:07):
why I believe that this is potentially uh, this pear
cord or this these uh, these marks on her neck
might be indicative of of of a torture event, because
I think that there's multiple marks on her neck. So
what that would mean is that is that perhaps this
(40:33):
this this pair cord had generated marks around the front
of her her neck, and they're described as marx plural.
What that means is that if you're and the primarily
the rope or the ligature is around the front of
(40:53):
the neck, it's being adjusted, released, and then readjusted. Okay,
so what you have is kind of in the rear.
You're holding the ligature in the rear and you're tightening
it down, almost like a garrod. They haven't used the
term grot, but that's the way garrot would you be used.
(41:14):
If you have, like you know, the wooden stick that
goes in between the two. You can use a wire
or rope and you tighten it down and then you
release it and then you readjust it and you tighten
it down again, so you could bring her to the point.
Now she's enduring incredible pain because she's already got these
these insults to her back. Now you know, to finish
(41:35):
her off, and maybe you're controlling her with this this
rope around her neck as well. Keep that in mind.
You can put this rope around her neck and walk
behind her. Now she's in her underwear, Dave, what if
they strip her of her clothes? Okay, just let this
sink in just for a second. They've stripped her of
her clothes, okay, and they're marching her out there in
(41:59):
the cold on this cold February night, and she's walking
out there nude. She's at this park, this park. They're
loosening and tightening this ligature around her neck. They're humiliating
her day. They slash her with this machete and then
finally the coup de gras. They take that ligature as
(42:23):
she's laying there and they tighten it and tighten it
and tighten it until not another sound emanates from her body.
It's just this final gasp of air when she's struggling
to breathe, but you can't because her airway is externally
constricted down to the point where I've seen these cases
where tongues bulge, eyes bulged. You're gonna have petiki, and
(42:46):
there's a resistance there that you're not gonna be able
to fight against, particularly if you've already been greatly traumatized.
I would imagine that in many cases, the individual just
wants it to end because they're in such a state.
There's such a state of trauma at this point in
tom there's nothing else that they can do.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
When this case was in court and you get to
you get to read the testimony, it's been thought of,
its organized is oftentimes you've ever listened to somebody related
story right after certain things impact them differently than others,
and it's only the accumulative effect of time research and
(43:32):
looking at the entire in this page, in this particular case,
the entire scene where they realize that Melody was not
killed where she was found. She was killed and then
brought to the location sixteen miles away. My question to you, Joe,
they said that she wasn't killed where she was found
(43:54):
a little lily pad or what was lily? Yeah? Yeah,
because there was absence of blood pooled and everything else.
There was an absence of blood. Based on her death,
they would have expected to see more blood. You're saying
that she was strangled. We know she's got marks on
her back, but she obviously lost a lot of blood
too from the cuts on her back and on her body.
(44:16):
But she didn't die there. Was she alive when they
put her in the trunk of the car to transport her.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Wow. I think that that very well could have been
the case. They know that. What we do know is
that she was found in Lily Pond, which is up
in a Manna, which is, you know what, sixteen miles
away from from Cedar Falls. Was she placed in that
(44:46):
trunk and she was already or was she still alive?
To keep using the term terrorized and tortured Dave over
and over again as it applies to her, you know,
I guess you know, at the end of the day,
we can only hope that that she her death was
(45:07):
was quick. I think that they believe that she was killed,
uh there in the Morgan Creek Park and then placed
into the trunk and transport it up there, and she
was left adjacent to that that pond, And you know,
I don't know why they would have gone to that
(45:27):
trouble to drive that distance to to deposit her remains,
because there's you know, there's a whole lot of of
of vacant area in Iowa, a lot of rural area.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
If you're if you're looking to you know, take a
body and deposit somebody where they might not be found.
But you get to a landmark like a pond, and
you know you're going to find uh uh, you know,
someone lying adjacent to the shoreline of this little pond.
It's not like you take you would take her out
into a densely wooded area and take her body out there.
(46:06):
The movements of these individuals, I think we're rather orchestrated.
They had a plan in mind, but it was ultimately
the execution and the lack of care that they took.
And certainly when it comes to digital evidence, Dave, because
you really spoke something I think into at least into
(46:28):
my mind investigatively, just a moment ago, when you had
mentioned that Luisma's phone actually hopped on to a hotspot
created by his compatriot here who was along with and
that they were traveling in concert together, Dave, And that's
a dead giveaway now, I've covered cases in the past
(46:51):
where you have two phones that are moving through a
location together. You know, they famously say, always say, is
that the phones are moving. We can't say that the
people that on the phones are moving together. But in
this case, you've got two phones that are digitally married
to one another by virtue of the fact that you're
hopping onto a hotspot that the other one has created.
(47:12):
I don't know that I've ever heard this before.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I saw it, and my first thought was, he is
not going to get out of this. You know, you've
got him, Dakota. Now you've got him using his hotspot
for Luisman to get online. You've got them both inside
the Walmart buying the machetes. So they're they're tied. They're
tied together. The one thing that we do know, Joe,
is that a twenty year old girl the mental emotional,
(47:40):
psychological maturity of a fourteen year old, was kidnapped, terrorized,
and murdered and her body left in the middle of
you know, near a pond. I guess is the best
way to put it, just left out naked to Now
(48:03):
we've had a trial and McKinley Luisma, twenty three years old, convicted,
but his sentencing has been pushed back. Joe, why would
a sentencing after having all this evidence, why would they
move the sentencing?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
I think that more than likely in my opinion, my
opinion alone, that perhaps just perhaps the defense has wanted
more time so that they could do a pre sentencing
hearing and that they could go before go before the
(48:46):
judge and ask for some level of mercy here. Because
I got to tell you, it's the horror that's involved
in this case. The defense understands what Luisma is facing here,
and not only see facing it, He's got other people
that are involved in this that can offer up testimony
(49:08):
to this. This is not like a loan person out
there that just did this, you know, kind of in
a vacuum. That's not what you've got. You've got, You've
got so many witnesses pointing back at him, including the
evidence that's contained in the digital evidence. They're going to
need more time, I think for the pre sentencing investigation
(49:32):
that always takes place. So they probably ask for more
time in this case because they know that whatever the
sentence is going to be, it ain't going to be pretty.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and This is body backs,
Quody Dins, but Joseph's gotten more. The first office that
I ever had was actually adjacent to a levee that
overlooked the Mississippi River. And now if you've never seen
the Mississippi River, it's certainly something to behold. It's massive,
(00:21):
and it doesn't look like it's moving until, of course,
you get immediately adjacent to it. Then you can see
the flow. Some days, it's very powerful. And you know
what's really weird. In South Louisiana, when the springtime melt
would occur way back up river, back in Minnesota and Iowa,
(00:43):
you would see huge blocks of ice that would flow
all the way down to the city of New Orleans.
Now that's not something you would expect to see, but
I have actually seen it. They say that many rivers,
many creeks, flow into the Mississippi River, and today on
(01:06):
this episode, we're going to talk about a location named
after one such creek. That creek, of course, and of
course it's now relation is Morgan Creek, and Morgan Creek
flows into the Cedar River in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and
of course Cedar River flows into the Mississippi River. But
(01:33):
back to Morgan Creek, that tiny little tributary. There is
actually a park in Cedar Rapids named after that little creek,
and within the boundaries of that park are found the
remains of a young woman who, according to reports, had
to mind though she was twenty of about a fourteen
(01:55):
year old, and she was brutalized beyond anything that most
of us can imagine or care to comprehend. I'm Josephcott Morgan,
and this is Bodybags, Dave. I have memories of the
(02:18):
first time I ever saw the Mississippi River, and it
was not in New Orleans, actually it was I was
with my mother, and my mother had a nineteen sixty
seven Candy Apple red three speed Mustang fastback. I loved
(02:40):
that car, and she had it for a number of years.
And I remember, you know, back then when we were little,
you know, you run in the front seat, and of
course you had no seat belt, and there was a
lot of sit down that you would hear coming. And
it was just me and my mom and you know,
and I rode around that car with her, and I
remember crossing the Mississippi River bridge probably when I was
(03:05):
about three or four, I guess in Vicksburg. Vicksburg Mississippi,
where you're going from the Louisiana side to the Mississippi side,
And I remember looking down you could look over the
edge of that old bridge and it was steel back then,
(03:26):
and you could see how vast that river is, and
that bridge is so high you look down on it,
and particularly, you know when your little things look so
massive anyway, but even by today's standards, it would look huge.
And you think about now, at this age, I think
about the flow of that river and the stories that
are told all along the banks of it, going all
(03:48):
the way up to the headwaters in Minnesota, and it
tells a story in and of itself, and it has
for years and years, and people have been entranced by it,
it seems to me, and of course I'm kind of partial.
The stories all seem to come to rest down in
the delta. But for our case today, this starts all
(04:09):
the way back up upriver, you know, over a thousand
miles away up in Iowa, Dave. And what a.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
Tragic case, you know, McKinley, Louisma and Melody Hoffman were
involved in an intimate relationship. Most of our stories, not most,
A lot of our stories start like that. And I
wonder sometimes, how can people that have spend enough time
together to enjoy one another's company, to be involved in
(04:41):
a relationship for an extended period of time, how it
can end so badly that you and I end up
talking about one of the people involved in it. Because
that's what we're doing again. McKinley Louisma, while he was
in a special relationship with Melody Hoffman, was also in
a relationship with another one. So there you go, the
(05:02):
triangle once again complete.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Yeah, the relationship don't sound nothing special time till the truth.
Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah, it's kind of a sad reality of what we
end up with. But Melody Hoffman goes missing. Yeah, that's
the first part of the story, you know, that's what
gets out in the news. We have a missing woman.
Everybody be on the lookout, and then you find out, well,
her boyfriend has another girlfriend, and that one thing leads
(05:29):
to another, and we discovered that McKinley Luisma has told
investigators that he and Dakota Van Patten put Melody Hoffman
in the trunk of a car at Morgan Creek Park
in Northwest Cedar Rapids and then dumped her body at
(05:52):
a man of Lily Lake about sixteen miles away before
picking up Melody her significant other McKinley Luisma, And it
could have been Patten. They went to Walmart picked up
you know, what do you do when you're going to
a creek area, a place with water and you know,
(06:14):
beachy areas. You pick up things to sit on the
grass and maybe cook out. Right, Yeah, no, not these guys,
McKinley Luisma, And it could have been Patton go to
Walmart and pick up two machetes and gloves. Two machetes
and gloves, because that's what you take on a romantic
picnic by the pond, right.
Speaker 1 (06:35):
Yeah, yeah, uh yeah, what a horror show too. And
just to back up just a little bit here, I
gotta I gotta speak to to Melody Hoffman for one second.
Melody Hoffman was twenty years old, and Dave, you know
(06:59):
she she has been described as being slow mentally and
emotionally underdeveloped, that she's been described as being having kind
of the emotional development of a fourteen year old. And
I think the really sad thing about this is that
(07:20):
she was lonely and had always wanted a boyfriend and
never had had had one. And if you've I think
that it's a longing you know that sets in with somebody.
You want to be loved, You want to be you
want to be made to, You want to feel special,
you know, and if you're absent that in your life,
(07:45):
that's a dangerous thing, particularly in the world that we
live in today, because it makes so it's so easy
to be taken advantage of.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
You mentioned, she's fourteen mentally emotionally a young keeen and
if you remember that time period, it's this really cross
between a little girl and a young woman and it's
a period of time where both those types of attributes coexist.
(08:14):
But not for her. She was twenty, but she was
at a younger age emotionally and mentally. So she's a
fourteen year old where she can still see, you know,
unicorns and pink clouds and stuff like that. And wasn't
past that she was being taken advantage of by her
boyfriend slash ex boyfriend. However, you want to look at
(08:36):
McKinley Luisma, he was taking advantage of her because she
was a little bit underdeveloped that way, that's how they
could lure her into the situation of getting her separated
and out by herself without fear There's another part of
all this show that came up that I was going
(08:56):
to ask you about. Was she pregnant.
Speaker 1 (09:01):
There's been some indication that she had either according to
the forensic pathologist, she had either been recently pregnant or
was currently pregnant. But you know, the examination of her system,
of her body at the time did not reveal a
(09:26):
fetus at this point in time. You know, that doesn't
mean that she wasn't pregnant, but there was a hormone
that was present in her system hCG. And that's like
when a blood test is done for pregnancy. You're looking
for ACG HG, and so it's there. But given circumstances,
the pathologists could not necessarily totally rule it out, or
(09:51):
that maybe she had been pregnant and lost a child
that can still and so you're a woman's system even
in a post natal state. If she's, say, for instance,
had a miscarriage at some point, tom, that hormone would
(10:15):
still be present there and the body has not purged
itself completely.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Wow, there's so much to unwrap in this story, but
ultimately it's a relationship that went bad, and rather than
breaking up and moving on, I guess That's something that
seems to be happening in so many different stories, like, really,
this was your best decision. Look, nobody likes to be
in a situation where they have to break up with
(10:41):
somebody that they no longer have the feelings for. And
I get that, okay, but I'm just thinking, how many
movies have we watched and it never turns out good?
Isn't there a little indicator here that just maybe we
got to think of something other than murder somebody you
(11:02):
care about, somebody that you've had an intimate relationship with
that you're done with. Granted it might be cold and
all that, but look, you really think your best decision
is to kill this individual?
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Yeah? That that's a very uh, I don't know, it's
a it's a very uh horrific but yet simplistic way
of looking at life. Uh. What What's what's so amazing
to me is the fact that you can uh involve
yourself in such at such an intimate level with someone.
(11:37):
I mean, let's face it, where you know you're you're
involved in a physical sexual relationship with someone, uh, and
you go back to them tom and Tom again to
engage in this behavior and maybe you're telling them that
you do in fact care for them, but yet you
can dispose of them as if they're garbage. Uh. And
(11:59):
those two things don't seem to correlate with one another,
at least in my mind. And you know, you talk
about how, how is this the best decision that you
could have come up with at this moment in time. Well,
of course, uh, for this individual. Uh, it would seem
that this individual felt as though, uh, that it was
(12:23):
best for him to do this. And not just him,
but he's he's also you know, involved an acquaintance of
his in in the circumstances. So what you have here
is that somebody that is has quit somebody because they
have another girlfriend, uh that they have that that individual, Uh,
(12:48):
they've created a life with uh, and they've grown tired
of melody. And so you you go and you confide
in your friend. Look, you know, I I'm over this,
I'm tired of her. I want to get rid of her.
And you drag them into the circumstances as well, and
to dispose of a life, to end a life and
(13:10):
then try to dispose of her mortal remains in such
a horrific way is something that I don't I don't
know that we could really plumb the depths of effectively here,
but it really leaves you scratching her head. Why would
you want to destroy this poor this poor girl like
this and completely demolish her family in the wake of
(13:34):
what you've done, It's almost as if it's almost as
if you could care less about her as a person.
And of course, what it all comes down to is
you care more about your immediate satisfaction than you ever
could about a life that is yet to be completely lived. Dave,
(14:08):
I was reflecting on a case that you and I
have talked a lot about that you probably have learned
more about, and I didn't really want to know that
much about, but I've subjected subjected you to it, and
you know, God bless you, my friend. But that's the
piked In piked In massacre, and the Piked and Masker
actually has uh has one little bit in common with
(14:31):
the case of Melody Hoffmann, and that involves a trip
to Walmart. Uh. You know, you remember in the Pike
and Masker case where uh uh uh, the the mama
goes to Walmart in order to purchased unused shoes so
that her, her husband, and her two boys can commit
(14:54):
commit to these crimes with quote unquote virgin souls. Uh
so as O l e on their feet, and you know,
isn't it interesting?
Speaker 2 (15:05):
You know?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
I think in a recent episode I mentioned to you
about seeing bags along the side of the road, and
you know, you see things alongside the road and you think,
I wonder what's in that bag. Have you ever gone
to Walmart, Dave and walked past people in store and
you think, I wonder what they're buying in there? Or
what is what is this person? What is this person about?
(15:27):
What exactly are they doing? Because you know, you see
all shapes and sizes, as you well know. I had
a buddy of mine one time said the most entertaining
place in the world would be Walmart. If you had
a lawn chair in a case of beer laid on
a Friday night and you just sat there and watched
it would be better than cable television. You never know
(15:49):
what's going to happen, you know, with people coming and going.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
And I just think you looked at yourself in the
mirror before you left the house and thought that was okay.
Speaker 1 (16:00):
Really yeah, yeah, I know.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
Based on that decision, I know whatever's in the bag
is not something I want to see.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Yeah, I know, but you know what, what what can
I say? I'm not a big of I'm not a
big where we can drop the public.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
About piked In, you know, and about that was really
shocking to me was the trip for Walmart to buy
the shoes. It was something I never would have thought of.
And you guys go check out the episode. Joe's done
a lot of a lot of shows about that piked
In massacre. We did one here and that was something
I never would have thought of. The shoes.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, and uh, you know, we just did
an episode involved in uh well I think, yeah, I
know what it was. It was because Billy Wagner is
about to go to try right, Yeah, so we had
to revisit that again. But you know the one thing
and what got what got Mama Wagner caught in that case, Dave,
we'll CECTV, which we know that Walmart is fully equipped with.
(16:57):
And let me give you some advice. Next time you
go to Walmart, look at the ceiling. Look at the ceiling.
You'll see the little pods that are up there. Yeah,
and this thing is covered from front to back. And
let me tell you something else. Walmart does not play
(17:18):
when it comes to shoplifting either. If they catch you shoplifting,
they will charge you or they will have you charge
and they don't drop the charges either. Wow, they do
not negotiate over that. So at least they did in
the past. I can't speak you know, in recent history,
and we won't go down that road however.
Speaker 2 (17:39):
But interesting, so, you know, at least in the Piking
case show, when they went to Walmart to get supplies,
they were buying something to actually draw attention away from
them as possible suspects. But here we have we have
these two guys going there buying machetes.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
Yeah, and I think that they also bought paracord as
where as well, if you don't know what paara cord is,
it's a braided synthetic rope that you can use it
for any number of things. In the military, you know,
you use it to lash things together, you can use
it to depend upon the type, you can use it
for repelling all these sorts of things and securing things.
(18:19):
And so the pair of cord plays into this case.
But also macheties certainly play into this case as well.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
Dave, Yeah, there's you know, the nine one one call
to report the body of Melody Hoffman is shocking. And
when you couple that call with the autopsy report Joe,
which we're going to get into both of these, because
(18:49):
she's described the description of Melody Hoffman. She has such beautiful,
pure white skin. That was part of the nine to
one one call when a woman calls it there's a
dead body here. I see a dead body, and the operator,
you know, well, do you think the person is breathing? No,
this is a dead body, but she has the most
(19:09):
beautiful skin. And then conversely, I thought of a picture
that was found on McKinley Luisma's phone. On his cell
phone is a picture of twenty year old Melody Hoffman
shows her face with duct tape over her mouth, a
(19:32):
bloody nose. She'd apparently been crying, and he took a
photo of her like that and kept it on his
phone so he could revisit the look.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Joe, Yeah, I'm thinking about this now, you know, in
light of the appearance of the photograph, and to me, Dave,
this is indicative of someone that's not just trying to
(20:02):
kill somebody and get them out of their life. This,
this is a whole other level of horror when you
think about this, why is it that you would want
to document this uh that that look of fear. There's
been a number of these cases over the years that
(20:23):
involve uh what I refer to is as uh uh
as sexual sadism. And you you have individuals out there
that uh that love to uh photograph individuals. Uh and
(20:44):
in these these horrible sets of circumstances. UH. One guy
comes to mind in particular for me out of Kansas
City from many years ago, named Robert Burdella, who would
photograph his his victim that he had kidnapped and uh.
And I've seen these photographs over the years, certainly, and
(21:06):
before the evolution of the the internet, you know, I
saw them conferences people that were talking about these cases.
And he operated essentially from eighty four till about eighty seven,
I think, and he would he would abduct and torture individuals.
And there's there's kind of a what's it, Bethany Marshall
(21:26):
cause of feticization, I think, I don't know if I'm
pronouncing that correctly, But they go back and they revisit,
you know, things like this. It's one thing if you're
going if you're going with with your friend to you
know that you've entered into an agreement with them to
kill somebody and dispose of their mortal remains. But why
(21:47):
under heaven would you do this to this poor girl?
And remember she has the mind of a fourteen year
old child, and all she ever wanted was a boy
friend and to have your buddy stand by, you know,
as this is going on as well, Why why, why
is it that you would want to revisit this on
(22:10):
any level? This really goes to a deep, very dark
dark place, Dave.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
When I saw the picture, you know, was on his phone,
I thought, I wonder if it was taken that day
or if it was from an earlier beating. You know,
anything's possible. But I know that when police recalled about
the dead body, the deputy who showed up and wrote
(22:39):
the initial report gives a cursory view of what he finds,
and she appears to have suffered extensive injuries. He notes
that now I guess you need to I mean, when
you see a body, I guess sometimes the person could
look like they're dead, but maybe they've only got a
bullet hole somewhere that you can't really see, or maybe
(23:00):
they've had a heart attack and falling over. I mean,
there are options to this that don't have to say
the person looks like they have extensive injuries. So she
was laying face down on the ground. Would that yell
somebody something if you're invesciating.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
Yeah, it could. And she's found essentially on the ground
with and one of the interesting things that they talked
about that kind of stands out is that her hands
were curled in a way that they shouldn't have been.
And that came in from the reporter. The lady that well,
I say, reporter, what I meant is the finder, And
(23:38):
we've talked about the role of the finder, and you know,
she talked about the hands being in a curled in
a way that they shouldn't have been. And I'm really
wondering if this wasn't a reaction to perhaps the fact
that she was strangled and that she's going through a
(24:00):
seizure like event and her hands remained in this position,
you know, in the wake of this. But here's something else,
you know, when the finder observed observed her, you know,
she did talk about, you know, this this beautiful, pale,
perfect skin, and she defined her actually bears a witness
(24:22):
to this on the stand, and she talked about her
glorious curls. And when you see Melody, she's got this
long brown hair and it's very very curly, you know,
it's kind of like ringlets that that kind of pour
down her back. And the only thing she's wearing are
her underwear. Again, when you find women in particular that
(24:43):
are clothed only in a pair of underwear, this goes
to a level of I think at least a level
of humiliation when you do this and you've absented them
of all other coverings that they might have on their person.
(25:04):
And Dave, let's reflect back to where this was. This
was in Iowa, and I don't know if you've ever
been to Iowa in the wintertime, and this happened February,
February eighteenth, Iowa. Iowa is cold. I mean it is
bone chilling cold. Beautiful but cold. And you know, so
(25:27):
again you've got this this young woman who is naked
save her underwear. She's been brutalized and she's without any
source of comfort. You know, I use Maslow's hierarchy a lot,
you know, when I'm thinking about the way people are
(25:48):
treated at scenes in particular, you know that our basic
needs that we have of clothing and comfort and you know,
shelter and those sorts of things. And when you can
deprive people of things that like a real base level
like this, I think that it goes to the mentality
of the individual that's doing a great harm. It begs
the question, doesn't it you know, what became of the
(26:12):
rest of her clothing? Where were they and for how
long did Because the term torture keeps coming up in
this case, Dave, And if you're going to torture someone,
that means that you have to have an isolated location
and you have to have time, Dave, and.
Speaker 2 (26:33):
Very quickly her hands in an unnatural way. You mentioned
a seizure. What kind of injuries would you suffer that
could bring about a seizure that would cause that to happen.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
Well, I think that there's two things. Famously, where just
a couple of weeks ago, you know, we're coming on
the heels of an injury that Trevor Lawrence is aimed
where he sustained his head injury, and you can see
his arms go stiff in this event, and it's like
(27:11):
a seizure response that individuals have where you'll see their
hands will kind of contract, they'll grasp their thumbs. I've
seen this actually in people that have videotaped themselves when
they hang themselves, and you can have this event that
will occur with oxygen deprivation as well as head injuries
(27:32):
as well. I don't know that that's necessarily what happened here,
but I just find it interesting in passing that the observer,
the finder in this case, made a lot of this
on the stand in this case where she talked about
that her hands, Melody's hands, at least, we're in an
unnatural position, and so that gives you the idea that
(27:55):
they're probably curled in a backwards manner. Now that can
also come about. I think perhaps maybe she had been
restrained and the restraints were cut at some point in time,
Maybe that cord was taken away. I don't really know,
but and you know, riger has set in at that
point time. But you know, Melody was found within a
(28:17):
very short period of time of when she was last
seen alive. So she's not you know, she's she might
still and I would think there would still be some
remnant of post war changes going on her body that
would be appreciable at that moment in time.
Speaker 2 (28:31):
Would cold weather prevent the onset of the changes that
take place in death you mentioned Roger Mortis. I mean,
is it delayed because of the how cold it is?
Speaker 1 (28:43):
It can be, Yeah, it can be. But I think
that in a case like this, where you're outdoors like
this and she is, I think that at best it's
going to be negligible, probably in this case. And also
keep in mind that somebody that's engaged in this kind
(29:03):
of vigorous physical activity, because I don't know if there's
anything more vigorous in the world than someone being tortured.
You've got the metabolic activity that is increased, and of
course you know this, this would have still to a
certain degree, have remained if she died in the wake
(29:24):
of this torture. I don't think that it would have
slowed it to the manner where it would not have
been appreciable. I think that if she had been laying
in stasis in bed, perhaps like an elderly person in
the room had been cooler, perhaps that you know, the
(29:46):
temperature would probably retard, retarded compared to say summertime where
things are warmer, you know. But no, I don't think
to any great degree. But I do know this that
when the observers, in this case, the Finder and certainly
that police officer that first arrived at the scene, not
(30:09):
only did they see not only did they see that
as she described the finder the most quote beautiful, pale,
perfect skin and glorious curls, she also saw something else.
She saw what appeared to be all kinds of marks
(30:33):
on her back, like slashes. This is what happened to
Melodiy Hoffmann. What is it that? What is it that
(30:56):
she had done to someone that would have driven them
to the point where they would want to get a
sharp instrument, multiple sharp instruments, and torture her, because this
is what this is, by slashing her across her body
(31:18):
and then using a piece of what's referred to as
paracord to strangle her with. I don't know that we
would necessarily have the answer to that, but I have
my suspicions, Dave, when you think about maybe the individual
that wanted just merely to be shed of this woman's life, you.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
Know, looking at pictures of her and thinking about twenty
year old life in front of them, the whole nine,
and then looking at what this person who she had
been in a relationship with and I'm having trouble matching
it up. You know, people being so young and going
to this degree, not that age should have a lot
(32:03):
to do with doing something so destructive to another human being.
I don't know why. It just strikes me as this
one just seems like there's something missing, like we're not
getting the whole story. We've got the basics. We know
that Melody Hoffman was murdered. We know that she was
a simple girl with a little bit of a mental
(32:23):
or emotional maturity at about the age of fourteen. But
when you look at the investigation, Joe, you know, I
mentioned the picture earlier of where it looked like she
had where Melody had duct tape over her mouth and
she had been crying, noses bloody, some things like that,
(32:44):
And it was a photo that was on McKinley Louisma's phone. Well,
when they did some research, they found out that they
believe she died around midnight on February seventeenth. At four
five am February eighteenth, he accessed that phone, that photo
(33:06):
on his phone at four So if she died around midnight,
four hours later, he's looking at that photo of her. Now,
I know that there's plenty of evidence in the data
has evidence in it. You know that our phone, the
pictures rather have data that tells them when the picture
was taken and everything else. Because I think I'd mentioned
(33:27):
did he do this tour before? Had he tortured her
like this before? Joe? And then I don't know. I'm
just totally bum fuzzled that the guy took a picture
of her while she's alive and crying and keeps it
on his phone, and then based on this timetable, he's
looking at it four hours after he's killed.
Speaker 1 (33:46):
He feels real comfortable with this because he's involving friends
in it.
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Dave, Yeah, that's you know, the code of empacth.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, this is the other thing. There's also a third
individual that he had turned I think a Logan Kempton,
that he he had turned over all of these items.
This is Luisma had turned these items over that had
been purchased to get rid of them. So this individual
is an accessory in this homicide as well. And the
(34:15):
reason I'm saying this is it's ghastly that they would
be involved in it, but it's the idea that this
perpetrator felt so comfortable doing this. And I think this
goes to a greater point. How was this the ultimate
escalation and ongoing abuse? I think? And was there any
(34:38):
evidence found on her remains that she had been subject
to abuse? You know, she lived with her mother, Melody
did she lived with her mother? Her mother had been
trying to get in contact with her, had texted her
to try, you know, to get back home, because she
had cameras at the house that she witnessed her leaving
the house, and she had pined her to tell her
(35:00):
to come back home, come back home, and of course
she didn't. She never comes back home. And you know
the fact that this individual that did this to her.
I wonder how much awareness the mother has had, you know,
over what perhaps Melody had been subjected to at the
(35:21):
hands of this of this perpetrator, McKinley Louisma. How much
other abuse had he subjected Melody to over a period
of time. Was there a lot of verbal abuse? Had
he been smacking her around at all? Was there evidence
of healed injuries for instance? You know that that you
could put a time frame on moving forward, and I
(35:43):
don't know that that was necessarily discovered. But one of
the things that's that's quite interesting that they were able to,
you know, kind of track I think with digital evidence
here is his movements. Are their movements relative to to
what happened to her? Because you talked about they were
(36:06):
at the park, I think at the Morgan Creek Park
from about twelve nine to about roughly twelve twenty five
on the eighteenth, which is when they believe she was killed.
And they believe she was killed there at Morgan Creek Park.
Now she's then placed into a vehicle, his vehicle, they believe,
(36:31):
and driven out to this Lily Pond Park. What's fascinating
to me is that when her body was deposited at
Lily Pond Park, she was not deposited in the pond itself.
She was deposited deposited adjacent to the pond. Now, I
(36:52):
don't know what status of the pond was. I don't
know exactly how far away she was, but we do
know that she was essentially approximating the shore. Was their
eyes on the pond because we're talking about February, you know,
So is it possible that they just could not have
gotten her sufficiently out in the water. Maybe they're afraid
of water. I don't know. Maybe they can't swim. I
have no idea to be and that this was the
(37:13):
most expeditious thing that they could do. But Dave, that
chilling part that you mentioned where he's obviously reflecting back
on this imagery, you know that he has is he
fantasizing at this point in time, because dude, this is
in the wake. This is just in the wake of
(37:34):
what has happened to this young woman.
Speaker 2 (37:38):
That's why I was overly curious. Yeah, I mean, normally
something like that just I kind of get it and
just file it, right, But this one caught me different
because I'm going, wait a minute, either he tortured her
before and kept this photo to remind him of what
he had done previously, or this is a picture of
her right before he killed her. Or yeah, and you
(38:01):
mentioned the digital evidence, Joe, and I thought, oct when
you access your phone and you access stuff online with
social media, you have to get online to do that,
and so they can track our phones, you know, from
the different pings that they hit. But interestingly enough, they
actually were able to in this particular case. McKinley Luisma
(38:26):
gets on his phone and uses Wi Fi, but he
uses a Wi Fi hotspot that was created by Dakota
van Patten on his phone. That put them both at
the location at the time of the death. Now, one
of the things we mentioned about Melody Hoffman laying face
(38:47):
down when she was discovered, she had marks on her back, Joe,
And at this point we haven't even got into how
she actually was killed. Was she killed with the machete knives?
Speaker 1 (39:00):
No? No, that that's why these marks are. Some have
described them as slashes. I've heard slashes. I've heard uh
one individual refer to the mistab ones and listen, it
would not surprise me if both existed. Now, a machete
is not a stabbing tool, Okay, it is a slicing
(39:22):
or cutting tool. You know, people traditionally have used them
to cut brush. Are you know members of our military
have carried them on the rucksacks for years and years,
particularly those that are in in densely wooded areas, are
in jungle canopy? Uh? Are you know our guys in Vietnam,
you know, carried them all everywhere. Everybody have machetes back
(39:45):
then because you'd have to cut through elephant grass and
all that sort of stuff. Uh. And they're primarily used
to swing in order to slice through things. Uh No,
what what actually brought about her death, Dave, was this
this pair cord that had been wrapped around her neck.
Now Here, here's the thing again that that goes to
(40:07):
why I believe that this is potentially uh, this pear
cord or this these uh, these marks on her neck
might be indicative of of of a torture event, because
I think that there's multiple marks on her neck. So
what that would mean is that is that perhaps this
(40:33):
this this pair cord had generated marks around the front
of her her neck, and they're described as marx plural.
What that means is that if you're and the primarily
the rope or the ligature is around the front of
(40:53):
the neck, it's being adjusted, released, and then readjusted. Okay,
so what you have is kind of in the rear.
You're holding the ligature in the rear and you're tightening
it down, almost like a garrod. They haven't used the
term grot, but that's the way garrot would you be used.
(41:14):
If you have, like you know, the wooden stick that
goes in between the two. You can use a wire
or rope and you tighten it down and then you
release it and then you readjust it and you tighten
it down again, so you could bring her to the point.
Now she's enduring incredible pain because she's already got these
these insults to her back. Now you know, to finish
(41:35):
her off, and maybe you're controlling her with this this
rope around her neck as well. Keep that in mind.
You can put this rope around her neck and walk
behind her. Now she's in her underwear, Dave, what if
they strip her of her clothes? Okay, just let this
sink in just for a second. They've stripped her of
her clothes, okay, and they're marching her out there in
(41:59):
the cold on this cold February night, and she's walking
out there nude. She's at this park, this park. They're
loosening and tightening this ligature around her neck. They're humiliating
her day. They slash her with this machete and then
finally the coup de gras. They take that ligature as
(42:23):
she's laying there and they tighten it and tighten it
and tighten it until not another sound emanates from her body.
It's just this final gasp of air when she's struggling
to breathe, but you can't because her airway is externally
constricted down to the point where I've seen these cases
where tongues bulge, eyes bulged. You're gonna have petiki, and
(42:46):
there's a resistance there that you're not gonna be able
to fight against, particularly if you've already been greatly traumatized.
I would imagine that in many cases, the individual just
wants it to end because they're in such a state.
There's such a state of trauma at this point in
tom there's nothing else that they can do.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
When this case was in court and you get to
you get to read the testimony, it's been thought of,
its organized is oftentimes you've ever listened to somebody related
story right after certain things impact them differently than others,
and it's only the accumulative effect of time research and
(43:32):
looking at the entire in this page, in this particular case,
the entire scene where they realize that Melody was not
killed where she was found. She was killed and then
brought to the location sixteen miles away. My question to you, Joe,
they said that she wasn't killed where she was found
(43:54):
a little lily pad or what was lily? Yeah? Yeah,
because there was absence of blood pooled and everything else.
There was an absence of blood. Based on her death,
they would have expected to see more blood. You're saying
that she was strangled. We know she's got marks on
her back, but she obviously lost a lot of blood
too from the cuts on her back and on her body.
(44:16):
But she didn't die there. Was she alive when they
put her in the trunk of the car to transport her.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
Wow. I think that that very well could have been
the case. They know that. What we do know is
that she was found in Lily Pond, which is up
in a Manna, which is, you know what, sixteen miles
away from from Cedar Falls. Was she placed in that
(44:46):
trunk and she was already or was she still alive?
To keep using the term terrorized and tortured Dave over
and over again as it applies to her, you know,
I guess you know, at the end of the day,
we can only hope that that she her death was
(45:07):
was quick. I think that they believe that she was killed,
uh there in the Morgan Creek Park and then placed
into the trunk and transport it up there, and she
was left adjacent to that that pond, And you know,
I don't know why they would have gone to that
(45:27):
trouble to drive that distance to to deposit her remains,
because there's you know, there's a whole lot of of
of vacant area in Iowa, a lot of rural area.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (45:40):
If you're if you're looking to you know, take a
body and deposit somebody where they might not be found.
But you get to a landmark like a pond, and
you know you're going to find uh uh, you know,
someone lying adjacent to the shoreline of this little pond.
It's not like you take you would take her out
into a densely wooded area and take her body out there.
(46:06):
The movements of these individuals, I think we're rather orchestrated.
They had a plan in mind, but it was ultimately
the execution and the lack of care that they took.
And certainly when it comes to digital evidence, Dave, because
you really spoke something I think into at least into
(46:28):
my mind investigatively, just a moment ago, when you had
mentioned that Luisma's phone actually hopped on to a hotspot
created by his compatriot here who was along with and
that they were traveling in concert together, Dave, And that's
a dead giveaway now, I've covered cases in the past
(46:51):
where you have two phones that are moving through a
location together. You know, they famously say, always say, is
that the phones are moving. We can't say that the
people that on the phones are moving together. But in
this case, you've got two phones that are digitally married
to one another by virtue of the fact that you're
hopping onto a hotspot that the other one has created.
(47:12):
I don't know that I've ever heard this before.
Speaker 2 (47:16):
I saw it, and my first thought was, he is
not going to get out of this. You know, you've
got him, Dakota. Now you've got him using his hotspot
for Luisman to get online. You've got them both inside
the Walmart buying the machetes. So they're they're tied. They're
tied together. The one thing that we do know, Joe,
is that a twenty year old girl the mental emotional,
(47:40):
psychological maturity of a fourteen year old, was kidnapped, terrorized,
and murdered and her body left in the middle of
you know, near a pond. I guess is the best
way to put it, just left out naked to Now
(48:03):
we've had a trial and McKinley Luisma, twenty three years old, convicted,
but his sentencing has been pushed back. Joe, why would
a sentencing after having all this evidence, why would they
move the sentencing?
Speaker 1 (48:25):
I think that more than likely in my opinion, my
opinion alone, that perhaps just perhaps the defense has wanted
more time so that they could do a pre sentencing
hearing and that they could go before go before the
(48:46):
judge and ask for some level of mercy here. Because
I got to tell you, it's the horror that's involved
in this case. The defense understands what Luisma is facing here,
and not only see facing it, He's got other people
that are involved in this that can offer up testimony
(49:08):
to this. This is not like a loan person out
there that just did this, you know, kind of in
a vacuum. That's not what you've got. You've got, You've
got so many witnesses pointing back at him, including the
evidence that's contained in the digital evidence. They're going to
need more time, I think for the pre sentencing investigation
(49:32):
that always takes place. So they probably ask for more
time in this case because they know that whatever the
sentence is going to be, it ain't going to be pretty.
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and This is body backs,
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
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