The Disappearing Cheerleader

Hanover Township sits in Morris County in north central New Jersey, about forty minutes from New York City and an hour and a half from Philadelphia. It covers ten square miles and takes in Whippany and Cedar Knolls, and at the time of the episode it had about 14,400 residents. the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

Amy Hoffman was eighteen and a senior at Parsippany High School. She was a cheerleader, a good student and popular, and she worked part-time at the Surprise Store at the Morris County Mall. She had been adopted from Korea at the age of five by Frank and Florence Hoffman and brought to the United States. On the morning of Tuesday, November 23, 1982, two days before Thanksgiving, she woke late and still felt unwell. She dressed in a rust, blue and white plaid skirt, a brown sweater and boots, went to school late, had lunch with her friend Karen, accompanied Karen to a dentist's appointment in Denville, returned for cheerleading practice and left at 5.05 pm for work. She arrived at the mall shortly after five, took a dinner break after eight and ate a Coke, French fries and chicken nuggets from McDonald's, then helped a co-worker, Christine Gonzales, close the two Surprise Stores. The two women left at about 9.35 pm. Christine turned right at the mall exit and Amy walked straight back through the emptying car park to her car.

Amy was expected home by 9.45 pm. When she had not arrived, her mother drove to the mall and at about 10.15 pm found her daughter's car in the rear car park. Amy's jacket and purse were on the front seat, the keys were in the ignition and the doors were unlocked. Florence Hoffman walked to the only lit business left, a liquor store in the mall plaza, but Amy was not there, and she called the police. A canine officer, Patrolman William Plate, brought a dog to the car; it picked up Amy's scent for about two parking spaces and then lost it, which suggested she had been taken in a vehicle.

On Thanksgiving Day, November 25, a couple walking their dog in Randolph Township found Amy's body face down in one of the concrete holding tanks at the Old Mendham Waterworks. She was still wearing the same clothes. Her ring was on the ground near the tank and her wristwatch was in the water. Her hair had been cut off and lay around the body and on the ground outside the tank. There was a kidney-shaped pool of blood eighteen inches long and nine inches wide on the sandy ground, with a trail leading to the tank wall. An autopsy found a long open gash on the left side of her head, an L-shaped wound to her right shoulder, a severed left ear and two severe chest wounds, one four and a half inches deep and the other more than seven inches, passing through her lungs and back between the ninth and tenth ribs. A doctor concluded that the wounds came from a single-edged knife held perpendicular to her chest, possibly a bayonet, and that she bled to death from the chest wound. She had defensive wounds on her right hand and bruises consistent with being dragged over the tank wall. Sperm was found in the vaginal slides, and another examination found it in the rectal slides, so she had been sexually assaulted. Fragments of white meat chicken, French fries and what appeared to be a roll were in her stomach, placing her death about four or five hours after she ate. More than a thousand people attended her funeral on November 30.

The investigation soon focused on a 1970 light blue Chevrolet with a vinyl roof and putty marks on the driver's side. Barbara Horwath, a Kodak Jewelers employee, had seen the car and its driver in the mall car park on the night Amy vanished and described a man with dark eyes, shoulder-length blond curly hair, a prominent pointed nose and dark markings on the sides of his nose. On December 5, a Morris County Park Police officer stopped a man who matched the composite, took his details and let him go. this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it On June 7, 1971, while held in Florida for robbery, he escaped from Jackson Memorial Hospital after sawing off a leg shackle. On June 13 he killed his roommate, Robert J. Anderson, in their apartment at Collins Avenue in Surfside, stuffing the body into a closet. this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

Witnesses later placed him near Amy. Christine Gonzales remembered seeing him loitering at the mall four times in September and October. Diana Bassard saw him loudly talking to Amy about dirt bikes in the Surprise Store in mid-October. Helen Kato saw him in the mall car park in mid-November, shouting at Amy, 'Come here, come here, god damn it, I said come here, I'll kill you.' details of the account remain covered until revealed

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it She was twenty-five, an artist and waitress who had graduated from Mount St. John Academy and Seton Hall University with a degree in art history, and she lived with her parents in Mendham Township. Her grey Honda Civic was found abandoned on Washington Valley Road at about 2.10 am with the headlights on, the driver's door open and the keys in the ignition, but no sign of a struggle. Before 4 am a truck driver sleeping at a rest stop on Route 80 in Allamuchy was woken by pounding on his cab and found Deirdre stabbed and bleeding. She told him she had been forced off the road, put in a trunk, driven about twenty miles, raped and stabbed four times in the chest, and thrown out of the car. She dragged herself about a hundred feet to the truck and thanked the driver before she was taken to hospital, where she died. Her father identified the body. Her parents later said she had been raped, although early newspaper reports denied it.

this part of the story is covered for now A pathologist later concluded he had stabbed himself. More importantly, a detective examining his 1970 Chevrolet found that the tyre tread matched the impression at the scene of Deirdre's abduction. A search warrant produced fibres and foam rubber from the car that matched fibres on Amy's clothing and foam on her boots. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it

this part of the story is covered for now The prosecution relied on the microscopic evidence and on eyewitnesses who had seen him and his car near places where Amy had been. His defence argued that the case was based on innuendo and inconclusive evidence, that he did not match the descriptions, that he had been at home playing Atari with his stepbrother, and that another man, assistant football coach Kevin Shehan, might have killed her. The judge refused to admit the Shehan evidence. details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now

details of the account remain covered until revealed the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it this part of the story is covered for now details of the account remain covered until revealed The judge called him evil, depraved and dangerous. In 1987 Amy's parents won $315,000 from the mall for lack of security.

the rest of this account is covered until you choose to reveal it From 2013 he sought DNA testing of the slides from Amy's autopsy. Five slides containing sperm cells were located, but when the state police laboratory tested one in October 2018 there was not enough material to create a profile. One slide remains, and he has asked the Innocence Project to help him find an independent laboratory, though he does not want the last slide destroyed. this part of the story is covered for now Deirdre O'Brien is buried at Hilltop Cemetery in Mendham, and her parents founded Deirdre's House in Morristown, a centre that helps child victims of violence and witnesses to domestic abuse. Amy Hoffman's grave is not disclosed.