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Thread: Hoffman, and Stout Sentenced in 2004 NC Slaying of Sharon Snow

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    Hoffman, and Stout Sentenced in 2004 NC Slaying of Sharon Snow

    Women charged in 2004 killing could face death penalty


    Two women charged with first-degree murder in the 2004 death of a Winston-Salem woman plotted via email to kill her, a prosecutor said in Forsyth Superior Court yesterday.
    Katherine Hofmann, 45, and Kim Stout, 55, were charged last year in the death of Sharon Snow on Feb. 1, 2004.
    Assistant District Attorney David Hall said in court that he intends to pursue the death penalty against the two women.
    Snow, 41, was shot twice in the back after she and her girlfriend, Hofmann, returned home from a Super Bowl party. Hofmann and Snow had been together for nine years. In 2002, Snow learned that she had multiple sclerosis, and Hofmann took care of her.
    Snow’s killing had divided friends of theirs in the gay and lesbian community, as well as in their church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro.
    Snow’s family filed a lawsuit in January 2006 against Stout and Hofmann that accused them of having an affair and killing Snow, but it wasn’t until last year that Winston-Salem Police filed any charges against the two women. Police haven’t said what led them to make the arrests.
    Yesterday, Hall said Snow’s murder stemmed from the affair between Hofmann and Stout.
    In e-mails, they talked about killing Snow and having Stout move into the house that Hofmann and Snow shared, Hall said in court.
    After Snow’s death, Stout did move in with Hofmann and together, they sought to collect $157,000 on Snow’s life-insurance policy, Hall said.
    Hall said he was pursuing the death penalty because the killing was “especially heinous, atrocious and cruel” in that the two women killed Snow knowing she had multiple sclerosis and was in poor health. They also killed Snow for pecuniary gain in trying to collect on Snow’s life-insurance policy, Hall said.
    In Stout’s case, there was the additional aggravating factor of burglary because she was in Snow’s house the night of Feb. 1, 2004, without Snow’s permission, Hall said.
    Stout and Hofmann both practiced Wicca, a pagan religion that focuses on worshipping the divine in nature, and Hall said the two women decided when to kill Snow based on the Wiccan calendar.
    The two women had met in 2003 at Stout’s wedding to another woman, Hall said. There was an immediate attraction, and Hofmann and Stout soon began an affair, he said.
    The lawsuit alleged that Stout and Hofmann each shot Snow once. An autopsy showed that Snow was shot twice in the back, and that the bullets appeared to have been shot through a pillow, with a different pillow for each shot fired.
    Hall said that gas station receipts, bank statements and other documents prove that Stout, who lived in another state at the time of the killing, was in Winston-Salem on the night of Feb. 1, 2004.
    The civil lawsuit said Hofmann waited an hour before calling 911, and that paramedics would testify that Snow had been dead for at least that long.
    Hall said Hofmann had gunshot residue on her, as well as foam filling from a pillow. Hofmann told police that a burglar had shot Snow and had knocked her out.
    During the hearing, Hofmann and Stout said little.
    David Freedman, Hofmann’s attorney, said in court that yesterday’s hearing was simply to see whether prosecutors had enough aggravating factors to pursue the death penalty. Prosecutors didn’t present any evidence that proves Hofmann and Stout are guilty, he said.
    Tom Fagerli, Stout’s attorney, said it would take at least a year before the case goes to trial because of the thousands of pages of discovery prosecutors have given him in the case.
    Hofmann and Stout are each entitled to a second attorney because they are facing the death penalty. No trial date has been set.
    Both women are in the Forsyth County Jail with no bond allowed. The last woman who prosecutors sought to put on death row in Forsyth County was Dorna Diane Walker, who was convicted in 2002 of killing her boyfriend. A jury decided to give her life in prison without parole.



    http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2010...y-a-ar-454194/

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    Lovers headed to prison over slaying

    Seven years ago, lovers Katherine Hofmann and Kim Stout fatally shot Hofmann’s girlfriend, Sharon Snow, twice in the back so they could be together, Assistant District Attorney David Hall said Wednesday in Forsyth Superior Court.

    But after pleading guilty to second-degree murder, they will likely spend the next 14 to 18 years apart in separate prisons.

    Hofmann, 46, and Stout, 55, entered Alford pleas Wednesday morning, meaning they didn’t admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them.

    Snow, who had multiple sclerosis, was shot twice in the back after Hofmann and Snow returned home from a Super Bowl party the night of Feb. 1, 2004, a date that prosecutors have said was chosen from the Wiccan religious calendar.

    Hofmann and Stout were charged with first-degree murder in 2009 and were facing the death penalty. Hall said prosecutors agreed to a second-degree murder plea because Nellie Snow, Snow’s mother, is in poor health and the family did not want to endure a long trial.

    In court, Hofmann said she loved Snow.

    “I often wish it had been me,” Hofmann said.

    Stout, who stood next to Hofmann, didn’t say anything before Judge John O. Craig sentenced each of them to serve a prison sentence that will be between 14 years and two months, and 17 years and nine months. He recommended they be sent to separate prisons.

    David Freedman, Hofmann’s attorney, said Hofmann would never intentionally hurt anyone, including Snow. Lisa Miles, Stout’s attorney, said Stout had an extensive history of mental issues and had shown immaturity and naiveté during her relationship with Hofmann.

    About 20 friends and family members stood Wednesday in support of Hofmann and Stout. A website dedicated to raising money for Hofmann’s defense said Hofmann maintains her innocence and refused to take any plea deal that required her to admit guilt.

    Hofmann and Snow had dated for nine years, but Stout and Hofmann began having an affair shortly after Stout’s wedding to another woman in Blacksburg, Va., Hall said. Stout and the woman soon broke up.

    Emails between Hofmann and Stout showed that the two had planned to kill Snow so they could be together, Hall said. Certain emails mentioned “sending sharks,” which Hall said seemed to indicate they had talked about hiring someone to kill Snow. But Freedman said those words referred to Snow’s wish to die from a shark attack while swimming with dolphins.

    In the emails, Stout told Hofmann that they would “probably wither and die without each other,” according to Hall.

    Hofmann and Stout acknowledged in emails that they would feel tremendous guilt if they killed Snow but told each other it was necessary to spare Snow pain and for them to be together, Hall said.

    “In this case, I wouldn’t feel that bad nor fear for my life,” Stout wrote Hofmann in one email, according to Hall. “Scarily, it is a means to an end to save her grief and a slow death, which is what she has now. If the MS doesn’t kill her, I suspect cancer will.”

    Hall said in a previous hearing that Hofmann and Stout practiced Wiccan, a pagan religion that focuses on worshipping the divine in nature, and that they decided the date of the murder based on the Wiccan calendar. Hall said Hofmann took Snow to the Super Bowl party on Feb. 1, 2004, so that Stout, who had a key made for her by Hofmann, could get in the house.

    When Stout and Hofmann came home, each of them shot Snow once, firing through two pillows in an attempt to silence the gunfire, he said. Hofmann called 911, and when police arrived, they found her with gunshot residue on her clothing and pillow stuffing on her shirt and in her hair, Hall said. The gun or guns were never found. Stout was not at the scene when police arrived.

    Hofmann told investigators that she lost consciousness after a burglar struck her from behind on her way to the bathroom. When she awoke, Snow was lying on the floor. That didn’t make sense for several reasons, primarily because there was no evidence of forced entry and nothing was taken except Hofmann’s gun, Hall said.

    After the killing, Stout moved in with Hofmann and together they sought to collect $157,000 on Snow’s life-insurance policy. Snow’s family filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Stout and Hofmann, which was settled in 2006. Hofmann and Stout later returned the money from the insurance policy.

    Craig said in court that Stout and Hofmann were well-educated women who decided to end Snow’s life prematurely.

    “It’s a very sick thing that happened, and I’m sorry this has happened, but you will have to pay your debt to society,” he told the women.

    and.....

    A long wait for little justice

    Nearly everything about State v. Hofmann was slow.

    The victim in the case, a woman named Sharon Snow, was shot to death in her home after a Super Bowl party Feb. 1, 2004.

    Kate Hofmann, Snow's partner, was a prime suspect almost from the minute she dialed 911 to report a bogus robbery at the house they shared on Linville Road. Yet she wasn't charged until five years later, in May 2009.

    Once jailed, Hofmann sat for more than two years — 741 days, 5 hours, and 37 minutes at 2:38 Wednesday afternoon, according to a clock on the Kate Hofmann Legal Defense website — looking at the possibility of being executed.

    Hofmann and co-defendant Kim Stout entered Alford pleas to second-degree murder charges Wednesday morning, meaning they did not admit guilt but acknowledged that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict them. When word spread of their pleas, the reaction was relatively swift: They could be out before they're 60. What?

    Nothing about the killing of Sharon Snow remotely suggests leniency.

    According to prosecutor David Hall, Snow, a 41-year-old who was suffering mightily from advanced multiple sclerosis when she was shot twice in the back at close range, was killed for base reasons: greed and lust.

    Snow had a life insurance policy worth some $157,000; shortly before her killing she'd named Hofmann as beneficiary, replacing her mother. Though it took awhile — this isn't "Law & Order," folks — investigators eventually located a series of damning emails from Hofmann and Stout demonstrating the level of plotting involved.

    "That was the insidious nature of a very thoroughly planned murder," Hall said Wednesday when laying out the state's version of events.

    The killing was, in short, pre-meditated and committed for financial gain. It also involved a love triangle, and the victim was about as sympathetic as you could find.

    Lawyers call those things "aggravating factors" and in most cases, they add up to at least first-degree murder — and the life sentence that typically comes with it.

    So how does a capital-murder case with all the classic motives assigned to it wind up being plea-bargained down to second-degree murder?

    Hall explained in court.

    "By all rights the defendants should get life without parole or the death penalty," Hall said. "But the victim's mother was in very poor health and might not survive. It was her wish that this be concluded very soon. I respect that, so we acquiesced."

    After Judge John O. Craig sentenced both Hofmann and Stout to between 14 and nearly 18 years — and recommended they serve their time in separate prisons — Hall further explained the course of events to Snow's family.

    "Kim will be close to 70 by the time she gets out. Kate, unfortunately, will be 61 or 62," Hall said. "That's awfully young. But that's all we were able to get."

    "I was hoping they'd get more than that," said Nellie Snow.

    Still, she was pleased that prosecutors had listened to the family's wishes. And in a tragic case such as this one, perhaps that's as good as it gets.

    http://www2.journalnow.com/news/2011...11-ar-1085044/

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