WFMJ.com News weather sports for Youngstown-Warren OhioCortland native pleads guilty in deaths of 3 found in tree

Cortland native pleads guilty in deaths of 3 found in tree

MOUNT VERNON, Ohio (AP) - A Cortland native has pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and other charges in the deaths of three people whose dismembered bodies were found in a hollow tree.

Thirty-year-old Matthew Hoffman was in court to enter the plea Thursday to aggravated murder, burglary, kidnapping and rape. An indictment alleged Hoffman killed a woman, her son and a neighbor while burglarizing the woman's home on Nov. 10.

The woman's teenage daughter was later found alive but bound and gagged in Hoffman's basement. Hoffman, an unemployed tree-cutter, could face up to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Prosecutors in the small central Ohio city of Mount Vernon were not pursuing a death sentence at the wishes of the victims' families.

(Copyright 2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)