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Mother tells her daughter’s killer: ‘You messed with wrong family, wrong Momma’
Judge sentences McKinley Louisma to life in prison without parole in February slaying of Melody Hoffman
Dec. 20, 2024 5:27 pm, Updated: Dec. 23, 2024 7:35 am
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CEDAR RAPIDS — The tearful mother of Melody Hoffman, who was kidnapped, tortured and strangled in February, said Friday she wasn’t sure she could forgive Melody’s killer, even if her daughter would want that.
“You have taken so much from me, my family, friends and even complete strangers that have reached out,” Megan Hoffman, in a victim impact statement, told McKinley Louisma, 23, of Hiawatha, during his first-degree murder sentencing in Linn County Disrict Court.
Louisma was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.
“Melody will live forever in each and every one of us,” Megan Hoffman said of her 20-year-old daughter. “She will remembered for the kind, caring, loving, organized, silly, artistic, music-loving, slime-making, selfie-taking, video-making, supper-cooking, animal-loving girl we all remember.”
The mother said her daughter will be part of future Iowa law enforcement education because of the cellphone technology used to track her daughter’s movements Feb. 17, the night she got into a car with Louisma and Dakota Van Patten, 18, of Cedar Rapids, also charged in her murder and facing trial March 3.
The technology ultimately helped police investigators solve the crime and will help solve other crimes in the future, she said.
“Crimes that will put criminals, like you, away where they belong and hopefully bring some justice to families of these vicious, sinful, vile, malicious, evil and villainous crimes,” Megan Hoffman said. “Justice will be served to those who deserve it, to its fullest here on Earth. A much higher power will get the final justice.”
Megan Hoffman said she will fight every day to keep her daughter’s “memory strong and let her live on as long as I can through me.”
She told Louisma he had messed with the “wrong family and Momma,” noting Louisma once had asked Melody, “Are you scared of me now?”
“Are you scared of her now?” Megan Hoffman asked Louisma. “How about me, now that your only view will be obstructed by bars for the rest of your life? I only ever gave one name to law enforcement as the person of interest during this whole investigation.”
Melody “begged” her mother to let Louisma stay with them so he wouldn’t have to sleep in his car during the winter, and she frequently asked her mother for money to give Louisma for gas or food, Megan Hoffman said.
“Melody still is providing for you,” Megan Hoffman said. “She will forever provide those bars you now live behind for the rest of your life.”
Tyler Hoffman, Melody’s father, said in his statement that he wasn’t going to share how his daughter’s death impacted him. He won’t share how he feels when he signs his daughter out of his Xbox or when he turns it on because he uses her controller.
“I will not be sharing how this has impacted me because I can’t even be honest with the true impact of this,” he said. “I would be sharing this impact through an experience I don’t even understand. You (Louisma) don’t know what that means, but that’s OK, you don’t know what any of this means.”
He won’t share any of this because “that thing (Louisma) wouldn’t understand, let alone empathize, sympathize, with how this has impacted me.”
“There are no sighs, facial expressions, words, or any form of communication, new or old, that will be able to accurately capture the impact this has had,” Tyler Hoffman said.
Sentencing
Louisma declined to make a statement during sentencing.
Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks said Melody Hoffman, 20, of Marion, was “brutally and sadistically murdered,” and cases like these are the reason laws include mandatory life sentences without parole.
Investigators believe Melody was killed at Morgan Creek Park west of Cedar Rapids. Her body, with numerous stab and slash wounds, was bound with duct tape and left at the Lily Pond in Amana.
During Louisma’s trial, Maybanks said Melody Hoffman had the mind of a 14-year-old girl because she had an intellectual disability. She still lived with her mother in Marion and was “overly trusting and easily manipulated and controlled” because of her lack of experience with others.
Louisma broke up with Hoffman in January 2024 because he got back together with his longtime girlfriend, who was pregnant. Hoffman took the breakup hard because Louisma was her first boyfriend, Maybanks said.
On Friday, Louisma faced two lifetime sentences after a jury had found him guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree kidnapping and another 10 years for conspiracy to commit a forcible felony,
Jill Eimermann, Louisma’s lawyer, told the judge she believed the conspiracy conviction could merge with one of the other two convictions.
But 6th Judicial District Judge Chad Kepros ran all of Louisma’s convictions concurrently, for one lifetime term in prison without the possibility of parole.
He also ordered Louisma to pay $150,000 in restitution to Melody’s heirs or estate.
Kepros said the crimes were “violent, cruel and senseless acts,” which were devastating to Melody Hoffman’s family and undercut the sense of safety in the community.
Comments: (319) 398-8318; trish.mehaffey@thegazette.com
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