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Inset: Cynthia Hoffman (Anchorage Police Department). Background: Kayden McIntosh at his sentencing hearing (KTUU).
An Alaska man, Kayden McIntosh, faces a lengthy prison term after becoming embroiled in a catfishing scheme that resulted in the murder of a young woman, Cynthia Hoffman. The man behind the deceit, who promised $9 million to McIntosh and others, was in reality a fraudster living in his grandparents’ basement.
McIntosh, who is now 22, received a sentence of 85 years on Friday, with 15 years suspended, effectively committing him to 70 years of imprisonment. This sentencing marks the conclusion of legal proceedings against six defendants involved in the 2019 murder of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman. Hoffman was tragically taken to a waterfall near Anchorage, where she was bound with duct tape and fatally shot by McIntosh before her body was discarded into a river.
Judge Andrew Peterson, presiding over the case in Anchorage Superior Court, stated, “Mr. McIntosh, while not the mastermind, was actively involved in planning Cynthia Hoffman’s murder and fully cognizant of the plan,” as reported by the Anchorage Daily News. He emphasized that McIntosh’s actions were premeditated and calculated, not impulsive.
Last year, McIntosh admitted guilt to charges of second-degree murder under a plea agreement that stipulated a sentence ranging from 30 to 85 years. Although Cynthia Hoffman’s family had pushed for the maximum penalty, they expressed satisfaction with the sentence, acknowledging its severity.
“He’s going to be an old man when he gets out,” remarked Don Hoffman, Cynthia’s uncle, to the Daily News, reflecting on the significant duration of McIntosh’s incarceration.
McIntosh’s lawyers reportedly asked for a 30-year prison sentence, saying he was a “lost kid” who surrounded himself with the wrong people. He apologized to Hoffman’s family.
“I know that doesn’t cut it,” he said, per the Daily News. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. I’m trying to take accountability for this.”
The man behind the plot is Darin Schilmiller, now 27. Ahead of Hoffman’s June 2019 death, Schilmiller had posed online as a man named “Tyler” and offered Denali Dakota Skye Brehmer — then 18 years old and purportedly Hoffman’s “best friend” — $9 million if she kidnapped and killed Hoffman and send him photographic proof. Schilmiller pretended to be a rich man with fantasies of seeing a woman murdered.
Darin Mitchell Schilmiller (Alaska Dept. of Law) and Cynthia Hoffman (Anchorage PD)
In actuality, however, “Tyler,” aka Schilmiller, was a broke, unemployed Indiana resident living in his grandparents’ basement. He pleaded guilty to one count of solicitation to commit murder in the first degree, and also a federal charge of conspiracy to produce child pornography for asking Brehmer for child sexual abuse material. A judge previously sentenced him to 99 years in prison with the possibility of parole after 45.
Brehmer pleaded guilty to one count of murder in the first degree. The judge sentenced her in February 2024 to the maximum term of 99 years with no time suspended.
Another defendant, Caleb Allen Russell Leyland, now 26, pleaded guilty in November 2024 to second-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 years in prison with 10 years suspended. Two other defendants were processed through the juvenile courts.
Prosecutors said Leyland, enticed by the allure of $500,000, gave Brehmer and the then-16-year-old McIntosh the car they used to trick Hoffman into taking a trip to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough in Chugiak, on June 2, 2019, and then going on a hike through Thunderbird Falls. There, Brehmer bound Hoffman with duct tape — all while taking photographic proof for her perceived benefactor.
Denali Brehmer enters a plea for the murder of Cynthia Hoffman in an Anchorage court on Feb. 15, 2023. The victim considered the defendant her “best friend.”
As previously reported by Law&Crime, authorities first arrested McIntosh in connection with Hoffman’s death. Police said he quickly confessed to being one of Brehmer’s accomplices in the murder — but insisted Brehmer brought the gun.
“[T]he three of them agreed to duct tape each other and take photographs,” Anchorage Police wrote in a probable cause affidavit following their interview with McIntosh. “[Hoffman] was bound by her ankles and wrists with duct tape. She also had grey duct tape placed over her mouth. However, [Hoffman] started to panic. They removed the duct tape from [Hoffman’s] mouth and hands. [Hoffman] began to tell them she was going to call the police and tell them they had kidnapped her and sexually assaulted her.”
McIntosh said he “blacked out,” but remembered shooting Hoffman and tossing her in the river.
Prosecutors had asked for a maximum term of imprisonment of 75 years with 25 years suspended for Leyland while his attorneys asked for 35 years with 10 suspended. At sentencing, prosecutors said Leyland was just as culpable as his co-defendants.
“He gave that assistance, and he gave that assistance knowing what’s going to happen,” Assistant District Attorney Patrick McKay said, according to NBC affiliate KTUU. “The court has already found this was a premeditated contract killing.”
In cruel irony, Hoffman’s father died in a motorcycle accident on June 2, 2024, five years to the day since his daughter’s death. The family lamented both deaths.
“My niece’s life’s been taken, her father followed five years later, on the same day, laid his bike down,” her uncle Robert Hoffman said, according to KTUU. “Now he’s with her but he died of a broken heart. We’re here to see this through. This is a tragedy. No matter what part you play in a crime, you’re just as responsible as the one that committed it the most.”
Leyland apologized to the Hoffman family, reportedly saying “I cannot go back in time and I cannot change things in the past. But I really wish I did, none of this would have happened.”