A 23-year-old Anchorage woman received a 99-year sentence Monday for a 2019 murder that prosecutors say was prompted by a “catfishing” scheme.
Denali Brehmer pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in February 2023 for the killing of 19-year-old Cynthia Hoffman near Thunderbird Falls north of Anchorage. According to state prosecutors, Brehmer, 18 at the time, recruited other teenagers to help her bind, sexually assault and fatally shoot Hoffman for an Indiana man posing online as a millionaire.
That man, 25-year-old Darin Schilmiller, had promised Brehmer and her group $9 million to carry out the killing and record it. Schilmiller pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 99 years in January. Both he and Brehmer have also pleaded guilty in federal court to related child pornography charges.
In handing down the 99-year sentence Monday, which included no suspended time, Superior Court Judge Andrew Peterson described Hoffman’s murder as “tragic and senseless” and Brehmer’s conduct as “cold, calculated, and carried out to a T,” according to a statement from the state Department of Law.
As part of the sentencing, Peterson had watched a video of Hoffman taken just before she was killed. She was duct-taped and on the ground. The judge called it “one of the most difficult pieces of evidence I’ve had to watch in this position.”
Casey Grove is host of Alaska News Nightly, a general assignment reporter and an editor at Alaska Public Media. Reach him at cgrove@alaskapublic.org. Read more about Casey here.
