CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (Court TV) — A state medical examiner said Wednesday that 20-year-old Melody Hoffman was killed by ligature strangulation, and that lab testing pointed to either a very early pregnancy or a recent miscarriage at the time of her death.
Dr. Kelly Kruse’s testimony came on day 5 of the Linn County trial of Dakota Van Patten, charged with first-degree murder and kidnapping in Hoffman’s February 2024 death.
A senior portrait taken of Melody Hoffman in 2021. (Court TV)
The day opened with Detective Tom Peterson. He testified that an Ozark Trail glove had Hoffman’s blood on the outside and that swabs from the inside identified Van Patten as the major DNA contributor. He recounted a Feb. 19 interview in which—before investigators said a body had been found—Van Patten asked where a body was found and played down his phone use. Peterson said Van Patten changed tense mid-sentence, starting with “was” and correcting to “is” when describing co-defendant McKinley Louisma’s capacity for murder. He also walked jurors through searches on Louisma’s iPhone around 9:45 p.m. and said both men were at Walmart minutes before a 10:06 p.m. purchase.
A Cedar Rapids investigator told jurors that no usable fingerprints were recovered from a roll of duct tape, a white-handled steak knife, or three machetes, noting that textured grips and glove use make prints difficult to lift.
MORE | IA v. Dakota Van Patten: The Machete Murder Plot Trial
After the break, Dr. Kelly Kruse, an associate state medical examiner, said Hoffman died by ligature strangulation. She described the ligature mark and “petechiae,” tiny burst blood vessels often seen in strangulation, along with dozens of cutting and blunt-force injuries. Kruse said the cutting wounds were likely inflicted at or just after death and did not cause it; the fatal injury was the strangulation. She said the injury patterns were consistent with multiple implements: a textured machete handle shown in a short video overlay against an autopsy photograph as consistent with a patterned facial injury; a serrated blade for patterned cuts on the buttock; and a flat, hard surface for some blunt-force trauma.
Dakota Van Patten appears in court during his murder trial Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025. (Court TV)
Toxicology screens were negative for alcohol and drugs. On cross, she agreed it was medically possible that a single person using one knife caused the cutting wounds.
In the afternoon, digital forensics investigator Jeff Holst outlined a route reconstructed from Louisma’s iPhone: from Hiawatha to Walmart, to the area of Hoffman’s home, then to Morgan Creek Park around 12:09 a.m., and to Lily Lake between roughly 2:15 and 2:46 a.m. He said a deleted image of Hoffman with tape over her mouth was recovered from deeper phone files because a screenshot or crop preserved a copy; device logs showed the camera app active at both parks, but the data did not establish where or when the original photo was taken.
MORE | Dakota Van Patten faces sentencing for role in Melody Hoffman’s murder
Later in the afternoon, Iowa DCI Special Agent Ryan Kedley authenticated Snapchat records showing messages between Hoffman and an account tied to Louisma, arranging a pickup around 11:23 – 11:24 p.m. He also stated that Van Patten’s Snapchat contained dozens of selfies of him wearing glasses, consistent with Hoffman’s.
Hoffman vanished late Feb. 17, 2024; her body was found the next morning at Lily Lake, about 20 miles southwest of Cedar Rapids. Authorities arrested Louisma and Dakota Van Patten on Feb. 21. A third man, Logan Kimpton, was arrested Feb. 22. Louisma has since been convicted and sentenced to life without parole; Kimpton awaits trial in November.
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