Thelma Hofmann
The Crime
At approximately 4:45 a.m. on November 11th, 2020, police responded to the residence of George McDonnell and Thelma Hofmann in Mt. Haley Township. McDonnell had called 9-1-1 around 4:30 a.m., stating that Hofmann was unconscious and not breathing. Upon their arrival, EMS discovered that Hofmann had suffered from two gunshot wounds and was deceased. Hofmann had been shot from outside the home.
Detective Brent Benzing reported that McDonnell was originally a person of interest but was later ruled out as a suspect. In a short period of time, Det. Benzing and his colleagues discovered evidence that led them to two potential suspects. According to Det. Benzing, Hofmann’s case was never a cold one and instead was always an active investigation. The crime report contained approximately 1,000 pages along with thousands of supplemental pages and 35 search warrants.
On April 30th, 2025, two brothers, James Arthur Hintz Jr. (32) and Kody Clyde Hintz (29) were arraigned and charged for their connection in Hofmann’s murder, with a total of eight charges including felony murder, open murder, breaking and entering, larceny of firearms, and felony firearm. As of April 30th, 2025, both brothers are being held in a County Jail on a 5$ million cash/surety bond.
The Victim
Originally from Bay City, Thelma Hofmann was a 70-year-old woman with no living relatives from Michigan. Midland County Sheriff Scott Holzinger stated that she kept to herself. There was nothing alarming in her background.
How Cold Case Program Students Helped
WMU Cold Case Program students assisted Midland County police and detectives largely by organizing and creating a large digital case file that was searchable by detectives. The final, combined, pdf document totaled over 75,000 pages. Students also created additional projects, such as a person index, timeline of events, a social media index, and an interactive map containing places of interest.