Coroner: 2 Ohio women, boy stabbed and dismembered

Preliminary autopsy reports show that Tina Herrmann, her son Kody Maynard and her friend Stephanie Sprang were attacked with a knife and stabbed multiple times in the back and chest, Knox County Coroner Jennifer Ogle said.

"They were then placed inside large plastic garbage bags and later lowered into the hollow of a large tree," Ogle said in a statement.

They died sometime on Nov. 11 and there were no signs of sexual assault, she said.

The search began on Nov. 12 after Herrmann failed to show up for work two days in a row and a co-worker who went to check on Herrmann at home found the place spattered with blood. Three days later, Herrmann's 13-year-old daughter, Sarah Maynard, was found bound and gagged in the basement of a home about 10 miles away.

Matthew Hoffman, an unemployed tree-trimmer, is accused of kidnapping the girl and keeping her for nearly four days in the basement of his home in Mount Vernon, about 10 miles west of Howard.

Hoffman gave information that led investigators to the bodies of the others, Knox County Sheriff David Barber said, and he is the only suspect in the killings. His attorney has declined to comment.

Authorities have said all three were killed in Herrmann's home in Howard, about 40 miles northeast of Columbus, in a lakefront neighborhood called Apple Valley.