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Little known about what led to arrest
Woman charged in death of her partner more than five years after her death
Photo Provided by Snow Family
A family picture shows Nellie and Mac Snow with their children (from left) Steve, Sharon, Sheila and Carol.
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Published: June 14, 2009
The 911 call came in the night of Feb. 1, 2004, not long after the Carolina Panthers lost to New England in the Super Bowl.
"I need, I need … my partner's been shot."
Kate Hofmann told a dispatcher that she and her partner, Sharon Snow, had come home from a party, and something had happened. Snow was lying in the hallway, not moving.
"OK, listen to me," the dispatcher said, trying to calm Hofmann as she sobbed. "Do you know who shot them?"
"No.''
"OK. Was there anybody in the house other than you?"
"No."
For five years, Snow's killing divided the couple's social circle in the lesbian and gay community, and in their church, the Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro.
Did a burglar kill Snow, a woman who had multiple sclerosis and posed little threat, or was it someone she knew? There was no sign of forced entry into the couple's small home on Linville Road.
The case took a major turn last month when police arrested Hofmann, charging her with first-degree murder. Neither police nor prosecutors would comment for this story, citing the need to preserve the integrity of a future trial.
Friends said that part of what has fueled varying opinions is that they know only bits and pieces about any evidence, and nothing about why the authorities believe the case is now strong enough to take to trial.
But there are clues.
Built on circumstantial evidence
A wrongful-death lawsuit, interviews with Snow's parents and with friends of Snow's and Hofmann's give a picture of a case built on circumstantial evidence, including e-mail correspondence, gunshot-residue on Hofmann's clothes, and an allegation that Hofmann had an affair.
Mac and Nellie Snow, Sharon Snow's parents, say that police long ago told them that there was no sign of forced entry to the house. In the wrongful-death lawsuit that the Snows settled in 2006 against Hofmann and Kim Stout, the Snows accused the two of starting an affair several months before Sharon Snow's death. Each of them shot her once, the lawsuit alleged, and Stout later moved into the home that Hofmann and Snow co-owned.
"How in the world can they lay down at night and go to sleep in that house?" Mac Snow said. "They must have no conscience."
Hofmann has plenty of supporters, and they have been raising money for her legal defense.
"These are people that know her quite well and just cannot, cannot put together the idea that she would have done violence," said a friend who supports Hofmann. The friend spoke on condition of anonymity, saying that she didn't want to anger Hofmann's family.
Hofmann's attorney, David Freedman, said he could not comment. Stout, who has not been charged, said, "I have nothing to say," when reached by phone Thursday.
Even the Snows, who have long waited for Hofmann's arrest, acknowledge that they didn't suspect Hofmann immediately, believing that the two women cared about each other.
Together for about nine years
Sharon Snow and Hofmann had been together for about nine years before Sharon Snow's death. They met at the Southeast Unitarian Universalist Summer Institute, commonly referred to by participants as SUUSI.
The weeklong gathering draws about 1,000 people to southwest Virginia each summer for workshops on topics ranging from spirituality to tango to bookbinding.
A year after they met, they bought a home together. Friends said that Hofmann's mother and stepfather acknowledged and supported their relationship. The Snows had monthly dinners with Hofmann and their daughter, but didn't acknowledge the couple's relationship.
"I thought of them mostly as friends living together," Nellie Snow said.
The Snows said they believe that their daughter felt at home with them. When asked if their daughter would have believed the same about them, the Snows said they realize that she likely felt that she had to tiptoe around her sexual orientation.
A major change in the relationship came about two years before Sharon Snow's death, when she learned that she had multiple sclerosis. The disease had already afflicted her younger brother, Marty.
Hofmann took care of Snow when necessary, staying by her bedside when she was in the hospital and keeping close tabs on her energy levels when they were out together. Snow used a wheelchair when her energy flagged, and she was in her wheelchair the night she was shot.
The couple seemed happy and caring, and it's those memories that help convince many among Hofmann's church and community friends of her innocence, said a friend of Snow's who supported Hofmann at first but then came to believe that she killed Snow. She, too, asked for anonymity because the case has so divided their group of friends.
"I was very supportive of Kate. I begged for her to be given the benefit of the doubt," Snow's friend said.
The friend said that she, like others who knew the couple, watched Hofmann closely after Snow's death for clues about whether to believe her story about an unknown burglar who spared Hofmann, killed Snow and stole the gun that, according to several sources, Hofmann kept in her home.
An autopsy showed that Snow was shot twice in the back, and that her killer appeared to have shot through a pillow, using a different pillow for each shot fired.
"It didn't seem to me that there was any grief," Snow's friend said. "I came to the decision that there wasn't anybody else that it could have been. Many people believe Kate is the person who killed Sharon, but there are equally many that believe she wasn't."
First reaction was one of disbelief
When the Snows first talked to police after the homicide, each had the same reaction.
Not Kate.
"I know Kate didn't do it because she loved Sharon, and Sharon thought the world of Kate," Nellie Snow said, recalling her initial belief about Hofmann.
But in the weeks after the homicide, Snow said, Hofmann seemed as if "she couldn't wait to get rid of us" when they would meet with her to deal with Sharon Snow's things.
And police told her that Hofmann was trying to collect on Snow's life-insurance policies, which were worth more than $115,000. After a few more awkward interactions with Hofmann, Nellie Snow decided on one more test.
When Hofmann came to their home to return a trunk that had been in the family for years, Snow sat across the kitchen table from her, with the question stewing in her mind.
"So I just got up and said it loud -- as loud as I could say it," Snow said. "I said, ‘Kate, did you shoot Sharon in the back with your gun?'"
Hofmann left. The Snows became convinced of her guilt and would later fight to block her from their daughter's estate.
A will with Snow's signature, made out four months before her death, said that she left everything to Hofmann upon her death. In January 2006, the Snows filed their wrongful-death lawsuit, which asked a judge to award the Snows all of their daughter's estate.
The civil lawsuit relied in part on conversations with police, though attorneys for the Snows also did their own investigation and came away puzzled that the criminal case had stalled.
"I thought it was very surprising that she (Hofmann) wasn't charged," said W. David White, an attorney in Dobson who filed the wrongful-death lawsuit.
"I've been practicing law for 29 years, almost, and I've handled quite a few criminal cases," White said. "I just felt like the evidence there, a lot of it was circumstantial, but I felt like it was a pretty good case."
Here are some of the allegations in the civil lawsuit:
□ That Stout and Hoffman began an affair in November 2003, and e-mailed each other regularly to express their love.
□ That a week before Snow's death, Hofmann bought a key to her and Snow's home. She then met Stout at a restaurant in Kernersville, and gave her the key.
□ That Hofmann waited an hour to call 911, and that paramedics would testify that Snow had been dead at least that long when they arrived.
□ That Hofmann had gunshot residue on her clothes, an indication that she had been near a gun when it was fired.
A search warrant for Hofmann's computer was part of the early investigation, but it was sealed by a judge. There also was a search warrant served on Hofmann when she was arrested. A judge sealed it too.
Hofmann and Stout denied the lawsuit allegations in court filings. They and the Snows settled the lawsuit with the help of a mediator, including the dispute over the life-insurance policies, which the Snows said they received in the settlement. Hofmann kept the house, which had little of the mortgage paid, Snow's car and $15,000, the Snows said.
What remains a puzzle is what changed in recent months and led to an arrest. The case has changed hands twice at the police department, winding up with Detective Sean Flynn last year. The prosecutor handling the case retired and a new one took the case, which could be a factor in the decision to charge Hofmann. A prosecutor's opinion on whether a case has become strong enough for trial is often the final word on whether charges get filed.
Fear of not getting a fair jury pool
As they wait for the trial, some of Hofmann's supporters fear that she may have difficulty getting a fair jury pool because she is a lesbian, and some believe that police focused solely on her for that reason, said the supporter who spoke on condition of anonymity.
"Why is it OK for a heterosexual man to find another partner and quickly remarry, but if a lesbian does this, she comes under suspicion of murder?" the friend said.
Capt. David Clayton, who oversees detectives, said that prejudice plays no part in the investigation.
"Nothing can be further from the truth," Clayton said.
Police follow leads wherever they go, he said, and anyone who believes they have a tip about the case should contact them.
"As in any investigation, you investigate it thoroughly, you investigate without prejudice, and you present the facts and go forward."
■ Dan Galindo can be reached at 727-7377 or at dgalindo@wsjournal.com.
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