Denali Brehmer began planning how to kill her “best friend” after a man she met online said he would pay her several million dollars for evidence of the killing, Alaska authorities say.
The 18-year-old from Anchorage, Alaska, had developed an online relationship with Darin Schilmiller, 21, of Indiana, who posed as a millionaire named “Tyler,” and offered her at least $9 million to kill Cynthia Hoffman and send him “videos and photographs of the murder,” according to the Alaska Department of Law.
The two began discussing “a plan to rape and murder someone in Alaska,” several weeks before Hoffman’s murder, according to court documents.
Hoffman, 19, and Brehmer are described in the documents as “best friends.”
Hoffman was bound with duct tape, shot in the back of the head, and pushed into a river near a hiking trail outside Anchorage on June 2, the department said in a statement.
Anchorage Police officers discovered her body along the Eklutna River bank on June 4.
Brehmer recruited Kayden McIntosh, 16, Caleb Leyland, 19, and two juveniles to help her carry out the killing, and in exchange, “all of them would receive a significant sum of money for their part in the planning and/or execution of the murder,” according to the department’s statement.
CNN has reached out to Brehmer’s attorney, Emily Cooper, but a request for comment has not been answered.
Federal officials are in the process of seeing Schilmiller transferred to Anchorage, US Department of Justice spokeswoman Chloe Martin said. Schilmiller is in federal custody and will be arraigned once in Alaska, authorities said.
He is being held on child pornography charges.
Federal court documents allege Schilmiller had also directed Brehmer to sexually assault an “8 or 9 year old” and a 15-year-old and send videos to him. Brehmer told investigators she did, and video of the 15-year-old was recovered by investigators.
It is unclear whether Schilmiller has an attorney or whether federal charges have been brought against Brehmer.
