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Heather Hoffman almost succeeded in concealing a sinister secret: a murder she orchestrated with chilling precision. Her seemingly foolproof alibi crumbled, laying bare her true nature as a cunning and heartless killer.
In a gripping episode of Snapped, which marked the beginning of its 36th season, Hoffman’s story unfolded, revealing the depths of her ambition and ruthlessness. Minot Police Detective Kristin Guerton aptly summed up the chilling reality, stating, “She has no remorse.”
Hoffman’s tale began like a romantic fairy tale. She crossed paths with Alex Eckert while working at Walt Disney World. Eckert, a young man fresh from prep school and hailing from a wealthy Florida family, had deferred his college plans to join the theme park staff. Hoffman, with her past as a beauty pageant contestant in North Dakota, sought a new beginning after a life-altering battle with a brain tumor.
Their meeting seemed serendipitous, but beneath the surface, Hoffman’s motives were anything but innocent. Her story serves as a haunting reminder of the lengths some will go to achieve their desires, no matter the cost.
Heather Hoffman and Alex Eckert Meet
In what seemed like the start of a fairy tale romance, Hoffman met Alex Eckert while working at Walt Disney World
Eckert, a recent prep school graduate from an affluent Florida family, had put off college to work at the theme park. Meanwhile, Hoffman, a former beauty pageant contestant from North Dakota, was hoping for a fresh start after surviving a brain tumor.
“They seemed like the perfect couple, the ideal couple,” Eckert’s friend Jason Dougan remembered. “Madly in love with each other.”
A year into the relationship, Hoffman returned to North Dakota to be closer to family and invited Eckert to join her. The couple learned in the summer of 2020 that they were expecting a daughter.
“He was overjoyed. This was an amazing thing,” friend Toni Mershon remarked. “It was scary, but it was a good thing.”
Eckert worked his way up to a supervisor role at a retail store, eager to take care of his young family, while Hoffman worked on a nearby Air Force base.
But the stress of being new parents proved to be too much for the couple and they split up just seven months after their daughter’s birth, triggering a heated custody battle.
“Heather was accusing Alex, saying he was a drunk and saying all these horrible, untrue things, which was, he was a bad father and stuff,” friend Dani Dodson recalled. “I think it just really took a toll on him.”
Hoffman had even accused Eckert of child abuse and sexual abuse, but with no evidence to back up her claim, the case quickly became inactive.
What Happened to Alex Eckert?
Then, at 12:40 a.m. on April 22, 2022, police were called to the scene of a local apartment complex. They discovered Eckert—clad in his pajamas—dead in the doorway of his apartment. The 22-year-old had been shot in the head with a .45-caliber gun.
“The door wasn’t kicked in, it wasn’t rammed, no damage anything like that,” Minot Police Detective Robbie Sumlin said. “So it signified to us that whoever Alex opened the door for or whoever went into the apartment, Alex knew.”
Heather Hoffman Insists She Was At Home
Given the heated custody dispute between Eckert and Hoffman, detectives quickly honed in on the new mom—who was living on the Minot Air Force Base—as a possible suspect.
However, Hoffman insisted she arrived home around 5:20 p.m. and never left, which she confirmed by showing detectives her Life360 app. The Air Force base also confirmed there was no record of her leaving the base, seemingly giving her a solid alibi.
According to Guerton, Hoffman painted her ex as “basically a monster,” accusing him of abusing her and their daughter.
When asked who could have wanted to hurt him, Hoffman responded, “I don’t know. Honestly, there’s a lot of people in his life that are pretty sketchy.”
Yet, the picture she painted didn’t seem to match what detectives learned from others. Eckert’s friends and coworkers described him as a devoted dad, who hated drinking and was committed to trying to co-parent with his ex. In fact, according to Eckert’s friends, he had been afraid of Hoffman and her family.
The judge in their custody case ordered Hoffman to let Eckert have unsupervised visits with his daughter.
Heather Hoffman’s Alibi Falls Apart After Surprising Witness Account
As the investigation continued, detectives found surveillance footage that placed the shooting at 10:28 p.m., several hours before Eckert’s body was discovered. Though the footage didn’t capture the actual shooting, it did capture two shadowy figures, one significantly taller than the other, walking to the apartment complex just before the sound of a gunshot. The same two figures were then seen walking back through the camera’s view minutes later.
A neighbor also called police to report finding the murder weapon on the ground, not far from Eckert’s apartment.
Detectives finally got the break they needed when Hoffman’s coworker called to report that the grieving mom had been practicing how she planned to react to Eckert’s death.
Hoffman’s supervisor also called police after noticing that she had created a work order, claiming a man named Jesse was at her family’s house the night of the murder to fix a furnace. It struck her boss as odd, however, because Jesse had not been the maintenance worker on-call that night. Investigators learned the work order had been forged and was created after the murder to seemingly give both Hoffman and Jesse an alibi.
After detectives confronted Jesse, he cracked, telling police that he had driven Hoffman to Eckert’s apartment that night while she hid in the back seat of his vehicle so that she could avoid detection at the base gate.
Who Killed Alex Eckert?
According to Jesse, he believed Hoffman only wanted to speak to her ex and he agreed to wait for her nearby, but then the situation took a dramatic turn.
“When [Eckert] opened the door, he said, ‘Heather, what are you doing? We’re not doing this right now,’” Jesse told detectives, adding that he heard Hoffman say “does it look like I’m joking?” just before a gunshot went off.
After the murder, Jesse told detectives Hoffman threatened him and ordered him to stay quiet.
Police linked Hoffman to the murder weapon after evidence emerged that she’d purchased the weapon at a gun show a month earlier and ballistics tests matched the firearm to the shell casing at the scene. An autopsy report also revealed that Eckert’s killer had been shorter than him, matching someone of Hoffman’s height.
“Heather snapped because she knew it was coming towards the end and Alex was going to get custody,” Sumlin said. “This was her last ditch effort to try to do something to get the child.”
Hoffman was arrested and charged with murder. She was convicted of killing Eckert and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Jesse was never charge in relation to the death.
The couple’s child is now being raised by Hoffman’s sister. A judge ordered that Hoffman have no contact with her daughter.
