Trial begins for Greywind’s second alleged murderer

FARGO – Day one of the trial of William Henry Hoehn and his possible role in the murder of Savanna Greywind whose eight-month-old baby was cut from her womb in August 2017 began Tuesday morning in Cass County District Court.

With District Judge Thomas R. Olson presiding, jury selection began with both sides alluding to their plans of legal attack. Defense attorney Daniel James Borgen asked questions to approximately 50 potential jurors about love.

“How many of you have been lied to by the person that you love, I mean a deep lie, deceit?” Borgen asked. “Did you find it easy to believe that lie because it came from the person you loved? Once you reach that realization that you love someone, you reach a point where what they say is golden.”

Hoehn pled guilty to kidnapping and providing false information to authorities two weeks ago. Initially, Hoehn and his live-in girlfriend, Brooke Lynn Crews, pleaded not guilty to the crimes. Crews later changed her plea to guilty and is currently serving a life sentence for Greywind’s murder.

Hoehn, 33, is on trial for his alleged role in Greywind’s murder, a charge in which he maintains innocence. According to police records Hoehn came home early afternoon August 19, 2017, and found Crews cleaning up blood in the bathroom. She then held up a baby and told Hoehn that, “This is our baby, this is our family.”

The baby, named Haisley Jo, belonged to Greywind and her boyfriend Ashton Matheny, according to DNA analysis. Haisley Jo was found eight days after Greywind went missing in the apartment Crews and Hoehn shared. Crews used a box cutter knife to perform a fetal abduction while Greywind was still alive, according to information revealed during her change of plea proceeding.

Shortly before kayakers found Greywind’s body wrapped in plastic in the Red River, Fargo Police Chief David Todd called the crime a “vicious act of depravity.”

Journal entries discovered by the High Plains Reader in December 2017 that belonged to Crews included love letters from Hoehn. Crews began her relationship with Hoehn shortly after returning from Australia in 2015. Hoehn has a child with a Philadelphia woman, and was also convicted of child neglect and abuse in Grand Forks County the same year, according to court documents.

Crews’ own journal entries and letters Hoehn wrote to Crews shows that the man was in love with a calculating woman studying for a PhD in psychology.

“I want to make you feel as loved as you are,” Hoehn wrote. “To be fulfilling your emotional and physical needs… And I’ve been letting you down. I don’t want to let you down, I want to lift you up and give you that feeling of fulfillment and happiness. We are very important to me. You are my best friend, my partner, and a lot of time my mentor and example of ‘how to be.’ I want to be the better man, for you, for us, and our family… You are better than I deserve, and I can’t imagine what I’ve ever done to have you in my life… I will slow down and be more thoughtful. Give you more time. I’m sorry I haven’t. It kills me to imagine our lives without us. I can and will be a better William for my beloved Brooke Lynn.”

Hoehn appeared calm, frequently smiling during Tuesday’s proceedings. Dressed in a pink dress shirt, khaki pants, clean-shaven, he shuffled through stacks of paperwork, busy as a paralegal. The initials BH appear on his right wrist just above the sleeve in what appears to be either a prison or homemade tattoo.

Although jury selection is not finished, and the trial is not expected to start until later in the week, prosecuting attorney Ryan Younggren focused his questions on a term he called the CSI effect, or the belief that if police did not discover enough physical evidence then they are at fault.

“If there was a murder, if someone’s life was taken violently, would you be surprised to hear that the cops, DNA analysts, could not find blood or some sort of DNA material at a crime scene?” Younggren asked the potential jurors.

Younggren also made mention of a phenomenon called the “Dexter effect,” from the hit television show “Dexter,” where the main actor performs a murder, but cleans up after a crime scene leaving no traces.

At least four jurors were excused from serving on the panel by Tuesday afternoon.

Greywind, 22 at the time of her death, was a member of the Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe and has ties to Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. Her death spurred Senator Heidi Heitkamp to introduce Savanna’s Act, still not passed, but seeks to improve tribal access to federal crime information databases and standardize protocols for police response in cases of missing and murdered Indigenous women and men.

Potential witnesses include Greywind’s parents, Norberta and Joe Greywind, her boyfriend Matheny, and Crews.

Hoehn’s trial is expected to take up to two weeks to finish.

Hoehn’s trial is expected to take up to two weeks to finish, and on day two opening statements were made from both the prosecution and the defense.

Younggren described how Crews lured Greywind to her upstairs apartment under the guise of a sewing project. He claims that Hoehn knew about Crews’ pregnancy, even though she had a medical procedure to keep her from getting pregnant. Younggren started his opening statements by asking the jury what would they die for, and what would the kill for.

Baby Haisley Jo was named Phoenix by Crews and Hoehn, Younggren said, a name that means arising from the ashes of its predecessor.

“Sick symbolism,” Younggren said. “You will be unable, ladies and gentlemen, to make sense of this senseless crime if you use our logic that we use innumerable times a day. The crime of killing Savanna Greywind and ripping out her baby makes no sense.

“I think you will be surprised by the cunning that it took to pull this crime off and at other times you will be surprised by the haphazard nature or lack of planning… they didn’t even leave town.”

Hoehne’s attorney, Dorgen, maintains that Crews was the main culprit, and that Hoehne was innocent of her plans.

“She kept up this ruse for months, all the way through August, she sent him ultrasounds, she sent him pictures, she lied to Will about going to doctor’s appointments, she lied to Will about have a home birth. She was doing everything she could to keep Will home. In this case Brooke would kill to have Will home, that is what this come downs to.”

Timing of events is already proving to be a contentious issue in the trial. Witness testimony confirmed that Hoehn was driven home by his boss, Jesus “Jesse” Rios around 2:30 p.m. the day Greywind went missing and was murdered.

“Haisley Jo will never meet her mother, her birthday will forever be stained as the same day as her mother’s death,” Younggren said.

More updates will be posted online as the trial continues. 

[This story was updated to include part of day two of the trial.]