Catfish persuaded school boy to kill friend for no reason in horrific murder-for-hire plot
Catfish persuaded school boy to kill friend for no reason in horrific murder-for-hire plot
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It was a huge amount of money for a teenager to imagine having, but what Denali Brehmer had to do to get the cash couldn’t have been more shocking. Brehmer was being offered $9 million by a stranger online in return for photos and videos of a murder. It didn’t matter who died, but Brehmer would have to make it happen.
Most people would have ended the conversation at the mere suggestion, but shockingly Brehmer, who was 18 at the time, agreed and even recruited others to help. As the plan was put in motion, she had no idea that the protagonist wasn’t all he seemed.
Brehmer lived in Anchorage, Alaska. She connected on Snapchat with a man who called himself Tyler and told her he lived in Kansas. Tyler said he was a millionaire and Brehmer was quickly influenced by him as he discussed his fixation with disturbing images. What Brehmer didn’t realised was that she was being catfished.
The person she was messaging was actually unemployed Darin Schilmiller, 21, who was living in his grandparents’ basement in Indiana and had little money. Three weeks after they started messaging each other, Schilmiller asked Brehmer whether, in exchange for $9 million, she would kill a victim in Alaska and record it for him with photos and video. Instead of going to the police, Brehmer approached four of her friends and promised them a cut of the millions if they assisted her.
Two of the friends were minors and the details of their involvement has never been revealed. Caleb Leyland, 19, was offered $500,000 to provide the vehicle. Kayden McIntosh, 16, would pull the trigger. Now Brehmer needed a victim and she decided on her former friend Cynthia Hoffman, 19. They’d gone to school together and had a petty fight over a boy.
