Title: Shocking Story of Jonathan Hoffman’s Murder by His Own Grandmother
Where is Sandra Layne now? She will most likely die in prison.
Six days after he was killed, a piece about the death of 17-year-old Jonathan Hoffman ran in the Detroit Jewish News. In it, Hoffman’s friends and former classmates described him as “bright, funny, kind, and caring.” News of his murder shocked everyone who knew Hoffman. “Some of my funniest memories from Hillel are with him,” said his friend Ryan Grosinger. Unfortunately, who you are in life doesn’t necessarily save you from the horrors that exist in this world.
No one could have predicted that the person Hoffman had to fear the most was his grandmother, Sandra Layne. She was the last person to see her grandson alive because Layne was responsible for his death. This story is made more tragic by the fact that you can hear Hoffman’s last moments in a recording of his 911 call. Where is Sandra Layne now? Here’s what we know.
As of the time of this writing, the Offender Tracking Information System for the Michigan Department of Corrections is temporarily unavailable due to maintenance. Because of the interruption, we aren’t able to confirm if Layne is still incarcerated. If she is, she would be 87 years old in 2024. Layne was 75 when she was handed a 22-year prison sentence for killing her grandson, per CBS News. She was given 20 years for second-degree murder and another two for using a gun in the murder.
When he was killed, Hoffman was living with his grandmother and grandfather in West Bloomfield, Mich. According to USA TODAY, his parents, who were recently divorced, had moved to Arizona with his younger sister who was being treated for a brain tumor. Hoffman was finishing out his senior year and was having a tough time. He was experimenting with drugs and was on “probation after an earlier drug overdose landed him in the hospital, and had failed a drug test earlier on the day he died.”
Layne said she was terrified of Hoffman and his friends which is what prompted her to buy a gun in April 2012. She also practiced at a gun range, convinced they were going to rob her or worse. On the day she killed her grandson, Layne claimed he was terrified of “flunking probation” and as such, demanded she give him money and a car so he could run. Layne said she shot Hoffman in self-defense, but the 911 call tells a different story.
Sandra Layne’s story is told in the Oxygen series ‘Kill or Be Killed.’
Distractify obtained a sneak preview of Episode 1 of Oxygen’s Kill or Be Killed, which goes into detail about Hoffman’s murder. In the clip, we hear his desperate 911 call. Viewers are warned, it’s pretty devastating. Prosecutor Paul Walton pushes play on the recording while explaining that he felt the call was the most “compelling piece of evidence in this case.”
The operator picks up and asks what the emergency is as Hoffman, clearly in distress, says, “Help. I’ve just been shot. My grandma shot me.” He made the call at 5:27 p.m. and nearly three minutes later, the dispatcher hears more gunshots. Hoffman is heard repeatedly screaming for help. “For two minutes and 51 seconds,” says Walton, “Sandra Layne has had the opportunity to consider what she’s doing.”
The jury agreed with Walton and later told him as well as Layne’s attorneys that the 911 call was “critical to their decision,” per USA TODAY. “They said they played it over and over and over again in the jury room,” shared Walton. “One of the big things they said is when you hear the shots on the (call) there’s no struggle.”
For more on this story, tune into Oxygen’s Kill or Be Killed, Saturday March 2, 2024, at 9:00 p.m. EST.