State Rests Its Case in William Hoehn Murder Trial

Hoehn's defense attorney Daniel Bourgen says he will call at least one witness to the stand Thursday

FARGO, N.D. — The state rests its case after one day of jury selection and six days of witness testimonies in William Hoehn’s murder trial.

Only two witnesses were called to the stand, including Det. Phil Swan with the Fargo Police Department.

Fargo police searched Hoehn’s apartment three times for 22–year–old Savanna Greywind but it was Aug. 20, 2017 when Det. Swan got involved.

He says Hoehn’s former girlfriend Brooke Crews didn’t even deny them access into the apartment.

The Greywind family had a relative who used to live in apartment five before Crews and Hoehn moved into it. That’s why they knew about a hidden space within the bathroom closet.

“It didn’t appear that anything had been recently moved in that area. It was dusty and I didn’t see anything suspicious in that spot,” Swan said.

Greywind’s body had already been moved to a dresser in Crews’ and Hoehn’s room by Sunday.

But Det. Swan says officers couldn’t even find a drop of blood at the scene.

“One of the hard parts to grasp was the lack of blood at the scene. We all expected to see quite a bit but through my search of the apartment on Sunday, I didn’t see anything there,” Swan said.

He says Crews was very polite the whole time officers were in the apartment and never showed any sign of deception. Hoehn was not in the apartment at the time.

In an audio recording Det. Swan took during the search, Crews even offers to help.

“And just since you’re here, I’ll go ahead and open up the whole house to you. I mean you go right ahead. I can move this,” Swan said.

Det. Swan and the other officers go on to search the apartment before heading downstairs to talk to Greywind’s father.

They tell him they’d like to put apartment five “to bed” and “check that box” so they can continue to search for his daughter elsewhere.

Officers continued to search for Greywind using a helicopter, drone and almost all of their detectives.

It wasn’t until Aug. 24 they were able to get a search warrant for Crews’ and Hoehn’s apartment, where they found Greywind’s baby between two pillows on the bed.

The baby’s father and Greywind’s boyfriend Ashton Matheny was the second witness called to the stand.

He says he was at a softball game in Grand Forks on Aug. 19 when he learned no one had heard from his eight month pregnant girlfriend. It’s something he says was not like her at all. Matheny says he dated Greywind for six–and–a–half years and her parents always kept tabs on her.

“Did her parents have a pretty good handle on where she was at and who she was hanging out with? At all times,” Matheny said.

After Det. Swan and Matheny’s testimonies, Hoehn’s attorney asked that the judge make a verdict. Judge Tom Olson denied the request saying he’s “leaving it up to the jury.”

Hoehn’s attorney will question Crews’ former prison inmate on Thursday morning and says he may call one more witness to the stand afterwards.