Police testimony details items on seized computer

By medicinehatnews on March 17, 2021.

A Medicine Hat police computer specialist went through a long list of items found on a computer seized from the home of the accused in a 2017 murder and extortion during testimony Wednesday.

Robert Hoefman, 59, is accused of the first-degree murder of James Satre in October 2017 as part of a plot to extort $1 million from another individual who can’t be identified due to a publication ban.

MHPS Sgt. Tim Schottner told the court of locating letters similar to those which were part of the extortion when he used a digital forensic program on the seized computer. He also ran through a number of Internet searches done on the computer.

The officers read out portions of letters recovered from the computer which correspond with those recovered as part of the extortion investigation.

He also testified to web searches found, ranging from looking up the name of the extortion target, weight of different cash denominations to illustrations of the human body and major arteries.

The laptop computer was seized from Hoefman’s home after the man was arrested on Nov. 8, 2017.