GIRARD - Vienna police have filed felony drug trafficking charges against the husband and wife involved in a Wednesday morning shooting in the township that sent both of them to a local hospital to recover from their wounds.
Police Chief Andrew Pecchio said Brooke Hoffman, 38, also faces two counts of felonious assault. Pecchio said Hoffman and her husband, Craig Hoffman, 33, were "OK" and remained in St. Elizabeth Health Center on Thursday. They are to be arraigned once they are released from the hospital.
Pecchio said authorities were still trying to put the pieces together and sort through conflicting witness statements. However, he believes Brooke Hoffman shot Craig Hoffman first, and afterwards she was shot behind the left ear during a struggle between the two over a gun. Craig Hoffman was shot in the leg and shoulder area, according to reports.
Bond was set at $500,000 for Brooke Hoffman and at $250,000 for Craig Hoffman after charges were filed in Girard Municipal Court on Thursday.
Pecchio said it is likely that a "love triangle" among the couple and another woman, documented through text messages, led to the shooting at a 4499 Warren Sharon Road apartment around 11:50 a.m. Wednesday.
"It was a love quarrel," Pecchio said. "She was irritated by what she read in the text messages."
Larry Marsh, who lives in the same apartment building, told police Craig Hoffman shot at his wife after she hit his motorcycle with her car.
However, police said they believe Brooke Hoffman first shot her husband before the two struggled over the gun.
According to reports, when Vienna police officer Brian Darbey arrived at the apartment building Marsh advised him to ''get around back because people were shooting each other.''
Darbey found Craig Hoffman, who was carrying a shotgun, leaving the building through the back door. Darbey said he ordered the man to the ground and that he complied. The man told Darbey that he had been shot by his wife. Darbey reported that he saw blood on Craig Hoffman's left shoulder and that the man told him that his wife was sitting on the bed in the bedroom. When police entered the bedroom they found Brooke Hoffman "laying face down on the bed with her left arm under her chest and her right arm over hear head," and that she was unresponsive to their commands.
Craig Hoffman told police that his wife had read text messages and came in and shot him.
Pecchio said the numerous guns and drugs, including what appeared to be crack cocaine, discovered immediately after the shooting prompted authorities to seek a warrant to search the apartment and other property owned by the couple including vehicles, cell phones and computers.
According to an inventory receipt, some 50 items were returned with the search warrant including numerous weapons, ammunition, suspected drugs and drug paraphernalia, a propane torch, bloody clothing and blood samples collected on swabs that forensic experts can use for DNA testing, a plastic organizer containing glass pipes and a cell phone.
Pecchio said most of the evidence was sent to a crime lab.
"We hadn't had any problems with them until this," Pecchio said.
In September 2008 the Tribune Chronicle reported that Brooke Hoffman was jailed after she repeatedly rammed a truck into her neighbor's home as she was looking for her husband in Howland, police said at the time.
"This whole thing is a shame," said Marsh. "I don't care what they did. They're nice people. They've always treated me right."