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(Linn County, IA) -- It took a Linn County jury just a couple of hours to find Dakota Van Patten guilty of the kidnapping and murder of Melody Hoffman late yesterday afternoon.
The 20-year-old Hoffman was found strangled to death in a lake near Amana in February of last year.
Van Patten faces a mandatory life sentence without parole when he’s sentenced in November.
Hoffman’s former boyfriend, McKinley Louisma, is already serving a life sentence for the killing.
The trial for Logan Kimpton, charged with conspiracy for going to Walmart with Louisma and Van Patten to buy supplies police say were used in the murder, is also scheduled for November.