FARGO, N.D.—A man whose life sentence was overturned in the death of a North Dakota woman whose baby was cut from her womb was re-sentenced Oct. 7 to 20 years in prison.
William Hoehn, of Fargo, was sentenced a year ago to life with the possibility of parole for his role in the 2017 attack on Savanna Greywind, whose baby survived. The North Dakota Supreme Court ruled in August that Judge Tom Olson had mistakenly labeled Hoehn as a dangerous special offender based on previous crimes and said Olson shouldn’t have strayed from maximum allowable sentence of 21 years.
Olson handed out the maximum the second time around—20 years for conspiracy to commit kidnapping and one year for lying to police—but made them concurrent.
“I want to sentence you to as long as I can by law,” Olson said.
Hoehn pleaded guilty to those two charges, but he was tried and acquitted in Sept. 2018 on a third charge, conspiracy to commit murder. His lawyer argued that Hoehn’s girlfriend, Brooke Crews, was the mastermind behind the killing and that Crews admitted she had sliced Greywind’s baby from her womb. Crews pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Gloria Allred, an attorney for the Greywind family, said Savanna’s relatives were “disappointed and upset” about the state Supreme Court ruling and were hoping that Hoehn would receive the maximum sentence. No members of the Greywind family were evident in court on Oct. 7.
Defense attorneys asked for seven years in prison, while prosecutors sought the full amount. Prosecutor Leah Viste called Hoehn’s actions “unimaginable.”
Before the sentence was pronounced, Hoehn apologized to the Greywinds: “I think about and pray for them every single day, every day,” he said. He showed little reaction after sentencing, chatting with his attorney afterward.
Greywind was a member of the Spirit Lake Sioux Tribe and her family has ties to the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, two North Dakota groups that traveled to the Fargo area to search for Greywind after the attack. Her death prompted former North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp to introduce Savanna’s Act, which aims to improve tribal access to federal crime information databases and create standardized protocols for responding to cases of missing and murdered Native American women. The bill is currently in limbo.
By Dave Kolpack
