What Happened to Rachel Hoffman? A Sting Gone Wrong

In 2008, 23-year-old Rachel Hoffman reluctantly became a police informant. It would trigger a chain of events that tragically led to her demise.

Rachel, an aspiring culinary school student, unwittingly found herself tangled in a dangerous and ill-prepared narcotics sting operation.

Her tale began on February 22, 2007, when she was found to be in possession of numerous narcotics by the Tallahassee Police.

Afraid of the repercussions, Rachel agreed to act as a confidential informant in the hopes of reducing the charges against her.

She had no clue the danger she’d find herself in and just how vicious a world she’d enter by agreeing to work with the police.

What ought to have been a simple undercover deal soon spiraled into a series of misjudgments, miscommunications, and poor policing decisions that cost a young girl her life.

This is the story of Rachel Hoffman, how she became a hesitant police informant, and the unfortunate events that led to the introduction of “Rachel’s Law.”

From Student to Informant

Rachel Morningstar Hoffman was born in December 1984 in Clearwater, Florida. She was a well-liked and studious 23-year-old with her whole life ahead of her.

She had strong relationships with her friends and family and was described as someone who always helped others when she could. She chose to major in psychology, a subject she was passionate about.

Still, her time in college was also spent doing what many other students do: experimenting with substances.

It started with smoking pot and then trying different pills.

Rachel’s substance use was nothing more than casual, but she managed to get arrested for possession in 2007. The amounts she was found with were small, but she still faced having a record.

Despite the arrest, Rachel continued to consume narcotics here and there, but in a stroke of misfortune, just months after her initial arrest, she was once again found with narcotics on her.

This time, law enforcement found over 150 grams of pot and four pills. She was quickly arrested and now faced a possible jail sentence for her repeated violations.

Naturally, Rachel was worried: she had plans to move to Arizona for culinary school, and a record would drastically affect her ability to work in her chosen field.

Sensing her fear of being officially labeled a criminal, Tallahassee Police tried to convince Rachel to reveal the names of her dealers in exchange for lesser charges.

She refused, despite her fear of a record and jail time.

**Photos of Rachel Hoffman via Unilad.**

Then, Rachel was offered another deal, though it was more risky: the Tallahassee Police Department told her she could serve as a confidential informant in exchange for leniency on her charges.

Rachel was desperate to avoid jail, so she took the offer.

What began as a way to avoid legal troubles was the catalyst for her untimely passing.

Untrained and with next to no real experience in the world she was about to enter, Tallahassee Police still arranged for Rachel to buy two and a half ounces of coke, 1500 pills, and a gun. They gave her $13,000 cash, fitted a wire in her purse, and set her on her way to acquire the goods.

When the time was right, the police would raid the deal, arrest the suspects, and remove Rachel from the situation.

Only they never managed to do that.

The assignment was more complex than originally thought, and a series of mistakes saw it turn deadly. Rachel would end up being fatally shot using the gun she had been sent to buy.

The Disastrous Plan That Led to Rachel’s Death

Despite her lack of training and experience, Rachel had been tasked with a risky operation that would test the limits of a veteran officer, let alone an inexperienced student.

While Rachel had taken substances recreationally, she was still a world away from rubbing shoulders with hardened dealers and career criminals.

She also had little knowledge of the narcotics she’d been sent to buy. She was also uninitiated when it came to guns, yet the police still decided to use her to try and buy a firearm as part of the sting.

Then, there’s the fact that Rachel was never given any real guidance on what she was supposed to do as part of the bust, aside from purchasing the items.

On the day of the planned exchange, the preparation was scant. The number of police officers tailing her for her safety was far less than you’d expect: just two.

Once Rachel arrived at the location to make the purchases, she came face to face with the dealers. This shouldn’t have been the case—she ought to have been removed from the situation before the dealers got to her. The police should have made the arrests before the dealers met with the informant.

The two officers monitored from a distance, but their presence proved futile when the dealers suddenly told Rachel they wanted to conduct the exchange elsewhere.

The two dealers were spooked by Rachel upon meeting her. It was clear she wasn’t familiar with the items she was purchasing, and the fact she was willing to pay such a large sum with little questioning raised their suspicions further.

She likely couldn’t have been a more obvious informant.

So, the two men asked Rachel to get in their car so they could drive to a different location to make the transaction. She agreed.

The two officers monitoring the situation didn’t manage to follow where the men took Rachel.

They drove off so quickly that the officers couldn’t keep up, and the wire that Rachel had on her wasn’t fitted properly, so it stopped working. Her singular lifeline had been cut.

The officers tried to send a message to Rachel, telling her not to go to a new location with the suspects. This didn’t get through.

Unbeknownst to her, Rachel was being driven to her demise. She was shot five times in the head and chest by the weapon she was sent to buy.

The police had now begun a frantic search for her. Despite the immediate efforts, hours passed without any sign of where she might be. It was looking increasingly likely that the worst had happened.

Then, almost two days later, her body was found in a ravine in Taylor County.

The botched undercover sting soon made headlines, sparking outrage that the police could allow something like this to happen.

Rachel’s passing raised questions about how law enforcement used civilian informants and questioned just how safe—or not—whistleblowers are when working for the police.

Rachel’s Law

Rachel Hoffman’s case caused a storm of public outcry over the Tallahassee Police Department’s handling of the case.

The department faced intense scrutiny for their negligence, particularly their decision to use a young woman with no criminal justice experience or any training in a serious undercover sting.

Once the facts of the case were released to the public, there was an uproar over how insufficient the surveillance of the deal was. Just two officers overseeing the scene meant Rachel was highly vulnerable throughout the sting.

As the case made headlines, the hunt for her perpetrators ensued.

The two men were quickly pinpointed as 23-year-old Deneilo Bradshaw and 25-year-old Andrea Jabbar Green.

Both men were charged with the crime and stood trial in 2009. They both got life in jail, with parole being taken off the table for Bradshaw.

While the men responsible were behind bars, that wasn’t the end of the case.

After all, Rachel wouldn’t have been anywhere near the exchange if the police hadn’t used her to be their confidential informant.

The public, along with Rachel’s family, felt these convictions weren’t justice enough. They needed to know this could never happen again: the police needed to be held accountable, too.

The officers in charge of the case were suspended without pay.

Rachel’s parents, Margie and Irv Hoffman, subsequently led a movement to enact changes in how law enforcement agencies obtain and use confidential informants. Their efforts culminated in the passage of “Rachel’s Law” in Florida in 2009.

Rachel’s Law mandated that law enforcement agencies provide clearer guidelines and training for informants, ensure proper supervision during operations, and allow informants to consult with a legal professional before agreeing to work with the police.

It offered, at the very least, a first step in preventing similar incidents, and some police departments began changing their policies before the Law even came into effect.

For many critics, this wasn’t enough: advocates for Rachel argued for the need to treat vulnerable individuals—just like Rachel was in this instance—more humanely rather than coercing them into risky situations with little in the way of protection.

In the end, the Tallahassee Police Department was found negligent in Rachel’s case.