LOSING RACHEL: PARENTS, FRIENDS AGONIZE OVER HOFFMAN'S DEATH

She Died Trying To Make Things Right. Since Then, Rachel Hoffman's
Family And Friends have Agonized Over How Their Ginger Girl Ended Up A
Slain Drug Informant.

Rachel Morningstar Hoffman left Safety Harbor for Florida State
University with the confidence that comes from knowing your parents
have your back.

She was Margie and Irv's copper-haired wonder, the kind of girl who
wrote thank-you notes, doted on her pets, fretted over the plight of
homeless people.

She didn't just play the flute, she was first chair. A natural
equestrian, a graceful ballerina, a force of nature at a ping-pong
table, she had a nurturing soul that attracted bright and spunky
friends. But her ever-present smile drew out the wallflowers and the
friendless, too, welcoming them along to her dance.

Rachel lived to please - her pals, her rabbi, and, most of all,
her adoring parents.

But she found herself in a dark place soon after graduation, a hitch
in an otherwise promising life. Frustrated, desperate, she thought she
had found a way out that would get her back on track and save her
family from shame.

Rachel ended up alone on a dead-end street, a confidential drug
informant for the Tallahassee police. She told her boyfriend it would
be OK. She trusted them to have her back.

Surely the cops were pulling up behind her now. That cop, Ryan, had to
be getting this through the wire in her purse. Cops, DEA dudes all
over the place. Liza, with her video camera, somewhere.

But, God, where was everybody?

Now blood, running from the wounds in her side and her breast and her
hands, her pianist's hands, which she held up as if they could somehow
stop bullets.

The shots came from a Saturday night special, but they weren't coming
quickly. The gun kept jamming, and the moment dragged on.

No sirens, no shouts, no running footsteps crunching in the gravel to
save her. Just the deafening explosions from that gun. And the
terrible, terrible pain. God, God was she going to die in this car in
this place in this town? No help, no one, no one.

The shooter moved to the passenger-side window and aimed the gun at
her head.

And in that moment, Rachel Hoffman, trying so hard to right her own
wrongs and make her folks proud, did the only thing her parents could
not overlook or help her overcome.

She Left Them Forever.

A Leon County grand jury indicted [name redacted], 27, and [name redacted],
24, on charges of first-degree murder in the shooting death
of 23-year-old Rachel Morningstar Hoffman - Florida State
graduate, budding chef, dancer, friend and occasional marijuana dealer.

When [name redacted] trial begins Monday, the case will center on an
attempt to use Rachel as a confidential informant in a May 2008 drug
sting in Tallahassee. It was an operation that failed utterly;
nineteen police officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents
somehow lost sight of her as she drove away with $13,000 to buy
Ecstasy, cocaine and a stolen gun. She took a wrong turn in a woodsy
area she did not know. Her wire went dead, her phone unanswered.

Going undercover is always risky, even for police officers with years
of training. Not even they go it alone during drug deals.

But for the biggest drug bust anyone can remember in Tallahassee, cops
chose a naive, overly confident young woman, one for whom selling
pot was a social thing, a way to please friends and draw them closer.

"She cried for help as she was shot and killed, and nobody was there
to hear her," wrote the grand jury in its indictment of [names redacted].

"There is no doubt [names redacted] are the ones that
brutally murdered Rachel Hoffman. But through poor planning and
supervision, and a series of mistakes ... the Tallahassee Police
Department handed Ms. Hoffman to [names redacted] to rob and kill
her as they saw fit."

Her death sparked protests against the use of confidential informants
and impassioned debates about treating pot users as felons.

Some condemned the police while others answered that drug dealers get
what they deserve. Rachel Facebook pages sprang up like the purple and
yellow wildflowers that sprinkle this Panhandle town. Some sites were
created by people who never knew her but adopted her sweet smile for
their cause.

Her parents and friends successfully lobbied the Legislature to enact
Rachel's Law, which set stricter guidelines for the use of informants.

But as the rallies disperse and trial dates are set, as the ink fades
on the law that bears her name, Rachel's family and friends struggle
with profound grief and biting anger that does not abate. They hold
close the memories of a young woman, eager to love and be loved,
driven to please.

This is the story of the girl who got lost.

An Adventurous Spirit

Lyndsay Cummings sometimes smooths out a beach towel under a tree
beside Rachel's grave in Curlew Hills Memory Gardens in Palm Harbor, a
stone's throw from Temple Ahavat Shalom where they met at age 7.
Lyndsay thought Rachel looked just like Pippi Longstocking and was
surprised such a bubbly kid was talking to her.

My daddy's picking me up, Rachel told Lyndsay. Me, too, Lyndsay said.
Another divorced kid here. Yay!

Rachel always could spot the kid who needed a friend, a lifelong
gift.

Divorce was all Rachel knew. Irv Hoffman and Margie Weiss separated
when their only child was 14 months old. They vowed to put their
animosities aside and moved 10 minutes apart so they could share time
with their daughter.

Rachel was the best thing they had ever done.

We can't pick our parents, Rachel once told Lyndsay, but we can pick
the traits that make us the apple of their eyes. For Rachel, that
wouldn't prove difficult.

Every well-loved child is a vessel for her parents' dreams, but
Rachel's natural talents and eager-to-please personality made it
easier to traverse those two households, perfecting the traits that
would bring pride to parents so different from each other.

With her cerebral father, a mental health counselor, she shared a love
of art, classical music and travel that would take her to Israel,
France, Italy, Greece. He was athletic, so she savored a chance to
clean his clock in tennis; they would play until they were dripping
with sweat and ready for ice cream.

Her sensual mother, a holistic nurse, encouraged her to nurture and
care for friends, to hug with feeling, to love animals, and to
approach life with a sense of humor and a sunny disposition. Her
mother loved it that Rachel confided in her and asked her advice.

Irv and Margie schlepped her to ballet class, karate, piano lessons,
softball games, Hebrew school. Who knew where her talents would lie? A
passion for adventure, a willingness to try anything and a developing
streak of independence seemed all-Rachel.

Rachel and Lyndsay formed a ragtag group of nerdy kids from Hebrew
school who called themselves "the Jew Crew." In their early teen
years, none of them wanted to be one of "those kids," the drinkers and
heavy-duty druggies, but Lynds and Rach were curious about marijuana.

They researched it online; it seemed pretty safe. So they tried it for
the first time on a Temple field trip to the Holocaust Museum in
Washington, D.C., leading to a spew of giggles they couldn't hold in.
By the ovens, no less. Very Rachel/Lyndsay.

Pot is OK, Rachel decided. It's from the earth. Nice people use it and
they get happy and music sounds really good. Her friends liked it,
too.

By the time she attended Countryside High School in Clearwater, Rachel
was a pot smokin' girl.

Neither parent approved. In Rachel's senior year, during exam time,she was
caught with marijuana on campus. Irv took away her Jetta, her baby, the car
he had presented to her at age 16 with a bow on top.

Countryside administrators said she couldn't walk across the stage at
graduation with her friends.

It was sad and humiliating for everybody; her folks always sat front
row center for Rachel's band concerts and dance recitals. Graduation
night, they all stayed home.

Setting Out On Her Own

She put in time that summer at the Temple, and whooped when she got
accepted to FSU. She just had to be a Seminole. It was the only place
she had applied.

A tough call, though, for Dad. Irv worried that a flirtation with
drugs could become a more serious problem when she was out of his sight.

Irv said OK, but with caveats: No car the first semester, and she had
to let him test her for drugs.

Agreed.

Did she gripe to friends, calling her dad controlling? Sure she
did.

But in a nostalgic, heartfelt and funny letter, left behind to be
found by Irv after he dropped her off at her dorm freshman year, she
wrote to him, her "hero."

"Even with my problems I've been through you've helped mold me into a
good person.

"Dad, please don't worry about me, I'm a very smart, independent girl
and I do have morals you've taught me which will not be left at home.
Have faith, Old Man, I'll be just fine."

She told him to call her anytime, even right then, because she
probably would be lonely and hoping to talk.

Irv and Margie called her every day, leaving messages if she was in
class or out with friends.

Rachel continued to confide in her mother and even got along with her
stepfather. Her friends asked Rachel if she knew how lucky she was.
Their moms could be such a pain in the ass. Her stepdad even signed
his notes ESD - Evil Stepdad. How cool.

Nevertheless, Rachel took the Old Man's path, choosing psychology as
her college major. Although she loved Momma dearly, Dad's approval
meant everything.

But she also chose to go back to pot. By then, Dad had returned her
car keys and stopped checking her pee.

His worries were beginning to ease. Her grades were excellent, and she
was knocking off credits at an impressive rate. As a child and family
counselor, Irv had seen families weather far worse. Oh, Rachel - she might
always be scattered, fun-loving and the first to try anything. But she was
smart.

A Gathering Group Of Friends

On campus, Rachel found her crowd, a group of bright, attractive,
funny and music-loving students. One day, she bumped into Cole Altner,
an old friend from Hebrew school.

He remembered her well; he was her first kiss.

Cole met her in fifth grade, soon after moving to Palm Harbor from New
York. She could tell he was having trouble adjusting.

That kiss came at her bat mitzvah, when Rachel wore braces, had
trouble controlling the curls in her long, thick hair and hated her
middle name, the hippie-dippy Morningstar. Years in the sun had dotted
her face with, OMG, freckles. Her speech that day was on helping the
homeless.

"I often try to think and remind myself how fortunate I am," she read
to friends and family. Her parents beamed and she basked in their pride.

She and Cole made a pact. When they were really old, like 30 or 35,
and if nobody else had asked them, they would marry each other.

Now, when he saw her on campus and all grown up, she was hot. Tall,
with long red hair she ironed straight, a great body. Same smile, but
more confident. Flirtatious, even.

Again, she introduced him to her friends, pulling him into her sunny
orbit.

Once, when Cole was sick, she delivered homemade matzo ball soup and
chased off students who were making noise and disturbing her patient.

Everybody was at least a little in love with her.

Andrea Motta and Rachel became inseparable from the time they met as
sophomores. It annoyed Andrea to no end that Rachel could blow off
studying and still make good grades.

Rachel whipped up big meals and then called her posse to eat -
miso soup, Italian and Thai dishes, and salads made with veggies
bought fresh from a favorite organic market. "Can she do everything?"
her friends wondered. They were the best meals any of them remembered
in Tallahassee.

Bob Nelson met her in their dorm freshman year and later shared an
apartment with her and other students. Coming from Maryland, he knew
no one on campus, and she made him feel welcome. She was like a little
sister AcA