Canadian stalker posed as Amazon driver to try to kill California woman, boyfriend

A Canadian man has been sentenced to life in a California prison after attempting to murder a woman he was obsessed with. 

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Devin Wolfgang Vanderhoef was living in North Vancouver when he met a Salinas woman online while gaming. Vanderhoef became fixated on the woman, and when she tried to cut contact with him, prosecutors said he began planning to come find her. In November 2024, Vanderhoef and a friend flew to California, where Vanderhoef stalked the woman’s home and workplace in the leadup to the attack.

Vanderhoef pretended to be an Amazon delivery driver with a package when he knocked on the door of a home at Bollenbacher Drive in Salinas. Inside the box were knives, duct tape and handcuffs. When the woman’s boyfriend opened the door, Vanderhoef forced his way inside, inciting a fight for their lives. In the chaos, Vanderhoef and the woman’s boyfriend both suffered stab wounds, and Vanderhoef strangled the woman so hard she couldn’t breathe. The woman and her boyfriend managed to hold off Vanderhoef long enough for police to arrive.

According to prosecutors, Vanderhoef confessed that he’d been planning for about a month to “actually kill someone.” His accomplice was arrested at San Jose Airport, trying to fly back to Canada, and he pleaded guilty to assault and agreed to testify against Vanderhoef. 

“Guys coming from Vancouver to Salinas to pose as an Amazon delivery person and stab somebody. I mean, it’s extraordinary,” one Monterey County District Attorney’s Office prosecutor said. 

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Last week, a judge sentenced Vanderhoef, now 26, to two consecutive life sentences for attempting to murder the woman and her boyfriend.

“The internet is a powerful tool that allows opportunities to connect with others, but it is also providing people with new ways to deceive and exploit unsuspecting victims,” the Monterey County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release. “When using social media, messaging platforms, or online gaming, you cannot assume the person on the other end is who they claim to be or that they are your friend.”