A man who traveled from Canada to California and disguised himself as a delivery driver to attack a woman he knew only from online gaming has been sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison, Monterey County prosecutors said.

A planned attack

Devin Wolfgang Vanderhoef, 26, of North Vancouver, British Columbia, was sentenced on June 25 to two consecutive life terms after being convicted of two counts of willful, deliberate and premeditated attempted murder, the Monterey County District Attorney's Office said. A judge added five consecutive years for inflicting great bodily injury and using a deadly weapon.

According to prosecutors, Vanderhoef met the female victim through an online video game, then flew to Monterey County in November 2024, bought knives, handcuffs and duct tape, and surveilled both her home and her workplace before the attack. Authorities did not publicly identify the woman.

Posing as a delivery driver

On the night of the attack, Vanderhoef posed as an Amazon driver carrying a package and forced his way into the victim's Salinas home, prosecutors said. Inside, he began stabbing the woman's boyfriend. During the struggle the boyfriend was able to wound Vanderhoef, according to the account presented at trial. As the woman tried to flee back into the house, Vanderhoef tackled her and strangled her until she could not breathe, prosecutors said. Both victims survived.

A second defendant

A second Canadian, Darius Avery Whyte, traveled with Vanderhoef and later pleaded guilty to assault by means of force likely to cause great bodily injury and to being an accessory after the fact, KRON4 reported. Whyte testified against Vanderhoef at trial and was sentenced on April 3.

A warning about online ties

For investigators, the case is a stark illustration of how a relationship formed entirely online can spill into the physical world. Vanderhoef had no prior connection to Salinas; what brought him there, prosecutors said, was a fixation that began over a game and ended with a cross-border plot to kill. Both victims lived, and the man who came to find them will, barring a successful appeal, not leave prison.