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CEDAR RAPIDS — Traffic camera images, cellphone tower data and surveillance videos collected by police investigators helped track the movements of Dakota Van Patten and McKinley Louisma on the night 20-year-old Melody Hoffman was kidnapped, strangled and killed in February 2024.

Marion police investigators testified Friday that Cedar Rapids traffic cameras and cellphone data taken from the phones of Hoffman, Van Patten and Louisma — who already was convicted in her slaying — showed Hoffman being picked up by the two men around 11:30 p.m. from her home in Marion.

Marion Police Sgt. Michael Pope testified various traffic cameras tracked Louisma’s Honda Accord traveling from Marion to Morgan Cre

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