maybe not angry, but you were talking in a sort of nonangry way about the kids. i think he was still angry. i think i told him we were still angry. but that he was gone and he wasn t coming back. right. mike s sister terry hadn t yet learned about mike s relationship with the mysterious dave simmons or about the accusations that her brother was secretly gay. ellen didn t share any of that with terry until a few years after mike had disappeared. she told other people about it at the time. not us. she didn t seem to throw that out to us at first. any of that make any sense to you? oh, goodness, no. i don t believe for one minute my brother is gay. that was only one of the components to the story that detective wilson wanted to check out. he says he asked ellen to come down to the police department to meet with him in person. only she wouldn t. she said he s not missing. we said well, we want to find him. and even asking her to come in
candy, soda and give his time to her. everything else stopped. behind closed doors, mike and ellen s marriage was starting to unravel. ellen said mike ooem seemed jealous of her success at work. understand i was promoted to service manager, it basically became hurtful and he was standoffish. ellen says from the time elizabeth was conceived, mime mike had moved out of the bedroom permanently. never slept together again. and so mike and ellen began to live two separate lives in that dream home with their children, but still they stayed together. i still wanted this marriage to work. i didn t want to give up. that is until she learned about this secret, the big secret that would ultimately tear this family apart. i thought after christmas when everything was done that i
about it. the more terry thought about mike, the more she remembered his growing frustration with ellen in the months before he disappeared. he would intercede phone calls that collectors calling, you know, wanting to know why their credit cards passed due and all of these things he had no idea of. reporter: these are bills he thought ellen had run up, not some identity theft. right. reporter: not long after mike disappeared, ellen found herself in debt. she had 20 creditors and owed more than $120,000 on her credit cards. did mike know about the debt before he dropped by her work? is that why mike had showed up in a rage? had he discovered the financial mess into which she put their family? and if mike had been abusive, had ellen come to the conclusion that she could solve that problem with a gun? detective wilson was growing more and more skeptical of ellen snyder s story, and so was
ultimately ellen snyder agreed to waive the statute of limitations prestrixs and plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter admitting she shot her husband and she pled guilty to tampering with evidence for the burying and concealment of mike s body. and to one count of tax fraud for filing mike s tax returns after his death. in all, the maximum sentence possible was not life in prison, but just 11 years. mike s side of the family was devastating. she s definitely getting away with murder. nothing is going to be long enough for us. in july of 2011, sfrauns of both ellen and mike gathered in the courthouse for ellen s sentencing. ellen s son michael was there in support of his mom, just as he
there would be no way that my brother would have ever left his daughter. ever. at the jeep dealership where mike had worked for ten years, his name was rarely mentioned in conversation. after three or four years of mike being gone, he didn t come up too much anymore. we knew he was sick. we didn t really know if he was still in the hospital somewhere or if he had actually just passed away from his illness. his tools were no longer lying there unused. ellen s son michael was using them. he followed in mike s shoes and had become a mechanic as well. and on those rare occasions when ellen would come by the shop where mike had once worked, his old colleague dave seiler would ask have you heard from mike, and she would say no. there seemed to be no concern for mike and she was just, like, no, i haven t seen mike. it s often said the happy