marriage to work, i did not give up. soon he was gone, vanished without a word or a trace. he left the young daughter behind. he left the house. was this a husband who did not want to be found? or could this be something else. detectives are not an undercover operation. that would lead to a long hard to say ready for that? i know that it has to happen. disappearance in the desert. could it be the perfect crime. i can only imagine what would be like to keep that. welcome to dateline. i m lester holt. for eight years it was a mystery, a husband who had simply vanished. on the surface it didn t make sense. he had a wife, a lucrative job, a daughter he loved. but investigators were told he also had a secret. so was he missing or was he hiding? that question would lead detectives to a dark discovery because someone else had a secret to. here s josh michael it s. there is an old saying, that two people can keep a secret if one of them is dead. we never talked about
executive. but as your career was on the rise. her marriage was on the rocks. sydney i still wanted this marriage to work, i did not give up. soon he was gone, vanished without a word or a trace. he left the young daughter behind. he left the house. was this a husband who did not want to be found? or could this be something else. detectives are not an undercover operation. that would lead to a long hard to say ready for that? i know that it has to happen. disappearance in the desert. could it be the perfect crime. i can t imagine what would be like to keep that. welcome to dateline. i m lester holt. for eight years it was a mystery, a husband who had simply vanished. on the surface it didn t make sense. he had a wife, a lucrative job, a daughter he loved. but investigators were told he also had a secret. so was he missing or was he hiding? that question would lead detectives to a dark discovery because someone else had a secret to. here s josh michael it s.
he no longer loved. so, the investigation was limited to that of a missing person. winter 2002 turned to spring no one heard from mike snider. his expensive mechanics tools laid unused at work. ellen, now a single mom, filed for divorce. she was awarded the house, the money and their joint account, and sole custody of their daughter elizabeth. when your daughter, mike s daughter, would say to you were study what would you say? i didn t know. that he left because he was mad at mommy. here after mike left her, allen says she can longer afford that hope they brought together. now that she only had her salary. so she sold the house and she and her kids, michael, elizabeth move to a much smaller one. it was fall 2003, when ellen received a follow-up call from the albuquerque police
she said, where did you get this information? she was upset that it portrayed that he was just a innocent man, father, that had disappeared. the article didn t implicate you? yes it did. i read it. that doesn t lay the blame at your feet? yes it does. she and michael had a heated discussion and that the next morning, when she woke up, he was gone. and he hadn t taken a vehicle. ellen told the detective she was pretty sure that mike had initially moved to phoenix, home of his lover dave symonds. but more recently she believed he moved on to the caribbean. she said he is probably on an island somewhere. we had looked at nine on st. croix. as far as i knew african he had gone to st. croix. that s where he was with dave simmons? correct. in fact, ellen said she had actually spoken with mike over
mike snider left his home, his family, his whole life in albuquerque. no one had heard from the master mechanic, not even as little girl who is now nine years old, a third grader. that was one big red flag, maybe the leaving when they kept me going. there would be no way that my brother would ever have left his daughter. ever. at the dealership of mike had worked for ten years. his name was rarely mentioned in conversation. after three or four years of mike being gone, that did not come up too much anymore. you knew he was sick, we didn t really know if you will still in the hospital somewhere? or if he had actually just passed away from his illness. his tools were no longer lying there unused. helen s son, michael, was using them. it followed in mike shoes and had become a mechanic as well. and on those rare occasions when allen would come by the