join energy upgrade california and do your thing. why in the world would ellen snyder need a gun? it had been four years since mike snyder had gone missing. four years since he d left his family, including his young daughter in his hometown of albuquerque, new mexico. in 2006, the albuquerque journal ran an article on the missing father and mechanic. the cold case, which had been virtually dead for years, was suddenly picking up steam. reporter jeff proctor. it triggered some tips to the police department, and it got people, you know, talking about this as something other than a husband who had walked off on his family. for the first time, albuquerque police were publicly calling the case a homicide investigation. and that caught the attention of
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 mike s sister terri. but, without any real proof that ellen had something to do with mike s disappearance, there was nothing that could be done about those aching suspicions. there was nothing that could tangibly prove murder, enough to get an arrest warrant for it, until they had a body. and so another four years passesed. mike s sister terri became more and more dissatisfied with the progress detective wilson was
her mom calls me p up, said, i think we have a problem. there was apparently something very wrong. the next morning ellen went to meet with adrienne. by then, the story was breaking. breaking news albuquerque police have an active crime scene vision going on. police tell us a confidential source told them that the remains of snyder are buried underneath the garage of this home. she just sat really stiffly in front of me. she said, have you heard about themging for a body in the northeast heights? and i said, well, you couldn t not hear about it. i mean, it was on all of the television stations and all over the newspaper. and she said, well, my ex-husband is buried there because i shot him.
she could have been looking at a total of 339 years. ellen s defense attorney asked the judge for some leniency. she does ask, your honor, that the court sentence her to five years in prison, which will allow her to at least be at her daughter s graduation from college. the judge addressed ellen directly, focusing on that construction waste she had buried on top of her husband s body. it was reported that you unceremoniously threw trash in the same hole that mr. snyder had been placed. and, with that, ellen was given the maximum sentence of 11 years behind bars. ms. snyder, hopefully once you are released you can get things together and go forward in life. and she hopes to. but, for now, ellen says she worries most about her children,
but there was that problem with the statute of limitations expired on anything less than first-degree murder. there was the chance ellen snyder could be found not guilty. mike s family was willing to risk that. we felt that strongly that it was premeditated, and, you know, that was a gamble we were willing to take. but when it comes to murder, prosecutor david waymeyer isn t willing to gamble. maybe she gets convicted of first-degree murder and maybe that s what she did all along and that would have been justice. but with an all or nothing where you re trying to convince beyond a reasonable doubt 12 jurors you didn t want to roll the dice. that s a huge risk to roll the dice and not have somebody held accountable at all for the death of another human being. and it was a risk for ellen, too. she knew that going to trial could mean a possible life sentence. one month before the case was set for trial, prosecutors offered ellen a plea deal, which she accepted.