the case heads to court. ellen snyder is about to learn her fate. are you ready for what s coming? i know it has to happen for this 0 to be over. i don t know that i can say, yes, i m ready. but it s going to happen.to be over. i don t know that i can say, yes, i m ready. but it s going to happen. mike snyder s side of the family had spent many years waiting. they had waited for mike to call after he disappeared. he never did. they d waited for the police to call when investigators first said they would look for him. that didn t happen either.
ellen came to work with bruises. she was wearing her sunglasses. i said why are you wearing sunglasses. she finally took off her sunglasses and she had a nice big old shiner and i said what happened to you. she stated to me that supposedly mike and michael got in to a big battle and mike was beating the crap out of him and she jumped in the middle of it and took the brunt of it. was she giving the classic battered wife explanation for her bruises? a few days later, cassell said he heard yelling coming from ellen s office. i hear world war ii i breaking loose in the office next to me. there was a guy screaming. turns out the loud, angry voice belonged to none other than mike snyder. he s on this side of the desk. she s on her side of the desk and he s just screaming and he stops when i barge in and he looks at me. i told him, i said, you know you
it was friday, january 29th, 2010, and it was business as usual in the service department at this albuquerque saab dealership located on the west side of town. that is until detective mark wilson and three of his colleague actress the cold case team showed up. you wouldn t happen to have some place we can sit down and walk, would you? thought i d chat with you a bit. they were there to speak with 25-year-old mechanic michael sheffield, ellen snyder s son, mike snyder s stepson. he didn t seem to be surprised that the police showed up at his work and he said, sure we have a break room we can talk in. so we went to the break room and conducted an interview there. we are going to ask you questions, all right, that we
i don t want to get caught. i don t want to go to jail. what am i doing? and michael told detectives about the breakdown he had a at mr. snyder s funeral. the one that the snyder family thought was so peculiar. i couldn t handle it. i had a breakdown. the family was staring at me and she s outside talking to me. she said is this what happened? and i i don t remember remember saying anything back. but now it was about that. i had the feeling that he was glad to finally get it off of his chest. he broke down somewhat. i can only imagine what it would be like keeping that type of secret. the detective showed michael photographs of the snyder s property as it looked in 2002. and had michael circle where he believed his step father s body was buried. did michael believe he was on the hook for his part in this? i think he probably knew that he was.
albuquerque police chief ray shultz. it s not against the law to be a missing person unless there is suspicious circumstances. and chief shultz was right in saying that mike was totally within his rights to walk out and cut off ties with everyone in his life. the people he loved, the people he no longer loved. and so the investigation was limited to that of a missing person. winter 2002 turned to spring. no one heard from mike snyder. his expensive mechanics tools lay unused at work. ellen now a single mom filed for divorce. she was awarded the house, the money in their joint account, and sole custody of their daughter elizabeth. when your daughter, mike s daughter, would say to you, wrds daddy? what would you say. i didn t know. that he had left because he was mad at mommy.