i think joanne had some involvement in this case, i am not sure whether that was done intentionally or if she was being used by ron harshman and didn t realize she was setting melvin up. ron harshman pled not guilty. prosecutors knew that trying a case with only one piece of forensic evidence would be difficult. there aren t a whole lot of cases out there that get prosecuted without a body. there aren t a whole lot of cases that get prosecuted without a weapon. and for a case to be prosecuted with no body and no weapon was almost unthinkable. in july 2001, a jury convicted ron harshman of first degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison. he came 16 years close to getting away with this. 16 years is an awfully long time to get away with murder. he came very close. 15 years later, after the murder, that we went out and found that shell casing before
the body after 19 years has not been found. carefully, carefully, he must have planned where he was going to take the body. how he was going to dispose of the body. during police questioning, joanne snyder admitted that she told ron harshman that melvin would be home alone that day. but prosecutors had no proof that she had any prior knowledge of the murder. i think joanne had some involvement in this case, i am not sure whether that was done intentionally or if she was being used by ron harshman and didn t realize she was setting melvin up. ron harshman pled not guilty. prosecutors knew that trying a case with only one piece of forensic evidence would be difficult. there aren t a whole lot of cases out there that get prosecuted without a body. there aren t a whole lot of cases that get prosecuted without a weapon. and for a case to be prosecuted with no body and no weapon was almost unthinkable.
we had no body, we had no actual gun. we knew what the past history was between ron harshman and melvin snyder, and common sense will tell you, yeah, he has good reason to want to kill melvin snyder. he is the only person that we know of that ever wanted to harm melvin. but that doesn t prove it in a court of law. before his disappearance, melvin snyder told friends that he was afraid of ron harshman because ron was still angry about the affair he had with his wife. always have a strange feeling about the fact that he, in essence, had predicted something like this was going to happen. for the next 15 years, the case haunted prosecutor jack nelson. he knew melvin snyder
ignition. i believe some of melvin s belongings were still located in the truck. other than that, truck was in fine condition except for marks in the back of the bed of the pickup truck. and the truck radio was tuned to a rock music station. melvin snyder never listened to rock music. melvin snyder was well-known in his small town. change partners. just a year earlier, melvin had an affair with a married woman, teresa harshman, who he knew from square dancing. melvin and teresa left their jobs and families behind, and fled to montana. melvin s wife joanne and teresa s husband ron took the opportunity to get better acquainted too. mr. harshman and mrs. snyder struck up a relationship and were intimate with one another. but after only three weeks,
contact with outside world not to have some sort of record with something. we had divers check the ponds in the area. talked to neighbors, if they had seen anything unusual, if they saw him leave. no one did. melvin s dental records were compared to every unidentified body discovered anywhere in the united states, with no success. the only lead in the case was from a neighbor who said he saw a brown pickup truck near melvin s home on the day he disappeared. it was similar to the truck that ron harshman owned. ron s wife and melvin snyder once had an affair. whether it was harshman s truck or not, i don t know. we don t know. police discovered that harshman had purchased a