after he disposed of melvin s body, he put his motorcycle in the back of melvin s truck, which created the damage found in the bed of the truck. harshman then abandoned melvin s truck 60 miles away in maryland and drove his motorcycle home. what did he do with the body? 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 she had any prior knowledge of the murder. i think joanne had some involvement in this case. now, i m not sure what that was
[ gunshot ] did not hit him. nothing happened. no one was hurt. melvin didn t want to pursue the matter, and no charges were filed. melvin had expressed a great deal of embarrassment about the whole incident. and i think he sort of felt it was, in part, his own fault that this had happened. and there was one more interesting twist in the case. melvin and joanne snyder had come to terms with the affair, but the harshmans had not. melvin was trying very hard to make the marriage work. mr. and mrs. harshman on the other hand had a rockier road. although they did attempt to patch things up, eventually in the following spring, um, they separated and teresa filed for divorce.
cannonballs in one hole on the braddock campaign, that probably gave me a bigger high than this .25-caliber shell casing. but hinks and several colleagues were happy to do what they could, despite the fact that harshman s farm was several hundred acres. but there was so much trash out there, so much farm equipment, this is the place where they would throw the garbage along with the tin foil and toothpaste tubes and all the junk went out there. so the challenge was working through 130 years of trash and picking up the little single, .25-caliber automatic shell casing that we were looking for. modern metal detectors use computer processors to measure levels of conductivity, which enables them to identify the type of metal and the depth of an object underground. there are basically computers that can pretty well tell you what happens down there, how deep it is. it does everything but dig for you today. hinks and his team found many shell casings, but none that were .25-caliber.
no one was going to take his property. he became very vengeful, very very angry. he was not the kind of person that was going to allow his wife to return home and try to rebuild their relationship. there was no forgive and forget. it was i will get my revenge. and that s what he did. prosecutors say the crime was premeditated. the evidence suggests that harshman drove to melvin s home, found him inside the barn. then shot and killed him with his new .25-caliber pistol. [ gunshot ] the .25-caliber round probably didn t exit melvin s body. prosecutors believe harshman drove home and returned later on his motorcycle.
this particular case, helped to maintain the quality of the markings that were present on the primer. but again, it can vary from case to case. under a microscope, firearms examiners discovered that this was precisely what happened. the impressions on the shell casing were still clear. and those impressions caused by the breech face were identical to the breech face impressions on the shell casing found in melvin snyder s barn. there was no doubt in my mind whatsoever that these two discharged cartridge cases had originated from the same source. same firearm. why would he have shot his gun on mr. snyder s property? there was no reason for that except for the fact to kill him. based on the ballistic evidence, prosecutors charged ronald harshman with first-degree murder. melvin snyder disappeared on may 25th, exactly one year to the day from when melvin started the affair with teresa harshman. mr. harshman is the kind of man that no one was going to tell him what to do.