drove home and returned later on his motorcycle. 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
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
point, shot at him. 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 it happened. and this 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 they separated and teresa filed for divorce. joanne snyder denied any involvement in her husband s
to case. under a microscope, firearms examiners discovered 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 gun. 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
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 .25-caliber handgun just a few weeks before melvin s disappearance.