Snyder Pleads Guilty to Lesser Murder Charge
William “B.J.” Snyder, 34, was in Clinton County Court this morning for a hearing before Judge Michael Salisbury. He entered a guilty plea to third degree murder, false reports, abuse of a corpse and tampering with or fabricating physical evidence. The hearing followed a plea agreement between public defender David Lindsay representing Snyder and District Attorney Karen Kuebler.
Sentencing is expected in April; Snyder was returned to the Clinton County Correctional Facility in McElhattan where he has been incarcerated since his April arrest.
Snyder was the husband of a previously missing Renovo woman, Kelley Jo Snyder, whose body had been found in Halls Run a week after she disappeared. The police affidavit of probable cause containing the first degree murder charge was filed in May of this year as part of an ongoing state police investigation; it alleged she had been strangled by her husband. With Snyder’s plea in Clinton County Court today, the first degree murder charge has been dropped.
Snyder had been arrested April 10 and charged with abuse of a corpse and tampering with evidence. Armed with the results of the autopsy on Snyder’s wife Kelley Jo, police in May filed first and third degree murder charges and false reports, in addition to earlier charges of abuse of corpse and tampering with evidence.
The autopsy report on Mrs. Snyder, completed in May, said that she “died of manual strangulation.” The report follows an interview with the husband on April 11 in which he told police, according to their affidavit of probable cause, the couple had been arguing at their Fourth St. Renovo home.
Snyder claimed to police his wife took a swing at him and hit him in the chest. During the argument, according to the police document, Snyder said his arms were around her neck as they fell to the ground; he then let her up, he said and “she tried to hit him again.” The defendant said he grabbed her again and they were on the ground, “his hands…around her neck” and she stopped moving. According to the police affidavit, “The defendant advised that he thought the victim had just stopped fighting but he then realized that she was not breathing.”
At that point, the police document said, Snyder took his wife to the basement and put her in a sleeping bag, then took her body to his vehicle and transported her to Halls Run and placed her at the edge of the water. He told police he threw her driver’s license into Halls Run and left the area, later placing the sleeping bag in a dumpster behind Socky’s Restaurant in Renovo.
She had been missing until April 11 when police said they were investigating the discovery of a female body in Noyes Township near South Renovo; that body proved to be the missing woman.
According to authorities, Snyder on April 10 had told police he took his wife’s body from their Fourth Street, Renovo home to the Halls Run location, later telling police she was missing. After his apprehension in New York state, police said, he said he also had created a ransom note. In his April 10 interview, police said, he told them she had died from a drug overdose. A day later he changed his account and told of their fight which resulted in her death.
