Page 8 - Jack Proctor News Today

West side of town. that is until detective mark wilson and three of his colleagues from the cold case team showed up. >> you wouldnt happen to have someplace we could sit down and talk would you, just have a chat with you. >> reporter: they were there to speak with 25-year-old mechanic michael sheffield, ellen snyders son. mike snyders stepson. >> he didnt seem to be surprised the police showed up in his work and he said sure. we have a break room we can go talk in. so he went to his break room ...

School -- >> we didnt talk about it. >> reporter: later with michael and elizabeth at school, ellen planned to move the body into the garage. but there was a problem. >> trying to get him situated to where i could get him -- a board under him to move him to the garage. >> reporter: and you couldnt do it alone? >> i couldnt do it alone. >> reporter: so you asked your son. >> so i asked him, yep. >> reporter: you asked michael to help you move the body? >> yes. he didnt want to. i asked him, pleas...

>> yes. >> reporter: so youre not some little shrinking violet whos home cowering under her husbands direction. >> but when it came to being home and opening that door, i was that shrinking violet. that you how things were. he ran the show. it was two different ellens, two dint lives. >> reporter: detective wilson interviewed ellens old boss, a man named james cassell. he told the detective he remembered an incident when ellen came to work with bruises. >> she was wearing her sunglasses. i said ...

And thats what the cycle of abuse is all about. theres an isolation, theres a dependency, theres a demeaning factor and those things all go together until the abuser has turned the abused into someone who thinks that he or she -- because it happens both ways -- is a worthless person. >> reporter: would ellen snyder spend the rest of her life behind bars, or had she committed the perfect murder? is it possible shes going to walk? >> i mean, thats certainly possible in this case. >> reporter: she ...

She was six when her father disappeared. >> you told her youd been lying to her? >> i did. >> what did she say? >> she was most concerned about losing her mom. shes been to see me every week. shes such a remarkable young woman. she loves me. >> but ellen says the greatest regret of her life was putting her son, michael, in the middle of a cover up. you said you always looked out for him and he always looked out for you? >> i didnt do such a good job. >> you didnt. >> hes such a remarkable man. >...

Her husband mike snyder in the early morning hours of january 2002. she admits she buried his body and lied about his disappearance for years. but she does not admit to being guilty of murder. you dont think of yourself as a murderer? >> no, i dont. i was saving my own life. it came down that night to me or him. >> reporter: she says its a case of survival. but ask detective mark wilson, and he calls it something else. >> i believe this is an evil woman who planned this from the beginning. >> re...

Asked him to show where the speaker was positioned on the floor and where it was in relation to where mike slept and detective wilson came to this hypothesis. >> it appeared to me that michael snyder was laying in his bed when he was shot. >> reporter: not up an advancing on ellen to do her harm? >> exactly. the office of the medical investigator reported the projectiles came up through the vic victims body from the stomach area up to the shoulder area. >> almost as if the person was lying flat ...

Husband in self-defense but a detective uncovered a more sinister motive, money. here again is josh mankiewicz. >> reporter: just months after she shot her husband and filed for divorce, ellen was awarded the couples home and the cash in their joint account. and remember those tax returns that had been filed in mikes name after he disappeared? turns out it was ellen who filed them in order to get a refund. she also cashed out mikes $61,000 401(k) and she continued to collect the disability check...

About it. the more terry thought about mike, the more she remembered his growing frustration with ellen in the months before he disappeared. >> he would intercede phone calls that collectors calling, you know, wanting to know why their credit cards passed due and all of these things he had no idea of. >> reporter: these are bills he thought ellen had run up, not some identity theft. >> right. >> reporter: not long after mike disappeared, ellen found herself in debt. she had 20 creditors and owed...

No one had seen mike snyder, not his family, his friends nor his co-workers. had his illness grown worse? had he moved to another city with another man as his wife ellen claimed? it turns out ellen had been keeping some big secrets of her own. heres josh mankiewicz. >> reporter: mike snyder had been missing for eight long years. his family didnt know where he was, and the detective investigating the case had a hunch that mikes wife ellen was somehow involved. a co-worker of ellens came forward s...