Page 16 - Jack Proctor News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

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 don't think of yourself as a murderer? >> no, i don't. i was saving my own life. it came down that night to me or him. >> reporter: she says it's 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. >> reporter: maybe she did fear for her life. there are people who say they saw her with bruises. >> s...

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 victim's body from the stomach area up to the shoulder area. >> almost as if the person was lying flat and the shooter was standing at his feet? >> yes. my estimation was that the body was on the mattre...

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 couple's home and the cash in their joint account. and remember those tax returns that had been filed in mike's name after he disappeared? turns out it was ellen who filed them in order to get a refund. she also cashed out mike's $61,000 401(k) and she continued to collect the disability checks mike had been getting because of his multiple sclerosis. you kept cashing those checks for a ye...

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 more than $120,000 on her credit cards. did mike know about the debt before he dropped by her work?...

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. here's josh mankiewicz. >> reporter: mike snyder had been missing for eight long years. his family didn't know where he was, and the detective investigating the case had a hunch that mike's wife ellen was somehow involved. a co-worker of ellen's came forward saying he had loaned ellen his gun but when she returned it a few months later, there were no bul...