Philip Snider Murdered His Wife. Here's How He Was Finally Caught
For Philip Snider, it must have felt like excellent luck, or at least good timing. He'd just gotten rid of his wife, and now this younger woman had started to take an interest in him and his exciting life: sitting around fast food restaurants drinking coffee. Not only did Missy not mind that his wife was missing, she also didn't care that word on the street — and in the police department — was that Philip was the one responsible. According to Cleveland's 19 News, he'd told everyone that she died on a vacation to Graceland, and he told the police a few other stories, as well.
No, you couldn't call Philip Snider a criminal mastermind, that's for sure. Because this woman, Missy, was an undercover cop. Missy showed a somewhat overly enthusiastic curiosity about his wife's disappearance, and he seemed only happy to provide the grisly and often very specific details of the "scenario" in which he killed his wife. Unsuspecting of any other possible motives for this woman's interest in him beyond his winning personality and super fun lifestyle, Snider ended up confessing to murdering his wife, and Missy got it all on tape.
Philip Snider's various versions of the truth, and the truth
According to the Canton Repository, Philip Snider gave the police a few tall tales before he finally spilled the beans to Missy. He first told them that his wife Roberta (pictured above) had died after falling ill in a hotel parking lot in Memphis, Tennessee. Later it was on the road between Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio. In that version, he just continued on to Graceland after tossing her body into the Tennessee River. Because, you know, The King. The police, unsurprisingly, weren't buying it.
They got the real story when they sent Missy in. The Canton Rep's podcast "From The Newsroom" has posted clips of some of Missy's conversations with Snider. In one clip, he can be heard describing with alarming detail the "situation" or "scenario" in which he hypothetically killed his wife. It is somewhat surreal to listen to him talk about how he "would have done it" — with a two-pound hammer while she slept on the sofa — while Etta James sings "A Sunday Kind of Love" on the radio of the fast food restaurant they're casually sipping coffee in. According to Pop Sugar, more details of Snider's clumsy crime on the new docuseries "When Philip Met Missy," premiering April 27 on discovery+.