Where Is Convicted Killer Philip Snider Today?
Philip Snider, the 73-year-old man who was convicted of killing his wife of 53 years, Roberta "Bobby" Snider, took great pains to get away with murder, according to confessions (via the Alliance Review) he shared with an undercover female police officer, who secretly recorded him over cups of coffee at fast food restaurants in and around Hartford, Ohio. His undoing would be trusting the undercover officer who befriended him after he attempted suicide following his wife's death, according to the Morning Journal News.
Snider, who grew to want to marry the undercover officer as they spent more time together, told her the story of how he killed his wife, emphasizing several times it was "just a scenario." He said while his wife was sleeping on a loveseat, he covered her head with a cloth before hitting her in the head with a two-pound stake hammer. Snider said he then put a plastic bag over her head to keep blood from getting on too many things, and rolled her onto plastic on the floor.
In the "scenario" he said he took her body and other things that had blood on them, like a throw pillow and a lamp shade, and got rid of them, but it took some time before he would come clean on what he did with the body of his wife of five decades.
In contrast, Snider's official story he had shared with police and Roberta's family had changed a few times in regard to what happened to his wife, but it was always fishy.
Philip Snyder said he was 'fed up'
He claimed that at some point on a trip to Elvis Presley's Graceland, Bobby Snider died of natural causes. That was somewhat plausible; the Charley Project reported that the 69-year-old woman was terminally ill due to cancer and other medical problems. What raised suspicions, however, is that there were never any coroner records or any other kind of official records pertaining to an intake of Bobby's body, per the Morning Journal News. Even though there was no murder weapon, nor did investigators have a body, thanks to the information the undercover officer gleaned from Snider, investigators were able to search his home. They found enough forensic evidence to go ahead with prosecution.
According to The Times Reporter, Snider eventually led police to a bar and restaurant in Bullitt County, Kentucky, where he said he dumped his wife's body. She is believed to have ended up in a landfill. Snider told the undercover officer that when he killed is wife, "I didn't snap. I was just numb.... I was fed up."
Snider made a deal and pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, abuse of a corpse, and tampering with evidence in exchange for his 20-year sentence with the chance of parole in 2038. He will be 93 then, if he's still alive. He's serving his sentence at Richland Correctional Institution in Ohio.
Yahoo News reports that the documentary "When Philip Met Missy" will stream April 27 on Discovery+.