As a reporter, you see quite a lot of unusual issues. You witness essentially the most dramatic and traumatic elements of different individuals’s lives. You depend on having the ability to management the way it all impacts you. However you by no means anticipate investigating another person’s previous will lead you again into your individual.
And that is precisely what occurred to me, reporting on the case of Joe Shymanski, a Washington, D.C., photographer murdered in 2023. Overlaying this story took me again into a few of the most acquainted terrain of my life — my tiny, Pennsylvania hometown. But it surely additionally took me into unfamiliar territory: confronting somebody I grew up with caught up in a homicide case.
Nikki Battiste
Heather Snyder and I hadn’t communicated since 1998, the 12 months I actually topped her my successor as highschool homecoming queen. Quick ahead to 2025, and I found that the exact same Heather I knew was a central character on this story. She was now Joe Shymanski’s ex-wife. She was the one who reported Joe Shymanski lacking and it was Heather’s boyfriend after leaving Joe Shymanski, Brandon Holbrook, who turned authorities’ prime suspect in Joe’s homicide.
In an unique interview, Heather answered my questions on her relationship with Holbrook. She has an alibi and emphatically instructed us she had no involvement in Joe’s homicide. She has by no means been recognized by authorities as a suspect or charged with a criminal offense in reference to the Shymanski case.
However Heather was the one identified hyperlink between Joe Shymanski and Holbrook. And Joe Shymanski’s family members began asking questions on her.
“She simply wanted it accomplished and he or she discovered her particular person that might try this for her,” Joe’s niece Janine Shymanski mentioned.
Janine Shymanski and different associates and kinfolk spelled out their suspicions of Heather Snyder and Heather addressed these suspicions in “My Uncle Joe’s Homicide,” an all-new “48 Hours” now streaming on Paramount+.
Heather mentioned she started courting Joe Shymanski once they had been distributors at a weekly Washington, D.C., meals and crafts truthful on the historic Japanese Market. Joe Shymanski bought his images there and Heather had a vegetable enterprise. She had three kids from a earlier marriage, however wished an enormous household and he or she remembers being excited to be taught that Joe Shymanski wished youngsters. She mentioned that at first, he was humorous, charming and swept her off her toes.
“It was like a fairy story,” Heather mentioned.
They married in July 2014, Heather mentioned, and acquired a home in Calvert County, Maryland. She gave beginning to a daughter and a son a 12 months aside. However she says Joe Shymanski quickly turned obsessive about his youngsters and began to push her and her three older kids apart. She says he turned emotionally abusive to her and in a single occasion, she claims, he acquired bodily.
The Shymanski household and associates say Heather Snyder’s allegations don’t match the Joe Shymanski they knew. One pal instructed me Heather was drawn to Joe Shymanski’s cash — an allegation she denies. Snyder says the pandemic solely made issues worse. She took the youngsters and left Joe Shymanski in July 2021, shifting again to our hometown in Pennsylvania. Earlier than lengthy, she says, she started seeing Holbrook, who she met on-line. However Joe Shymanski’s pal Anneli Werner mentioned the turbulence of Heather and Joe’s relationship was removed from over.
“Joe was in an unpleasant, contentious divorce,” Werner remembered.
By the summer season of 2023, Joe Shymanski had purchased a million-dollar life insurance coverage coverage itemizing his two minor kids as beneficiaries. The court docket had awarded him and Heather joint custody of the youngsters however gave Joe Shymanski main bodily custody when college was in session. And the choose had additionally lowered the quantity Joe Shymanski owed her within the settlement.
“Joe had began profitable,” Anneli mentioned.
Joe Shymanski reported lacking
It was Labor Day 2023 at 7:47 p.m. when authorities acquired the decision from Heather to report Joe Shymanski lacking. She instructed them she had pushed to her ex-husband’s home to drop off their kids in a custody alternate however had not discovered him residence. So, she mentioned she checked with the neighbors after which referred to as 911. Investigators discovered Joe’s keys and cellphone inside his home. When a sheriff’s deputy escorted Heather inside to get pajamas for the youngsters, his physique digital camera exhibits her getting emotional.
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The subsequent day, Calvert County investigators questioned Heather on the sheriff’s workplace.
“Are you in any relationship proper now?” requested Calvert County investigator Joshua Buck. “No,” Heather replied. “No boyfriends or — ?” Buck continued. “No,” she answered. “I had a boyfriend however, briefly. However I do not.”
Heather instructed Calvert County investigators she had just lately damaged up with Holbrook, who additionally lived in Pennsylvania. However they quickly unearthed a picture of his truck and license plate close to Joe Shymanski’s home in Maryland the day Joe disappeared. The Calvert County, Maryland, Sheriff’s Workplace, which declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview, despatched investigators to Pennsylvania. With the assistance of Pennsylvania police, they approached Holbrook’s home at about 11 p.m. on Sept. 5, 2023.
After they introduced Holbrook to police headquarters for questioning, he instructed them he was a driver for a plant that processed waste from rooster slaughterhouses. Regardless of the digital camera photos displaying his truck close to Joe Shymanski’s home, Holbrook claimed he hadn’t been there — or anyplace in Maryland — across the time Joe disappeared. However investigators discovered gadgets that struck them as curious. On Holbrook’s property, there have been firearms, plastic tarps, rubber gloves and cleansing fluid. There was additionally an open bundle of energy noticed blades and not using a matching noticed.
“Is {that a} device that is highly effective sufficient to dismember a physique?” I requested Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Detective Jessica Aurand, who helped examine the case. “… Probably,” she answered.
By this level, authorities had additionally famous a wierd odor coming from Holbrook’s truck within the driveway, mentioned Mifflin County Police Division Sgt. John Chester. Within the again, they discovered one thing an investigator famous seemed to be human blood.
“It seemed like a murder scene,” Chester mentioned.
However the blood within the truck would prove to have come from an animal.
“As a result of he had entry to the … rooster plant, did he put stuff in there and canopy it up with rooster stays?” Aurand questioned aloud.
Regardless of having no physique, authorities arrested Holbrook shortly afterward. The subsequent day in a subject close to Holbrook’s home, they situated human stays that later turned out to match Joe Shymanski.
All of this occurred solely about 45 minutes from the place Heather Snyder and I grew up.
Each our households nonetheless reside in Newport, Pennsylvania, residence to solely about 1,500 individuals. Even once you add up the vehicles and the horse-drawn, Amish buggies, there nonetheless is not sufficient site visitors for a single stoplight. As a child there, I by no means dreamed I might develop into a contributor to “48 Hours.” And when you’d instructed me I used to be sooner or later going to interview a former teammate talked about in reference to a homicide case, I might have mentioned you had been loopy.
It was downright surreal when a “48 Hours” producer first instructed me {that a} homicide sufferer’s household had questions on somebody I knew in my youth. The Heather I remembered was a high pupil, a cheerleader and the treasurer of her class. We performed subject hockey collectively.
I knew Heather won’t need to speak to me. If I might persuade her to do an interview, I additionally knew it will imply asking her the hardest questions. After I realized one other nationwide information program was wanting into the story, I contacted Heather. As I suspected, she instructed me it was too quickly to speak to me. She mentioned she would not think about assembly till after Holbrook’s trial final spring.
The trial of Brandon Holbrook
Prosecutors would argue Holbrook shot Joe Shymanski to dying in Joe’s Maryland driveway, then drove his physique again to Pennsylvania, dismembering him and disposing of his stays. They confirmed the pictures of Holbrook’s truck close to Joe Shymanski’s home that evening and video displaying Holbrook looking for cleansing provides the following morning. They even confirmed video of Holbrook dumping what turned out to be human stays subsequent to the parking zone outdoors the shop.
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Holbrook’s protection workforce had little selection however to acknowledge there was proof he was concerned in disposing of Joe’s physique. However they identified that there have been no forensics tying him to the homicide itself — nothing putting him at Joe Shymanski’s home — the pictures of his truck close to Joe’s home hadn’t been clear sufficient to establish the motive force, nor something proving Joe Shymanski — alive or useless — was ever at Holbrook’s home.
Protection lawyer Brendan Callahan insisted Holbrook had no motive to need Joe Shymanski useless and that his consumer might not have been the one one concerned. Callahan mentioned authorities didn’t sufficiently examine Heather Snyder and had been sluggish to get well a gun she instructed them she had at residence. He says they by no means searched her property.
“Just one particular person’s life is best at present than it was earlier than the homicide of Joseph Shymanski,” mentioned Callahan. “And that’s Heather Snyder.”
Callahan argued Heather might need stood to realize custody of her two youngest kids and, since they had been minors, management over any life insurance coverage payout they acquired.
In all, Heather Snyder was talked about greater than 400 occasions within the Brandon Holbrook homicide trial – so many occasions it felt to me like she was on trial too.
Either side had listed Heather as a witness. Everybody within the crowded courtroom wished to listen to what she needed to say underneath oath. On the fifth day of trial testimony, she was referred to as to the stand. However Heather invoked her Fifth Modification privilege towards self-incrimination. The jury gasped. However prosecutors later launched Heather’s alibi: photographs taken in her Pennsylvania residence and video displaying her shopping for a pizza in a Newport grocery retailer across the time Joe Shymanski was killed a couple of three-hour drive away.
It took the jury simply 80 minutes to convict Holbrook of first-degree, premeditated homicide. As I mentioned, Heather Snyder has by no means been charged with a criminal offense on this case.
Questions for Heather Snyder
After the trial, I met with Heather to speak about doing an interview. I believe it is truthful to say she was reluctant, however she instructed me she understood she was one of the best particular person to inform her story. She additionally appeared keenly conscious that Joe Shymanski’s household felt she was in some way concerned in his dying. She mentioned she wished to set the file straight and in the end, she agreed to take a seat down with me for our “48 Hours” report. No questions had been off limits.
On a wet evening in Might 2025, our workforce arrange our gear in a transformed barn simply minutes from each of our mother and father’ houses. As I used to be ready for Heather to reach, I recorded my ideas in a sort of video diary.
After we started the interview itself, Heather appeared nervous, however earlier than lengthy, she turned extra poised.
“Did you ever say to Brandon Holbrook, I want Joe had been useless?” I requested her. ”No,” she mentioned, and continued, “… essentially the most I mentioned to Brandon was that I believed Joe needs to be in jail for the best way he was performing.”
“Did Brandon let you know he wished to kill Joe?” I requested. “Nope,” she mentioned. “Did you assist him cowl it up?” I continued. “Nope. Nope,” she answered.
Heather instructed me {that a} legal lawyer suggested her to invoke her Fifth Modification privilege on the Holbrook trial. “If you do not have something to cover, why not simply rise up there and testify?” I requested. “… Individuals twist your phrases,” Heather replied.
I requested her about texts with Holbrook through which he suggests “different options” for her issues with Joe.
“I believed it was a — only a joke,” Heather mentioned. “It did not cross your thoughts for a second –.” “No,” she responded. “That he may damage Joe?” I continued. “No,” Heather mentioned.
I additionally requested her about textual content messages about her hope that karma would meet up with Joe through which she had mentioned she was “uninterested in being affected person.”
“That is how I used to be feeling …” Heather instructed me. “Do you suppose … which will have triggered Brandon?” I requested. “I do not know,” she mentioned.
“Are you afraid authorities will come for you?” I wished to know. “No,” Heather mentioned. “By no means?” I requested. “I am not apprehensive in any respect, no …” she mentioned.
We requested Calvert County’s high prosecutor, Robert Harvey, for an interview in regards to the Joe Shymanski homicide investigation and about Heather Snyder. Harvey declined our request however wrote to us that there was “… an intensive and exhaustive investigation …” into Mr. Shymanski’s dying. “Mr. Holbrook acquired a ‘truthful and neutral trial …'” Harvey continued. “As a result of Mr. Holbrook’s case is underneath attraction … it stays open,” Harvey continued. “Due to this fact, I’m not going to answer questions relating to the investigation and I’m not going to take a position on what might or might not occur sooner or later.”
We additionally requested Pennsylvania authorities in regards to the standing of the case:
“Is there a present investigation into Heather Snyder?” I requested. “I am unable to reply that query,” mentioned Aurand. “Ought to there be?” I continued. “I am unable to reply that query,” Aurand responded. “Do you suppose Heather Snyder is concerned on this crime in any method?” I continued. “I am unable to reply that,” Aurand mentioned. “However you do know the reply,” I requested. ”Sure. However I am not allowed to say,” Aurand mentioned.
Heather Snyder instructed me regardless of all of it, she desires to maintain Joe Shymanski’s reminiscence alive for his or her kids. She is aware of the Shymanski household desires to see them and says she is open to the concept, assuming they cease publicly pointing a finger at her.
She added she nonetheless has love for Holbrook, although she believes he belongs behind bars. “I believe clearly psychologically he snapped over one thing,” she instructed me. “I believe he did one thing horrible, horrific. He damage my household. He damage me.” Final July, a choose sentenced Brandon Holbrook to life in jail with no parole.
“So many individuals watching are gonna be pissed off,” I mentioned. “Uh-huh,” she agreed. “… they usually’re gonna suppose it — it simply — logically it’s important to had identified one thing.” “Proper,” she mentioned. “However I did not. That is the torturous half, as a result of individuals will — it is virtually like they need to imagine that I used to be concerned with it. They need that true-crime narrative. And it simply merely wasn’t the case.”
