A Pennsylvania mother who allegedly killed two of her children with a dog leash sobbed throughout her trial as her remaining son shunned her.
In 2019, Lisa Snyder, 41, faces accusations of hanging her eight-year-old son Connor and her four-year-old daughter Brinley in the basement of her Albany Township home.
Her son, Owen Synder, 22, testified about the killings on Tuesday, causing Snyder to gasp and cry.
When questioned why he referred to Snyder as ‘Lisa,’ Owen answered, “I just don’t see her as my mother anymore,” according to the Mainline Times & Suburban.
Owen, a stoic, disputed his mother’s assertion that Connor, suicidal and despondent, killed himself and his younger sister due to school-related torment.
When asked if Connor was depressed, he replied, ‘He was a happy-go-lucky kid.’.
‘He was always interested in doing something. He was always playing with his younger sister.’
Owen also mentioned that tiny Connor had physical restrictions that would have made hanging the pictures difficult.
Detectives found evidence in Snyder’s Facebook account shortly before the killings, leading them to first accuse her of having sex with her pit bull.
However, after the defense team argued that they would prejudice the jury, a court decided not to bring those accusations to the murder trial.
Defense attorney Dennis Charles unsuccessfully sought an immediate acquittal after Berks County prosecutors rested their case late Friday morning, arguing that the case was based on supposition, theory, and “pure guesswork.”
In September 2019, investigators found Connor and Brinley hanging in the cellar. After removing them from life support, they passed away three days later.
Snyder faces allegations of first-degree murder, child endangerment, and evidence tampering for the deaths of her two children in September 2019.
The court learned last week that Snyder used her phone to search for “How to Hang Yourself” and “Almost Got Away With It” just days before Conner and Brinley died.
In another grisly twist, the tall wooden kitchen chairs from which Conner and Brinley had been hanged were brought to court.
Snyder remained emotionless, with her lawyers claiming that the evidence against her is all guesswork.
The defense first claims that Snyder did not murder her children, but it has also stated that even if she did, she was mad at the time and should be committed to a psychiatric facility rather than prison.
Snyder, who made the first 911 call, told police that her son had been bullied and had threatened to commit suicide, but officials were skeptical of her claim and found no evidence to corroborate it.
On school bus security video from that day, the youngster exhibited no signs of trouble, and an occupational therapist later stated that he was not physically capable of committing such injury to himself or his younger sister.
Snyder also acknowledged buying a dog leash on the day the children were discovered hanging from it, according to investigators.
She later called for help, explaining that she was unable to remove them from where they were hanging because of severe anxiety.
Snyder could face life in prison if found guilty of first-degree murder, despite the prosecutors’ suggestion that she should receive a death sentence.
The judge, not the jury, will make that decision.
Last year, a court rejected a plea deal in which Snyder would have pleaded no contest but mentally ill to two counts of third-degree murder. Prosecutors have already indicated that they would seek the death penalty.
