True Crime: Box Set (7 page)

Some
people suspected that it was Ashley who killed her parents. According
to theories, perhaps Danny had been sexually abusing his daughter so
she retaliated, or Ashley finally got fed up with her father’s
bad temperament. Maybe, Ashley asked Lauria for help. However,
according to the police, none of the girls’ records showed that
they were capable of such a violent crime.

Ashley,
for one, was even a member of the National Honor Society while Lauria
was an excellent student. Ashley almost always partook in sports,
particularly in basketball. Lauria was planning on becoming a
cosmetologist after graduation. All in all, both the girls had clear
backgrounds.

Could
it be drugs? According to some unaccounted reports, Danny was
involved in small time drug dealing, particularly marijuana. Perhaps,
he angered the wrong person which resulted in his and his wife’s
deaths, as well as the disappearance of the girls. In fact, there
were reports about Danny’s meeting with two unidentified men 2
weeks before the fire.

The
rest of the Freeman relatives still believed that it had something to
do with the feud over Shane’s death. In fact, Dwayne, Danny’s
brother revealed that Danny had a premonition of what was to happen.
According to Dwayne, before the incident, Danny talked to him
seriously and said that “If anything happened to me, look at
the Sherriff’s Department”.

Dwayne
confided that the deputies were trying to intimidate the family--
Danny once said that the deputies (David Hayes and his brother), told
him that they could do anything to him and his family and Danny
couldn’t do a thing about it.

Lauria
and Ashley’s case was even featured in “What Really
Happened” back in October of 2001. The relatives of the family
participated in the un-purchased and un-aired show. Aside from them,
DeAnna Dorsey also contributed. DeAnna was the nurse in the hospital
who helped revive Shane when he was shot. Her daughter was also a
friend of Ashley’s.

Shortly
after returning from the taping, DeAnna was shot and killed in the
hospital where she worked. According to police reports, the murderer
was the paranoid-schizophrenic Ricky Martin who was angry because of
the hospital’s decision to downsize. People found it odd that
shortly after DeAnna’s murder, Ricky was also killed by the
police.

And
what more, friends and relatives said that Ricky and DeAnna didn’t
know each other. They hadn't even met once in their lives. Could
DeAnna’s murder really have something to do with her
participation in the “What Really Happened” show?

During
the investigation, two people surfaced and claimed that they were
involved in the murder and in the girls’ disappearance. One was
Tommy Lynn Sells, who, in 2002 sent a message to
The
Joplin Globe
and said that he
had a vague recollection about a fire and a burial of two girls.

According
to him, on the evening of December 30, 1999, he planned on returning
from St. Louis, Missouri, but he had to first pass through Welch,
Oklahoma (where the Freemans were located). He recounted that at that
time, his mind was clouded because of drugs, but he “wanted”
to recall a memory about a fire and burials for two girls.

Looking
into his records, police found out that Tommy had been linked to 16
homicides and most of his victims were very young girls. However, no
sufficient evidence could link him to Lauria and Ashley’s case.

Another
suspect was Jeremy Jones. He was in jail due to his prior murders,
but was released at 10:30 on the evening of December 30-- the date of
the disappearance. According to authorities, Jeremy Jones used the
same M.O. in his previous murders: he shot the victims in the head
and then set the place on fire.

He
wasn’t charged with anything involving the Bible-Freeman case,
but he soon returned to prison. In there, he confessed to the killing
of the Freeman couple, and then he said that he took the girls to
Kansas, shot them, and buried the bodies in a mine shaft near Galena.
He said that he did it as a favor to a friend involved in drugs.

Police
searched the mine but nothing came of it. In the end, Jeremy Jones
denied killing the girls. He admitted that he just confessed so that
he could have more “privileges” in jail.

Ashley
and Lauria’s case, up to now, is still unsolved.

Chapter
6 - Brenda Starr Snouffer

On
April 21, 1995, a 32-year old woman from Palm Harbor, Florida went
missing. Case files described her as Caucasian with blonde hair, blue
eyes, and ears that were both pierced. Her whole name was Brenda
Snouffer, but the police chose to include her maiden name as she
might use it to identify herself especially since she was in the
process of a bitter divorce at the time she disappeared.

Brenda
Starr Snouffer didn’t get along well with her then husband,
Scott Irvine Snouffer. According to records, Brenda was supposed to
testify against Scott and his brother, Stuart about their “chop
shops”.

In
her statements, Brenda reported that Scott and Stuart dissembled cars
that were stolen, so that they could take the parts and sell them.
The hearing should have taken place later the same year, if only
Brenda didn’t disappear. On top of the chop-shop accusation,
Brenda and Scott were also having custody battles for their 6
year-old daughter named Mariel.

On
April 21, 1995, Brenda’s day began as usual. She took Mariel to
her school at Highland Lakes Elementary at around 9:15 am. She used
her car- a 1993
Mazda Protege
,
which was turquoise blue in color and bore the license plate number
LEA14U. After dropping her daughter off, Brenda never returned to
pick her up. According to Mariel’s teachers, they waited three
hours for the absent mother before making a report to the
authorities.

The
police, of course, immediately suspected Scott, after all, the couple
was estranged. However, aside from telling the police that he was
innocent, Scott did nothing else to help search for the mother of his
child. He just hired an attorney and that was it. In turn, the police
never removed him from their list of suspected people.

Apparently,
before the disappearance, Brenda confided to her family and friends
(as well as to the diary she had written a day before she
disappeared) that she was afraid of Scott because he was
“threatening” to kill her. To make matters worse, on the
day she disappeared, threatening letters were sent to her home, and
to the home of one of her friends (Sonny Randall) in Ohio. The
letters said: “You have taken everything from me. What goes
around, comes around.” The sender of the letters, however, was
not identified.

When
the letters were inspected, the authorities looked into “intentional”
disappearance. Perhaps Brenda got fed up with all the stress and
pressure of testifying and custody battle, that she fled. For some of
the investigators, the letters were so perfectly aimed at Scott, as
if someone was deliberately framing him. They also said that they
found stationary materials in Brenda’s room which was purchased
on April 20.

Mariel,
remembered shopping for those materials with her mother, and she also
added that Brenda withdrew $4,000 the same day. For Brenda’s
relatives, she wouldn’t just disappear without notification--
it simply wasn’t her. Besides that, she had a good job as a
Registered Nurse in Palm Harbor. She also made plans for the next day
which was to take Mariel to Orlando, Florida. Brenda was even
planning on visiting Disney World and Sea World.

And
the most important of all, she would never leave her daughter behind.
Police authorities believed that there was foul play in this case--
but they seriously lacked leads. They even used a helicopter equipped
with heat-sensors to see if Scott was hiding her in his 700-acre
home, but it turned out negative.

Due
to Brenda’s absence, Scott’s hearing was delayed, but in
the end, he was charged with the crimes of automobile theft and
possession of an illegal driving license. The jury convicted him to
serve only 45 % of the supposed 9 years in prison, and after his
release, he would have to be in probation for 7 more years. Stuart,
his brother, wasn’t charged with anything. The police couldn’t
collect enough evidence to link him with his brother’s crimes
and without Brenda’s statements, it was impossible to pin him
down.

On
May 1995, Brenda’s marriage to Scott was finally nulled as the
divorce was finalized. Even through her absence, she was still
awarded with sole custody of Mariel. The jury named her mother as the
guardian. However, later, Scott was also able to obtain Mariel’s
full custody, so his parents took charge in Mariel’s case.

Conclusion

Thank
you again for downloading this book!

An
aspiring starlet, a drug addict, a skyjacker, a primitive art
collector, two childhood friends, and a simple mother-- the cases we
have discussed are still unsolved up to now. No one can say for sure
if they will ever be settled. Some could involve foul play, while
others could be intentional. In the end, all we have are baffling
clues.

I
hope you enjoyed this book, thank you and good luck!