As a reporter, you see a number of unusual issues. You witness essentially the most dramatic and traumatic components of different individuals’s lives. You depend on with the ability to management the way it all impacts you. However you by no means count on 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. However it 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 grew to become 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 advised 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 recognized 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 individual that may do this for her,” Joe’s niece Janine Shymanski stated.
Janine Shymanski and different associates and family members spelled out their suspicions of Heather Snyder and Heather addressed these suspicions in “My Uncle Joe’s Murder,” an all-new “48 Hours” airing Saturday, Oct. 18, 2025, at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.
Heather stated she started relationship Joe Shymanski after they have been distributors at a weekly Washington, D.C., meals and crafts truthful on the historic Jap Market. Joe Shymanski offered his pictures there and Heather had a vegetable enterprise. She had three youngsters from a earlier marriage, however needed a giant household and he or she remembers being excited to be taught that Joe Shymanski needed youngsters. She stated that to start with, he was humorous, charming and swept her off her toes.
“It was like a fairy story,” Heather stated.
They married in July 2014, Heather stated, 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 grew to become obsessive about his youngsters and began to push her and her three older youngsters apart. She says he grew to become emotionally abusive to her and in a single occasion, she claims, he received bodily.
The Shymanski household and associates say Heather Snyder’s allegations don’t match the Joe Shymanski they knew. One buddy advised me Heather was interested in 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 buddy Anneli Werner stated the turbulence of Heather and Joe’s relationship was removed from over.
“Joe was in an unsightly, contentious divorce,” Werner remembered.
By the summer time of 2023, Joe Shymanski had purchased a million-dollar life insurance coverage coverage itemizing his two minor youngsters 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 decide had additionally lowered the quantity Joe Shymanski owed her within the settlement.
“Joe had began profitable,” Anneli stated.
Joe Shymanski reported lacking
It was Labor Day 2023 at 7:47 p.m. when authorities received the decision from Heather to report Joe Shymanski lacking. She advised them she had pushed to her ex-husband’s home to drop off their youngsters in a custody trade however had not discovered him house. So, she stated she checked with the neighbors after which known as 911. Investigators discovered Joe’s keys and telephone inside his home. When a sheriff’s deputy escorted Heather inside to get pajamas for the youngsters, his physique digicam exhibits her getting emotional.
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The following 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 advised Calvert County investigators she had 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 advised them he was a driver for a plant that processed waste from rooster slaughterhouses. Regardless of the digicam photographs 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 objects 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 with no 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 scent coming from Holbrook’s truck within the driveway, stated 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 stated.
However the blood within the truck would end up 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 following day in a area 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, house to solely about 1,500 individuals. Even while you add up the vehicles and the horse-drawn, Amish buggies, there nonetheless is not sufficient visitors for a single stoplight. As a child there, I by no means dreamed I might develop into a contributor to “48 Hours.” And for those who’d advised me I used to be someday going to interview a former teammate talked about in reference to a homicide case, I might have stated you have been loopy.
It was downright surreal when a “48 Hours” producer first advised 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 area hockey collectively.
I knew Heather won’t wish to discuss to me. If I may persuade her to do an interview, I additionally knew it will imply asking her the hardest questions. Once I discovered one other nationwide information program was trying into the story, I contacted Heather. As I suspected, she advised me it was too quickly to speak to me. She stated 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 demise 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 night time 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 car parking zone outdoors the shop.
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Holbrook’s protection group 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 determine the driving force, nor something proving Joe Shymanski — alive or useless — was ever at Holbrook’s home.
Protection legal professional Brendan Callahan insisted Holbrook had no motive to need Joe Shymanski useless and that his shopper might not have been the one one concerned. Callahan stated authorities did not sufficiently examine Heather Snyder and have been gradual to get well a gun she advised them she had at house. He says they by no means searched her property.
“Just one individual’s life is healthier as we speak than it was earlier than the homicide of Joseph Shymanski,” stated Callahan. “And that’s Heather Snyder.”
Callahan argued Heather may need stood to achieve custody of her two youngest youngsters and, since they have 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 needed to listen to what she needed to say beneath oath. On the fifth day of trial testimony, she was known as to the stand. However Heather invoked her Fifth Modification privilege in opposition to self-incrimination. The jury gasped. However prosecutors later launched Heather’s alibi: photographs taken in her Pennsylvania house 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 stated, 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 feel it is truthful to say she was reluctant, however she advised me she understood she was one of the best individual to inform her story. She additionally appeared keenly conscious that Joe Shymanski’s household felt she was someway concerned in his demise. She stated she needed to set the report straight and in the end, she agreed to sit down down with me for our “48 Hours” report. No questions have been off limits.
On a wet night time in Could 2025, our group arrange our gear in a transformed barn simply minutes from each of our mother and father’ properties. As I used to be ready for Heather to reach, I recorded my ideas in a sort of video diary.
Once we started the interview itself, Heather appeared nervous, however earlier than lengthy, she grew to become extra poised.
“Did you ever say to Brandon Holbrook, I want Joe have been useless?” I requested her. ”No,” she stated, and continued, “… essentially the most I stated to Brandon was that I believed Joe must be in jail for the best way he was appearing.”
“Did Brandon inform you he needed to kill Joe?” I requested. “Nope,” she stated. “Did you assist him cowl it up?” I continued. “Nope. Nope,” she answered.
Heather advised 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 by which he suggests “different options” for her issues with Joe.
“I believed it was a — only a joke,” Heather stated. “It did not cross your thoughts for a second –.” “No,” she responded. “That he may damage Joe?” I continued. “No,” Heather stated.
I additionally requested her about textual content messages about her hope that karma would meet up with Joe by which she had stated she was “bored with being affected person.”
“That is how I used to be feeling …” Heather advised me. “Do you assume … which will have triggered Brandon?” I requested. “I do not know,” she stated.
“Are you afraid authorities will come for you?” I needed to know. “No,” Heather stated. “Under no circumstances?” I requested. “I am not apprehensive in any respect, no …” she stated.
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 “… a radical and exhaustive investigation …” into Mr. Shymanski’s demise. “Mr. Holbrook acquired a ‘truthful and neutral trial …'” Harvey continued. “As a result of Mr. Holbrook’s case is beneath attraction … it stays open,” Harvey continued. “Subsequently, I’m not going to reply to questions relating to the investigation and I’m not going to invest 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,” stated Aurand. “Ought to there be?” I continued. “I am unable to reply that query,” Aurand responded. “Do you assume Heather Snyder is concerned on this crime in any means?” I continued. “I am unable to reply that,” Aurand stated. “However you do know the reply,” I requested. ”Sure. However I am not allowed to say,” Aurand stated.
Heather Snyder advised me regardless of all of it, she needs to maintain Joe Shymanski’s reminiscence alive for his or her youngsters. She is aware of the Shymanski household needs to see them and says she is open to the thought, 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 feel clearly psychologically he snapped over one thing,” she advised me. “I feel he did one thing horrible, horrific. He damage my household. He damage me.” Final July, a decide sentenced Brandon Holbrook to life in jail with no parole.
“So many individuals watching are gonna be pissed off,” I stated. “Uh-huh,” she agreed. “… they usually’re gonna assume it — it simply — logically you need to had recognized one thing.” “Proper,” she stated. “However I did not. That is the torturous half, as a result of individuals will — it is nearly like they wish to consider that I used to be concerned with it. They need that true-crime narrative. And it simply merely wasn’t the case.”
