“48 Hours” contributor finds herself in uncharted territory investigating D.C.-area homicide

As a reporter, you see lots of unusual issues. You witness probably the most dramatic and traumatic elements of different folks’s lives. You depend on having the ability to management the way it all impacts you. But you by no means anticipate investigating another person’s previous will lead you again into your personal.

And that is precisely what occurred to me, reporting on the case of Joe Shymanski, a Washington, D.C., photographer murdered in 2023. Covering this story took me again into among the most acquainted terrain of my life — my tiny, Pennsylvania hometown. But it additionally took me into unfamiliar territory: confronting somebody I grew up with caught up in a homicide case. 

Heather Snyder and I hadn’t communicated since 1998, the 12 months I actually topped her my successor as highschool homecoming queen. Fast 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 informed us she had no involvement in Joe’s homicide. She has by no means been recognized by authorities as a suspect or charged with against the law in reference to the Shymanski case.

But Heather was the one identified hyperlink between Joe Shymanski and Holbrook. And Joe Shymanski’s family members began asking questions on her.

“She just needed it done and she found her person that would do that for her,” Joe’s niece Janine Shymanski stated.

Janine Shymanski and different buddies and kin 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 honest on the historic Eastern Market. Joe Shymanski offered his pictures there and Heather had a vegetable enterprise. She had three kids from a earlier marriage, however wished an enormous household and she or he remembers being excited to be taught that Joe Shymanski wished youngsters. She stated that to start with, he was humorous, charming and swept her off her ft.

“It was like a fairy tale,” Heather stated.

They married in July 2014, Heather stated, and purchased a home in Calvert County, Maryland. She gave beginning to a daughter and a son a 12 months aside. But she says Joe Shymanski quickly grew to become obsessive about his youngsters and began to push her and her three older kids apart. She says he grew to become emotionally abusive to her and in a single occasion, she claims, he acquired bodily.

The Shymanski household and buddies say Heather Snyder’s allegations don’t match the Joe Shymanski they knew. One buddy informed 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. Before lengthy, she says, she started seeing Holbrook, who she met on-line. But Joe Shymanski’s buddy Anneli Werner stated the turbulence of Heather and Joe’s relationship was removed from over.

“Joe was in an ugly, 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 courtroom had awarded him and Heather joint custody of the youngsters however gave Joe Shymanski major bodily custody when faculty was in session. And the decide had additionally decreased the quantity Joe Shymanski owed her within the settlement.

“Joe had started winning,” Anneli stated.

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 informed them she had pushed to her ex-husband’s home to drop off their kids in a custody change 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 reveals her getting emotional.

The subsequent day, Calvert County investigators questioned Heather on the sheriff’s workplace.

 “Are you in any relationship right now?” requested Calvert County investigator Joshua Buck. “No,” Heather replied. “No boyfriends or — ?” Buck continued. “No,” she answered. “I had a boyfriend but, briefly. But I don’t.”

Heather informed Calvert County investigators she had lately damaged up with Holbrook, who additionally lived in Pennsylvania. But 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 Office, 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.

When they introduced Holbrook to police headquarters for questioning, he informed them he was a driver for a plant that processed waste from hen slaughterhouses. Despite 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. But 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 with no matching noticed.

“Is that a tool that’s powerful enough to dismember a body?” I requested Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Detective Jessica Aurand, who helped examine the case. “… Possibly,” she answered.

By this level, authorities had additionally famous a wierd scent coming from Holbrook’s truck within the driveway, stated Mifflin County Police Department Sgt. John Chester. In the again, they discovered one thing an investigator famous gave the impression to be human blood.

“It looked like a homicide scene,” Chester stated.

But the blood within the truck would end up to have come from an animal.

“Because he had access to the … chicken plant, did he put stuff in there and cover it up with chicken remains?” Aurand questioned aloud.

Despite having no physique, authorities arrested Holbrook shortly afterward. The subsequent day in a discipline 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.

Both our households nonetheless dwell in Newport, Pennsylvania, house to solely about 1,500 folks. 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 grow to be a contributor to “48 Hours.” And should you’d informed 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 stated you have been loopy.

It was downright surreal when a “48 Hours” producer first informed me {that a} homicide sufferer’s household had questions on somebody I knew in my youth. The Heather I remembered was a prime scholar, a cheerleader and the treasurer of her class. We performed discipline hockey collectively.

I knew Heather won’t need to discuss to me. If I might persuade her to do an interview, I additionally knew it might imply asking her the hardest questions. When I discovered one other nationwide information program was wanting into the story, I contacted Heather. As I suspected, she informed me it was too quickly to speak to me. She stated she would not take into account assembly till after Holbrook’s trial final spring.

The trial of Brandon Holbrook

Prosecutors would argue Holbrook shot Joe Shymanski to loss of life 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 subsequent morning. They even confirmed video of Holbrook dumping what turned out to be human stays subsequent to the parking zone outdoors the shop.

Holbrook’s protection group had little alternative however to acknowledge there was proof he was concerned in disposing of Joe’s physique. But 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.

Defense legal professional Brendan Callahan insisted Holbrook had no motive to need Joe Shymanski useless and that his shopper could not have been the one one concerned. Callahan stated authorities did not sufficiently examine Heather Snyder and have been sluggish to recuperate a gun she informed them she had at house. He says they by no means searched her property.

“Only one person’s life is better today than it was before the murder of Joseph Shymanski,” stated Callahan. “And that is Heather Snyder.”

Callahan argued Heather may need stood to realize custody of her two youngest kids 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 instances within the Brandon Holbrook homicide trial – so many instances it felt to me like she was on trial too.

Both sides had listed Heather as a witness. Everyone within the crowded courtroom wished to listen to what she needed to say below oath. On the fifth day of trial testimony, she was known as to the stand. But Heather invoked her Fifth Amendment privilege in opposition to self-incrimination. The jury gasped. But prosecutors later launched Heather’s alibi: images 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 few 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 against the law on this case.

Questions for Heather Snyder

After the trial, I met with Heather to speak about doing an interview. I believe it is honest to say she was reluctant, however she informed me she understood she was the very best individual to inform her story. She additionally appeared keenly conscious that Joe Shymanski’s household felt she was by some means concerned in his loss of life. She stated she wished to set the file straight and finally, 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 May 2025, our group arrange our gear in a transformed barn simply minutes from each of our dad and mom’ properties. As I used to be ready for Heather to reach, I recorded my ideas in a type of video diary.

When 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 wish Joe were dead?” I requested her. ”No,” she stated, and continued, “… the most I said to Brandon was that I thought Joe should be in jail for the way he was acting.”

“Did Brandon tell you he wanted to kill Joe?” I requested. “Nope,” she stated. “Did you help him cover it up?” I continued. “Nope. Nope,” she answered.

Heather informed me {that a} felony lawyer suggested her to invoke her Fifth Amendment privilege on the Holbrook trial. “If you don’t have anything to hide, why not just get up there and testify?” I requested. “… People twist your words,” Heather replied.

I requested her about texts with Holbrook by which he suggests “other solutions” for her issues with Joe.

“I thought it was a — just a joke,” Heather stated. “It didn’t cross your mind for a second –.” “No,” she responded. “That he might hurt 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 “tired of being patient.”

“That’s how I was feeling …” Heather informed me. “Do you think … that may have triggered Brandon?” I requested. “I don’t know,” she stated.

“Are you afraid authorities will come for you?” I wished to know. “No,” Heather stated. “Not at all?” I requested. “I’m not worried at all, no …” she stated.

We requested Calvert County’s prime 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 thorough and exhaustive investigation …” into Mr. Shymanski’s loss of life. “Mr. Holbrook received a ‘fair and impartial trial …'” Harvey continued. “Because Mr. Holbrook’s case is under appeal … it remains open,” Harvey continued. “Therefore, I am not going to respond to questions regarding the investigation and I am not going to speculate on what may or may not happen in the future.”

We additionally requested Pennsylvania authorities in regards to the standing of the case:

“Is there a current investigation into Heather Snyder?” I requested. “I can’t answer that question,” stated Aurand. “Should there be?” I continued. “I can’t answer that question,” Aurand responded. “Do you think Heather Snyder is involved in this crime in any way?” I continued. “I can’t answer that,” Aurand stated. “But you do know the answer,” I requested. ”Yes. But I’m not allowed to say,” Aurand stated.

Heather Snyder informed me regardless of all of it, she needs to maintain Joe Shymanski’s reminiscence alive for his or her kids. 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 think obviously psychologically he snapped over something,” she informed me. “I think he did something horrible, horrific. He hurt my family. He hurt me.” Last July, a decide sentenced Brandon Holbrook to life in jail with no parole.

“So many people watching are gonna be frustrated,” I stated. “Uh-huh,” she agreed. “… and they’re gonna think it — it just — logically you have to had known something.” “Right,” she stated. “But I didn’t. That’s the torturous part, because people will — it’s almost like they want to believe that I was involved with it. They want that true-crime narrative. And it just simply wasn’t the case.”