The investigation of Joe Shymanski‘s murder began as a missing persons case. It was Sept. 4, 2023, at 7:47 p.m. when sheriff’s deputies in Calvert County, Maryland, were called to the home of the well-known photographer.
His ex-wife, Heather Snyder, met them in the driveway. She would tell authorities she had arrived by car at about 7 p.m. from her home in Pennsylvania to hand off custody of their then-8-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son.
HEATHER SNYDER (bodycam video): Um, I was supposed to return the kids to him.
DEPUTY: OK.
HEATHER SNYDER: At 7 o’clock tonight …
HEATHER SNYDER (bodycam video): … kids went in the house cause he did — he usually just comes right out, like he knows that they’re coming.
But nobody was home. Heather Snyder had checked with the neighbors and called 911.
HEATHER SNYDER (bodycam video): Yeah, I don’t know what I even should do at this point.
HEATHER SNYDER: … everything about it’s weird.
DEPUTY: OK.
What happened to Joe Shymanski?
All the signs suggested Joe Shymanski should be there. His car was in the driveway, his keys and phone were in the house. Authorities started searching the property – even using a drone.
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DEPUTY (bodycam video): Do you know if he ever goes out hiking in the woods or anything?
HEATHER SNYDER: I mean, I wouldn’t put it past him.
Heather Snyder: I answered their questions about everything they asked, you know, the situation …
Among other things investigators wanted to know about was Heather and Joe’s divorce from the previous year.
Alison Stinson-Pounsberry: I know it was very contentious. So there was a lot of arguing … specifically the drop-off location for the kids was their biggest argument.
Shymanski’s neighbors Alison Stinson-Pounsberry and Colton Pounsberry were home that night when Heather Snyder knocked on the door.
Alison Stinson-Pounsberry: She had asked me if Joe was here. I said, no.
Nikki Battiste: How was Heather acting?
Alison Stinson-Pounsberry: So, Heather was acting a little annoyed … She was annoyed that he wasn’t here for drop-off after she had already driven four hours.
The Pounsberrys went to Joe Shymanski’s home, telling authorities they hadn’t seen Joe since the previous afternoon.
COLTON POUNDSBERRY (bodycam video): Yeah, we saw him yesterday about 4 o’clock. He was helping me with some drywall.
DEPUTY: OK.
COLTON POUNSBERRY: We gave him some dinner …
DEPUTY: Any depression issues?
COLTON POUNSBERRY: None that I noticed.
DEPUTY What do you think is going on?
HEATHER SNYDER: I have no idea.
DEPUTY: OK. Alright.
The Pounsberrys ended up giving Heather and the kids places to sleep for the night. But first Heather went inside Joe’s house.
Heather Snyder: I didn’t have any clothes for the kids … So it was late at night they let me go in and get … pajamas.
Nikki Battiste: Do you remember how you were feeling when you went inside?
Heather Snyder: Upset … It was surreal.
HEATHER SNYDER (bodycam video): I’m sorry. (crying)
DEPUTY: No, You’re fine. Absolutely fine. It’s a lot to deal with …
HEATHER SNYDER: I just feel bad for my kids. What am I gonna tell them? (crying)
Ted Shymanski: How could he not be there? Especially knowing that the kids were going to be there.
It was about two-and-a-half hours later that Heather Snyder called Joe’s older brother Ted Shymanski and Ted’s wife – also named Heather.
Heather Shymanski: I felt like I was like punched in the stomach.
Ted Shymanski: So there was no way in the world that Joe woulda missed … this meeting with the kids. … This isn — something’s wrong.
It fell to Ted Shymanski to deliver the news to his sister Mary Shymanski.
Mary Shymanski: When I heard that Joe … was missing, I fell to my knees and said a prayer. … Because this was such a bizarre situation it felt like I needed, I needed something greater than me right away …
And then the morning after Joe disappeared, investigators noticed something they’d been unable to see at night. There was blood in his driveway.
Nikki Battiste: Did Joe have any enemies?
Alison Stinson-Pounsberry: Not that we knew of.
An investigator asked Heather Snyder to come to the station.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK (questioning): Do you know of anybody that — that’d be, uh, an enemy of his?
HEATHER SNYDER: No …
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK: .… are you in any relationship right now?
HEATHER SNYDER: No.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK: No boyfriends or —?
HEATHER SNYDER: No.
But Heather Snyder told them she had recently broken up with someone who lived near her in Pennsylvania.
HEATHER SNYDER (questioning): I had a boyfriend but, briefly. But I don’t –
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK: Recently?
HEATHER SNYDER: Yeah, within the last couple months, yeah.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK: What’s his name?
HEATHER SNYDER: Brandon Holbrook.
Mary Shymanski: The name Brandon Holbrook entered the scene quite quickly.
The Shymanskis say Joe told them he’d never met Brandon Holbrook.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK (questioning): How long were you and Brandon together?
HEATHER SNYDER: We were friends for a while. Um, since 20 – 2022? I wanna say.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK: OK.
HEATHER SNYDER: Or it might have been, like, November 2021.
Authorities then decided to look more closely at Brandon Holbrook.
They pulled his car registration and discovered a camera had picked up his license plate near Joe Shymanski’s house the very day Joe vanished. Investigators now had a person of interest, and headed to Pennsylvania, notifying police there.
A grisly discovery
On Sept. 5, 2023, Sgt. John Chester of the Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, Police Department got a call that Maryland authorities were investigating a homicide. They wanted to talk to a person of interest: Brandon Holbrook.
Sgt. John Chester: We’ve arrested Mr. Holbrook in the past.
Over the years, Holbrook had pleaded guilty to at least five counts of indecent exposure. They approached his house at about 11 p.m.
An investigator noted Holbrook’s eyes were bloodshot, and that there was a strange, particular smell — both on him and the covered bed of his pickup in the driveway.
SGT. JOHN CHESTER (bodycam video): This truck reeks.
BODY CAM DEPUTY: … man, that smells terrible.
SGT. JOHN CHESTER: It smelled like death.
Holbrook told authorities he was a driver for a Pennsylvania plant that processes chicken slaughterhouse waste. He denied being near Joe’s house or anywhere in Maryland the day Joe disappeared.
Sgt. John Chester: We knew his truck was in Maryland …
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One police report indicates he also denied any contact with Joe. Another says he “was not being entirely truthful … and appeared nervous.” So, in the early morning hours of Sept. 6, 2023, investigators arrested Brandon Holbrook for the murder of Joe Shymanski.
By then, Detective Jessica Aurand had reported for duty.
Det. Jessica Aurand: I was called in when they got back to the station with him.
Aurand helped them get warrants for Holbrook’s truck and house.
Sgt. John Chester: We still didn’t know … the magnitude of what we were dealing with …
In the truck cab, investigators found gloves and plastic sheeting and in the truck bed, something described as human blood.
Sgt. John Chester: It looked like a homicide scene.
There were firearms in the house and plastic garbage bags, bleach, Lysol, and wet tools in a trailer outside.
In the garage, Aurand says, “there was an open tool case.” And next to it, an open package of power saw blades. But investigators didn’t spot a matching saw.
Nikki Battiste: Is that a tool that’s powerful enough to dismember a body?
Det. Jessica Aurand: Possibly.
Authorities with cadaver dogs began following a dirt road catty-corner to Holbrook’s house, leading into the woods. The next day, they made a grisly discovery in a clearing near a creek.
Det. Jessica Aurand: They found the jawbone … with some of the ear … and some teeth still intact.
Incident reports show there was also a burn barrel which smelled of decomposition. Scattered nearby — piles of ash. Authorities sent the material off for testing, but they had a strong hunch they were human remains, and a strong hunch whose.
Fearing the worst, Joe Shymanski’s family and friends gathered in Washington.
Alton McDougle: He was a person that would give you his shirt off his back, even in a rainstorm …
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Joe Shymanski met Alton McDougle in 2000 after coming to D.C. to teach middle school history and social studies. McDougle says Joe became his mentor, exposing him to new ideas — and to photography.
Nikki Battiste: He taught you how to see the world?
Alton McDougle: Yes. Through a lens.
They eventually became friends, says McDougle, and partnered in the photo business at Eastern Market. That’s where Joe first started dating Heather Snyder. She was then a single mom of three kids and was running a vegetable business.
Heather Snyder: He was fun … very charming.
Nikki Battiste: And then he swept you off your feet?
Heather Snyder: He did …
Heather Snyder and Joe Shymanski married in July 2014 and bought a house in rural Calvert County. Heather Snyder gave birth to a daughter and a son a year later, but Joe’s family and friends say by 2020, the marriage was in trouble.
Heather Snyder 
Mary Shymanski: Heather Snyder and Joe Shymanski were never on equal footing financially.
Alton McDougle: The spending was definitely a problem …
McDougle says Joe wrote Heather Snyder a check for thousands of dollars to pay off a debt on a house she owned, then he gave her more money to help her launch a new business.
Alton McDougle: I used to tell him all the time … she’s using you.
Heather Snyder says that’s not true. She was never after Joe’s money. She blames the difficulties in the marriage on Joe, saying he could behave erratically, and that he started pushing her and her older children away after their own kids were born.
Heather Snyder: Joe’s attention was just on … those two children. He was almost obsessive to a degree. It was, he cared less about what I thought or what I was saying … and it was all about those two.
She says Joe was emotionally abusive to her. And there was one instance, she claims, when he got physical.
Heather Snyder: He bodychecked me into a car. And that was after chasing me around the house …
The Shymanski family says Heather Snyder’s abuse allegations don’t match the Joe they knew. By 2021, Snyder says she’d had enough.
Heather Snyder: I was afraid he was gonna snap and hurt me and then my children were gonna see it …
Nikki Battiste: You just left?
Heather Snyder: I left.
Mary Shymanski: He was devastated.
Joe’s friend Anneli Werner noticed it too.
Anneli Werner: That spark that made Joe “Joe” was gone, it was gone!
Heather Snyder had moved back to her hometown of Newport, Pennsylvania. She told investigators that it was a few months later that she began seeing Brandon Holbrook. All the while, say Joe’s friends and family, he and Heather Snyder were arguing over custody and cash. It got so bad Heather Snyder says she began recording their interactions around the kids. Werner says Joe was also upset and made recordings too, about Heather Snyder, for their children to hear one day.
JOE SHYMANSKI (audio recording): Mom has a way of manipulating everyone.
JOE SHYMANSKI (audio recording): Everyone. She’s toxic. Honestly, I am honestly afraid for your mental and emotional safety.
JOE SHYMANSKI (audio recording): There’s no safety in mom for me. It’s dangerous to be close to mom for me.
Anneli Werner: Joe was in a contentious, ugly divorce.
But Werner says things had slowly started going Joe’s way. Though he and Heather had joint legal custody of the kids, he had primary physical custody when school was in session. He’d bought a million-dollar life insurance policy naming the children as beneficiaries. And just weeks before he vanished, the court had reduced the settlement he owed Heather Snyder.
Anneli Werner: Joe had started winning! …
A haunting conversation
In mid-September 2023, forensic experts matched the remains that they found in that clearing near Brandon Holbrook’s house to Joe Shymanski. Mifflin County Coroner Andrea Alcalde.
Nikki Battiste: What was Joe Shymanski’s cause of death?
Coroner Andrea Alcalde: Uh, he had a gunshot wound to the head.
Nikki Battiste: What was his manner of death?
Coroner Andrea Alcalde: Homicide.
INVESTIGATOR: Could you just state your name?
BRANDON HOLBROOK: My name is Brandon Holbrook.
BRANDON HOLBROOK: This is — thing has my whole head messed up.
Authorities had uncovered evidence that didn’t look good for Brandon Holbrook.
Sgt. John Chester: We knew the white truck had been in Maryland based on … the license plate reader had read the … tag and the tag matched the vehicle that was sitting here.
And with the saw blades in Holbrook’s garage, the cleaning supplies and tools in his trailer, and Joe’s remains in the clearing nearby, it all seemed to suggest that Holbrook had killed Joe in Maryland and brought his body to Pennsylvania. But for all the evidence investigators had, the case still contained some inconvenient truths.
Nikki Battiste: Did you find any of Joe Shymanski’s remains on Brandon Holbrook’s property?
Det. Jessica Aurand: No.
Nikki Battiste: Did you find the murder weapon?
Det. Jessica Aurand: No.
In addition, records show Holbrook’s phone had only pinged towers near his Pennsylvania home the afternoon and evening Joe disappeared. And remember, images of Holbrook’s truck in Maryland did not show who was driving. And when the blood in the truck bed was tested, it wasn’t human. It was animal.
Det. Jessica Aurand: Because he had access to the … chicken plant, did he put stuff in there and cover it up with the chicken remains?
Joe’s family and friends had trouble believing Holbrook could have devised such an elaborate plot without help.
Mary Shymanski: I do not believe that Brandon Holbrook is the only person involved in my brother’s death. I think he was highly inspired by Heather Snyder. … Heather Snyder is the common denominator in this entire picture.
Heather Snyder 
Alton McDougle also thinks Heather Snyder was involved. A few days before Joe went missing, McDougle says they were hanging out and Joe told him Heather Snyder was coming over to drop off the kids instead of meeting halfway between their homes like they usually did. McDougle says he told Joe that concerned him.
Alton McDougle: I just don’t want her to come to your house, dude … I just don’t trust her.
He says Joe dismissed his concern, but the conversation haunts him to this day.
Alton McDougle: I get chills right now. (crying)
Nikki Battiste: What are you feeling? That if he listened to you, he might still be here?
Alton McDougle: I mean, he might be, right?
Joe’s family and friends acknowledge their suspicion of Heather Snyder was just a gut feeling, and that the investigation hasn’t turned up any evidence of her involvement. Nevertheless, McDougle says he shared his speculation with authorities.
Alton McDougle: Heather, at least, planned it. … her boyfriend had at least helped …
He says he and the family find it strange that Heather Snyder reported Joe as missing before he was even an hour late.
Heather Shymanski: You’re jumping to –
Ted Shymanski: He’s missing … then he’s gone … call the police …
Heather Shymanski: — then he’s missing like … I mean and you’re gonna call 911?
Especially, they say, because she had then waited more than two-and-a-half hours to notify them.
Mary Shymanski: That seems like extraordinary long period of time before she’d let the immediate family know that Joe was missing.
And they question Heather Snyder’s behavior when she went in Joe’s house with investigators.
Anneli Werner: And she walks in the house … and she begins to cry … sobbing over her ex-husband that she would do anything to get away from.
They suspected it was all an act, something Heather Snyder denies.
Alton McDougle: She just wanted to paint a picture that he was missing because she knew the plan.
And the Shymanskis believe she was untruthful with investigators about Brandon Holbrook.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK (reprise questioning): … are you in any relationship right now?
HEATHER SNYDER: No.
Mary Shymanski: She told the police that … she broke up with him and that they were no longer together. B——-.
Janine Shymanski says she suspects Heather Snyder had used Holbrook to get rid of Joe Shymanski.
Janine Shymanski: … So she just needed it done and she found her person that would do that for her.
Nikki Battiste: You think Heather Snyder was the mastermind?
Janine Shymanski: Yes.
Nikki Battiste: Was there any doubt in your mind?
Janine Shymanski: No.
Holbrook was in custody and authorities had combed the clearing. But weeks later, Mary Shymanski was visiting the site when she found more burnt remains. She acknowledges searchers may have simply missed them in the woods, but she and Coroner Andrea Alcalde believe there’s another possibility.
Coroner Andrea Alcalde: I think the more likely is that there were remains dumped after the fact.
That would mean they were dumped by someone else.
Nikki Battiste: That’s a bombshell.
Coroner Andrea Alcalde: Yeah …
But Alcalde says Maryland authorities seemed skeptical. The Calvert County Sheriff’s Office declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview. Still, the theory that someone else was involved in Joe Shymanski’s death is a point Holbrook’s attorneys will argue from the start of his trial.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: Only one person’s life is better today than it was before the murder of Joseph Shymanski. And that is Heather Snyder.
Nikki Battiste: Did you have anything to do with Joe’s death?
Heather Snyder: I did not.
The trial of Brandon Holbrook
On March 31, 2025, the trial of Brandon Holbrook for the murder of Joe Shymanski got underway. Prosecutors wanted a conviction on premeditated murder. They argued Holbrook fatally shot Joe Shymanski in Maryland, drove him back to Pennsylvania, put chicken parts in his truck to cover his tracks and then disposed of Joe’s remains in that clearing near Holbrook’s house. And they brought in the barrel searchers found, suggesting it was used to burn him. But Holbrook’s defense team says it was a tactic.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: It was there for the emotional impact.
There were no cameras allowed in court. Defense attorney Brendan Callahan tried to turn the jury’s attention away from Brandon Holbrook and towards Heather Snyder. She was mentioned more than 400 times at trial, though she hasn’t been charged with a crime.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: The only person with an obvious motive … was Heather Snyder. She was in a — a heated custody fight that was not going well for her …
And Callahan told the jury Heather Snyder had a million other reasons, too. If Joe Shymanski was dead, Callahan said, she might stand to gain control of his life insurance payout since her children, the beneficiaries, are still minors.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: When you throw in … a million-dollar life insurance policy … the — the motives write themselves.
Heather Snyder told “48 Hours” she knew nothing about Joe’s life insurance before he died.
Prosecutors kept the focus on Holbrook. They introduced videos of his truck near Joe’s house in Maryland the day Joe disappeared, Holbrook shopping for cleaning supplies in Pennsylvania the morning after, and video that’s hard to see, but that they say shows Holbrook near his white truck dumping something which turned out to be burned human remains. It put the defense in a corner.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: There’s evidence that he is involved at some point, but there’s very little evidence that he’s the one who committed the actual murder.
And while Holbrook’s truck might have been spotted near Joe’s house that day, Callahan says someone else could have been driving it.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: Brandon Holbrook had absolutely no reason to kill Joseph Shymanski.
The state contended Holbrook did have a motive: love for Heather Snyder and hate for Joe Shymanski intense enough that Holbrook took matters into his own hands.
Mary Shymanski: This man was obsessed with Heather Snyder …
Prosecutors painted a picture of that obsession — showing an image taken nearly seven months before the murder, of a car Holbrook also owned, near Joe Shymanski’s house. And they showed a text exchange between Heather Snyder and Holbrook from Jan. 21, 2023, also months before the murder, in which she is complaining about Joe. “… I’m just tired of the abuse.” Heather Snyder told him, “It’s been years upon years. …” Holbrook later suggested she see a therapist but added: “I have other solutions in mind, but probably not the best way to go.”
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: That could mean a lot of things. I mean it’s very easy to read in it – the most nefarious intent and that’s what the State tried to do in this case. But it could mean just about anything. It could be a joke.
Whatever it meant, Heather Snyder didn’t respond to Holbrook immediately. She later texted him: “I’m looking for a therapist.”
Nikki Battiste: Do you think, how could Heather Snyder possibly not know?
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: There’s a lot in this case that you could say that for about Heather Snyder … and her behavior around the … time of the incident is overall very suspicious.
Callahan’s co-counsel Thomas Mooney points to texts between Heather Snyder and Holbrook suggesting they were still involved shortly before the murder.
Defense Attorney Thomas Mooney: She indicated to the police that … the relationship had —
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: On the outs.
Defense Attorney Thomas Mooney: — had cooled.
INVESTIGATOR JOSHUA BUCK (questioning): No boyfriends or —?
HEATHER SNYDER: No.
Defense Attorney Thomas Mooney: … but the text messages seemed to suggest otherwise.
Six days before the murder Holbrook wrote: “I like the smell of your hair on my pillow …” And later in the day, she texted: “… Wish I was in your bed.” The next morning, he wrote back: “You can come to my bed anytime. Xo”
Mary Shymanski: Heather Snyder is … lying to the police and saying that she didn’t have an involvement with Holbrook.
In another text, Heather Snyder complained specifically about her custody agreement with Joe: “… I keep thinking karma is going to catch up with him,” she wrote. “But I’m tired of being patient.”
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: Anything that suggests that there were other people involved makes Brandon Holbrook’s role in this unclear. And therefore, is suggestive of his innocence …
But prosecutors introduced texts suggesting Heather Snyder was surprised to find Joe missing when she got to his house. “I have no idea, where he is” she wrote to Holbrook. “The car is here …” Both the defense and the prosecutors wanted to question Heather Snyder under oath. But when she was called as a witness, she declined to testify — invoking her Fifth Amendment privilege.
Nikki Battiste: What does Heather Snyder pleading the Fifth say to you?
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: That a truthful answer could tend to incriminate her.
And Callahan wanted the jury to consider something else about Heather Snyder.
Nikki Battiste: She had a gun?
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: She did …
Heather Snyder had told authorities about a gun Holbrook had given her before the murder but there were never any bullets or casings found, so it would have been impossible to tell if it was the murder weapon. Still Callahan says authorities were slow to collect it from her.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: That wasn’t investigated until … weeks before the trial started, even though they knew about it.
And he says they failed to ever search Heather Snyder’s home or property.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: She has acres of land that the police are on that land, and they don’t even ask to look around. They just take her word for everything.
Prosecutors say there was a thorough investigation and they saved what might be the most explosive evidence for near the end of their case. There’s no way Heather Snyder could have killed Joe Shymanski, they say. Why? The afternoon Joe disappeared, you can see Heather Snyder on video, buying pizza in Pennsylvania about three hours away.
Nikki Battiste: Heather Snyder has an alibi. I mean, she’s on surveillance video buying pizza … miles away.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: Yes.
Nikki Battiste: She couldn’t have physically gotten there in time.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: Yes. … but … there are all sorts of different roles that one can play in a crime.
Callahan says Heather Snyder could have encouraged Holbrook or at least known about his plan. Holbrook doesn’t take the stand but in closings, his attorneys remind the jury there’s no proof he was even in Maryland that evening, let alone at Joe Shymanski’s house.
Defense Attorney Brendan Callahan: The burden is on the state … and we thought that they presented … a strong case that he was involved after the fact, but we’re still waiting on the evidence that he was ever in that driveway.
But it took just 80 minutes for the jury to reach a verdict. Brandon Holbrook is guilty of the first-degree premeditated murder of Joe Shymanski.
Nikki Battiste: How are you feeling?
Janine Shymanski: Extremely happy.
Joe’s loved ones were happy but not satisfied. At sentencing, Werner presented a photo montage of Joe, that also included some of those audio recordings about Heather Snyder that he made for their children:
JOE SHYMANSKI (audio recording): And I’m worried about you guys growing up in a world where you’re afraid of mom. She takes her love away from you and if you piss her off you’re done …
And then a number of friends and family addressed the court — suggesting Heather Snyder could also be at least in part to blame for what happened. The judge gave Holbrook life without parole and said he was not closing the book on the case.
Nikki Battiste: You’re at the center of this case.
Heather Snyder: I am.
A conversation with Heather Snyder
Nikki Battiste: Do you remember the last time we saw each other before this story reconnected us?
Heather Snyder: I believe it was at homecoming in 1998.
It was more than 25 years ago on our high school sports fields in tiny Newport, Pennsylvania. Heather Snyder and I had grown up together. In fact, I was the 1997 homecoming queen and she was my successor.
Nikki Battiste 
Nikki Battiste: I put a crown on your head and now here we are.
Heather Snyder: And we’re back.
We hadn’t communicated since then, until reporting this story brought me back to some of the most familiar terrain of my life. But it’s taken me into uncharted territory in the process — confronting someone from my youth. Heather Snyder told me she wanted to set the record straight. She agreed to the interview with no questions off limits. She acknowledged she was upset with Joe Shymanski during their custody fight.
Nikki Battiste: … did you ever say to Brandon Holbrook, I wish Joe were dead?
Heather Snyder: No. … The most I said to Brandon was that I thought Joe should be in jail for the way he was acting.
Nikki Battiste: Did Brandon tell you he wanted to kill Joe?
Heather Snyder: Nope.
Nikki Battiste: Did you help him cover up?
Heather Snyder: Nope. Nope.
So what about those texts between her and Holbrook, like when he mentions “…other solutions…” to help deal with Joe?
Heather Snyder: I thought it was a — just a joke.
Nikki Battiste: It didn’t cross your mind for a second —
Heather Snyder: No.
Nikki Battiste: — that he might hurt Joe?
Heather Snyder: No.
As for her text about karma catching up with Joe, in which she wrote she was “… tired of being patient” —
Heather Snyder: That’s how I was feeling …
Nikki Battiste: Do you think … that may have triggered Brandon?
Heather Snyder: I don’t know.
Heather Snyder, who at the time was in that custody fight with Joe, says she ended her relationship with Holbrook about a month before the murder when Holbrook had been arrested again for indecent exposure.
Nikki Battiste: What was the reason that you told Brandon you needed to end the relationship?
Heather Snyder: Because of his charge.
The Shymanskis suspect Heather Snyder was actually worried if Joe heard she was dating a sex offender, she would lose custody of their kids. They believe Heather Snyder continued to secretly see Holbrook.
Nikki Battiste: About a week before Joe went missing, Brandon Holbrook texts you. “I like the smell of your hair on my pillow.”
Heather Snyder: He did. Mm-hmm.
Nikki Battiste: Were you with him?
Heather Snyder: … I stopped by his house …
Nikki Battiste: It sounds like you’re still involved.
Heather Snyder: We were friends.
Nikki Battiste: … that you were intimate then.
Heather Snyder: We were friends.
Heather Snyder also texted Holbrook “… Wish I was in your bed.”
Nikki Battiste: Weren’t you and Brandon still involved this whole time?
Heather Snyder: We weren’t. We weren’t.
Nikki Battiste: People are gonna watch and say you’re lying.
Heather Snyder: We were friends … it was hard to give up a friend.
Nikki Battiste: Why was there a smell of your hair on his pillow?
Heather Snyder: Because I was probably laying on his pillow.
She says they were only talking.
Nikki Battiste: What did you talk about?
Heather Snyder: That was the last time. It was just like, it was almost like a goodbye, honestly.
Nikki Battiste: … what did Brandon say? Was he upset?
Heather Snyder: We were both upset. We were both crying.
Heather Snyder told us that even after Joe’s murder —
Heather Snyder: I still have love for Brandon …
Nikki Battiste: Wow.
Heather Snyder: Wow is right.
Nikki Battiste: How?
Heather Snyder: I don’t — I think obviously, psychologically, he snapped over something. …. It’s not like I don’t think he should be in jail. I think he did something horrible, horrific. He hurt my family. He hurt me.
Nikki Battiste: If you could see him face to face, what would be your first question?
Heather Snyder: Why? What happened?
And while she hasn’t seen him in person, she did have a chance to ask him. Shortly before his sentencing, she accepted his call from jail.
Heather Snyder tells Holbrook she believes Joe’s family is trying to incriminate her.
HEATHER SNYDER (jail phone call): The Shymanskis are trying to prove that I did something wrong …
BRANDON HOLBROOK: … never in a million years would I say you had anything to do with this. I — I swear.
HEATHER SNYDER: Mm, well, cause I didn’t. I just wish I knew what happened. I just want the truth.
Holbrook tells her:
BRANDON HOLBROOK (jail phone call): I would love to tell you everything that I know … but I’m not going to do it on one of these recorded lines.
And then he denies killing Joe Shymanski.
BRANDON HOLBROOK (jail phone call): I’ll tell you one thing for sure … I never saw Joe, talked to Joe, had any interaction at whatsoever with Joe, his entire life. I promise you that.
Heather Snyder says Holbrook never confessed to her – and she never had an inkling of his plans. She says there is nothing suspicious about her calling 911 so quickly when she didn’t find Joe at the house. She says it was her divorce attorney who advised her to make the call and a criminal lawyer who advised her to plead the Fifth in the trial.
Nikki Battiste: Did you have something to hide?
Heather Snyder: No.
Nikki Battiste: If you don’t have anything to hide, why not just get up there and testify?
Heather Snyder: People twist your words.
And the words Joe used to describe Heather Snyder in those audio messages?
Heather Snyder told us Joe was twisting reality at the time. She says Joe was the dangerous one. And she created a website, “Heather’s Abuse Story,” detailing her side.
We also asked Heather Snyder about that gun she says Brandon Holbrook gave her before Joe’s murder. She says it was only for target practice.
Nikki Battiste: is there any chance that gun is the murder weapon?
Heather Snyder: I don’t — no. No. I mean, obviously it was locked in my closet.
CBS News 
Nikki Battiste: Is there anything … you’re not telling us?
Heather Snyder: No.
Nikki Battiste: Look me in the eye. Are you lying about anything?
Heather Snyder: I am not.
Nikki Battiste: Either you’re a bold-faced liar or you are extraordinarily unlucky.
Heather Snyder: I am unlucky.
Heather Snyder says her focus is on raising her and Joe’s children, and she’s sad that they’ll grow up without a father.
Heather Snyder: They have very happy memories of their father and I try … I try to do what I can to honor and keep that safe.
She knows the Shymanskis want to see the kids but says Joe’s relatives can’t expect a full relationship with them while publicly pointing a finger at her.
Heather Snyder: There needs to be a place we move on other than this, where they’re constantly blaming me for something that I didn’t do.
Nikki Battiste: Are you afraid authorities will come for you?
Heather Snyder: No.
Nikki Battiste: Not at all? …
Heather Snyder: I’m not worried at all, no …
Ted Shymanski: If Joe never met Heather Snyder, Joe would be alive today. (crying)
Heather Shymanski: Alive.
Calvert County, Maryland’s, top prosecutor Robert Harvey declined “48 Hours”‘ request for an interview, but wrote to us that there was “… a thorough and exhaustive investigation …” into Mr. Shymanski’s death. “Mr. Holbrook received a fair and impartial trial … Because Mr. Holbrook’s case is under appeal … it remains open. 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.”
And when we asked Pennsylvania authorities about Heather Snyder —
Nikki Battiste: Is there a current investigation into Heather Snyder?
Det. Jessica Aurand: I can’t answer that question.
Nikki Battiste: Should there be?
Det. Jessica Aurand: I can’t answer that question.
Nikki Battiste: Do you think Heather Snyder is involved in this crime in any way?
Det. Jessica Aurand: I can’t answer that.
Nikki Battiste: But you do know the answer.
Det. Jessica Aurand: Yes. But I’m not allowed to say.
Nikki Battiste: So many people watching are gonna be frustrated –
Heather Snyder: Uh-huh.
Nikki Battiste: — and they’re gonna think it — it just — logically, you have to had known something.
Heather Snyder: Right. 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.
Brandon Holbrook is appealing his conviction.
A scholarship has been established in Joe Shymanski’s name for photography students in Washington D.C. public high schools.
Produced by Josh Yager. Shaheen Tokhi is the field producer. Michelle Sigona is the development producer. Atticus Brady is the producer-editor. Michelle Harris is the editor. Patti Aronofsky is the senior producer. Nancy Kramer is the executive story editor. Judy Tygard is the executive producer.
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