Mayor Recognizes Six Detectives Who Solved the Michael Snyder Cold Case

February 15, 2010

Mayor Richard J. Berry recognized on Friday six Albuquerque police detectives who worked for years to solve one of the city’s most high profile cold case homicides.

Detectives Mark Wilson, Tod Babcock, Sally Dyer, Rich Lewis, Dan Torgrimson and Ida Lopez received this week’s Friday’s Hero award. Every Friday Mayor Berry and Public Safety Director Darren White recognize at least one public safety employee who has gone above the call of duty. Mayor Berry presented the detectives the Police Chief’s Coffee Mug.

“These detectives were relentless in their efforts to find out what happened to Michael Snyder,” Mayor Berry said. “They never gave up and because of their efforts, Mr. Snyder’s loved ones can take some comfort in knowing his body has been recovered and justice can now be pursued.”

The detectives first started looking into the disappearance of Michael Snyder about four years ago. Snyder’s mother reported him missing in May 2002 about a month after Snyder’s wife, Ellen had reported him missing. Ellen Snyder had maintained her husband left her at a Phoenix restaurant and she never saw him again. She had also told detectives she had spoken to him about a year after she last saw him.

But cold case investigators were suspicious. For years they focused their investigation on the couple’s former home, suspecting that Snyder had been killed. Several times they went to the home with cadaver-sniffing dogs, questioned neighbors and friends and called FBI experts to assist.

About a month ago their hard work paid off when Ellen Snyder’s son told detectives where Michael Snyder was buried. Along with Albuquerque firefighters and forensic scientists, the detectives spent three days last week digging up a 10-foot deep grave where Snyder had been buried in 2002. The next day they charged Ellen Snyder with an open count of murder.