Forensic Files - Season 9, Episode 17 - Buried Treasure - Full Episode | Forensic Files

when a 42 year old married man ran off to montana with a married woman friends and family called it a midlife
crisis when he disappeared just a year later friends and family called that a homicide
the case went unsolved for 15 years until a civil war buff found more than military memorabilia in the grounds near
gettysburg [Music] franklin county sits on the outskirts of gettysburg pennsylvania a must see for
tourists and military historians alike but the locals found the lives of melvin and joanne snyder far more interesting
than those civil war battlefields on saturday may 25th 1985 joanne snyder left for work around 5 30
a.m she baked pies for a local diner when she returned home around noon her 43 year old husband melvin
was gone and so was his truck she looked around for him and and observed some things that she felt were
out of the ordinary first of all he left his tools out melvin snyder was very meticulous about his things he was very
careful about his things he wouldn't have just left his tools laying about joanna had called some of her family to
come over and help look for melvin while searching the property a family member found a 25 caliber shell
casing on the barn floor but there was no blood evidence anywhere nearby a bullet like that
will usually not travel through a human body if it does not travel through you're
usually not going to get blood running anywhere it's not like the typical tv shows where
you see blood flying everywhere there were no eye witnesses um unless maybe there were some barnyard
animals and of course they weren't talking joanne waited for two days before she
filed a missing persons report [Music] police found melvin's pickup truck about 60 miles away in reisterstown maryland
it was in a grocery store parking lot melvin's checkbook and 22-caliber rifle were still inside the truck so
the motive wasn't robbery the truck was left windows partially down keys in the ignition i believe some
of melvin's belongings were still located in the truck other than that the truck was in fine condition except
for some marks in the back of the bed of the pickup truck and the truck radio was tuned to a rock
music station melvin snyder never listened to rock music melvin snyder was well known in his
small town just a year earlier melvin had an affair with the married woman teresa harshman whom he knew from
square dancing melvin and teresa left their jobs and families behind and fled to montana
[Music] melvin's wife joanne and teresa's husband ron took the opportunity to get better acquainted too
mr harshman and mrs snyder struck up a relationship and were intimate with one another
but after only three weeks melvin and teresa decided they had made a mistake and moved back home
gentlemen changed partners across from where you are change partners and swing her
however in this recent disappearance neither teresa harshman nor her husband ron knew of melvin's whereabouts
and the bank reported no activity on any of melvin's credit cards he had a young son he was early 20s and
this wasn't the kind of man that would just run off and leave family obligations
which is why investigators began to suspect foul play [Music] 43 year old melvin snyder a gentleman
farmer and factory worker went missing his family knew of no reason why he would have left home
he would virtually have to live in a cave and have no contact with the outside world not to have some sort of record
with something we had divers check the ponds in the area talk to neighbors if they had seen
anything unusual if they saw him leave no one did melvin's dental records were compared to
every unidentified body discovered anywhere in the united states with no success
there was even an occasion where in a local landfill they believed they had found a hand
and that was studied forensically of course it was determined that it wasn't a human hand they believed that
it was perhaps animal maybe bear but it wasn't melvin snyder's hand the only lead in the case was from a
neighbor who said he saw a brown pickup truck near melvin's home on the day he disappeared
it was similar to the truck ron harshman owned ron's wife and melvin snyder once had an
affair whether it was harshman's truck or not i don't know we don't know police discovered that harshman had
purchased a 25 caliber handgun just a few weeks before melvin's disappearance coincidentally
a 25 caliber shell casing was discovered in melvin's barn on the day he disappeared
police searched harshman's home and found ammunition for a 25-caliber weapon but no gun
i asked him where the gun was and he said you'll have to ask theresa she's the one who took the gun she liked
it and she took it so when we asked her she said no that's a lie i don't even like guns i i don't
know anything about the gun during their investigation police also learned that ron harshman and melvin
snyder once had an unpleasant confrontation over the affair melvin was having with ron's wife
he learned that mr snyder was coming to his home to pick up his wife and he crashed his car into him
he had a gun with him at that point shot at him did not hit him nothing happened no one was hurt
melvin didn't want to pursue the matter and no charges were filed melvin had expressed
a great deal of embarrassment about the whole incident and i think he sort of felt that
well i you know certainly don't condone that kind of reaction from harshman but i think
melvin felt that it was in part his his own fault that this had happened and there was one more interesting twist
in the case melvin and joanne snyder had come to terms with the affair but the harshmans had not
alvin was trying very hard to make the marriage work mr mrs harshman on the other hand
had a rockier road although they did attempt to patch things up eventually in the following spring
they separated and theresa filed for divorce joanne snyder denied any involvement in
her husband's disappearance but she admitted having several telephone conversations with ron
harshman the week before melvin disappeared both joanne and ron insisted the calls
were innocent i'm sure there was still a little bit of resentment there what happened a year
prior when melvin left i know she was having conversations with ron harshman whether or not there was anything more
to their relationship and that's where things stood one year later ron and joanne harshman divorced sold
the farm and ron moved out of the area he continued to say he had nothing to do with melvin's disappearance
and he even demanded a meeting with police to stop what he called their harassment
we did have the meeting we had lunch together it was he was sociable but he bordered on on
being angry and the whole purpose was for me to stop interfering in his life both his social life
and with his co-workers i explained to him that i was an investigator and that all he had to do
was to take a polygraph test and i would personally apologize to everyone including his co-workers
but that was an offer he didn't care to accept we had no body we had no actual gun
we knew what the past history was between ron harshman and melvin snyder and common sense will tell you that yeah
he has a good reason to want to kill melvin snyder he's the only person that we know of that ever wanted to harm
melvin but that doesn't prove it in a court law before his disappearance melvin snyder told friends that he was
afraid of ron harshman because ron was still angry about the affair he had with his wife
i always have a strange feeling about the fact that in essence had predicted something like this was going to happen
for the next 15 years the case haunted prosecutor jack nelson he knew melvin snyder personally and something just
didn't add up a 25 caliber shell casing was discovered in melvin's barn and ron harshman purchased a 25 caliber
handgun just a few weeks before melvin disappeared but ron was never able to produce the
weapon saying it had been misplaced there was a lot of information there but nothing new was coming in to give
you the opportunity to do anything more with it nelson poured over the case file and
discovered an interesting notation ron harshman admitted test firing his new 25-caliber pistol in his backyard
just after buying it that gave nelson an idea what about going out there and seeing if we can find a shell casing and
then compare that to the one in the barn mr nelson originally told me that i just kind of gave him a look like this
is 15 years to try to find a shell casing in grass and we're not sure the exact area
but in this case being the fact that it's a murder i'm willing to try any idea and
it was worth a shot to do police found help in nearby gettysburg pennsylvania don hinks was known in these parts as a
retailer who sells metal detector equipment [Music] these metal detectors were often used to
unearth military artifacts now when i went out and found three french and indian war cannonballs
in one hole on the brother campaign that probably gave me a bigger high this 25 caliber automatic shell casing
but hinks and several of his colleagues were happy to do what they could despite
the fact harshman's farm was several hundred acres but there was so much trash out there so much farm equipment
is the place where they would throw the garbage along with the tinfoil and toothpaste tubes and
all the junk went out there so the challenge was working through 130 years of trash and picking up the little
single 25 caliber automatic shell casing that we were looking for modern metal detectors use computer
processors to measure levels of conductivity which enables them to identify the type
of metal and the depth of an object underground they're basically computers that can pretty well tell you what's
down there how deep it is does everything but dig for you today hinks and his team found many shell
casings but none that were 25 caliber then hinks cut a signal near a clothesline
post in about 20 minutes i got a signal that was in the proper reading range as far as the detector was
concerned for a shell casing and it went down so we cut a little plug turned it over
and there sitting right in the plug was 25 caliber shell casing stuck to the bottom when you look at it and you see
the patina on it you know it's not a freshly buried object my first thought was this is
going to be too good to be true this can't be the one that he actually fired investigators hoped that after 15
years in the ground the shell could still be tested [Music] fifteen years after melvin snyder's
disappearance investigators found a 25 caliber shell casing several inches beneath the soil on ron harshman's farm
it was the same caliber and made by the same manufacturer as the shell casing found in melvin's barn
when someone pulls the trigger of a gun there is a mini explosion inside the bullet goes through the barrel
the shell casing is forced backwards coming into contact with the breach phase before it is ejected
the breach face and any gun has unique and distinctive marks from the manufacturing process
it's subjected to several milling and finishing processes which cause small microscopic imperfections to be
imparted to the surface and those same marks are imprinted on each and every shell casing that exits
that gun ballistics experts at the pennsylvania state police crime lab were asked to
analyze both shell casings when he first got the case and he said you know this is
somewhat corroded and it's been exposed for a long period of time he said don't get your hopes up
i'm not a soil expert it could have the effect of minimizing any distortion or variation that could occur
had it been on the surface of the ground and maybe been exposed to rain and and corrosion other things like that
being underground may have in fact in this particular case helped to maintain the quality of the markings that were
present on the primer but again it can vary from case to case under a microscope
firearms examiners discovered this was precisely what happened the impressions on the shell casing were
still clear and those impressions caused by the breech face were identical to the breech
face impressions on the shell casing found in melvin snyder's barn there was no doubt in my mind whatsoever
that these two discharge cartridge cases had originated from the same source same
firearm why would he have shot his gun on mr snyder's property there was no reason for that except for
the fact to kill him based on the ballistic evidence prosecutors charge ronald harshman with
first degree murder melvin snyder disappeared on may 25th exactly one year to the day from when melvin
started the affair with teresa harshman mr harshman is the kind of man that no one was going to tell him
what to do no one was going to take his property he became very vengeful very very angry he he was not
the kind of person that was going to allow his wife to return home and try to rebuild their relationship
there was no forgive and forget it was um i will get my revenge and that's what he did
prosecutors say the crime was premeditated the evidence suggests that harshman drove to melvin's home found him inside
the barn then shot and killed him with his new 25 caliber pistol [Music] the 25 caliber round probably didn't
exit melvin's body prosecutors believe harshman drove home and returned later on his motorcycle
after he disposed of melvin's body he put his motorcycle in the back of melvin's truck which
created the damage found in the bed of the truck harshman then abandoned melvin's truck
60 miles away in maryland and drove his motorcycle home what did he do with the body
the body after 19 years has not been found carefully carefully he must have planned
where he was going to take the body how he was going to dispose of the body during police questioning
joanne snyder admitted that she told ron harshman that melvin would be home alone
that day but prosecutors had no proof she had any prior knowledge of the murder i think joanne
had some involvement in this case now i'm not sure whether or not that was done intentionally or if she was being used
by ron harshman and didn't realize she was setting melvin up ron harshman pled not guilty
prosecutors knew that trying a case with only one piece of forensic evidence would be difficult
there aren't a whole lot of cases out there that get prosecuted without a body there aren't a whole lot of cases that
get prosecuted without a weapon and for a case to be prosecuted with no body and no weapon was almost
unthinkable in july 2001 a jury convicted ron harshman of first degree murder and sentenced him to life
in prison he came 16 years close to getting away with this 16 years is an awfully long time
to get away with murder he came very close it was 15 years later after the murder that we went out and
found a shell casing before everything caught up with him and now he's in his orange
prison jacket paying for his crime he'll catch up with you sooner or later [Music]
[Music] so [Music] you

A man disappears one year to the day after beginning an affair with his friend's wife. 15 years later, with the help of a metal detector, police found evidence which would prove what had happened, and who was responsible.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Melvin Snyder's disappearance led to Ron Harshman's murder conviction after 15 years, based on matching shell casings found at both locations.

Key points

The Disappearance of Melvin Snyder. A married man vanishes, leading to a 15-year unsolved mystery.
The Affair That Changed Everything. Melvin's affair with Teresa Harshman leads to a deadly confrontation.
A Break in the Case. After 15 years, a shell casing found reignites the investigation.
Justice Served. Ron Harshman is convicted of murder despite the lack of a body.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He came very close to getting away with murder.

Reflecting on Ron Harshman's near escape from justice.

20:43WatchJan 1, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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