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Annemarie Green
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Annemarie Green
Welcome to post mortem. I'm your host Ann Marie Green. And today we're discussing the case of Joe Shymansky. In September 2023, Joe was reported missing by his ex wife, Heather Snyder after she arrived at his Maryland home to drop off their two children. She said that he wasn't there. She told investigators that she'd recently broken up with her ex boyfriend, Brandon Holbrook. And just days after she spoke to investigators, Joe's remains were found in a clearing near Holbrooke's home in Pennsylvania. Heather has not been charged with any crime nor has she been named a suspect. And she has an an alibi. So joining me today is CBS News correspondent Nikki Batiste to talk about this case. Nikki, it's always great to have you here.
Nikki Batiste
Good to see you.
Annemarie Green
This is interesting because you actually have a connection to this case.
Nikki Batiste
This was an unbelievable coincidence. I actually grew up with Heather Snyder in a really small town in rural Pennsylvania. Only about 1,500 people. Give you a sense. We went to the Same high school. She was a year below me. And in 1997, I was homecoming queen. In 1998, I went back to our small town and crowned her homecoming queen that year. And that was the last time I'd seen her before this.
Annemarie Green
So then, had you heard about this case before you were assigned to it by 48 hours? Cause I. I would think that this would have been the talk of the town.
Nikki Batiste
Remarkably, no, I hadn't heard about this story. My family, my parents still live in the same house I grew up in in that town. Had. Heather's family still lives there. My parents hadn't heard about it. I first learned about this story from 48 Hours producer Josh Yeager. I was riding on an Amtrak train. I get a text from Josh telling me about the story and Heather Snyder's connection, and I was shocked. And to this day, that was probably over a year ago. It's still hard to believe.
Annemarie Green
So when Josh brings up her name, I mean, do you instantly remember.
Nikki Batiste
Oh, I immediately knew who she was. Again, this was a tiny town. We were on the field hockey team together. She was a cheerleader. I saw her at all the games. She often cheered for some of my games. Her sister was a grade above me. I mean, this was such a small town where truly everyone knew everyone. So immediately I recognized her name. But I was confused at first. Like, wait, what? There's no way someone from my hometown. There's no way Heather Snyder could possibly be involved in any way in a murder case.
Annemarie Green
Wow. Okay, so I want to dig into your conversation with her, but first, of course, I want to remind the listeners if they haven't listened to this episode of 48 Hours yet, you can find the full audio version just below this episode that you're listening to in your podcast feed. So go take a listen and then come on back. All right, so Heather Snyder reported Joe Szymanski missing on the night of September 4, 2023. But Joe's friend, Annalee Werner, who you spoke to in the hour, said that we all knew that Joe wasn't missing. We knew that Joe was gone. Did she explain why she was so convinced so quickly that, you know, this is much, much worse than it looks?
Nikki Batiste
I think the fact that Joe's keys and wallet were inside the house, his cars were there. All signs that didn't really make sense for someone who just ran to the grocery store and hadn't come back yet. Someone who was late. The Shymansky family heard these details. And then the next morning, again, it was nighttime when Heather arrived. For the child custody exchange. So dark. But the next morning, investigators saw blood in Joe's driveway. And that was obviously a sign that something terrible had happened. And early on, one of Joe's best friends, who we also spoke with in the hour, Alton McDougal, said he thought it was strange that Heather Snyder had called 911 so quickly. Heather Snyder told me that her custody lawyer had advised her to call 911. But sort of all of this together made the family convinced right away that something terrible had happened. And pretty quickly, they were suspicious about what Heather Signer may have known or heard, even any involvement she. She may have had. But again, to this day, she's never been charged with any crime and never been a suspect.
Annemarie Green
Heather told investigators, right, that she had recently broken up with a boyfriend, a man named Brandon Holbrook. Joe's family, they believe that she actually lied to investigators about that, that she hadn't broken up with him. And I gotta say, I was sort of surprised to learn in the hour that she had been texting him Holbrooke the evening of the disappearance.
Nikki Batiste
So I think for many of our viewers, this will be the part of the story that they're really interested in. They have questions about and, you know, questions about whether or not they believe what Heather's saying. When she arrived at Joe's house, notices he's missing. She texted Brandon Holbrooke that evening, and she said, in part, I have no idea where he is. The car is here. And all Brandon Holbrooke texted back was, he has a couple of vans, I thought. And Heather said, no, just one. But I think what is important to point out, we talk about this in the Hour. Less than a week before Joe was murdered, Holbrooke texted Heather Snyder, I like the smell of your hair on my pillow. And then later that day, Heather texted back to Holbrooke, wish I was in your bed. Of course, I asked Heather about this and I said, look, this was just a week before the murder. You had told authorities that you had broken up. Why is there a smell of hair on your pillow? And she told me that she'd gone to see Holbrooke then, that they were still friends and that she was lying on his pillow, but that they were just talking and that's why there was a smell of hair. And I pointed out to her, I said, some of her viewers aren't going to believe you. They're going to think that you're lying. But she insisted that they were just talking, and she stuck with what she had told investigators that they had formally broken up before that.
Annemarie Green
It struck me how many of Joe's family and friends were willing to talk to you. It felt like, to me that they really wanted you to get a sense of who the man was, what he meant to them.
Nikki Batiste
I think no one will disagree that Joe Szymansky was a popular, charismatic, full of life guy. Dad. He was a well known photographer in dc. He made these images that many of them had Lego figures in them. Some people, some people listening probably, oh, I know who he is. And he had so many friends from so many different walks of life. And he had been married before but didn't have children. Heather Snyder had been married before and had three kids from a previous marriage. And then when they had their own two children, both the Szymansky family and Heather Snyder said he just loved those kids more than anything.
Annemarie Green
You know, Joe's family and friends, when they spoke about their relationship that Heather had with Joe, they said that the divorce was contentious. It certainly seems like there might have been some toxicity on both sides.
Nikki Batiste
In the hour, we heard some voice recordings that Joe's friend Annalee says he made expressing his anger toward Heather Snyder that were apparently meant for his children to hear. One day, Heather Snyder told me that she actually wore a body camera at some of her custody exchanges with Joe because she wanted to document his behavior. She talked to me quite a bit about what she says was Joe's emotionally abusive behavior. And she says in one instance, he even got physical with her. And she felt that it was bad enough that she wanted to document how he treated her. And she has a website called Heather's Abuse Story.
Annemarie Green
Hmm. Did she talk a little bit about why the relationship went south so badly? I mean, people divorce, but it doesn't have to be this acrimonious.
Nikki Batiste
It's a really good question, Annemarie. Heather told me that after their own two children were born, that she felt like Jo was almost obsessed with those two kids, that he sort of turned his attention away from her, didn't really want to work as much anymore, that he was just so focused on these two kids that that's when the relationship, the marriage, started to fall apart. Heather also told me that Joe would tell his family stories about her that weren't true, painting this sort of ugly picture about her to Joe's family. And the Szymansky family very much disputes what Heather says about Joe, that he was emotionally abusive to her. And they say that that just wasn't the Joe that they knew. So really, two sides to this story. And as you point out, many people divorce. But this had gotten quite contentious pretty quickly.
Annemarie Green
They shared joint legal custody of the children, but a judge awarded Joe primary physical custody during the school year. That's, you know, sometimes out of the ordinary. Often these custody agreements lean more in favor of the mother. Do we know why Joe ended up with physical custody?
Nikki Batiste
We don't know the exact reason for sure, but it seems that, and I did ask Heather about this, that their two children were already in school in Maryland. It was a good school district, and so that seemed to play probably a role in the decision. Two, Joe was really the breadwinner. He provided the financial support for the. The family. And lastly, Heather told me that when she left Joe, she didn't tell him. She just took the kids and she left. So perhaps that was another factor. But collectively, that was the decision by the judge. And the children were mostly with Joe during the school year and then spent more time with Heather in the summers.
Annemarie Green
Authorities pulled Brandon's car registration and they discovered that a camera had actually picked up his license plate near Joe's house the very day that Joe vanished. Authorities arrested him September 6, 2023, and then they obtained a search warrant and discovered power blades in his garage, cleaning supplies and tools in his trailer, as well as gloves, plastic sheeting. In his truck. In a clearing near his house, they find these human remains, and of course, they later confirm that they are Joe Szymansky. The coroner determined that the cause of death was a gunshot wound to. To the head, but, and I know there was, you know, blood found in the driveway. Do we have any idea where, how. More details about how Joe was killed.
Nikki Batiste
So the evidence suggests that Brandon Holbrooke killed Joe Szymansky in Maryland, presumably at his house, and then drove his body. That's about a three hour drive from Maryland to his Pennsylvania residence. What the prosecutors allege is that Holbrooke shot Joe Szymansky in his driveway in Maryland, put his body in his white truck, drove that truck to Pennsylvania with Joe Szymanski's body in it, and then dismembered and burned his remains in Pennsylvania. That is what the prosecution argued at the.
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Annemarie Green
Welcome back. So, Nikki, as we mentioned earlier, you actually knew Heather personally back in high school. You crowned her homecoming queen. How well did you know her back then and what was it like to sort of to meet her again as an adult and walk through the hallway of your old high school?
Nikki Batiste
So the word that best describes how this is all felt is surreal. Everyone knew everyone pretty well in our, in our town, in our high school, you know, my class, about 90 people. She was a year below me. Her boyfriend in high school was one of my good friends in my class. So we were all just around each other and our families were around each other. You see people in the grocery store and certainly no one would suspect something like this to have happened. And this was a story that was getting national attention. There were other news magazines interested in hearing from Heather too.
Annemarie Green
Heather agreed to do the interview with no questions, off limits. It's remarkable. You asked her some pretty tough questions. I want to play an unaired portion of that interview where you ask her about Brandon Holbrooke's defense attorney's suggestion that she, in fact, was the one that had the most to gain from Joe's death.
Nikki Batiste
He said you had a $1 million motive. Right. And custody of your kids.
Heather Snyder
Right.
Nikki Batiste
How do you respond to that?
Heather Snyder
I didn't even know about the million dollars.
Nikki Batiste
Um.
Heather Snyder
I would never murder Someone.
Nikki Batiste
You have to admit, though, it looks suspicious. It.
Heather Snyder
Of course, on its face, it does. It does. I mean, it's just. It's just wild. But it doesn't mean that I had anything to do with it. And for Brandon, I mean, what else was he gonna. Who else was he gonna accuse of doing it? Like, I don't. There's just so much evidence against him. There's only really one other person, me, that he could throw under the bus. I just. I mean, it wasn't shocking that they did that, I guess.
Nikki Batiste
This was an extraordinarily difficult interview. And I do want to point out that Heather, she didn't come out and say, I really want to talk about this. She really didn't at first. And the reason she told me she ultimately did is because she understood that the best person to tell her story was her, even though she was reluctant to be on national TV talking about this. This was an exclusive interview with Heather Snyder. And when we first sat down, we're in a renovated barn in our hometown on a rainy night. But then we talked for three hours without taking a. A break, even for a sip of water. And she did answer everything. And again, this was a story where the Shymansky family very much believes that Heather has some sort of involvement in this murder. She knew something. She may have convinced Brandon Holbrooke to do this. They understand. And they've said to me, look, we know this is a gut feeling. We understand there's no evidence at all against Heather Snyder in any way, and she's never been a suspect and she's not charged with a crime, but this is how they feel. And I asked Heather a lot of the questions that I believe the Shymanskis have, and I think that our audience will have. She insisted that what she was telling me was true. And I will say she made eye contact throughout the interview, which I did note.
Annemarie Green
Hmm. So I was gonna sort of take your temperature on something, and you bring up the Shymanskis, and they. I mean, they don't like her. It struck me that she said she still considers them family. Do you understand that?
Nikki Batiste
Heather told me in the interview that she still considers them family. And in that three hour interview, never once did she speak poorly about the Shymanskis. And even when we spoke off camera before this interview, when I was talking to her about doing it, she never badmouthed them. And that struck me, too. And I think for her, she understands that the Szymanskis want to see their niece and nephew, that they want to see Joe's two kids with Heather. And she's open to that, she told me. But she's only open to it if they will stop blaming her for something she says she didn't do.
Annemarie Green
Right. Brandon Holbrooke's trial began March 31, 2025. Were the Shymanskis there? Did 48 hours have a producer there as well?
Nikki Batiste
The courtroom was pretty packed most days. The Shymansky family was there, many of Joe's friends from D.C. i was at the trial for a large part of it. Our 48 Hours producers, Josh Yeager and Shaheen Toki, were there every day in court. We saw Brandon Holbrooke in person for the first time. But, yeah, it was a packed courtroom.
Annemarie Green
It certainly seemed like the defense's strategy was to turn the jury's attention away from Brandon Holbrooke by arguing someone else could have been involved in the death. Holbrooke's defense attorney, Brendan Callahan, told you that anything that suggests that there were other people involved makes Brandon Holbrooke's role in this unclear. I thought that phrasing was so interesting. Can you explain the legal strategy a bit?
Nikki Batiste
Let's keep in mind, the state charged Brandon Holbrooke specifically with murdering Joe. That's what his charge was. The defense argued if they can prove or convince the jury that someone else was involved in any way in this crime, it may raise questions about who did what. So simply saying Holbrooke was somehow involved in this crime would not have been enough to convict him as being the one who specifically murdered him. So it's tricky legally and quite nuanced, but it's a point that they really tried to make to try to get the jury to, you know, just one juror to come back with a not guilty or, you know, sort of a hung jury, if they could, you know. Holbrooke's defense attorneys say authorities never sufficiently investigated Heather Snyder. They never searched her property. And even though they learned earlier on in the case that Heather Snyder had a gun in her house, they never collected it until shortly before the trial. We reached out to Maryland authorities. They declined to sit down with us.
Annemarie Green
At times, it really did seem like the trial was more about Heather than it was about Holbrooke.
Nikki Batiste
It felt that way throughout this trial. Heather Snyder was referenced in some capacity over 400 times, not always by name, but in references to being Joe's ex wife. And these mentions, I should note, didn't just come from the defense. They came from the prosecution and even the judge. And it's Remarkable because Heather wasn't on trial. And like I said, she's never been charged with a crime, never been a suspect. The defense argued, and this was really one of the first points they made out of the gate, that Heather was the only person whose life was better. With Joe dead, their divorce proceedings were not going her way, and she might gain control of Joe's $1 million life insurance policy for his children because they were minors, Heather Snyder could potentially be able to control that money. The prosecution contended that Holbrooke did have a motive and that that was love for Heather Snyder, obsession for with Heather Snyder, and hate for Joe Szymansky that was so intense that he took matters into his own hands. And extremely important to note is that Heather Snyder has an alibi around the time that authorities say Joe Shymansky was murdered in Maryland, which is about a three hour drive from Newport, Pennsylvania, where Heather lives. Heather Snyder was on surveillance camera in the grocery store that we both went to growing up in Newport, buying pizza.
Annemarie Green
Both the defense and the prosecution actually wanted Heather to testify, but she pleaded the Fifth on the stand. And I wondered just how that played out in court.
Nikki Batiste
The jury was desperate to hear from Heather Snyder. When Heather Snyder walked in to the courtroom, the jury went, they're all eyes on her. She sits down. When she pleaded the Fifth, the jury gasped like, clearly frustrated that they wouldn't get to hear her story. She walked out. It was very quick. The jury, even after she walked out, was looking at each other sort of in disbelief. But innocent people plead the Fifth all the time for different reasons. It's important to point that pleading the Fifth has no indication that you're guilty of anything. Heather told me that it was her legal counsel who advised her to plead the Fifth and that she herself was worried that her words could be twisted.
Annemarie Green
So the jury does ultimately find Brandon Holbrooke guilty of first degree premeditated murder. He's sentenced to life without parole. But at the sentencing, this is also something that stuck out to me. The judge says that he is not closing the book on this case. I've never heard a judge say something like that before.
Nikki Batiste
I hadn't heard a judge ever say that before. It's certainly at least rare. At the sentencing of Brandon Holbrooke, several of Joe's friends and family addressed the court and gave victim impact statements and, and honor Joe's life. But many of them also brought up Heather Snyder and talked about how they still feel. She has questions to answer.
Annemarie Green
Does Heather feel like this will sort of hang over her either metaphorically or legally. I mean, for the rest of her life.
Nikki Batiste
I asked Heather if she's worried legally, and she said that she's not worried. She's not worried about being charged with any crime because she says she had nothing to do with this in any way. She knew nothing about it before or after. She told me this is like living a nightmare, and it will hang over her for the rest of her life. And I think she is a mother to two children who lost their dad. And so she told me she tries, even though they had an ugly relationship, in the end, she tries to honor Jo for her two kids. I think part of the reason she moved back to our small town of Newport is that, again, everyone there knows everyone and protects everyone. And I think that for her being there is a way to escape all of this the best that she can and to raise her kids the best that she can. And I know that Heather hopes the Szymansky family will ultimately believe her.
Annemarie Green
Well, once again, thank you so much for joining us. Another great hour.
Nikki Batiste
Thank you.
Annemarie Green
And I want to thank the listeners as well. Thanks for listening. If you like this episode, please rate and review it on Apple Podcasts and on Spotify. Now streaming on Paramount. Plus, witness an intimate look at Ozzy Osbourne's fight.
Ozzy Osbourne
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Annemarie Green
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Heather Snyder
I took dad to the studio every day.
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Nikki Batiste
I think that that's fuel for my dad.
Annemarie Green
One last time. What do you think about a big farewell show?
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Host: Annemarie Green
Guest: Nikki Batiste, CBS News Correspondent
Date: October 21, 2025
This “Post Mortem” episode delves behind the scenes of the Joe Szymansky murder investigation, discussing personal connections, investigative twists, and courtroom drama. Host Annemarie Green and correspondent Nikki Batiste highlight the evidence, family suspicions, and how the complex relationships at the center of the case shaped both the public’s view and the legal outcome. Batiste’s unique connection—having grown up with a central figure in the case (Heather Snyder)—adds a deeply personal perspective.
Batiste knew Heather Snyder from childhood, growing up in the same small Pennsylvania town:
The case’s news didn’t reach Nikki or her parents locally—she first heard via a fellow producer on assignment:
Joe remembered as “popular, charismatic, full of life... a well known photographer in dc.”
The divorce between Joe and Heather was contentious:
Custody Outcome:
“Oh, I immediately knew who she was... There's no way Heather Snyder could possibly be involved in any way in a murder case.”
— Nikki Batiste (03:46)
“You have to admit, though, it looks suspicious.”
— Nikki Batiste (to Heather) (16:23)
“Of course, on its face, it does. I mean, it’s just wild. But it doesn’t mean that I had anything to do with it.”
— Heather Snyder (16:26)
“Heather Snyder was referenced in some capacity over 400 times... Heather wasn’t on trial. She’s never been charged with a crime.”
— Nikki Batiste (21:12)
“When Heather Snyder walked in to the courtroom, the jury went—all eyes on her. She sits down. When she pleaded the Fifth, the jury gasped...”
— Nikki Batiste (22:46)
“I asked Heather if she's worried legally, and she said that she's not worried... She told me this is like living a nightmare, and it will hang over her for the rest of her life.”
— Nikki Batiste (24:26)
Defense Focused on Heather:
Prosecution Emphasized Obsession:
Both Sides Wanted Heather to Testify:
Outcome:
Heather’s On-Camera Demeanor:
Family Responses:
The episode underscores the persistent uncertainties that haunt both families in the wake of Joe’s murder. Batiste and Green maintain a thoughtful, probing tone throughout, providing listeners not only with legal and investigative detail but also personal insight and empathy for all sides. The sense of unresolved tension—especially around community suspicion and family trauma—looms large, even after a conviction.
For more on this case, listen to the companion “48 Hours” episode in your podcast feed.