One week after her children were found hanging from a dog lead in the basement of her Berks County home, Lisa Snyder sent a text message to her friend, Jessica Senft.
“I need two strong drinks,” Snyder wrote, according to Senft.
Senft invited Snyder over and the women huddled on the porch of Senft’s Slatington home to talk about Snyder’s children, Conner and Brinley.
As the alcohol soothed Snyder’s nerves, said Senft, who testified at Snyder’s preliminary hearing Wednesday at the Berks County Courthouse, Snyder became more relaxed. She eventually confided in her friend that she expected to be arrested for Conner and Brinley’s deaths, but believed she’d be released on bail since she had no prior criminal record.
“And when she got out, she would kill herself,” Senft said.
“These children were found hanged. Their mother was the only adult in the house,” Assistant District Attorney Margaret McCallum said.
McCallum said Snyder’s story, that Conner took his own life and that of his little sister Sept. 23 didn’t make sense, especially since an occupational therapist who worked with Conner at Greenwich Elementary told police that the third grader lacked the dexterity to fasten the dog lead into two nooses.
"Conner was incapable of doing this to himself. He was incapable of doing this to his sister,” McCallum said.
Paramedic Eric Bubbenmoyer said he rushed into the home after getting the call that two children were hanging inside. Bubbenmoyer said he passed Snyder, who was sitting on the front steps of the house, talking on her cellphone.
Bubbenmoyer described Snyder as “very anxious, very nervous,” but added, “she was not crying.”
Trooper Jeffrey Hummel helped carry the children out of the basement on stretchers after paramedics were unable to revive them and called for a helicopter to take them to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest. Hummel fought back tears as McCallum asked him to identify the children from photos.
Snyder’s attorney, Dennis Charles, questioned Hummel about why he was so upset, since he didn’t know the children.
“I’m human,” the trooper replied.
Lisa Snyder will stand trial in hanging deaths of her two children: ‘Conner was incapable of doing this to himself’
Timeline of events in investigation of Berks children found hanged in basement
