Snyder found guilty of first-degree murder

Tom Milstead
Posted 2/19/20

Jamie Snyder kept a straight face and showed no emotion as Goshen County District Court Clerk Brandi Correa read the jury’s decision that he had been ruled guilty of first-degree murder.

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Snyder found guilty of first-degree murder

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TORRINGTON – Jamie Snyder kept a straight face and showed no emotion as Goshen County District Court Clerk Brandi Correa read the jury’s decision that he had been ruled guilty of first-degree murder. 

It was only later that he expressed frustration because he could be spending the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole. 

As victim Wade Erschabeck’s family shared a tearful embrace outside of the courtroom on Thursday after the verdict was read, Snyder was allowed an embrace with his mother, Laura Knollman, and it was then he lost his cool demeanor. 

“What the (expletive)?” Snyder said. “My attorney is a piece of (expletive) who didn’t do his job. I didn’t kill Wade. We were friends for 10 years. I’m going to prison for life.”

That is a possible fate for Snyder, who will be sentenced in 60 days after the completion of a presentence investigation by the Wyoming Department of Corrections. He was remanded to the custody of the Goshen County Sheriff’s Office after the verdict was read and lead back to the Goshen County Detention Center surrounded by four uniformed deputies. 

The verdict came after four full days of rehashing the events of May 24, 2018, and the days and years leading up to the day Snyder stabbed Erschabeck in Fort Laramie. It took the jury just under an hour to decide on Snyder’s guilt.

Snyder’s defense attorney, Jonathon Foreman, spent much of the trial arguing that Snyder suffered from serious mental health issues and that external stressors, including the loss of a job and an alleged break-in to Snyder’s home, had caused his client to suffer a temporary break from reality. 

He pointed to an earlier involuntary commitment in a mental health institution as proof Snyder had issues, as well as a pattern of behavior leading up to the stabbing. 

Foreman’s closing argument hinged on Snyder’s mental health, and he asserted that the state, as well as Dr. Katherine Mahaffey of the Wyoming State Hospital, had downplayed Snyder’s mental issues. 

“He believed people were surveilling him,” Foreman said. “He saw tri-colored people in his yard that he believed were going to kill him. He believed he was Rasputin, a Russian priest killed in 1917. He was a fire-breathing dragon. He believed he was a wolf, his friend was a fox and they were at war with the birds. He believed there are lizard people running things, that he controlled weather, that he’s a god, that he gave birth to Gavin (Martin’s) sister’s boyfriend. These are all documented by the examiners.”

Foreman said Mahaffey had decided she “didn’t want to deal with Jamie” and that’s why she found him to be competent. 

“Dr. Mahaffey doesn’t want to deal with Jamie,” Foreman said. “She doesn’t want to deal with him. You could see it in her demeanor. She wasn’t enthusiastic about treating him. She had a conflict of interest – I don’t think she wanted him in Evanston. He sexually harassed a nurse. He got two patients to fight. What’s the quickest way to get rid of him? Call it a personality disorder. It’s up to you whether you want to go along with that. 

“Her opinion is under her control. It’s subjective. That is what is going on here.”

Goshen County Attorney Eric Boyer, along with deputy attorney Jeremiah Sandburg, presented the jury with information that the crime had been premeditated and that Snyder’s version of the events had varied from him not even being at the scene of the stabbing to Erschabeck being the aggressor. 

“The defendant has claimed he was home all day, and he variously claimed this was an accident, that maybe he pulled the knife because he was somehow afraid of Wade Erschabeck, the defendant claimed Wade jumped on the knife,” Boyer said during his closing argument. “As the evidence showed, the state has proven beyond reasonable doubt that Jamie Snyder, with premeditated malice, killed Wade Erschabeck without a sudden heat of passion.” 

Boyer told the court Snyder had planned his attack and had even told Michael Paules the day prior that Eschabeck “needed to die.”

“The evidence showed that in the days before the murder, he was looking for three suspects in an alleged burglary of his own home,” Boyer said. “He took this on his own in spite of warning from (Sheriff) Kory Fleenor (who spoke with Snyder just hours before the attack). The last suspect was Wade Erschabeck.

“In the days prior to May 24, the evidence showed he had a grudge against Wade.”