Defense calls Pennsylvania prosecutors’ case against woman in 2019 deaths of 2 children ‘conjecture’

READING, Pa. (AP) — A defense attorney has dismissed as “conjecture” the prosecution’s case against a Pennsylvania woman charged with killing her two young children, who were found hanging in the basement of their home five years ago.

Lisa Snyder, 41, is charged with first- and second-degree murder, child endangerment and evidence-tampering in the September 2019 deaths of 4-year-old Brinley and 8-year-old Conner, who were taken off life support and died three days after they were found in the home in Albany Township, about 60 miles (97 kilometers) northwest of Philadelphia.

After Berks County prosecutors rested their case late Friday morning, defense attorney Dennis Charles unsuccessfully sought an immediate acquittal, calling the case based on speculation and theory and “all guesswork,” The Reading Eagle reported.

Snyder had told police her son was bullied and had threatened to take his life, but authorities said they found no evidence to support her claim. The boy displayed no signs of trouble that day on a school bus security video. An occupational therapist later said he wasn’t physically capable of causing that kind of harm to himself or his little sister.

Police also cited the defendant’s online searches for information about suicide, death by hanging and how to kill someone as well as episodes of a documentary crime series called “I Almost Got Away With It.” Snyder also admitted going to a store to buy a dog lead on the day the children were found hanging from it, authorities said.

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Charles said internet searches on suicide, hangings, carbon monoxide poisoning and drug overdoses indicated suicidal thoughts on her part rather than an intention to kill her children. He also said prosecutors lacked physical evidence to support their case, and a recording of Snyder’s 911 call and descriptions of her by emergency responders were consistent with what one would expect from a mother finding her children hanging.

“All you have is conjecture,” Charles said. Defense attorneys have also argued that if Snyder is determined to have killed her children, they planned to argue that she was insane and unable to tell right from wrong when she did so.

A judge last year rejected a plea agreement under which Snyder would have pleaded no contest but mentally ill to two counts of third-degree murder. Prosecutors earlier indicated an intention to seek the death penalty.