A Pennsylvania mom who hanged her two kids in the basement and tried to pass it off as suicide was convicted Wednesday on two counts of murder in the 2019 deaths of the 8- and 4-year-old children.
Lisa Snyder, 41, was found guilty by Berks County Court of Common Pleas President Judge Theresa Johnson in a bench trial, which does not include a jury, WFMZ-TV reported. She had faced two counts of first-degree murder, endangering the welfare of a child, and evidence tampering.
Johnson found that on Sept. 23, 2019, Snyder killed Connor, 8, and Brinley, 4, by stringing each of them from opposite ends of a dog lead and hanging them from a beam in the basement of her home in Albany Township, about 60 miles west of Philadelphia.
Her legal team had mounted an insanity defense because of her mental health issues, but Johnson rejected an agreement late last year under which Snyder would have pleaded no contest but mentally ill.
In a 911 call at the time Snyder told police her son was being bullied at school, had threatened to commit suicide and did not want to go alone. Police arrived to find the children still hanging and in cardiac arrest. They were revived by medical officials but taken off life support three days later.
Police could not corroborate Snyder’s assertions, finding no evidence of bullying from CCTV school bus footage or in interviews with teachers and others who knew him. By all accounts, he appeared happy.
Snyder, for her part, had conducted some chilling internet searches related to hanging, suicide and carbon monoxide poisoning. She had also been the one to buy the dog lead that the kids were found hanging from.
She was charged two months later.
With News Wire Services
