Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991 TAG: 9102210340
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RON BROWN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Carolyn Ann Smallwood Snyder, 19, is being held in lieu of $50,000 bail in a Jefferson County, Ky., jail on a felony child-neglect charge.
Tuesday, she had described to city police how she had given birth to the child in a vacant house in Southwest Roanoke in December.
"I need help," police quoted her as saying. "Things are bothering me."
Snyder, whose nickname is "Angel," told police she was afraid her husband would leave her. She had told him the baby was his, but it was not, police said.
Baby Isaiah, as the baby was informally named by nurses at Roanoke Memorial Hospital, was found in a dumpster off Mountain Avenue Southwest on Dec. 19. He died of complications from exposure.
Police plan to use DNA testing to verify whether Snyder is the mother. They would not comment on whether others had helped her give birth or how the baby had gotten into the dumpster.
Roanoke police investigators started piecing the case together after street sources described a pregnant woman who visited shelters and halfway houses in early December. Investigators questioned a couple of hundred people in the case.
A break came after police released a composite drawing of the woman prepared by state police from descriptions of her. An anonymous caller contacted city officers Feb. 6 and said he knew the woman, who was described as heavyset, 20 to 30 years old, with acne scars and dyed black hair.
The caller told police that the woman was the girlfriend of a Roanoke man. Police later learned the woman was Snyder.
Witnesses told police that the couple had been married in July 1990. Officials at the shelters told police that Snyder was pregnant just before Isaiah was found but that she was not pregnant immediately afterward.
The husband, Robert Snyder, 31,was seen by a city patrol officer in downtown Roanoke Monday. He told police his wife had been abducted while they were in California last month. Police verified that he had filed a missing-person report in California Jan. 29. They said the husband gave conflicting statements about his wife's pregnancy.
Tuesday, while police continued to question the man, Carolyn Snyder called a detective in the city youth bureau. She told police she had gotten into a truck with a man in California on Jan. 29 and that he had just dropped her off in Louisville. She said the man had beaten her several times.
Meanwhile, Robert Snyder had told Roanoke police that she was abducted after she went out to smoke marijuana with two truck drivers.
Robert Snyder's sister, Barbara Banks, told a reporter Wednesday that her brother, who goes by the name "Ray Ray," had married Carolyn Snyder last summer in Las Vegas. Banks said Carolyn Snyder told her in late summer that she was pregnant. Snyder did not appear pregnant when they saw each other on Christmas Day, Banks said, and Snyder never mentioned the baby.
" `This looks like that girl Ray Ray married,' " Banks quoted her husband as saying after he saw the composite drawing in the newspaper.
" `Yes, it does,' " she remembered answering. " `It just can't be.'
"Maybe I just didn't want to admit it looked like her."
by CNB