MADNESS, SEX, SERIAL KILLER: A Disturbing Collection of True Crime Cases by Two Masters of the Genre

by Phelps, M. William

  How does this play into Carmen’s murder?

  The bags that Carmen’s body was found in—a series of several black plastic leaf/garbage bags placed inside each other for reinforcement, bags of which, I should note, were then matched to bags purchased near Ned’s home—had been meticulously stapled, so cops believed, that animals would not get into them. So that Carmen’s body could deteriorate on its own time without being disturbed by nature or wild animals. (You can see the bags in this photo here taken after Carmen’s body was discovered by a guy walking along the roadside collecting garbage six months after she went missing—that white dot on top of the bag, that is Carmen’s skull.)

  That forensic expert had proven that the stapler (pictured below; and look closely, you can see the hair I’ll discuss in a moment) in Ned’s bedroom was the only stapler in the world, in his opinion, that could have fired some of the staples used to seal that bag Carmen’s body had been found in. Moreover, a pubic hair of Ned’s was found on that particular stapler uncovered in Ned’s bedroom along with a cache of other bizarre items.

  Included among articles about famous serial killers and videos of Ted Bundy and true crime books found inside Ned’s bedroom was a set of Styrofoam mannequin heads (pictured here). Law enforcement officials believe that Ned used them to “practice” various methods of the kill (the Styrofoam heads, incidentally, were found underneath Ned’s bed and he blamed his nephew for marking them up and putting them there). As you can see, one of the heads is pristine and made up nicely, while the other is marked with pressure point areas to choke (the Adam’s apple, distinctively), and different areas of the skull to strike and knock unconscious.

  Typical Ned behavior is obvious in these items if you look hard enough. Thus, coupled with the evidence presented in Carmen’s case, what do these items of Ned’s tell us about how he kills?

  Ned was pleasuring himself as he stapled that bag containing Carmen’s body. That is about the only conclusion I can come up with. The Styrofoam heads, well, I’ll leave that up to the imagination. But let’s be clear about one thing: all this man thought about was killing women. How he did it, fundamentally, we could argue all day long.

  Chapter 8

  AS RECENTLY AS JANUARY 2012, I have received e-mail from women who have had brushes with Ned and feel that they have narrowly escaped death. One woman e-mailed with a story about Ned that I had heard no fewer than a dozen times since “I’ll Be Watching You” was published in 2008: “In 1986, while a Rutgers University... student, I was drugged and nearly attacked by Mr. Snelgrove. This encounter has weighed on my mind for 26 years, in fact I have dreamt of the event on-and-off for as long. ...”

  Over and over I have heard this same basic story. Ned means it, trust me, when he tells us in his letter to the judge that he cannot handle himself around females. There’s a switch inside Ned that goes off when he sees a large-breasted woman he is attracted to. It’s not a normal reaction. He doesn’t feel an attraction. He doesn’t want “get to know” the women.

  Ned wants to kill her.

  And then pleasure himself after the murder in some sick, twisted ritual that has been wired into his head since grade school.

  While working on the book, I was resolute in finding out why Ned is the way he is. Sure, Ned was born a sociopath/psychopath. But somewhere in childhood the wires in Ned’s brain were crossed and he began to compress feelings of violence and sex into one basic, violent need. He fantasized about this fetish of seeing good-looking women rendered totally incapacitated and there for his evil pleasuring ever since he was in the third grade (or even sooner, he himself tells us). A kid that age doesn’t have those sorts of thoughts unless he witnesses the behavior repeatedly, generally in person, not in photographs or film.

  I beat this point to the ground, gumshoe-wise. I asked everyone and anyone who could have possibly had insight where Ned would have developed his rather bizarre methods of killing and sexually assaulting women, and where his fantasies are rooted.

  A law enforcement source finally started talking one day about it. That source told me: “Look, I was wondering the same thing—we all were. Where did Ned pick up this behavior?”

  Apparently, through some investigating, the story goes that someone (an adult I won’t name) took young Ned on several peeping-tom missions around the neighborhood. That alone would screw a child up enough to make him question his relationship with females and view females as objects for his sexual gratification. Ned’s vision of sex and women in general would have been touched by filthiness, sexual confusion and sadism. We can all likely agree on that, if what this cop told me is true.

  But where does the masturbation within the context of violence against women come into play?

  Assuming the peeping tom that took Ned along masturbated in the bushes of those neighborhood women as Ned looked on, we can clearly come to the conclusion that Ned Snelgrove, from an early age, began to associate sex with this type of personal, sadomasochistic behavior that puts women at the center of exploitation and humiliation. Maybe the women being peeped on weren’t showering or undressing, but were sleeping. This theory—and that’s all it is until Ned talks, and he never will—seems to be the most logical based upon what Ned himself has written.

  All that said, as I wound down my relationship with Ned, I sent him that letter I knew would twist his arm and rattle his cage. Allow me to present it here before I share Ned’s interesting and rather threatening response:

  October 3, 2007

  Hi, Ned:

  Received your latest letters and your notes to your lawyer. Thanks!

  You wrote: “Am I just imagining all of this... Am I just stamping my foot, crying ‘foul’ for no good reason? Please tell me what you think.”

  Well, Ned, since you asked... it’s time, perhaps, that we stop this game between us.

  There’s a theme to your letters I need to point out: I find that you say the same things over and over without offering much proof-positive evidence to support your claims. Just rhetoric, in other words. No substantial evidence. Calling someone a liar does not make that person a liar—evidence does. I have yet to see any evidence that proves any of your claims. I have studied police reports and trials for my entire career (tens of thousands of pages and dozens of cases). I am considered an expert in this field. In none of the papers you’ve sent have I seen any evidence—just your “interpretations” of the facts.

  … I need to address a few things. One, thanks for the permission slip to quote your letters to me. Appreciated. Second, I do not need permission from you—just to be clear—to quote the... letters you wrote [to your friend]. They are part of the court record... and, as you likely know (you claim to be a smart guy), I have “fair use” copyright laws on my side and many of the letter excerpts were reprinted in newspapers across the country. Thirdly, I do, in fact, quote from those letters throughout my book.

  To ask me to buy into your idea that there is no pattern, no “signature,” surrounding the three victims—Mary Ellen Renard, Karen Osmun and Carmen Rodriquez—is quite a stretch on your part. This has been, however, another theme of yours: that Carmen’s murder was “different” from the other(s) in NJ. The theory is (and I have quoted several well-known serial killer profilers who have tracked you for 20+ years), that, after studying Ted Bundy, you changed your m.o. That is what the prosecution is quoted as saying.

  Furthermore, to claim that the “pick up right where I left off” quote from [your friend] letters pertains to you going back to Hewlett is, to quote you, “laughable.” Come on, Ned, do you expect me to believe that? Do you expect anyone to believe that after eleven years in prison for two vicious crimes, your goal, your dream, was to return to HP? You didn’t return to HP, did you? And you didn’t move in with your parents right away, as you told me. You moved into a seedy Berlin Turnpike motel and, according to a source of mine, started killing again right away. You never went back to HP.

  I could go on and on contradicting your notes and t
heories, but I’ll stop here.

  …I need to ask you some “hardball” questions and offer you the opportunity to respond. I think it’s only fair since I’ve been interviewing you (through our correspondence) now for several months.

  My questions:

  1.) Explain what you mean by “responding to questions” posed by [your friend]? (That’s not what he says, by the way.) Certainly, you don’t expect me to believe that everything you wrote to [your friend] was a response to a question he asked. I feel [you] were gloating, bragging, etc.

  2.) Where do you think your thoughts of harming women and posing their bodies come from? You said it was there since the second and third grade. Explain that for me a bit more.

  3.) One of my (professional) sources tells me that you told him/her that you’re a breast man—which makes sense, seeing how your victims were attacked and left exposed from the waist up. How do explain this behavior? Where is it rooted? Were you ever sexually abused? Why is it, you think, that in your mind you equate this type of violence with sexual gratification?

  4.) How many other women—if any—have you murdered or harmed? Sources I’ve spoken to (many different sources, mind you) claim the number could be five, six, even ten more? Would you like to go on record as being the most prolific serial killer in the Northeast? Or do you deny all of this?

  To expand on this question: If you have murdered other women, don’t you want to give those families out there waiting, wondering, a bit of closure? I’ve spoken with people in Essex County, NJ, and Baltimore and other places (you know what I’m talking about!), some closure would help them cope with the loss. [Here I am referring to the Jane Goodwin case and another murder committed in Maryland while Ned was down there that bears striking similarities to his confirmed kills.]

  5.) A final statement from you: what is it you’d like to say? Give me a direct quote that you want printed—a sort of statement from Ned Snelgrove to all of his critics and law enforcement.

  6.) Why did you never put me on your visitor’s or phone list?

  7.) I’ve interviewed [the snitch] at length, visited him several times, what would you like to say about [his] claims? As you know, he claims that you have committed other crimes, beyond the Rodriquez matter.

  Please don’t take offense to any of these questions. As a journalist I need to ask them.

  You asked me if I have interviewed any of the jurors. Well, I cannot say. I’ve done over 100 interviews for this book. Many of my sources have asked to stay anonymous. I have to give them that right.

  No notarized letter is necessary. What you sent is fine.

  Finally, you asked if I am “dumbfounded” that a prosecutor (in your words, the prosecutor in your case) could lie?

  No prosecutor lied in this case, Ned. I’ve studied all the data. I’ve spent a long time reviewing all of the documents and statements and interviewed scores of people connected to the case. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you’re going to get someone to believe that there was a conspiracy against you. It’s simply not true. Although probably impossible, you need to study your case objectively and then you’ll see what I mean.

  If I don’t hear from you by October 15, 2007, I’ll consider it a refusal to respond to my questions.

  Ned did not respond in the timeframe that I had given him. Although, I should say in all fairness, I had plenty of time to spare. I was simply pushing him. But on October 29, 2007, Ned did speak. He was two weeks late, but I was able to get him to respond to my rather outspoken letter, nonetheless. Here is what Ned sent me (note the absurd, structured boxes denoting “beginning of quote” and “end of quote”):

  My book came out and I didn’t hear from Ned—at least not right away. And then, I pulled up to my P.O. box one afternoon, opened it and, while whistling the day away and pulling out all of my mail, there was a letter from Mr. Snelgrove.

  I was overjoyed. This was going to be Ned’s analysis of my book about him. I was hoping he’d read it and took notes. Then sent me that annotated analysis so I could perhaps catch him in one of his many lies and psycho-pathetic theories.

  I didn’t open the letter in the post office. I must admit I wanted to savor the moment. It sat on the front seat of my car as I drove home—still whistling—staring back up at me.

  Finally, I got up the nerve, I guess you could say, to open it. By then I knew it wasn’t much, simply because it was very thin; maybe a page, two at best. By nerve, what I mean is, Ned had gotten to me. He had, as my criminal profiling partner on DARK MINDS, John Kelly, says, “penetrated my psyche and gotten under my skin.” As Kelly explained, I had invited this. I allowed my emotions to control the relationship. I make no apologies for that. This is how I am. I react. I don’t allow scum like Ned Snelgrove to tell me what, when, where; I stand up to him. This may not be the right approach, but it is the victims’ advocate’s way of sending a message to psycho-killers that they don’t matter. Victims and their families are what matter here. I owed Carmen’s and Karen’s families that much. To stand up to Ned Snelgrove was to spit in his face—something I would do without question if given the opportunity.

  I don’t recall exactly where I was when I read Ned’s letter, but as I opened it and read the salutation, I laughed. And then understood that Ned’s flair for the dramatic was what he was going after:

  “Dear Hunter S. Thompson,” Ned wrote.

  Ah! You got me, I thought. I had never fashioned myself after the gonzo journalist, had really never read anything ever written by Thompson, had never seen the Johnny Depp movie about him, “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and never thought, for the life of me, anyone would ever compare me to this man. But once I thought about it, yeah, well, OK, in some respects... maybe.

  Ned, with his Dear Hunter, was of course referring to me blindsiding him with that last letter of mine. He was saying that I had hit him with a sucker punch, as if he wasn’t expecting it. But I beg to differ: Ned knew that I was not some sort of newspaper reporter answering to a bunch of white shorts keeping a tight leash on me. He understood that I was my own man and person.

  Believe it or not, Ned didn’t say much. He simply gloated about an article he had read in The New York Times, for which he was now encouraging me to seek out and read myself. That article, if I had the balls to read it, would explain, Ned suggested, what was going to be his reality someday soon.

  He did not tell me what the article was about, so I became a bit frantic driving down to the library to go in search of it. If it was some sort of article depicting how a prisoner had escaped and killed someone he’d had an ongoing feud with, well, I might want to take that to the prosecutor in Ned’s case and present it as evidence that Ned was threatening me. But Ned, as I have said, is a coward. He’s a small man, with a weak mind, and no guts.

  Here is Ned’s entire letter:

  Ned attacked me personally in the letter, beyond letting me know vis-à-vis that New York Times article that DNA would one day bust him out of prison and he would then stand atop his soapbox and scream to the world, you see, I did NOT kill Carmen Rodriquez.

  The headline of the article, “New Efforts Focus on Exonerating Prisoners in Cases Without DNA Evidence,” explained where Ned was coming from. That last paragraph he refers to in his letter has to do with a quote from an expert in wrongful convictions, who said: “One thing we’ve learned by studying these cases and litigating these cases is it could really happen to anybody….Nobody is immune.”

  That is the final paragraph Ned asked me to read and “re-read again...” so that, he wrote, “Maybe you’ll learn something.”

  He’s an idiot and stupider than I thought if he actually believes what he wrote in that absurd letter to me.

  All of Ned’s appeals have been exhausted. He will NEVER get out of prison. He will spend the rest of his miserable life in the sex offenders unit of the Connecticut prison that houses him (Why? Because if they put him in the general population, there’s always someone looking to beat his ass
to a pulp, and it has happened a few times. Once by a relative of Carmen’s who just happened to be put in the same jail as Ned).

  Likewise, Ned will never grant Jane Goodwin’s mother the satisfaction of telling her that he committed that crime because it is not in his nature to feel empathy or sympathy. Ned does not care what people think. He is emotionless, in other words. Just a shell of a human being.

  All of this is my opinion and alleged, I might add here!

  A cold case detective as recently as 2011 contacted me about Jane’s murder and Ned’s possible involvement. Jane’s murder is not just some sort of investigation I have embarked on by myself, or dreamt up by talking to sources on my own. Ned’s name is attached to it and has been for decades.

  This cop came up to Connecticut to visit Ned and ask him questions about Jane’s murder.

  Ned refused to speak to him.

  I was told the cop held up a photo of Jane in the window of the room where Ned sat and waited.