Snyder verdict: Not guilty
Originally published in Kingstonist, August 1, 2024. Written by: Michelle Dorey Forestell
Link to original article: https://www.kingstonist.com/news/snyder-verdict-not-guilty/
Editor’s note: This article has been updated since it was first published on August 1 at 4:35 p.m. Please see the bottom of the article for the most recently updated information.
Warning: this article contains details of violence and injuries that some readers may find disturbing.
Roy Douglas Snyder is a free man today after he was found not guilty late last night of the murder of David “Jaeger” Hodgson in January of 2022 outside the Integrated Care Hub (ICH).
At 1 p.m. on Wednesday, Jul. 31, 2024, following a morning of final instructions from Justice Graeme Mew, the jury in the second-degree murder trial of Snyder began deliberations.
The call came just before 10 p.m. that the verdict would be announced soon. In the courtroom, Snyder sat in the dock, holding tightly to the hand of his lawyer, Mary Cremer, as they awaited Justice Mew’s return.
Hodgson’s daughter and three others were waiting in the public benches, along with the Kingstonist reporter and the regular court staff who had worked the extra hours at the courthouse. At 10:06 p.m., members of the Kingston Police Force came in: chief investigator Detective Amanda Smith accompanied by three other officers, one of whom had testified previously.
At 10:11 p.m., the knock came, and Justice Mew entered. The jury was called. The jury foreperson handed his envelope up to Mew, who signed the document and passed it to the Registrar.
The foreperson, when asked, stated the verdict aloud: “Not guilty.”
As Mew thanked the jury, Hodgson’s daughter became distraught and left the court.
“Members of the jury,” stated Mew, “you performed sterling service. I hadn’t appreciated that the air conditioning had been switched off by the end of the evening. But on behalf of the people of Canada, I wish to thank you for the contribution that you have made… We’re most grateful to you… I’m sure, along with the Crown and the defence, we are grateful to you for the careful attention you have paid throughout the last few weeks and working so hard to bring this matter to its conclusion. So I thank you. At this late hour of the night, you are now discharged from your duties.”
Mew added that he would personally come to the jury room and thank the jury in a few minutes.
“Mr. Snyder, you are free to go, sir,” Mew concluded.
Detailed closing arguments preceded jury deliberations and verdict
In the days before this conclusion, the jury heard closing arguments from defence attorney Mary Cremer and Crown attorney Matthew Geigen-Miller.
In summary, Cremer argued on behalf of Roy Snyder that he did not murder Dave Hodgson, but that, in fact, it was another man — Snyder’s longtime friend (identified in Kingstonist coverage as “Steve” or otherwise not named to protect his identity) — who was responsible.
On the day leading up to the stabbing, Cremer declared, Snyder “engaged in acts that showed that he was helping people and was not angry.” For example, she said, “Roy saved Steve’s life by administering naloxone to him twice.” She also pointed out that, as he’d previously testified to, Snyder gave his share of the fentanyl to Steve so that he wouldn’t become ‘dope sick.’
Cremer said, “Roy chopped wood and tended to the fires for everyone. He forgave half of a drug debt that was owed to him by [a client]…. Roy told Dave to give his share of fentanyl to Steve. Roy brought a cup of tea to Dave three and a half minutes before the stabbing. Roy was looking forward to a date he was already late for.”
In the video and in testimony, she argued, it was established that Roy Snyder and David Hodgson walked to the ICH vestibule to get a safe injection kit, and Snyder waited for several minutes. Snyder eventually entered the vestibule and said, “That’s the kind of shit that gets people hurt.” While Snyder testified the comment had been directed at Steve, it may have been misinterpreted as being directed at the ICH worker in the vestibule. That worker testified these comments are common around the Hub and that she often sees clients trash-talk each other one minute and then act like best friends the next.
Surveillance video showed Hodgson’s position at the table at the time he was stabbed. The video showed Snyder on the opposite side of the table, pacing down its length just 10 seconds before the stabbing. Cremer argued that at the time of the stabbing, no shadow was cast across the table, which there would be if Snyder had leaned across it.
“Roy hears Steve ask, ‘Where’s the hilt?’” Cremer said (a hilt referring to the handle of a knife). Snyder testified he dropped his cup of tea and bent to help. Cremer argued that the tea stain on the ground in the photos “shows that Roy remained on the side of the table opposite Dave at all times.”
She noted that “Nobody knew Dave was mortally wounded… Roy picks up the hilt and runs into the woods, trying to help one of the few people he has left in his life,” referring to his friend, Steve.
Snyder dropped the hilt and his coat while the police closed in on him and ducked into another friend’s tent to hide, Cremer detailed. “Roy is woken by Detective Constable [Daniel] Tripp and is informed that he’s under arrest for first-degree murder. (This was later downgraded to second-degree murder.) In response to Tripp’s words, Roy asks a clarifying question, ‘Did he die?’” Upon hearing the reply, Cremer said, “Roy becomes instantly nauseous.”
She noted that there was no blood found on Snyder’s hands. She argued the stab wound could not have been inflicted by him from the left, horizontally, front to back, because he was much taller than Hodgson and was across the table from him. The other man, she said, had testified he was standing immediately to Hodgson’s left.
She concluded Snyder didn’t even know Hodgson and had met him “just minutes before,” and she reiterated her belief that Snyder’s friend had been the killer.
Meanwhile, Crown attorney Geigen-Miller argued that the evidence proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Roy Snyder was guilty of second-degree murder. He gave his argument in “five main reasons why Mr. Snyder should be found guilty.”
First, he argued that Snyder denied the offence, but his denial was not believable. In a police interview, Snyder gave an entirely different version of events. He claimed that an unnamed drug dealer killed David Hodgson and then ran to a car and drove off.
In this trial, Geigen-Miller reminded the jury, “Snyder admitted the story about the drug dealer was a lie.” In addition, Snyder was contradicted by other evidence, such as his explanation of his date with a woman who was working a 12-hour shift at the time, and whether or not his tent was strewn with needles. Snyder, Geigen-Miller said, had also contradicted himself about his reasons for not giving fentanyl to his friend when he was in possession of fentanyl.
“Snyder’s denial is not believable, and it does not leave a reasonable doubt about his guilt,” he noted.
The eyewitnesses testified that Snyder was the assailant, the Crown continued. Two full-time staff members and three clients of the ICH said they observed part of the incident. “Each of these witnesses had a clear line of sight to the grey folding table, illuminated by bright lights,” said Geigen-Miller.
“They describe Snyder’s appearance,” the Crown asserted, pointing out that “no two witnesses will ever see something from the same point of view, notice all of the same details, or remember it the same way. These witnesses were no different. However, they were consistent in identifying Roy Snyder as the stabber.” Each of them pointed out Snyder on the video, in the courtroom, or both.
Next, he pointed out his belief that Snyder had a motive to kill David Hodgson: “As a drug user, he wanted his share of the drugs. As a drug dealer, he could not let others take advantage of him. He could not show weakness.”
Snyder, Geigen-Miller argued, watched Dave Hodgson through the vestibule door. He believed Hodgson was trying to pinch some of the fentanyl. Snyder told the worker in the vestibule that Hodgson was stupid and was “going to get it.” Geigen-Miller said, “Snyder argued with Dave Hodgson, and he accused him of pinching. Snyder told Dave Hodgson he was going to get stabbed. And then he did.”
The weapon, the Crown attorney argued, would show an attempt to kill.
“The knife is a dangerous weapon. Anyone holding the knife would have to know that it could cause death. The stabbing was not an accident. It was a controlled and intentional act of stabbing Dave Hodgson in the centre of his chest using enough force to go through bone,” Geigen-Miller stated.
Snyder, he said, left the scene and disposed of evidence. He ran from the scene of the crime and disposed of the knife handle and his coat, said Geigen-Miller: “Mr. Snyder is the only person in the case who disposed of incriminating, physical evidence of the crime.”
“When he learned that Dave Hodgson had died,” the Crown argued, Snyder “reacted physically and involuntarily; he began dry heaving or retching. These actions betray Mr. Snyder’s state of mind after the stabbing: Mr. Snyder knew what he had done.”
In a criminal case, the Crown prosecutor bears the burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This means the Crown must convince the jury that no other reasonable explanation can come from the evidence presented at trial. In other words, the jury must be virtually certain of the defendant’s guilt to render a guilty verdict.
In the end, after nine hours of deliberation, the jury found Snyder not guilty.
Kingstonist will continue following this trial and provide further information about sentencing and/or other aspects of the case as it becomes available.
Update (Friday, Aug. 2, 2024):
Reached for comment, Mary Cremer stated, “On behalf of Mr Snyder we are ecstatic and relieved with the result. It is obvious the jury worked very hard. Mr Snyder is very grateful and is anxious to reunite with his children and to rebuild his life.”