A Love Rectangle Turns Lethal
(‘Buried Treasure,’ Forensic Files)
What could be more innocent than a square dance? No grinding, no twerking, just wholesome family-friendly fun.
Unfortunately, at just such an event in 1984, a couple of participants from Franklin County, Pennsylvania got a little too friendly amid the do-si-dos and allemande lefts.
Emotional wound. Their affair led to hurt feelings, homicide, and imprisonment. The case is unusual in that most Forensic Files murders involving people who know each other are motivated by greed (Tim Scoggin), a financial crisis (Amy Bosley), or a child custody dispute (Denise Davidson).
Ron Harshman, on the other hand, acted out of jealousy and resentment when he turned Melvin Snyder into a missing-person case in 1985.
For this week, I looked for more details about the love rectangle that spurred the killing, so let’s get going on the recap of “Buried Treasure” along with extra information from internet research:
Tools in disarray. Melvin and Joan Snyder and their son lived on a farm on Grant Shook Road in Greencastle, Pennsylvania. It’s not clear how much the farm contributed to their income, but Melvin and Joan both had outside jobs.
On Saturday, May 25, 1985, Joan returned home around noon from her shift at the Sunnyway Diner, where she baked pies.
Melvin, age 42, and his Chevrolet truck were gone.
Nothing stolen. The normally tidy Melvin had left his tools scattered outside. A .25-caliber shell casing lay on the floor of the Snyders’ barn.
Two days later, Joan filed a missing person report.
By this time, Melvin’s white pickup had turned up 60 miles away in a shopping-center parking lot in Reisterstown, Maryland. It appeared that someone had wiped the interior clean. Because Melvin’s wallet, checkbook, and loaded .22-caliber rifle were left in the car, police didn’t suspect robbery.
Work buddies? But Melvin’s recent past served as a clue. Joan and Melvin Snyder and another couple, Teresa and Ronald Harshman, had begun taking square dance lessons in Hagerstown in 1983.
Both Melvin and Ronald worked at Grove Manufacturing, a maker of mobile hydraulic cranes. It’s not clear whether or not the two men already knew each other from the factory—the company at one time had as many as 1,000 employees—but it was at the square dance lessons that the couples became close friends.
At one of the dances, Melvin told Teresa that he had feelings for her, she would later testify. “One thing led to another,” Teresa said. “But we didn’t have a sexual relationship until May 1984.”
Heading way north. As a Forensic Files commenter wrote on YouTube, “When the square dance caller called ‘Change partners,’ Mr. Snyder and Mrs. Harshman took it too literally.”
Although media sources vary as to the sequence of the following events, they all seem to agree that they happened:
Melvin thought his new relationship with Teresa might have staying power and told his boss, John Carmack, that he planned to go to Montana with her and possibly live there permanently.
Scare tactic. One day, while still in Pennsylvania, Melvin was on his way to pick up Teresa for one of their trysts when Ron caught up with him and deliberately banged his vehicle into Melvin’s truck and fired a gun at him.
Neither man got hurt, and Melvin chose not to press charges of reckless endangerment.
But the incident frightened Melvin enough that he began carrying a gun with him at all times — and it spurred him and Teresa to leave their jobs and families and flee 1,800 miles away together, to Billings.
Swap meet. In the meantime, the two abandoned spouses did a little promenading of their own. According to Forensic Files, Ron and Joan had a full-blown affair.
But they didn’t have much time to test its strength. After approximately three weeks, Melvin and Teresa realized they had made a mistake. According to court papers cited in the Evening Sun, Melvin said he feared something horrible would happen if they didn’t return to Pennsylvania.
Melvin and Teresa came back from Montana and moved in with their original spouses.
Marriage not healed. On the surface, things seemed to go back to normal for the Snyders and Harshmans, or as normal as things can get after married couples from small town U.S.A. suddenly switch partners and then switch back.
But the Harshmans’ reunion was more difficult than the Snyders’. Teresa eventually served Ron with divorce papers and moved away. They sold the farm.
Ron was bitter.
On the one-year anniversary of the start of Melvin and Teresa’s affair, Melvin disappeared.
Firearm sale. Forensic Files described Melvin as someone who wouldn’t just desert his wife and son — an assertion that many viewers mocked: “Melvin ‘wasn’t the type of guy to just run away,'” wrote a YouTube commenter. “Isn’t that literally what he did with the other woman?”
Shortly before Melvin disappeared, Ron had purchased a .25-caliber handgun from a Western Auto store. Ron said he no longer had the gun because Teresa took it, a contention she denied.
A neighbor reported seeing a two-toned brown truck — that looked like one Ron owned — parked near Melvin’s pickup on the day Melvin disappeared.
Widow acquires new husband. But investigators couldn’t find Melvin’s body or prove that he had died, and the case went cold.
Joan had Melvin legally declared dead in 1993. She remarried and was afterward known as Joan Snyder Hall, according to court records, as reported by the Echo Pilot.
Interest in the case revived in 1999, when an unlikely hero emerged in the investigation: Donald Hinks, a Civil War buff who owned Gettysburg Electronics, a store specializing in metal-detecting equipment.
Old-guy hero. While metal detectors make most people envision retirees combing Florida beaches for lost coins or pawnable jewelry, Forensic Files said they are often used to find military artifacts.
Investigators knew that Ron Harshman test-fired his gun (the one he denied owning anymore) on his property shortly before Melvin disappeared.
Just 90 minutes into the search of the Harshmans’ former property, which covered hundreds of acres, Hinks unearthed a shell casing that matched the one found in Melvin Snyder’s barn 15 years earlier.
On the cycle. Investigators believed that on May 25, 1985, Ron went looking for Melvin, found him in the barn, and shot him with his new .25-caliber gun.
Then, they contended, he disposed of the body at an undetermined location. Later, Ron went home, rode his motorcycle to Melvin’s property, put the motorcycle in Melvin’s pickup, abandoned the truck 60 miles away in Maryland, and drove home on his motorcycle, investigators believed.
Here’s the part of the story that the show didn’t include. Joan — who said that she and Ron spoke by phone on the day Melvin disappeared — admitted that she saw Melvin’s dead body at Ron Harshman’s home.
Takedown at eatery. And, back in 1980s, she had been angrier about Melvin’s affair than she let on. According to The Evening Sun, Joan told police that she wanted Melvin dead.
In March 2000, District Attorney Jack Nelson charged Ron Harshman with murder in the first degree and conspiracy to murder.
Nelson charged Joan as well. In what must have been quite a scene for eaters, police arrested Joan in the Sunnyway Diner.
Ron and Joan both went free on $100,000 bail.
Wife cleared. Joan’s lawyer argued that a trial shouldn’t happen. “How can anyone say he was murdered if there’s no body?” Patrick Redding said.
The legal proceedings continued nonetheless, but Nelson relented on the case against Joan. He decided that Joan was an unwitting participant and lacked genuine intent. She faced no charges.
During Ron Harshman’s trial, former wife Teresa — by that time known as Teresa Young and living in Orrstown with a new husband — admitted to her affair with Melvin and said that she and Melvin were both afraid that Ron Harshman would kill them.
Relatives testify. The prosecution rolled out a series of jailhouse snitches. One of them, Randi Kohr, testified that Ron told him he had killed a man by shooting him five times and that the body wouldn’t be found.
Members of Melvin’s family contradicted the defense’s contention that Melvin, 15 years after his disappearance, could be alive and well in parts unknown.
“We wouldn’t have gone this long without talking to each other,” said Wanda Hann, Melvin’s sister. It was noted that Melvin normally visited his mother often and helped her around the house — but he didn’t materialize when her cancer returned or when her funeral took place in 1994.
Boy dragged into it. Ron Harshman’s defense lawyer, David Keller, said that Melvin Snyder might have left the area voluntarily — despite that the president of CBA Credit testified there had been no activity on Melvin’s credit cards for years.
The Snyders’ son told the court that shortly after the lovers ran away to Montana, Ron Harshman told him that Melvin would pay for what he had done if he ever came back to Greencastle.
In July 2001, after deliberating for less than four hours, the jury convicted Ron Harshman of murder. He got a life sentence.
“It was a difficult case because we had no body and no weapon,” Nelson told the Public Opinion of Chambersburg as reported by the AP. “It’s a rewarding feeling to have achieved justice.
Snitch sings new song. Ron Harshman went off to prison.
After Ron spent a dozen or so years behind razor wires, things started going his way.
In 2012, a witness named Keith Granlun recanted his testimony that Harshman told him where he disposed of Melvin’s body.
Another shot. Chief Judge Christopher C. Conner declared that Ron deserved a better opportunity to challenge the motives and veracity of jailhouse witnesses crucial to his conviction.
Ron’s supporters accused Nelson of offering those witnesses incentives to testify. Nelson had written a letter to the parole board asking its members to keep in mind the testimony that Randi Kohr gave toward Ron Harshman’s conviction. (Nelson wasn’t around to explain himself — he died in 2009.)
In 2019, the board declined to grant Ron Harshman parole, but in the same year, a federal judge ruled that he deserved another trial.
He ended up pleading no contest to third-degree murder.
Women out of spotlight. Following the plea, Cumberland County Court of Common Pleas Judge Edward Guido resentenced Harshman, to 10 to 20 years in prison. He received credit for time already served.
Today, Ronald Harshman is free and has a presence on social media.
As for Joan Snyder Hill and Teresa Harshman Young, they have kept out of the public eye and presumably away from diversions that involve switching partners.
Melvin Snyder’s body was never found.
That’s all for this post. Until next time, cheers. — R.R.
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Interesting about Joan S seeing Melvin’s body, and I think she should’ve been charged with perverting the course of justice (US equivalent of this UK charge), being a potential crucial witness against Harshman — who I hope served nearer 20 than 10 yrs for murder. Assuming he didn’t take an Alford plea, I’d have made the shorter sentence conditional upon him revealing what he did with M’s body. I’m guessing it’s buried on the very large farm Harshman owned. He presents as dangerously unstable, so understandable that his ex-, Teresa, dumped him.
In the circumstances related here, if Harshman still denies murder (despite admission potentially for a shorter sentence only), there can be virtually no doubt of guilt of premeditated homicide, thus justice has not been done in the too short a period of imprisonment.
Yeah, they really should have made him reveal the location of the body.
Definitely one of the most frustrating cases in FF history. It’s amazing Harshman was even convicted in the first place given that there was practically no evidence. If I was a grand jury I honestly would not have charged him but whatever. It still sucks that Melvin Snyder has never been found and it’s clear Ron Harshman only plead no contest to Pennsylvania’s equivalent of manslaughter because he basically got a get out of jail free card. If he was truly remorseful he would have told authorities and the Snyder family where he put Melvin’s remains by now. A selfish scumbag through and through.
It’s a shame he didn’t move away and start over after the divorce instead of living off of bitterness.
rs: I disagree; I think the circumstantial evidence was strong, to wit (in no partic order):
1 M suddenly missing; car found with valuables – so not robbery;
2 shell case found in M’s barn: 1 + 2 = immediate suspicion of foul play (unless staged by M);
3 thus, did anyone have a ‘beef’ with M?: yes, H (assuming the driving/gun) incident was known to police, therefore H becomes suspect (jealousy being classic motive for homicide);
4 H+T’s relationship messy and fails; farm sold (possible financial loss to H) = reasonable inference of anger already evidenced at 3;
5 Having established reasonable (at least it’s satisfied as motive for murder in other cases routinely) motive, clincher is (i) weapon bought/owned by H same as fires shell case found in M’s barn (why would it be there otherwise?) as confirmed by detector find (also suggesting H lied about weapon) and (ii) H’s same/simil vehicle seen there day of disappearance by neighbour.
6 At this stage I suggests a strong circumstantial case is established… but to furnish certitude there was Joan’s assertion of sighting M’s body.
7 Given that a body has long been unnecessary to establish homicide, what’s reasonable to doubt? The 1960 California case of People v. Scott held that ‘circumstantial evidence, when sufficient to exclude every other reasonable hypothesis, may prove the death of a missing person, the existence of a homicide and the guilt of the accused.’ The only other possible hypothesis was that M had fled and/ or died elsewhere (non-homicidally) and been undiscovered or unidentified. This is not a reasonable hypothesis v the inculpatory circumstances.
I this don’t see the relevance of the jailhouse snitches to the conviction. Presumably prosecution unwisely threw all it had at H (snitches are unreliable), including this, and because it *may* have influenced jury to convict, judge thought another trial necessary – but that’s not to imply that there was a reasonable chance of acquittal.
Bear in mind that Joan, in testifying she saw the body, was placing herself in blame’s way by not having reported it at the time (which was indeed appalling), thus although she may have hated H she’s unlikely to have perjured herself against him at her own potential cost.
Thus I think there’s *no reasonable doubt* of guilt and am perplexed why you claim the opposite. Have I missed something?
Tangentially, I disagree that PA third-degree murder is ‘manslaughter’: it refers to the unintentional killing of another person without involvement in any other felony, with such murders regarded as having ill will or malice. Why not charge with voluntary manslaughter if there’s no difference? I agree, though, that the difference is more in degree than kind: the malice element of TDM is what tends to distinguish from man/r (and no-once could doubt H’s malice), enabling a much harsher sentence of up to 40 yrs. In fact the initial first-degree charge was almost certainly correct. H was lucky.
This case was really ambiguous to me in terms of evidence, but it’s these cases where the victim is never found that upset me the most. Regardless of the victim’s character or the circumstances in the murder, I just get really, really upset if the body is never found. Some cases – I think Christie Wilson, Scott Dunn were some – were found after the episodes aired, but others like Tracy Jo Shine, Melvin Snyder, Glenda Furch, Michele Harris, and Jessica O’Grady (and pretty sure there are others) haven’t been found to this day. It just really upsets and haunts me.
Same here — without the body, it’s hard to imagine that the victim is resing in peace.
Yes, extra-distressing for family – inc deciding when the victim is probably dead, not missing. Here in England legal death is declared after seven yrs, though this isn’t automatic and must be applied for; and if there’s evidence of malfeasance, such that the person has been abducted and murdered, it can be applied for much sooner.
I presume that in the majority of cases where a person suddenly disappears, has been absent for a substantial time, and had loved ones they know would be terribly anxious, it’s per foul play, not will. It must be horrendous when the person’s a child as they could be kept for years against their will (unlike an adult, who would have to be killed after a matter of days).