"48 Hours" contributor in uncharted territory investigating murder case

As a reporter, you see a lot of strange things. You witness the most dramatic and traumatic parts of other people's lives. You count on being able to control how it all affects you. But you never expect investigating someone else's past will lead you back into your own.

And that's exactly what happened to me, reporting on the case of Joe Shymanski, a Washington, D.C., photographer murdered in 2023. Covering this story took me back into some of the most familiar terrain of my life — my tiny, Pennsylvania hometown. But it also took me into unfamiliar territory: confronting someone I grew up with caught up in a murder case.

Heather Snyder and I hadn't communicated since 1998, the year I literally crowned her my successor as high school homecoming queen. Fast forward to 2025, and I discovered that the very same Heather I knew was a central character in this story. She was now Joe Shymanski's ex-wife. She was the one who reported Joe Shymanski missing and it was Heather's boyfriend after leaving Joe Shymanski, Brandon Holbrook, who became authorities' prime suspect in Joe's murder.

In an exclusive interview, Heather answered my questions about her relationship with Holbrook. She has an alibi and emphatically told us she had no involvement in Joe's murder. She has never been identified by authorities as a suspect or charged with a crime in connection with the Shymanski case.

But Heather was the only known link between Joe Shymanski and Holbrook. And Joe Shymanski's loved ones started asking questions about her.

"She just needed it done and she found her person that would do that for her," Joe's niece Janine Shymanski said.

Janine Shymanski and other friends and relatives spelled out their suspicions of Heather Snyder and Heather addressed those suspicions in the "48 Hours"' episode "My Uncle Joe's Murder." An encore of the broadcast airs Saturday, August 8 at 10/9c on CBS and streaming on Paramount+.

Heather said she began dating Joe Shymanski when they were vendors at a weekly Washington, D.C., food and crafts fair at the historic Eastern Market. Joe Shymanski sold his photographs there and Heather had a vegetable business. She had three children from a previous marriage, but wanted a big family and she remembers being excited to learn that Joe Shymanski wanted kids. She said that in the beginning, he was funny, charming and swept her off her feet.

They married in July 2014, Heather said, and bought a house in Calvert County, Maryland. She gave birth to a daughter and a son a year apart. But she says Joe Shymanski soon became obsessive about his kids