Never See Them Again (23 page)
Read Never See Them Again Online
Authors: M. William Phelps
PART FOUR
THE PROMISE
CHAPTER 46
I
N MARCH 2006
, Haley Dawkins (pseudonym) met Chris Snider while trolling Myspace. Haley was in the market for a “Russell Crowe look-alike.” Apparently, Snider fit that bill. Haley was older than Chris, who was closer in age to Haley's daughter. But Haley liked younger men, she later told police. Chris didn't care. He didn't want to work. He wanted someone to take care of him, give him money for drugs, feed him, and shelter him.
N MARCH 2006
, Haley Dawkins (pseudonym) met Chris Snider while trolling Myspace. Haley was in the market for a “Russell Crowe look-alike.” Apparently, Snider fit that bill. Haley was older than Chris, who was closer in age to Haley's daughter. But Haley liked younger men, she later told police. Chris didn't care. He didn't want to work. He wanted someone to take care of him, give him money for drugs, feed him, and shelter him.
Those who were around when this relationship began later observed that from Chris Snider's view, Haley Dawkins was an “older version of Christine. She was a real done up, girly-girl type, and needed male attention badly.” It was not but five days, according to one source, after she and Chris met on the Internet that Haley flew from South Carolina to Texas to visit him.
“That creeped us out,” a source said.
Five days talking online, the next thing Chris knew, Haley was standing at his doorstep.
A good-looking woman, Haley felt comfortable within Chris Snider's world. For him, one family member later said, Chris undoubtedly looked at Haley and thought,
What can I get out of her?
(“He just wanted to do drugs and mooch off somebody. And anybody who is going to fly to your house from across the country is going to want to take care of youâshe was another mother figure for him.”)
What can I get out of her?
(“He just wanted to do drugs and mooch off somebody. And anybody who is going to fly to your house from across the country is going to want to take care of youâshe was another mother figure for him.”)
Haley and Chris had a nice first visit. They bonded. She flew home. He went back to his life. As the days passed, they talked on the phone, chatted online, and e-mailed. Then Chris was on his way to South Carolina, all on Haley's dime. A few days later, he returned home with a smile on his face.
“Are you in love with this person?” a family member asked him. “Or are you just using her?” It didn't seem right, Chris using the woman and not loving her.
He shrugged.
“Well?”
“Hey, she gives me money, okay,” he said. “Whatever.”
Near the end of June, about six weeks into the relationship, Haley found herself nestled comfortably in the seat of a plane once again on her way to Houston. Chris had been in Kentucky staying with family since the murders (on and off), spent some time in jail late in 2005 until early 2006, but he had gone back to Houston because of his probation.
Not long after touching down in Texas, Haley and Chris were driving back to South Carolina, arm in arm, on their way to living together. The only problem with this plan for Haley was that she had no idea she had fallen for a man whose mind, essentially, was as twisted as the quadruple murder he had helped commit.
When she stepped off the plane and met Chris Snider in person that first time, Haley realized almost immediately she was dealing with a different person from whom she had met on Myspace. Snider was “very paranoid,” Haley noticed as soon as she was around him. Haley had tried to arrange several jobs for him when they got back to South Carolina. But he said no way, refusing to take any of them. “They will turn in my Social Security number and realize that my transfer of probation has not been approved.”
Chris wasn't allowed, under the law, to move to South Carolina, but he went, anywayâand Haley was about to find out that the guy she'd scooped up via a website was anything but her knight.
Â
Â
CHRIS SNIDER LIKED
to draw; it was one of his passions. He was not bad, either. Chris was no wordsmith, as his writings later proved, but the guy didn't have any trouble putting his feelings and the dark nature swirling about his soul, and inside his head, into an art form on paper. For example, in a drawing he titled “I won't become the thing I hate,” a promise he intended to keep, Snider sketched a truly scary demon-faced character (in the same fashion popular culture depicts Satanâonly much darker) with dragon wings and a scorpion's tail with a sharp pointer. Snider's Demon Man was crucified on a cross, blood dripping from where the demon's hands were nailed to the cross. In its totality and simplicity, this drawing screamed of a man whose life had come down to a series of demonic deeds he believed he would be punished for one day.
to draw; it was one of his passions. He was not bad, either. Chris was no wordsmith, as his writings later proved, but the guy didn't have any trouble putting his feelings and the dark nature swirling about his soul, and inside his head, into an art form on paper. For example, in a drawing he titled “I won't become the thing I hate,” a promise he intended to keep, Snider sketched a truly scary demon-faced character (in the same fashion popular culture depicts Satanâonly much darker) with dragon wings and a scorpion's tail with a sharp pointer. Snider's Demon Man was crucified on a cross, blood dripping from where the demon's hands were nailed to the cross. In its totality and simplicity, this drawing screamed of a man whose life had come down to a series of demonic deeds he believed he would be punished for one day.
In a similar drawing, with a similar creature crucified to a wooden cross like the Christ, a second Demon Man, with the same scorpion's body, was secured to the cross, but by the bodies of two large snakes, whose heads pointed directly away from the demon's head at the top of the cross. The image itself was disturbing enough. Yet the additions Snider had made to it would make one wonder just what was going on inside his head: Facing drops of blood protruding from the demon's crucified palms were two large flies, both of whom had long tailsâakin to umbilical cordsâwith two strange-looking, naked, chubby babies attached to the ends. At the top of the cross, walking down toward the head of the Demon Man (unbeknownst to the demon, apparently), was a dragonfly, two pinchers poking out in the front of its body, a three-pronged devil's pitchfork tail curled upward.
“Disturbing” is the word that comes to mind when looking at this particular drawing
.
And yet, as you worked your way through Chris Snider's portfolio, what he was feelingâor maybe suffering fromâbecame obvious. There is an emotional torment and torture apparent in every drawing.
.
And yet, as you worked your way through Chris Snider's portfolio, what he was feelingâor maybe suffering fromâbecame obvious. There is an emotional torment and torture apparent in every drawing.
In one drawing Chris depicted himself as a standing man, looking straight ahead, a single bullet hole through the center of his head. The man looked very much like Chris. In two pictures accompanying the standing man on the same page, off to the right of the man, a barrel of a gun was placed up against a head, the top of the head blown off (bits of flesh and brain matter flying through the air) by a bullet protruding from the barrel; the picture on the lower right side of the same page showed a head, a bullet entering below the chin, splitting the face in two.
All of these drawings were done in jail, on the back of Snider's monthly inmate account's receipts.
The next two drawings spoke to the true disorder (and perhaps chaos) swirling around Snider's idea of his life, up until that point. The first showed a fat man who looked to be dressed in a leather mask and leather pants, who had been electrocuted and tacked to a cross (that religious theme again). Although Snider failed to depict how he was placed on the cross, the fat man's arms were stretched out in a
come-to-me
gesture that a parent might use when teaching a child to walk for the first time. The electrocuted man's stomach was torn open and snakes with long forked tongues exited from his insides. Beside him was an abnormally large-headed snake, a solitary demon head above it, another demon head with a scorpion's tail to its right, the pointed end of the tail emitting a single drop of blood like a tear coming out of a syringe that was about to stick into a large fuzzy fly. The right arm of the cross seemed to be connected to a line, which led down to a fire or series of lightning bolts (it's not clear which). In several other similar drawings of scorpions, Snider made their tails out of syringes, obviously trying to say how lethal getting involved with a needle was.
come-to-me
gesture that a parent might use when teaching a child to walk for the first time. The electrocuted man's stomach was torn open and snakes with long forked tongues exited from his insides. Beside him was an abnormally large-headed snake, a solitary demon head above it, another demon head with a scorpion's tail to its right, the pointed end of the tail emitting a single drop of blood like a tear coming out of a syringe that was about to stick into a large fuzzy fly. The right arm of the cross seemed to be connected to a line, which led down to a fire or series of lightning bolts (it's not clear which). In several other similar drawings of scorpions, Snider made their tails out of syringes, obviously trying to say how lethal getting involved with a needle was.
The next two drawings explained a lot about how Chris Snider felt toward Christine Paolilla. On the left side of one page, he depicted himself as a tall man with short, military-style, buzz-cut hair shooting straight up like inverted icicles, a goatee, and one armâhis leftâreaching out toward a female on the right side of the page (a caricature of Christine). With his right hand, the man held on to the center of his chest (his heart), which was drawn as a missing puzzle piece. The female, all the way on the right-hand side of the picture, far away from the male, held that missing puzzle piece in her hands, but she was lighting it on fire. Both the male and female in the picture are looking straight ahead.
Regarding these puzzle piece drawings, family members said this was Christopher Snider's way of showing how Christine Paolilla had held him hostage after the murders. There was one day, a Snider family source noted, when Christine told him, “Look, if you
ever
try to leave me, don't forget that all I have to do is get a gun, come up and knock on your front door, and blow your entire family away.”
ever
try to leave me, don't forget that all I have to do is get a gun, come up and knock on your front door, and blow your entire family away.”
In the next picture, the man is standing in the same position, his arm stretched out toward the female (like in the previous picture), but she is facing him now, with a look of utter hatred on her face. She is holding the puzzle piece in front of him, with that lighter in her hand, and the puzzle piece is almost entirely engulfed in flames.
Snider's drawings speak to a part of him that felt a close connection to the evil side of his life. Anybody who could walk into a house and kill four people for drugs and cash truly had no appreciation (or conception, honestly) of the importance and meaningfulness of a human life. There was no value there for family, for self, for the impact that killing one person would have on the community and the victim's family, better yet four. Some would categorize this person as a sociopath/psychopath, and might be spot-on with that assessment. Yet, there is much more at work here. Paranoia, coupled with the chronic use of drugs and alcohol, on top of an upbringing steeped in dysfunction and loss (most of which Snider talked about at one time or another), creates an unpredictable adult capable of things that others cannot imagine. Risk taking becomes a daily part of life for this person. The stakes are not as high. There's no conscience, essentially. Morality is not something measured in a way of life. This person develops an intense dislike for not being able to move forward in life under his own standards of living and begins to blame others and harness and suppress an intense rage for those not aiding him, which builds up to a point where an explosion of emotion (in the form of rage) occurs. At the time Snider and Paolilla committed these murders, their drug use was on the rise, while their self-esteem and self-worth were on the decline. In this situation the person has trouble controlling impulses, good or bad.
According to some estimates, drugs (and alcohol) are factors in up to 70 percent of homicides.
1
1
Chris wrote to “M” in January 2006 (M is likely his mother, if you look at the way he addressed similar letters to a woman he said was his “only motivation to do anything good!”), shortly before he was released from jail and met Haley Dawkins. In that letter it's clear he was not in a good placeâmentallyâand also that the murders he had committed weren't necessarily the source of his anger and confusion in the days after (he was, one could easily discern from reading his writing during this period, obviously beyond the murders by then). As time went on, it became clear that he was learning how to live with what he had done.
He started off by saying how the price of stamps was going up and he needed extra money in order to keep writing. He wanted to thank his dad for sending a money order. Then he broke into a rant:
Let's see, just some of the things wrong with me.
It was a poor-me pity party that seemed to be directed toward drawing sympathy, which inmates, generally speaking, look to do. Chris was pouring it on, trying hard to guilt those on the outside into thinking that he had it bad, taking no responsibility for the behavior that had put him behind bars to begin with.
Let's see, just some of the things wrong with me.
It was a poor-me pity party that seemed to be directed toward drawing sympathy, which inmates, generally speaking, look to do. Chris was pouring it on, trying hard to guilt those on the outside into thinking that he had it bad, taking no responsibility for the behavior that had put him behind bars to begin with.
He talked about an ear infection in both of his ears, which “ached all day and night.” He was pissed off because the nurses weren't giving him antibiotics every day and the infection kept coming back and wouldn't go away. He had some sort of rash on his stomach that looked like spots or blotches. The doctor whom Chris had seen for his shoulder, which was hurting him lately, was an “idiot.” He said the doctor told him it was nothing more than a few “ripped tendons,” but the bone was sticking out and it hurt, so he was certain there was a conspiracy against him to see that he was in the most pain possible. He was worried that he looked “deformed.” However, he didn't want to show the doctor the injury again, because the prison would restrict him from the gym, and lifting weights had become one of the only outlets in the joint Chris had during those days.
All told, he complained that there was a lot of “bullshit” to deal with in that nasty place.
The only solace Snider had found in jail was his music, which consisted of bands to the tune of Nine Inch Nails, Tool, Marilyn Manson, and the Deftonesâthat dark, thumping, and thrashing heavy metal with evil and gloomy themes involving child abuse and rape and murder and torture and many other negative things. He liked to sit and copy the lyrics of the songs he liked most. He also asked his mother to send him lyrics from several songs he named. He
needed
to have these lyrics, he said more than once. They were important to him. All of this music obliged that inner hatred Chris had for not only himself but for the world around him. The music allowed him to make sense of the tremendous noise inside his head; it was all one big theme song to a life mired in crime and murder and drugs and anarchy, which he had been involved in since junior high. The lyrics fed an appetite he had to hate himself and the life he had led up to that point. The music certainly wasn't to blame. It was more akin to a man finding a pair of shoes that fit him as though they had been designed and stitched together just for him. One recurring phrase Chris used often when he tried his hand at writing songs and poetry, which he looked at after writing and thought little of, was an idea that there was “no love in me.” He went back to this theme again and again: He considered himself “shallow” and empty and without a desire to care for his fellows. He wondered where it came from. He was trying to understand it. He was a man who could not “find his way” in life and had no reason or purpose to go on. Becoming a murderer, in the fundamental essence of what it had done for his sense of himself, solidified the person Snider had thought he was
before
he committed the murders. In firing that weapon into the bodies of the four, Chris Snider was acting out on the
thing
he had seen himself turn into long before that dayâor, as he put it himself, he was a “disease” with “no cure.”
needed
to have these lyrics, he said more than once. They were important to him. All of this music obliged that inner hatred Chris had for not only himself but for the world around him. The music allowed him to make sense of the tremendous noise inside his head; it was all one big theme song to a life mired in crime and murder and drugs and anarchy, which he had been involved in since junior high. The lyrics fed an appetite he had to hate himself and the life he had led up to that point. The music certainly wasn't to blame. It was more akin to a man finding a pair of shoes that fit him as though they had been designed and stitched together just for him. One recurring phrase Chris used often when he tried his hand at writing songs and poetry, which he looked at after writing and thought little of, was an idea that there was “no love in me.” He went back to this theme again and again: He considered himself “shallow” and empty and without a desire to care for his fellows. He wondered where it came from. He was trying to understand it. He was a man who could not “find his way” in life and had no reason or purpose to go on. Becoming a murderer, in the fundamental essence of what it had done for his sense of himself, solidified the person Snider had thought he was
before
he committed the murders. In firing that weapon into the bodies of the four, Chris Snider was acting out on the
thing
he had seen himself turn into long before that dayâor, as he put it himself, he was a “disease” with “no cure.”
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