Days after a mysterious person is seen lurking outside his home, a young father is killed after dropping his son at preschool. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: What happened in the preschool parking lot?
And then all of a sudden, the entire investigation shifted.
That had to be pretty disturbing.
Looked over Rusty, and I said, I'm going to get the justice for you. Hopefully get your revenge.
On a clear day with the bird's eye view, you can see all the way to Atlanta. It's big city problems in the distance. Here in Dunwoody, Georgia, crime and danger seem to be somebody else's problem. Until one November morning. This suburban bubble is about to burst with a bang.
It was a beautiful fall day right before Thanksgiving. People were running their morning errands. Parents were dropping their kids off to the preschool.
One of those parents is Rusty Snyderman, who's on his way back to his car after dropping off his two-year-old son.
Witnesses told police they saw a silver minivan pull up. A man hop out, walked up to Rusty, didn't say a word to him.
Walked up, he turned around, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
I heard a couple of loud pops and looked up and... looked over and saw right in front of me, shooting Rusty. Shot him several times. I mean, it was pretty much point blank range.
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Chapter 2: Who was Rusty Snyderman?
And tell me about the family and what you learned later on about them. Rusty and Andrea started dating in college.
The two met at Indiana University at a retreat for Jewish students.
By all accounts, they had a fairytale romance, and when they finished school, Rusty got an opportunity to get his MBA at Harvard.
They had lived together for seven years.
They'd been together a long time before they got married, and she was just part of the family then.
They were a good team. She presents very warm, gives you a huge embrace. So yeah, I had a good feeling about them.
They had a good marriage. They had two young kids. They had a beautiful home. They had a wonderful life. They had a lake house where they spent their weekends.
I've never seen him happier than being a dad. He was a big kid at heart himself, and he just adored his kids.
He was so natural. He just naturally had the skill to connect with them, and he would sit on the floor and play with them. Not everyone has that natural ability, but he really did.
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Chapter 3: What clues did witnesses provide?
There was a sticker in the window and it looked like it possibly could be from a rental vehicle.
Turns out that Kia Sedona's were a very popular enterprise rental vehicle. And so when they hit on that, that ended up being a gold mine for them.
So it was this particular rental car company that had this specific vehicle in their fleet.
This leads to another important discovery. By chance, the barcode stickers on the suspect's van had been applied incorrectly. They were offset differently than stickers on other Enterprise vehicles.
They ended up getting the list of all of the 2011 Kia Sedona minivans that were rented on that date and the names of all of the people who had them rented. When they went to the actual locations to look at them, they were able to figure out which van it was based on those stickers because they weren't properly placed.
They were like ever so slightly off instead of being parallel across the windshield.
I asked my rental car company contact, hey, when you have this year make model vehicle come into any of your lots, let me know. He said, absolutely. And he gave me a call one day, hey, we have a vehicle that might be what you're looking for up in this lot in North Georgia.
Detectives find the windshield stickers match those on the van at the crime scene. And then, bingo. A search of the minivan turns up synthetic hairs, just like those from a costume beard.
Beard fiber would be good evidence because we had several witnesses who said it looked like the suspect was wearing a fake beard.
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Chapter 4: How did police begin their investigation?
He was very calm, unusually calm.
I want to know what happened on the 18th. I got to know him.
I think he was trying to find out what we knew as much as we were trying to find out what he knew.
You know why I'm calling you? For help. I know. That's why I called you back.
Right, to help. Okay. But getting rid of your Miranda rights isn't help. It's saying we can hold anything against you. I don't know.
Initially, it's gathering a lot of information, but then it gets into the whole crux of the matter, and he's not admitting anything, denying it.
Hemi, this is what we got. We got that van on video that Dave Rusty shot. And I swear, the more I look at you, the more I see the person inside that van. I'm giving you every opportunity, man. I don't think things should have happened that way. You've got a heart and you've got a soul, man. You're not a criminal. Things just go wrong.
Executives are used to long meetings, but not like this one. A tiny room, one table, two detectives, a fuzzy video camera. It goes on for five hours.
You're here because that van was there. We know it was over there where Rusty got shot. Listen, look at me and don't doubt me. I'm telling you what happened. You've got to admit to yourself what happened with that van. I'm telling you, you were there when Rusty got shot. Now, Hemi, you were there. I know you were. Hemi. How did you know I was there? Because it's on video. That van is on the video.
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