Aunt of missing teen takes plea deal

The woman and her
ex-boyfriend have been housed in the same jail for the past month.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Jennifer L. Snyder doesn’t feel safe anywhere but in prison.

That is why she is heading back to the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville for the next four years.

Sometime during the past year, while serving a year there on a probation violation, she decided to cooperate with authorities and tell them that her ex-boyfriend, David Sharpe, drowned and dismembered her 15-year-old nephew, James P. Higham, after a domestic dispute in June 2001 at the Manchester Avenue residence where Snyder and Sharpe were living at the time.

Snyder’s attorney, Heidi Hanni, said Snyder accepted a plea agreement Wednesday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that puts her back in prison for four more years — in part so she can get away from the Mahoning County Jail, where she has been locked up for about the past month.

The reason, Hanni said, is because Sharpe has also been locked up in the same facility for about the past month, and she is extremely afraid of him because of the control Sharpe holds over her.

Robert Bush, chief of the criminal division of the Mahoning County Prosecutor’s office, added that Snyder doesn’t trust law enforcement or jail officials to protect her, even though she and Sharpe occupy separate parts of the jail. Additionally, Snyder fears what Sharpe might do to her if she were released from prison at the end of her one-year sentence Saturday, Hanni said.

Based on the information Snyder gave authorities, Sharpe, 44, of Pyatt Street, was indicted early last month on charges of murder, tampering with evidence, endangering children, permitting child abuse and gross abuse of a corpse.

Snyder was indicted in August on the all of the same charges except murder, but her plea agreement dropped two of the charges, leaving just gross abuse of a corpse and child endangering. Judge Maureen A. Sweeney accepted the plea and sentenced her.

Snyder gave a videotaped statement to police and will provide the main testimony against Sharpe because there will be very little physical evidence available for trial, Bush said.

Higham lived with the couple after his parents split up. His mother returned to her native Japan, and his father gave custody of the boy to Snyder.

Lt. Mark Milstead of the Youngstown Police Department, said officials believe the boy’s body is in the Carbon Limestone sanitary landfill in Poland. It is probably buried 200 feet below the surface and would be nearly impossible to locate, he said.

Milstead said the boy was apparently drowned during a domestic incident and that the body remained in the house a couple of days before Sharpe dismembered the body and disposed of it in various ways.

He said Sharpe has a history of domestic violence, having sent Snyder to the hospital on one occasion with serious injuries.

“I think this is my chance to do the right thing,” Snyder told Judge Sweeney when given a chance to speak before sentencing.

“I’m sorry to the victim and the family and everybody who’s been hurt,” she said.

runyan@vindy.com