The Murder of Diane Snellen
Dispatcher: “Where is your emergency?”
Stephanie: “Um, either my mom killed herself, or somebody came and murdered her.”
Dispatcher: “What makes you think that she’s dead?”
Stephanie: “Well, ’cause she’s laying in a puddle of blood in my room.”
When police arrived at the home of Diane Snellen in Georgetown, Kentucky on June 6th, 2002, they were met with a grisly scene.
41-year-old Diane Snellen was found dead, having been stabbed 27 times, with wounds to her head and chest.
Police initially thought Diane had been killed during a home invasion gone wrong, but with no sign of a break-in, it quickly became clear that the person who murdered Diane knew her.
Diane Snellen (born Diane Morgan) was born in 1961 in Michigan. Raised by a single mother, she was the eldest of 3 children.
She moved to Wyoming and married Stephen Olsen when she was 20 years old. They went on to have two children, Stephen Jr. and Stephanie.
Diane and Stephen eventually divorced, and Diane moved with the children to Georgetown, Kentucky. It was here that she met Danny Snellen, a co-worker, and they married on New Year’s Eve, 1991. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be and the couple got divorced eight years later.
Diane Snellen continued to raise her children on her own, and once Stephen Jr. moved out, it was just Diane and her daughter Stephanie in the family home.
When Stephanie, who was 17 at the time, got a new boyfriend, tension started to build between the mother and daughter. David Tyler Dressmen was 18 years old and Diane didn’t approve of him because of the apparent influence he had over her daughter.
Stephanie and David ended up trying to run away together to Florida, but Diane filed a missing persons report and the two were picked up in Georgia and sent home.
Stephanie graduated from high school in the Spring of 2002, a year early, and had plans to move in with David. Diane however was not happy with this plan, and as Stephanie was a minor at the time, she had to listen to her mother. She wasn’t happy about this and it caused a lot of tension between herself and Diane. Because of this, she and David Dressman began plotting a way to ‘take care’ of the problem.
David Tyler Dressman sought out the advice of a man named Timothy Wayne Crabtree. Crabtree had a bit of a reputation and rumours were floating around at the time that he was friends with a serial killer. Dressman asked him a “hypothetical question” about how to kill someone.
Not wanting to carry out the murder themselves, Stephanie and David enlisted the help of Crabtree. Luring him in with the promise of a cut of the $200,000 life insurance Stephanie was set to gain upon Diane’s death.
On June 5th, 2002, Stephanie and David stayed with a friend, Gale Schenimann and her boyfriend, Zac Greer. Despite Diane calling Stephanie and asking her to come home that night, she refused.
The next day, Diane Snellen was dead. Stephanie arrived home on 6th June and called the police, telling them that she thought her mother was dead.
When police arrived at the scene, it seemed to be a home invasion, but on closer inspection, it was clear that the scene had been staged. There were no signs of a break-in and no evidence of sexual assault. Diane had been stabbed 27 times, nine of which were to her head. She had extensive defensive injuries, so had fought her attacker.
There was a break in the case when a man named Richard Roberts told police that his cellmate had admitted to killing Diane Snellen. That man was Timothy Wayne Crabtree, who was in jail for an unrelated crime.
In April 2003, Timothy Wayne Crabree, 24, and David Tyler Dressman, 19, were arrested and charged with first-degree murder and burglary.
Investigators theorised that on the night of Diane’s murder, Crabtree and Dressman went to Diane Snellen’s house, with her daughter Stephanie. Stephanie, who was 17 at the time, allegedly confronted her mother, with Dressman following them upstairs and into Stephanie’s bedroom, essentially trapping Diane. It was at this point that the knife came out and Diane was killed. They then staged the crime scene to make it look like a sexual assault had taken place and waited until the next day to call the police. Zac Greer, the friend they were staying with that night, backed up this theory when he told police that both Stephanie and Dressman had left the apartment for long periods that night.
Because Stephanie was a minor at the time the case had to go through juvenile court before being presented to a grand jury. 10 months later, Stephanie was charged with complicity to murder.
Timothy Wayne Crabtree pleaded guilty to his charges of conspiracy to commit murder to get a better deal and was sentenced to 6 years in prison for his role in the murder of Diane Snellen. David Tyler Dressman didn’t get off as lightly and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In May 2005, Stephanie was found guilty of complicity to murder her own mother Diane, and was given a sentence of 25 years. She will be eligible for parole in 2024.
Sources:
https://www.oxygen.com/snapped/crime-news/stephanie-olson-david-dressman-stab-mom-murder
https://www.monstersandcritics.com/tv/single-mom-diane-snellen-was-betrayed-by-her-own-daugther/
https://www.pressreader.com/uk/crime-monthly/20210501/282325387823720