In a tiny voice, Amanda D. Murphy Snyder pleaded guilty Tuesday to aiding and abetting her boyfriend in a robbery last summer at a Pizza Hut in Cleveland, Tenn.
Snyder is to be sentenced in U.S. District Court on Jan. 24, said Assistant U.S. Attorney Chris Poole.
Snyder and Jeremiah Wise, 29, led police on a car and foot chase through Cleveland after the robbery that included shots fired at pursuing officers and resulted in the lockdowns of schools in the area.
Snyder told authorities that she and Wise had been traveling around the Southeast for several days, and that she was a missing person in North Carolina.
She said her companion drove to the Pizza Hut, parked, put on a hat and sunglasses and told her to get into the driver’s seat. She said she knew he was going to rob the Pizza Hut, and he came out carrying a “wad” of cash, jumped in the car and told her speed away.
Pizza Hut workers called police with a description of the robbers and car and, within minutes of a police radio bulletin, officers from the Cleveland Police Department and the 10th Judicial District Drug Task Force spotted the vehicle and began following it, according to a sworn court affidavit by Warren Smith, special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
“Almost instantaneously Wise began firing a revolver at the law enforcement officers, leaving a small-caliber bullet hole in a Cleveland Police Department patrol car,” states the affidavit.
Authorities said Wise also threw a sawed-off shotgun out the window while police were in pursuit.
The vehicle with Snyder and Wise eventually stopped when it ran off the road and stalled out on an embankment. Wise jumped out and ran into some woods before police caught him. Snyder was arrested without incident.
Wise admitted robbing the Pizza Hut, but said Snyder knew nothing of it.
In addition to Snyder telling police she knew what he doing, officers also received information from a North Carolina law enforcement agency also indicating that she knew, according to Smith’s affidavit.
“Authorities from Transylvania County, N.C., Sheriff’s Department provided a copy of an unsigned correspondence they received ... that states that Amanda Snyder has been involved in a four-month ‘crime spree’ with Jeremiah ‘Lyser’ over the past four months and has told individuals that her DNA has been left on the ‘crime scenes’ and that she can’t afford to let anyone turn Jeremiah in because she would go down too as an accomplice,” the affidavit stated.
Wise pleaded guilty to robbery and gun charges on March 31. He is to be sentenced on Sept. 20, Poole said.
Pam Sohn has been reporting or editing Chattanooga news for 25 years. A Walden’s Ridge native, she began her journalism career with a 10-year stint at the Anniston (Ala.) Star. She came to the Chattanooga Times Free Press in 1999 after working at the Chattanooga Times for 14 years. She has been a city editor, Sunday editor, wire editor, projects team leader and assistant lifestyle editor. As a reporter, she also has covered the police, ...
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