Remember when a mummified body was found in a Sydney hoarders home back in 2018? Well, a Coroner’s inquest has found that the deceased person was actually murdered by the hoarder himself.
The body of Shane Snellman was found in the living room of hoarder Bruce Roberts, but wasn’t found until Roberts died in July 2018. The body is thought to have been decomposing in Roberts’ home for over 15 years.
The inquiry before the NSW Coroner’s Court heard that Roberts shot Snellman in his Greenwich house in 2002. Snellman had a gunshot wound to the neck and had 15 metallic fragments in his chest. The inquest heard that when Snellman was found, he was rolled up in a carpet surrounded by more than 70 bottles of air freshener as a “conscious effort to mask the smell.”
Roberts became a hoarder and a recluse after inheriting more than $1 million from his rich parents and never had to work because of it. He suffered from hypertension, varicose veins and refused to get help when he complained of chest pains to his doctor.
In 2017, Neighbours called the police when they realised they hadn’t seen the hoarder in weeks. He was then found decomposing on top of an active bar heater.
“No-one’s been near the home. The home would have been fairly bad inside,” next door neighbour Gayle Meagher told nine.com.au.
“He had mental issues and was a bit of a recluse.”
Forensic cleaners didn’t clean the property until 2018 which is when they discovered Snellman’s remains. The inquest heard that when Snellman was 15 he was placed in a Catholic convent home after he was charged with the murder of a homeless man.
Snellman was estranged from his family before he was brutally murdered, but his sister Tracey Lee Snellman Trudgett said that he had “never been forgotten.” Snellman’s father also reflected that his son was a good person, but impulsive.
