GRAND RAPIDS (WWJ) Attorney General Dana Nessel has announced a guilty verdict in a nearly forty-year-old homicide case against a west Michigan man.
Nessel and Newaygo County Prosecutor, Worth Stay, said Roy Snell has been found guilty for murdering Richard Atwood, 39 years after Atwood disappeared from Newaygo County about 45 miles north of Grand Rapids.
Snell, 57, was found guilty of one count of homicide-felony murder and one count of weapons-felony firearms.
Snell was arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 2020 and was held in custody there until he was extradited to Michigan. WDIV reports Snell’s DNA was found on cigarette butts in Atwood’s car.
Atwood, 25 at the time of his disappearance, was last seen on August 10, 1983 in White Cloud— a town of about 1,500 that serves as the county seat of Newaygo County.
Atwood's brown 1975 Pontiac Trans Am was recovered in a hotel near Grand Rapids that October. Police investigation revealed Snell was the last person to have seen Atwood, telling Atwood he wanted to rob him shortly before he disappeared.
Atwood’s body has never been found, prosecutors said.
Snell was only 18 at the time.
A sentencing date has been scheduled for January 9. The homicide-felony murder count carries a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. The weapon-felony firearm charge carries two years behind bars.
“I’m grateful we can finally provide justice for the victim’s family,” said Nessel. “Investigating a decades-old cold case without a body is very challenging.”
Stay added the investigators' and prosecutors' hard work on this case will "ensure that Rick Atwood is not forgotten."