At both trials, Glossip’s attorneys did not introduce the videotape of Sneed’s interrogation, which showed leading questions from investigators coaxing Sneed into implicating Glossip. Without the video showing how Sneed’s story changed, Glossip’s defense struggled to discredit Sneed’s evolving theories, the prosecution’s most influential testimony.
In its new reports, Glossip’s defense points out how Sneed’s testimony at trial became even more elaborate than it was in statements to investigators. While he had first claimed that Glossip called him in the middle of the night with instructions to kill Van Treese, Sneed at trial suggested premeditation. Glossip had been hounding him to commit the murder, he said, and even instructed him to “pick up some trash bags, a hacksaw, and muriatic acid” to dispose of the body after the fact.
Sneed’s daughter, O’Ryan Justine Sneed, attempted to save Glossip’s life by tarnishing her father’s credibility. In a letter to the Oklahoma Parole and Pardon board that arrived too late to be presented at Glossip’s October clemency hearing, she wrote: “I am sure that Mr Glossip did not do what my father originally said, that he did not hire my father to kill Mr Van Treese, and he doesn’t deserve to die over my father’s actions.”
She said her father implicated Glossip out of fear of the death penalty, and still fears recanting his testimony at the risk of losing his life.
