A 39-year-old Hanover man is facing first-degree murder and strangulation charges after investigators say he confessed to killing Kimberley Gsell in 2019 and burying her body along a Cumberland County creek, where searchers finally recovered skeletal remains this month. David Snyder is being held without bail at Cumberland County Prison after leading detectives to the site along Yellow Breeches Creek near New Cumberland.
Gsell was last reported seen around 1:30 a.m. on Sept. 29, 2019, at the Rodeway Inn on Harrisburg Pike in Middlesex Township, according to WGAL. She had checked into a motel room two calendar days earlier with her fiancée, Amanda Snyder — David Snyder's wife — and the two women had planned to stay there for a couple of days before leaving.
According to investigators cited by the station, Snyder convinced Gsell to get into his van by telling her that his wife wanted him to bring her to the hospital. Once inside, Snyder told detectives, Gsell sat in the front passenger seat and he placed her in a chokehold; she died during the encounter. He then moved her body to the rear of the van, covered it with a blanket, and drove on to pick up his wife, who he said needed treatment for a nose injury, per the same account.
Confession Followed Years of Inconsistent Statements
Snyder and his wife later reported Gsell missing to her family and to police, but investigators eventually determined that the couple had given several inconsistent statements about what happened on Sept. 29, 2019. Amanda Snyder had told police that Gsell was simply gone when she returned to the motel, while David Snyder maintained he never saw Gsell at all. Cumberland County District Attorney Seán McCormack announced that Snyder ultimately confessed to strangling Gsell and burying her along the creek after detectives confronted him with those inconsistencies in a recent interview, and a criminal complaint affidavit was filed by Middlesex Township Police.
Snyder then led investigators to the burial site, where a Pennsylvania State Police K9 confirmed the presence of human remains before anthropologists recovered skeletal remains and clothing consistent with his account, according to PennLive. The remains believed to belong to Gsell were pulled from the bank of Yellow Breeches Creek on Sept. 26.
Wife Not Charged as Investigation Continues
Amanda Snyder had not been charged with any crime as of Sept. 28, the same outlet reports. David Snyder now faces first-degree murder and strangulation charges and remains held without bond at Cumberland County Prison, a detail also confirmed in NewsNation's reporting on the case. A preliminary hearing in the matter is scheduled for Oct. 7.
For nearly seven years, Gsell's disappearance from the Middlesex Township motel sat unresolved, with her family and investigators left without answers about what happened after she was last seen that September night. Snyder's alleged confession during interviews, made before or while he led investigators to the site where remains were recovered along Yellow Breeches Creek this month, has finally given Cumberland County prosecutors a case to bring to court — even as questions about Amanda Snyder's role in the aftermath remain unaddressed.
