I wish I could say this is the first time I’ve ever written about a couple accused of murdering their child and attempting to profit off of it via GoFundMe, but sadly it isn’t.
Before we get into this story, I want to make it clear that for all the things I believe GoFundMe does wrong, stories like this are 100% the responsibility of the scum of the earth putting up these campaigns. No personal crowdfunding platform has any way to know if someone poisoned and starved their own child, as this Pennsylvania couple is accused of doing to their 3 month old baby boy.
It was just a single day after little Anthony DiNozzo Snyder died in his Reading, PA home on December 7, 2015 when his parents Patricia and Charles Snyder each took to GoFundMe to create separate campaigns to bury the child. One single day.
Its difficult to find a trace of either campaign, however we tracked down the last remaining cached remnant of Patricia’s campaign, which reads:
Please help us raise money for our 3 month old baby boy Anthony DiNozzo Snyder. He passed away unexpectedly we want to honor his name by doing something that would make him feel we never forgotten him we would like to have parent’s that can’t afford Christmas presents for children we are going to put Anthony name on them. If you can’t donated please share link on Facebook so that way people can see it thank you very much. For your kind hearts ♥.
A photo from Patricia’s GoFundMe campaign
“[P]lease help us honor are baby boy [sic],” she writes in an update. “We are trying to raise money for my son Anthony DiNozzo Snyder passing he was only 3 months old. This will help us get the grave site and that way our other 3kids to go see their baby brother so that way they don’t forget him. My husband and I will always have a place in our hearts and souls because he has left an imprint in our lives,” she says in another.
Charles Snyder’s GoFundMe campaign was not so easy to find, but the Reading Eagle reports that it read: “Are 3 month old son died and we are trying to raise money for funeral cost and gravesite and gravestone he passed unexpectedly and we don’t have the money to put him in a gravesite or give him a headstone please help so we can give him a proper goodbye and resting place.” It seems he raised $1260 by March.
A Twitter account presumably belonging to Charles includes links to half a dozen different GoFundMe fundraisers, none of which are currently active. In fact, it seems that was all the Twitter account existed for.
We did, however, find this one posted to GoFundMe competitor Crowdrise, which is active as of press time.
He wrote:
we are trying to raise money to bury our 3 month old son who passed away and to help with expenses from the lost of work from a grieving process we have had a tough time getting over the loss of our son really really really need help so we can bury him and move on and also lost money from being out of work we had a tough time an emotional time I had a bit of a breakdown after it happened and really could use help this kind of their back on her feet while trying to get through the loss of her three-month-old Anthony
Back in March, the Berks County coroner’s office ruled little Anthony’s death a homicide, caused directly by poisoning and starvation. The autopsy also revealed signs of physical abuse in the form of bruises on the infant’s body.
After a long investigation, the pair were arrested this past Monday and are charged with third degree murder, involuntary manslaughter, simple assault and endangering the welfare of a child.
See more at WFMZ.
