No verdict in Marine killing
September 19, 2008 at 2:55 pm by Mara Shalhoup in News
Five years after the death of Jack Snook — the subject of former CL Senior Writer Steve Fennessy’s excellent 2005 true-crime piece, “War Story” — a jury was unable to return a verdict against his alleged killer.
Earlier this week, Fulton District Attorney Paul Howard announced he would not retry the case.
Snook was a Marine who fought in Iraq, only to end up the victim of an alleged road-rage killing near downtown Atlanta.
Fennessy described Snook’s difficulty adjusting to life after the Marines:
But back home was different. Or maybe it was Jack who was different. Crowded restaurants unnerved him. He looked strangers up and down. At home, he’d sit for hours playing video games. He’d turn off the game and look at [his wife] Cara and say, “I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to do this to you. I just don’t know what else to do.”
He didn’t talk about Iraq, except sometimes at night. Then his eyes would tear up, and he’d ask her, “Do you know what it’s like to watch somebody die?”
“I can’t begin to understand that,” Cara would say. “I wasn’t there and I didn’t see it, but help me get to where you are.”
In an AJC story, Howard offered a cryptic description of why he wouldn’t resurrect the case against Snook’s alleged killer, Charles Anthony Key:
“Because the victim, Jack Snook, got out of his vehicle and approached the car of the defendant, we must understand that even law-abiding citizens may differ on the question of culpability in this incident.”
(Photo courtesy the Snook family.)
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