Inside house which held guns, trash – and the rotting corpses of two dead men

[mzeiya]

Saw this today...



..and it made me prod a little deeper.
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It was midwinter, 2017, when police officers walked up the path of 31 Greendale Street, Greenwich and knocked, unaware of the macabre spectacle that lay beyond the front door.
The property, known to local children as “the creepy house on the corner”, was the home of Bruce Andrew Roberts, described by neighbours as “strange” and uncommunicative.

A recluse, always seen in a big brown coat regardless of the season, Roberts’ odd behaviour had lately turned to paranoia.
He had ringed his perimeter fence with barbed wire, nailed his windows shut and was known to scatter cans around the house as a crude alarm for potential intruders.

Among the overgrown vegetation in Roberts’ sizeable yard were the fruits of his hoarding obsession: debris and trash strewn in a trail up to the house which was piled past the windows with rubbish.

The reason police from Chatswood station, along with fire brigade officers, were knocking on Roberts’ door was that he hadn’t been seen for weeks.
Neighbours had noticed the absence of the 60-year-old on his daily walk to the supermarket or pharmacy.
Entirely friendless, Roberts’ sole social interaction was to write to relatives and send Christmas cards.

And so at 12.45pm on July 21, 2017, a Friday, emergency services forced their way in, breaking two locks that had been secured from the inside.
Confronted by a wall of boxes, paper, bags, newspapers, luggage and rubbish piled from the floor almost to the ceiling, the officers pondered on what to do.

Shane Snellman’s mummified remains were found in a bedroom. He was shot dead where he sat. Picture: Channel 7

Snellman’s mummified boy was found in a bedroom a year after Roberts’ decomposing body was found slumped over a live heater.

Hoarded mountain of rubbish stacked floor to ceiling inside hoarder and murderer Bruce Roberts’ Greenwich home.

Police and forensics officers remove items after the mummified body of Shane Snellman was found with a shotgun wound to his neck. Picture: Dylan Robinson

The home of Bruce Roberts in Greendale Street, Greenwich was strewn with hoarded debris and held the bodies of two dead men inside.

Smell of death
They could smell the unmistakeable odour of death.
Soon, they identified a path which ran through the garbage from the middle of the lounge room along the hallway and wedged their way though.
Officers found a body, its lower half lying in the hallway and the upper half partially in the room, slumped over a radiant bar heater which was turned on.

Bruce Roberts’ body was burnt and in an advanced state of decomposition, with “extreme charring” of his right hand, right shoulder and the right side of his face, neck and chest. The bony tissue of his ribs had been burned away and his thoracic organs, which include the heart and lungs, were also charred.
Around 6.30pm that Friday, Roberts’ body was removed from the house.

A hallway in the death house where police made their way through walls of debris to discover a recently deceased Bruce Roberts’s badly charred body slumped over a heater.

Phone book and other items stacked up in a filthy corner of hoarder Bruce Roberts’ Greenwich home in which he murdered Shane Snellman.

Toxic debris is cleared from the house where two dead men lay decomposing. Little did the police and fireys know, but beneath the columns of junk within the house, there lay another body – which had been decomposing for much longer than Bruce Roberts’.

 

[mzeiya]

Continued since the site doesn't allow more than 20 images at once
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The thermal damage to Roberts’ remains made it difficult to ascertain the cause of his death, but he had complained to a local GP of chest pain weeks earlier, and refused treatment.

The house on the corner of Greendale Street and Greenwich Road lay empty, apart from its clutter, for the rest of 2017.
When John and Norma Roberts failed to receive their usual Christmas card from their nephew, they made inquiries and discovered that Bruce was, in fact, dead.

Behind the police tape lay a house stuffed with garbage and the two decomposing bodies of Shane Snellman and Bruce Roberts. Picture: Damian Shaw

North Shore Police clear firearms and other items in 2018 after the decomposing body of a murder victim was found in a bedroom at Greenwich. Picture: Danny Casey

Barbed wire along the fence of Bruce Roberts house in Greendale Street, Greenwich.

Cleaners and forensic police clear trash from the house where the rotting bodies of two dead men lay inside.

Body under the rug
The deceased’s solicitor David Alexander informed them that they and a couple of charities were the beneficiaries of Roberts’ estate, which included the house and more than $600,000.

On May 15, 2018, police seized a rifle and ammunition which were found in a bedroom of the house. Mr Alexander then hired professional cleaners to clear the large quantity of debris and five days after they began, the cleaners found more firearms and ammunition. Shortly after midday on May 29, 2018, cleaners were removing stacked piles of rubbish from the house’s third bedroom when they lifted a dirty rug and found a body.

Lying among hoarded items, the body of a fully clothed and mummified male was in a seated position with his back against a couch, slumped to the left. Around the body and scattered throughout the bedroom were up to 70 air freshener products.

Police removed the body and found impact marks from shotgun pellets on the bedroom wall, and lead pellets on the floor.

Bruce Roberts’ hoarded trash was stacked from the floor almost to the ceiling of the Greenwich house.

Bedroom of the Greenwich house where murder victim Shane Snellman’s body was found in Greenwich in 2018.

Bruce Roberts, (above) as a young boy in Coonabarabran, grew up with a gun obsession and became a reclusive hoarder.

Foot separated from ankle
A green trunk in the corner of the bedroom had dried blood pooled on its surface.
DNA samples were taken and a post-mortem made at the Sydney Forensic Medicine Department at Lidcombe found the body was “completely mummified”.

It was identified via DNA, fingerprints and tattoos as that of Shane John Snellman, who had a lengthy criminal record and hadn’t been seen alive since October, 2002.

Snellman’s body revealed his left foot had been separated from the ankle joint and that two areas, around his right ear and the top right of his skull, showed heat exposure. He had a gunshot wound to his left supraclavicular fossa, the indentation in the neck above the collar bone.
The track of the wound indicated the shot had travelled from the left to the right side. He also had shotgun lead pellets in his chest and abdomen, and toxicology analysis revealed methylamphetamine, amphetamine and ibuprofen in his system.

The shot in his neck was what had killed him.
Two dead bodies in one home of people who had died almost 15 years apart was highly unusual, and police began to probe their backgrounds.

An auction of the block of land at Greenwich failed to sell the 600 sqm property after the hoarder’s house had been demolished. Picture: David Swift

Shane Snellman had been shot in the neck and died where he lay, half upright in Bruce Roberts’ third bedroom at Greenwich.

Withdrew from the world
Bruce Roberts had no criminal history and didn’t use drugs. He had been born in September 1956 to Athol and Joyce Roberts of Coonabarabran, and had moved with his mother and half sister, Denise, to St Peters, Sydney when his parents separated.

As a child, Bruce regularly holidayed with his father in central western NSW, and completed Year 10 at Coonabarabran High school in 1972. People remembered a curly-haired kid with a youthful passion for motorbikes and guns.

Bruce and his mother moved into the house at Greenwich when her wealthy mother died, and lived there together until Joyce Roberts died in March 1989, when Bruce was aged 33. Left a million dollars worth of shares by his mother, he made a payout to wholly acquire the Greenwich house, and still had more than $600,000 left in the bank when he died.

Forensic police clear the house where the decomposing bodies of two dead men were found within a year of each other.

Roberts never worked and between his mother’s death and his own 28 years later, he maintained little contact with his father or half sister.
He received social security benefits and began to hoard.

Shane Snellman had been born in November 1963 to Herbert and Pamela Snellman and had a younger sister, Belinda. When the couple separated and Herbert fell ill, Bruce and Belinda were placed in a Catholic convent home.
Shane lived in boys’ homes, with his grandfather and with his father before leaving school for good, aged 14.

Drugs, theft and murder
From the age of 15 – when he was charged with the murder of a homeless man, but acquitted – until his death, Snellman became well known to police. He served time in jail for property theft and drug offences.

At the age of 21, he went to live on the Central Coast with his sister and brother-in-law, and worked for a time in an abattoir.

He was in a de facto relationship and returned to Sydney to live with his grandmother and his father.
In 1995, he began a relationship with a woman named Philippa Denney and they travelled around, living in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Canowindra, NSW.

Rubbish at the home of Bruce Roberts in Greendale Street, Greenwich who died and later the decomposed body of Shane Snellman was found inside.

North Shore Police clear contaminated items from the Greenwich house after a second decomposing body was found a year after the first. Picture: Danny Casey

The kitchen inside the Greenwich home after piles of hoarded rubbish were cleared following the discovery of a second body.

The back yard of 31 Greendale St, Greenwich where another body was found after hoarder Bruce Roberts died, aged 60, in 2017.

The relationship ended in 1999, but they remained friends; Shane did further prison stints, including a year in jail for drug crimes until his release on June 27, 2002.

He was known to frequent inner western Sydney, was an itinerant between his spells behind bars, and occasionally underwent drug rehab. He was living in supported accommodation at Campbelltown in southwestern Sydney when he met up with Ms Denney who noted he was thin and probably taking methamphetamines.

Bank records show Snellman withdrew his dole payment usually on the day it was deposited each fortnight.

Vanished without a trace
On October 23, 2002, his payment was deposited but not withdrawn.

Ms Denney wondered what had happened to the 39-year-old and reported his disappearance to police.
Nobody can say exactly what happened to place Shane Snellman, dead in a back bedroom, in the house of Bruce Roberts, who didn’t have friends or invite people over. But Deputy State Coroner Derek Lee has surmised the only way he could have got inside the house was “by unauthorised entry”.

Magistrate Lee says in his inquest report on the two men that by October 18, 2002, nine days after his last dole payment, Snellman had been questioned by police and had no money. His next payment wasn’t due until October 23, and he was an ice addict.

Junk in the garden of hoarder Bruce Roberts’ Greenwich home was cleared and cleaners found the decomposed body of Shane Snellman inside.

Shane Snellman’s mummified remains were buried by his family 15 years after he was shot dead and left to decompose inside a hoarder’s house. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

Bruce Roberts’ house has been razed after two bodies were found decomposing inside. Picture: David Swift

Although police found no physical evidence of an old break-in at the Greenwich property, Magistrate Lee says “it is most likely” Snellman broke in to obtain property to sell.

Where’s the smoking gun?
“If the above is indeed correct, then it also appears that Mr Roberts discovered Mr Snellman inside his home and discharged a firearm which inflicted a fatal wound,” Magistrate Lee’s findings say.

Inside Bruce Roberts’ house were three shotguns, six bolt action rifles, three self-loading rifles, an air rifle, shotgun cartridges, rifle rounds, ammunition boxes and belts. Spent cartridges were found in all three bedrooms, the dining room and the garage of the Greenwich house.
Forensic examination of the third bedroom confirmed Snellman had been shot and killed in there. However, ballistics testing of the firearms in the house found no connection with any of them to the fatal wound inflicted on Shane Snellman.

Shane John Snellman's relatives carry his coffin into his funeral service in Leppington in 2018. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

Shane Snellman’s family, sister Tina Hourani, John and Betty Snellman, and another sister, Tracy Trudgitt (right) as they laid him to rest in 2018. Picture: Hollie Adams/The Australian

Magistrate Lee found it was “more probable than not” Roberts fired the fatal shot that killed Snellman, then lived with the decomposing body, buying air freshener to abate the stench.

Bike theft
Police probed further to narrow down the time of Shane Snellman’s death. Between midnight and 10am on October 21, 2002, Shane Snellman and another man stole a bike at Camperdown and asked a friend, Kristen Carter, to pawn it because they had no ID.

Magistrate Lee concludes that Snellman died sometime between October 18 and 24, 2002. There is no explanation as to how Snellman found himself at Greenwich, 60km from his Campbelltown sharehouse or 10km from Camperdown in innerwestern Sydney.

Long kept secret
After police uncovered the ghastly scene of Bruce Roberts’ cooked remains in 2017, and then cleaners found the long-kept secret of Shane Snellman in the bedroom, Roberts’ possessions were examined. Old photo albums stacked amid the magazines and newspapers contained images only of motorbikes and weapons, none of Bruce Roberts or his family.

Three old motorbikes remained in the backyard, but none of the neighbours could recall Roberts ever riding them.

A neighbour, Bob Meagher, described the unmarried, childless bachelor as the sort of person who spent time “talking to himself quite vigorously” while digging in his garden. “He would send us a card and wish the dog a happy Christmas — even after the dog died he would still wish him a happy Christmas,” Mr Meagher told The Daily Telegraph.

At the two mens’ inquest this week, Shane Snellman’s younger sister Belinda could not support the finding that her brother had broken into Bruce Roberts’ home to steal.
“He never gained forced entry,” she shouted inside the NSW Coroner’s Court.
“He never broke into that home. He already knew him.”
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[Ssabasajja]

Whites do some wicked shit.

 

[Ngimanene na Muchere]

Hata mbicha ya mummified, charred corpse hakuna?

 

[shocks]

@mzeiya format hiyo kitu bana, ngumu kufuata story

 

[mzeiya]

@mzeiya format hiyo kitu bana, ngumu kufuata story

Done

 

[Krushka]

Interesting read.. I follow this channel on YouTube known as The chapter he does this stories very interesting. Whites are wicked monsters.