Eight days before he was shot and killed, Rusty Sneiderman smelled natural gas outside his Dunwoody home. When he went to investigate, he found a man who appeared to be armed lying on the ground, near the house's gas meter, according to a police report.
That man, the AJC has learned from sources with knowledge of the investigation, was Hemy Neuman, who has been charged with Sneiderman's murder. Those sources say Neuman has acknowledged he was the intruder spotted by Rusty Sneiderman on Nov. 10, 2010, although it's unclear why he was there. Dunwoody police had previously made no connection to Sneiderman's shooting and their own report on the intruder.
Around 8:30 that morning, Sneiderman was about to take his 2-year-old son to Dunwoody Prep -- site of the Nov. 18 murder -- when he noticed the gas smell. Neither his wife, Andrea, nor the couple's young daughter were home at the time.
When Sneiderman encountered the stranger, the man jumped up and ran away. Sneiderman then called 911.
It's apparent from the 911 tape that Sneiderman did not recognize Neuman even though the two had met two months earlier. Sneiderman told the operator the suspect was "Hispanic with a mustache. He was wearing a hat and earmuffs ... He looked like he was drunk and passed out."
Sneiderman said the man appeared to be holding a gun in the small of his back as he ran.
"I don't know if it's a gun or what, but I think it's unusual to be running away from something holding on to that," Sneiderman told the 911 operator. "But it scared the hell out of me."
The Dunwoody police officer who responded to the call noted in his report that he, too, smelled the gas odor. DeKalb Fire and Rescue came to the Sneiderman home on Manget Court and turned off the meter, which was "leaking," according to an incident report obtained by the AJC. Atlanta Gas Light was then called to the house and made the necessary repairs.
Sneiderman, at his wife's behest, had met Neuman for lunch Aug. 12, 2010. Neuman was Andrea Sneiderman's supervisor at GE Energy and the meeting was set up because her boss was looking for a new job, according to emails previously obtained by the AJC.
Neither Neuman's attorneys nor the DeKalb County District Attorney's Office would comment on the latest development.
The trial, originally scheduled to begin in October, was delayed until February to allow a court-appointed mental health expert to examine Neuman, who remains in DeKalb County Jail. Neuman's lawyers told the AJC in September that their client will plead not guilty by reason of insanity.
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