RIP John Snedden, 1958 -- 2026 Former NCIS cold case investigator found the truth about Penn State
John Snedden, a decorated former NCIS special agent and cold case investigator who created the “Search Warrant” podcast, died on June 4th.
He was 67.
That’s John in the screen grab above riding with his Addy, a German Shepherd rescue dog who was John’s best friend and constant companion.
I met John in 2017, after a confidential 110-page report he wrote in 2012 about his investigation into the so-called Penn State sex abuse scandal was declassified by the federal government.
Most people in America have no idea that the Penn State sex abuse scandal was the subject of a contemporaneous federal investigation on the PSU campus.
That’s because the media was too afraid to tell you about it.
I personally told reporters at The Washington Post and The Philadelphia Inquirer about John’s findings, and his report that’s still posted online, in capital letters.
Mainstream Media Uninterested
John and I also personally told producers at ABC News about his investigation at Penn State, as well as several independent documentary producers.
But none of them had the courage to tell anybody about it. And there’s a simple reason why.
Because if they did, every major media outlet in America would have been exposed for having completely blown to hell the Penn State story.
I’m talking about high-profile “journalists” such as Stephen A. Smith, Bob Costas, and Pulitzer Prize winner Sara Ganim.
They all blew it. So did many other idiotic sports reporters, TV talking heads and print journalists too numerous to mention.
The failure to get the word out about John’s findings at Penn State was one of the main reasons why John launched his own podcast in 2019. “Search Warrant,” on which I was often a regular, targeted “crime, corruption and media bias.”
When the so-called Penn State scandal broke, John Snedden was by far the most qualified and credentialed investigator on the scene.
For starters, Snedden was trained in sex abuse investigations, and knew how to conduct them.
That was unlike the former narcotics agents employed by the Pennsylvania state attorney general who ran the Penn State investigation.
They oversaw a posse of investigators who went out banging on the doors of some 250 men who were former members of The Second Mile, Jerry Sandusky’s former charity for at-risk youth, looking for victims.
For all their efforts, they found one guy willing to say he’d been abused.
During his career, John was honored as “NCIS Special Agent of the Year” for investigating general crimes. He also got an award for being one of the originators of the NCIS Cold Case Squad.
John also held the distinction of having been one of the few federal agents to have been appointed and cross-designated as a special agent for the Pennsylvania state Attorney General, regarding wiretapping and electronic surveillance. John also was the recipient of the Federal Sustained Superior Performance Award.
Among John’s more famous investigations was Operation Blackjack, a mobbed-up gambling ring in Pennsylvania involving civilians at Navy bases. The investigation, which John originated in the 1990s, was eventually joined by the state police, the IRS, and U.S. postal inspectors.
What began as a gambling investigation expanded to include operations at an illegal bordello, as well as crimes of espionage.
In Operation Blackjack, it was John’s idea to serve the arrest warrants on Super Bowl Sunday.
Throughout his career, John’s colleagues were in awe of him.
“In 37 years doing police work, I never worked with anyone as gifted as John in investigations,” said former Buffalo detective Anna Mydlarz. “He was relentless and patient, and read people like a book.”
And, she added, John was “the most intelligent person I have ever known.”
“John was a true Jedi Master at his craft,” agreed former NCIS Special Agent Greg Highlands, who trained under John. “He was a helluva interrogator, he got confessions nobody else could have gotten.”
“Next to the definition of ‘dogged’ in the dictionary is a picture of John,” wrote former NCIS Special Agent John Franciotti on social media. “He was relentless in seeking the truth in every investigation and/or operation where he was involved.”
What Snedden discovered at Penn State
Back in 2012, Snedden was working as a special agent for the Federal Investigative Services.
His assignment against the backdrop of the sex abuse scandal at Penn State, was to determine whether former Penn State President Graham Spanier deserved to have his high-level national security clearance renewed. Whether Spanier could continue to be trusted with access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets.
With national security at stake, Snedden spent five months at his alma mater on the Penn State campus in 2012, placing university officials under oath, and questioning them for hours.
And what did he discover?
That Mike McQueary, the Penn State graduate assistant who, according to the state attorney general’s grand jury presentment, allegedly witnessed Jerry Sandusky anally raping a naked, 10 year-old boy in the showers, told five different versions of the shower story that made no sense.
According to the grand jury presentment, McQueary heard “rhythmic slapping sounds” in the shower that he believed to be a rape in progress.
But, as John told me, “I’ve never had a rape case successfully prosecuted based only on sounds, and without credible victims and witnesses.”
“I’ve never had a rape victim or a witness to a rape tell multiple stories about how it happened,” John said. "If it's real, it's always been the same thing."
McQueary's Dubious Tales
Regarding McQueary’s various tales about an alleged sex crime in the Penn State shower, John said, “It’s not a credible story.”
Back in 2001, John said, Mike McQueary was a 6-foot-5, 240-pound former college quarterback in his mid-20s used to running away from 350-pound defensive linemen.
If McQueary actually saw Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in the shower, John said, he probably would have done something to stop it.
“I think your moral compass would cause you to act, and not just flee,” John said.
John told me that four days into his 2012 investigation, he called his bosses to let them know that despite all the hoopla in the media, there was no sex scandal at Penn State.
"I just want to make sure you realize that this is a political hit job," John said he told his bosses. "The whole thing is political."
John’s take was that former Pennsylvania governor Tom Corbett had orchestrated the entire Penn State scandal to take out former Penn State football coach Joe Paterno, and former PSU president Graham Spanier.
“Ninety-nine percent of it is hysteria,” John said about the rush to judgment at Penn State. “Ninety-nine percent of what happened at Penn State boiled down to people running around yelling, ‘Oh my God, we’ve got to do something immediately.’ ”
Since there were no credible witnesses at Penn State, and authorities found no victim, John concluded that there had been no rape in the shower.
No Credible Victims
That led John to another logical conclusion — that there was no official cover up at Penn State, by former president Graham Spanier or anybody else. Why? Because there was no rape in the shower to cover up.
John was aware that the civil investigation at Penn State overseen by former FBI Director Louis Freeh came to the opposite conclusion.
That there had been an official cover up at Penn State that Freeh blamed on the football-crazed culture at PSU.
When I asked John what he thought about the Freeh report, which cost PSU $8.3 million, John described it as “an embarrassment to law enforcement.”
John, who died of cancer, was predeceased by his wife, Melita. He is survived by two daughters, Alysia Taylor and Jacquelyn “Jackie” Snedden, and two grandchildren.
Before he died, John left instructions for his body to be cremated. He also stipulated that there be no funeral, or memorial service.
On his way out, John didn’t want any fanfare. It was consistent with how he led his life.
As former pupil Greg Highlands recalled, John trained him to “work hard” and “be relentless.”
And “if I was expecting accolades from a job well done,” Highlands said, John’s advice was to “go find another career.”
Jerry Sandusky, victim of Pennsylvania injustice.