On September 11, 1969, Leroy Snyder, a 38-year-old junkyard laborer, was arrested and charged with the murder of Gertrude Friedman, 58, at 330 Kaighn Avenue, Camden, where she had lived and for over 40 years.  Attacked in her combination apartment and linoleum shop, the victim had been beaten and raped before her throat was slashed. Held without bail on a murder charge, Snyder was still behind bars on July 2, 1970, when he was indicted for six more slayings in Camden, all committed between February and September 1969.

Snyder had previously spent nineteen of the previous 21 years in New Jersey state prisons for rape and armed robbery.

According to investigators, most of the victims including five women and one man - were friends or acquaintances of Snyder. All were beaten or stabbed to death, and two of the female victims were raped. Confessing to all seven murders on July 10, Snyder claimed robbery as the motive in six of the crimes, but "couldn't recall" his motivation for the seventh.

Under New Jersey law, Snyder's plea of no defense on seven counts of homicide prevented the state from imposing a death penalty for his crimes. On July 16, 1970, he was sentenced to three consecutive life terms, requiring the prisoner to serve 43 years and six months before he is eligible for parole. Referring to a court-ordered psychiatric report, the presiding judge publicly described Snyder as a "malignant psychopath" and a "threat to society," expressing the hope that he would never be released from jail.

Leroy Snyder died in prison October of 2001.

Next to nothing was written about Leroy Snyder's background when his crimes were reported. He was born in Camden on February 13, 1931 to Rex W. Snyder and his wife, the former Anna Jackson. He was the fifth of at least seven children, coming after Clarence F. and Woodley R. Snyder, Julius Snyder and Margaret Snyder. A brother James R. Snyder, was born in 1932 and a sister, Florence, in 1936. The Snyders had come to Camden from Philadelphia, shortly after the birth of Woodley Snyder in 1926. The 1930 Census shows them at 919 South 9th Street. Also living with the family were Rex Snyder's mother Jane and her second husband, Louis Frazier. The family broke apart in the late 1930s, the most likely scenario is that Anna Snyder had passed away, and Clarence F. Snyder does not appear to have survived the 1930s. The 1940 Census shows that Woodley R. Snyder was living at the New Jersey Home for Boys in Middlesex County. Julius, and James were living with grandparents Howard and Caroline Jackson are listed in the 1940 Census for Sleepy Hole, Virginia, which is now part of the city of Suffolk, Virginia. The Census indicates that the boys were living there as early as 1935. The 1940 Census also shows Rex Snyder was boarding at 904 Douglass Street in Camden, and grandmother Jane Frazier and her husband had moved to 736 Cherry Street. The Snyder daughters were raised elsewhere, Margaret by Chasten and Mary Howard, who lived for many years in Pennsauken, New Jersey. By 1942 Rex Snyder had moved to the 700 block of Mt. Vernon Street.

Woodley, Julius, Leroy and James Snyder were all back in Camden in the 1940s. Woodley R. Snyder had been getting trouble with the law since the age of nine. He was sent to Jamesburg in 1942 for breaking and entering. He  escaped from the Boys Home in September of 1942 and was given a five year sentence foe crimes during his month on the run. In 1953 he was sentenced to a 10-15 year prison term for beating and elderly woman during a robbery so badly that she was paralyzed. Julius Snyder had at least four brushes with the law between 1946 and 1963 on charges including

gambling,  embezzlement, burglary, and assault. Both brothers appear to have straightened as the years passed. Leroy and James Snyder, on the other hand, were a whole other matter.

In December of 1949 Leroy Snyder was arrested for assaulting a young woman and attempting to strangle her. with a clothesline. After a too-short time in prison, he returned to Camden, and was  sent back to jail for robbing and threatening to kill two young women. He was given four years imprisonment for this crime. Released from prison on June 23, 1955, he was arrested on July 26, 1955 for robbing a Philadelphia cab driver, and sentenced for assault and battery with intent to rob and was given a three to five year sentence. Released from jail in January of 1959, he was arrested in August for armed robbery and prison for ten years. Leroy Snyder was put back on the street in January of 1969 after serving nine years in prison. Within six weeks of his being put back on the street, he had murdered his first victim. Mrs. Lula Crawley was bound, gagged, and stabbed 13 times. Leroy Snyder murdered six more people over the next 8 months. His killing spree was stopped in September, shortly after the rape and murder of Mrs. Friedman.

James Snyder attended the Whittier School at South 8th and Chestnut Streets before going into the United states Army, most likely as a draftee, and served in Korea. He was stationed at Walter Reed Hospital in Washington, D.C. and had been promoted to Corporal by May of 1952. He was arrested in Camden on May 10, 1952 for possession of a stolen car and was fined $200 and turned over to the Army at Fort Dix. His life appears to have gone completely off the rails after this. He was sent to prison at the Lorton Reformatory on larceny charges for crimes committed in Washington. Within two weeks of his release, he had robbed and assaulted a nurse, and killed a busboy with a hammer. His trial was delayed until 1959, and he was acquitted for reasons of insanity and confined to the federal mental institution at St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington. Although he had been violent on several occasions, he was allowed street privileges from 9:00 A.M to 9:00 P.M. to work in a vocational program. In 1969 while at one of these programs, he attacked a hospital employee with a pipe, leaving his victim less one eye. The hospitals' response was to cut his time allowed off-premises to 9:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M.

James Snyder escaped from St. Elizabeth's in July of 1972 and made his way back to Camden. He connected with Mrs. Muskogee Edwards, who had taught him when he had been a student at the John G. Whittier School at South 8th Street and ChestnutStreet. Mrs. Edwards hired him as a handyman to do repairs at her home on Kaighn Avenue. This was a fatal mistake, as James Snyder murdered her. He had already been caught and returned to St. Elizabeth's when her body was discovered. James Snyder was not tried until 1975. He was convicted of first degree murder, but apparently never served time in New Jersey prisons, having been returned to federal custody. Criminally insane, James Snyder lived out his years at St. Elizabeth's, passing away on July 16, 2013.