Justin Sneed: Plea Deal, Shifting Testimony, and Recantation Signals

Justin Sneed is the Oklahoma motel handyman who beat owner Barry Van Treese to death with a baseball bat in January 1997 and then, in exchange for a life sentence instead of the death penalty, testified that motel manager Richard Glossip had paid him to do it. His testimony was the only direct evidence linking Glossip to the killing. In February 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Glossip’s conviction after finding that prosecutors knowingly allowed Sneed to lie on the stand about his psychiatric treatment. Sneed himself remains at Joseph Harp Correctional Center in Oklahoma, serving life without parole.¹

Who Sneed Was Before the Murder

Sneed was 19 when Van Treese was killed. He had dropped out of school in the eighth grade, grew up without his father, and arrived at the Best Budget Inn in Oklahoma City with no money and no job. He did occasional roofing work and handled small repairs at the motel in exchange for a room, while Glossip managed the property.²

A 1997 forensic psychology report documented a prior criminal record in Texas that included house burglary and a bomb threat against a school.³ He was addicted to methamphetamine and also used marijuana, cocaine, and acid.⁴ After his arrest, Dr. Larry Trombka, the only psychiatrist at the Oklahoma County jail authorized to prescribe lithium, diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and warned that methamphetamine use could make him “more paranoid or potentially violent.”⁵

People who lived and worked at the motel described a very different Sneed from the meek, easily led figure prosecutors would later present to jurors. Witnesses said he injected methamphetamine constantly, stole from guests and coworkers, demanded a cut from women engaged in sex work at the motel, and broke into cars in the parking lot. One resident said Sneed pinned her against a wall by the throat the week before the murder and let go only when a bystander pulled a knife. Another witness recalled Sneed complaining about needing drug money, picking up a brick, walking off, and returning with about $500 and blood on his shirt.³ A former drug dealer said Sneed traded food stamps and stolen car stereos for meth.⁶ He had also been involved in robbing men who were lured into motel rooms by a female accomplice.⁵ Jurors at Glossip’s trials heard almost none of this.

The Killing of Barry Van Treese

On January 7, 1997, Van Treese was found beaten to death in Room 102 of the Best Budget Inn. The state medical examiner determined he had been attacked with both a baseball bat and a pocket knife. Sneed did the killing. He then evaded police for several days. When he was arrested, he had $1,680 in bloody cash on him.⁴

The prosecution’s theory was that Glossip, worried about being fired after Van Treese discovered roughly $6,000 in shortages during 1996, had recruited Sneed to commit the murder so Glossip could keep managing the motel and take money from the victim.⁷ Nothing physical placed Glossip in the room. The case rested on what Sneed said.

The Interrogation That Named Glossip

Sneed did not walk into his interrogation offering Glossip’s name. An independent investigation later concluded that lead homicide detective Robert Bemo steered the questioning toward Glossip: in the first 20 minutes, detectives mentioned Glossip’s name six times before Sneed adopted the theory that Glossip was the mastermind.⁸ Bemo used leading questions and suggested Sneed’s punishment could be reduced if he pointed at Glossip. Sneed initially tried to implicate his own brother, then shifted to Glossip. Later statements by Bemo showed the detective himself did not believe Sneed had actually intended to murder Van Treese.

The interrogation was recorded. Glossip’s defense counsel never played the tape at trial. Several jurors later said they wished they had seen it.

The Plea Deal

Prosecutors first offered Glossip a deal that would have required him to testify against Sneed. Glossip refused. The state then made the same offer to Sneed: plead guilty to murder, testify against Glossip, and get life without parole instead of the death penalty.⁹ Sneed took it. That deal is the reason he is alive and Glossip spent nearly 30 years on death row.

How His Testimony Shifted

Sneed testified at Glossip’s first trial in 1998 and again at the retrial in 2004. His account changed in ways that tracked what the prosecution needed him to say.

He told police he had not stabbed Van Treese and that a knife merely fell from his pocket. At the first trial, he again denied using a knife. Before the second trial, after learning the medical examiner would testify that both a bat and a knife had been used, Sneed changed his story and said he had repeatedly tried to stab Van Treese in the chest.⁴ Prosecutor Connie Smothermon’s own notes identified the knife issue as the “biggest problem” for the state. She wrote to Sneed’s lawyer that the account didn’t “make much sense” and that they “should get to him” about it. The contact was later found to have violated the rule of sequestration, which bars witnesses from coordinating testimony.⁹

His motive story also drifted, from a “robbery gone wrong” to a paid-hit narrative in which Glossip wanted Van Treese out of the way to keep control of the motel. Details that were absent from early statements appeared in later retellings, including claims that Glossip wore gloves, asked for trash bags and a hacksaw, and took a $100 bill from the proceeds.⁸

The Lithium Lie That Undid the Conviction

The specific lie that reached the Supreme Court concerned Sneed’s psychiatric treatment. At the 2004 retrial, Sneed told the jury: “When I was arrested I asked for some Sudafed because I had a cold, but then shortly after that somehow they ended up giving me Lithium for some reason, I don’t know why. I never seen no psychiatrist or anything.”¹⁰

That was false in every part. Dr. Trombka had diagnosed Sneed with bipolar disorder and prescribed lithium specifically to treat it. Trombka was the only person at the facility who could have written the prescription, and lithium is used only for psychiatric conditions, not colds. He later confirmed all of this in an affidavit.¹¹

The prosecution knew. Handwritten notes taken by Smothermon during a pretrial interview recorded that Sneed said he was “on lithium” in connection with a “Dr. Trumpet,” an obvious reference to Trombka. The state had also seen Sneed’s medical file through a competency evaluation. Smothermon did not correct the testimony.⁹

Two things turned on the lie. If jurors had known Sneed was willing to lie under oath about something verifiable, his account of Glossip’s role would have been further damaged. And a bipolar diagnosis paired with heavy methamphetamine use would have given the defense a serious argument that Sneed was capable of independent, impulsive violence and could have killed Van Treese without anyone directing him.¹²

On February 25, 2025, the Supreme Court reversed Glossip’s conviction 5-3. Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s majority opinion held that the state had violated its obligation under Napue v. Illinois to correct false testimony, and that because Sneed was the only direct evidence against Glossip, there was a “reasonable likelihood” the lie affected the verdict.¹⁰ Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond had already conceded the Napue violation and told the Court that Sneed had made “material misstatements.”¹³ Sotomayor observed that Sneed was already “nobody’s idea of a strong witness.”

Signals He Wanted to Recant

Documents that surfaced years later showed Sneed himself had considered pulling back his testimony. In a letter dated May 15, 2003, before Glossip’s retrial, Sneed asked his attorney, “do I have the choice of recanting my testimony at any time during my life?” and asked about Glossip’s upcoming court date in connection with “re-canting.”⁹

Reed Smith investigators documented roughly a decade of conversations in which Sneed discussed recanting, including with his mother and daughter, despite having previously denied doing so.¹³ In 2014, statements circulated that his daughter had said her father wanted to recant, though she never came forward publicly.¹⁴ In a letter to a reporter, Sneed wrote, “If the Truth crucifies, then I do not know what else to do,” and said his testimony was not purely about money but that he had “obeyed an order out of loyalty.”¹⁵

He never formally recanted. In a 2015 interview at Joseph Harp Correctional Center, Sneed reaffirmed his account. “I stood on my truth,” he said. He described Glossip as “cocky and manipulative” and said Glossip paid him to kill Van Treese for a pool of money they would split.²

Where Sneed Is Now

Sneed remains at Joseph Harp Correctional Center serving life without the possibility of parole. There are no public reports of parole proceedings or any change to his sentence.¹

His role is not finished, though. After the Supreme Court reversed Glossip’s conviction, Attorney General Drummond announced in June 2025 that the state would retry Glossip for first-degree murder but would not seek the death penalty.¹⁶ On May 14, 2026, Oklahoma County District Judge Natalie Mai granted Glossip a $500,000 bond, and he was released after nearly 30 years in prison. Judge Mai set the third trial to begin September 28, 2026.¹⁷

Whether Sneed will testify a third time, and what he will say if he does, remains open.

1
The Frontier. Why Justin Sneed Decided to Speak to Me
2
The Frontier. Two Truths and a Lie: What Records, Interviews Reveal About Richard Glossip’s Murder Conviction
3
The Intercept. Richard Glossip Oklahoma Death Row Justin Sneed
4
U.S. Supreme Court. Glossip v. Oklahoma, 604 U.S. ___ (2025)
5
U.S. Supreme Court. Glossip v. Oklahoma, Amicus Brief
6
KOKH Fox 25. Glossip Legal Team Releases New Information About Justin Sneed
7
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. State v. Glossip, 2007 OK CR 12
8
Reed Smith LLP. Independent Investigation Into the State of Oklahoma v. Richard E. Glossip
9
U.S. Supreme Court. Glossip v. Oklahoma, Opinion of the Court
10
Harvard Law Review. Glossip v. Oklahoma
11
FindLaw. Glossip v. Oklahoma
12
SCOTUSblog. Supreme Court Grants Richard Glossip New Trial in Capital Case
13
Death Penalty Information Center. U.S. Supreme Court Rules Prosecutors Violated Ethical Responsibilities in Richard Glossip’s Case, Orders a New Trial
14
KOKH Fox 25. Richard Glossip Oklahoma Death Penalty Justin Sneed
15
The Frontier. An Important Letter I’ve Been Waiting to Share
16
Oklahoma Voice. Oklahoma AG Won’t Seek Capital Punishment in Retrial of Former Death Row Inmate Glossip
17
The Oklahoman. Richard Glossip Oklahoma Third Trial Will Begin September 2026