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Hartville man tells police he dumped wife's body behind Tennessee bar

Snider said he left his wife's body in a dumpster behind a bar in Bullitt County, Kentucky.

HARTVILLE, Ohio -- The man who admitted to killing his wife to an undercover police officer told police he left his wife's body in a dumpster behind a Tennessee bar.

Hartville Police Chief Larry Dordea says he and one of his sergeants drove to Tennessee with Philip Snider on Tuesday so that Snider could show them where he dumped his wife's body.

Snider, 73, has been an alleged conductor of lies and manipulation since his wife's death in January.

Snider first told relatives his wife, Roberta, died after she fell ill and choked while on a vacation to Graceland. Snider said he flagged down an ambulance in a Memphis, Tennessee parking lot and never saw his wife's body again.

But no body turned up at the coroner's office and EMS crews never reported any matching incident.

RELATED | Stark County man claims wife died in Tennessee, but her body is nowhere to be found

Snider later claimed his wife's body had been cremated and was returned to Ohio on Jan. 7. When that claim was disproved, Snider allegedly lied again, claiming Roberta died as they drove between Columbus and Cincinnati en route to Memphis, so he continued to Graceland and tossed her body in the Tennessee River from an Interstate 40 bridge.

But when the Benton County Sheriff's Office in Tennessee searched the river and its surrounding areas, no body was found.

This week, Snider said he left his wife's body in a dumpster behind a bar in Bullitt County, Kentucky.

Dordea said he, Snider and his sergeant stopped in Bullitt County and flagged down a sheriff's deputy for help. When Snider described the bar, the deputy took the trio to the exact location.

Snider said he backed his pickup truck to the dumpster and disposed of his wife's body there.

Now, the problem is locating Roberta's body.

Dordea told WKYC that the dumpster's contents were taken to the Hardin County landfill. A landfill employee said Roberta's body was likely dumped in a 500-square-foot area, and may be 30 feet deep by now.

Dordea said he spoke with prosecutors, local government and even the state of Ohio to determine the resources available for recovering Roberta's body.

But in the end, Roberta's family said to let her be.

Last month, Snider pleaded guilty to aggravated murder, tampering with evidence and gross abuse of a corpse after he admitted to an undercover officer that he killed his wife in their Hartville home.

Prosecutors recommended life in prison with parole eligibility in 20 years for Snider's sentence. In return, Snider had agreed to reveal the location of his wife's body.

RELATED | Undercover cop catfished Hartville man into confessing to wife's murder

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