Man paroled for teen

Tim Guider has been Loudon County’s sheriff for more than three decades, but he still remembers one haunting murder five years into his tenure.

James Glenn Snider, 17, was charged with the murder of 16-year-old Bradley Packett in May 1995.

“If I recall, we got a call from a neighbor that heard a gunshot. They saw the boys go over into the Packett home and it was in the basement where this occurred, but a neighbor called and said they heard a gunshot,” Guider said. “... It wasn’t long after that I believe it was the aunt of Snider called and said that he had just gotten home and had a gun — shotgun — and he was very anxious, but said he had just shot Brad Packett.

“I think we got there pretty quick at the Packett house and ended up getting to the Snider house and taking James into custody,” he added. “I know we tried him as an adult; he was a juvenile at the time. It was just a horrible scene. It was tragic for both sides. I mean when you’ve got two kids that — one loses their life and the other one basically loses their life in prison.”

According to an opinion filed September 1998 by Judge Paul G. Summers, Bradley was killed by a shotgun blast to the head. Snider purchased a shotgun four days before the shooting. The report also states Snider said to others he was “determined to get the money that Packett owed him from a bet, and the appellant had inquired when Packett might be home alone.”

Bradley was found dead in the basement of his home off Browder Hollow Road — the same house his father, Michael Packett, lives in to this day.

“I mean it was a very bad scene,” Tony Aikens, former LCSO chief deputy, said. “It was a brutal murder and something that in your law enforcement career you’re never going to forget.”

Snider was convicted of first-degree murder in January 1997 and sentenced to life in prison with possibility of parole after 25 years.

Despite the guilty verdict, Michael said he can never have full closure for his son’s death.

“There’s never any closure in a murder — never,” Michael said. “I mean it’ll be with you until the day you die. You just try to push it back. Every time you go through like a parole hearing or something like that, well, you’re reliving it again. I mean it really takes a lot out of you.”

Snider was recently released from prison on parole. Despite attempts through family members, he could not be reached for comment.

“Well, he ruined my life,” Michael said. “He took my only child. I’ll never get to see him grow up and have a wife, have grandchildren. Just coming into somebody’s home like that, the way he killed him, he killed him execution style.”

Michael still wonders if he could have done something to prevent his son’s death.

“I don’t have anything of the life I had before,” Wanda Packett, Bradley’s stepmother, said. “There’s ... been no happiness.”

“We’re getting older and I don’t want to spend the rest of my life living through that all the time,” Michael added.

He described Bradley as someone who had “such a good heart.”

“He was always eager to please,” Michael said. “He’d do anything for anybody and he’d never want anything in return. He loved sports. I had him in sports from 6 years old all the way up to high school. He loved to cook. He was checking into culinary schools and he wanted to be a chef. He was a pretty good cook. I don’t know, he just had a big heart. He had a lot of ambition and I think he had a bright future.”

He’s not sure he can forgive Snider.

“I’m sure people can change. I’m sure people can find God and be forgiven,” he said. “I’ll tell you a story I watched (on television news) — this guy he was a Christian, somebody had murdered his mother and he’s talking about forgiveness. He even wore a T-shirt that said, ‘Forgiveness in justice.’ But he wanted to forgive the man who had done it, and he said, ‘Well, you know life is a privilege. You take a life, you lose your privilege.’ Later on in that segment it said, ‘Well, you know they were wanting life without parole.’ Yeah he could forgive him but he didn’t want him out. I mean he took a life that will never get to be lived on this earth, and he took away my son, my only grandchildren, I’ll never have grandchildren. Brad’s over there laying in a grave. Now why should he ever have a right to get out and have a life, have a wife and kids? I don’t see it.”

Michael said he’ll continue “pushing it back.”

“Just go back to pushing it back, pushing it away, trying to forget it,” he said.