Hemy Neuman Claimed An Angel Told Him To Kill Rusty Sneiderman Outside Preschool Because He Wanted to Be With Rusty's Wife Andrea~Neuman Found Guilty But Mentally Ill Was Sentenced To Life With No Parole

February 21, 2012

Prosecutors urged jurors Tuesday to dismiss a murder defendant’s assertions that an angel who looked like Olivia Newton-John ordered him to fatally shoot a co-worker’s husband outside a preschool. They say Hemy Neuman was not delusional or insane and had planned the killing for months.

Neuman fell so hopelessly in love with Andrea Sneiderman, whom he supervised at General Electric, that he believed he was the father of her two children and that the only way to protect them was to kill Russell Sneiderman in November 2010, Neuman’s attorney Doug Peters said during opening arguments.

“He thought Sophia and Ian were his children and that Rusty Sneiderman was a danger to them,” said Peters, who contends his client is not guilty by reason of insanity because he couldn’t tell the difference between right and wrong at the time of the killing.

Neuman believed an angel told him to pull the trigger, said Peters, who didn’t give many details about the vision. He said only that Neuman told mental health experts that he killed Sneiderman “because that’s what the angel told him to do.”

Prosecutors, though, urged jurors to reject the insanity claim, arguing the 49-year-old Neuman meticulously planned the killing so he could be with Andrea Sneiderman. Prosecutors said Neuman will also claim he was visited by a demon who sounded like Barry White.

“I’ll boil it down to a sentence: A man wanted someone else’s wife so he killed her husband,” said Don Geary, one of the prosecutors.

Sneiderman was killed shortly after dropping the couple’s 2-year-old son off at the center in Dunwoody, an affluent suburb north of Atlanta. A bearded man in a hoodie fired several shots and then hopped into a silver minivan and sped away. It happened so quickly that police initially believed it could have been a professional job.

Tuesday’s focus was on Andrea, who repeatedly rejected assertions that she and Neuman shared a string of “intimate relations” during business trips in the months leading up to the killing.

“There was no affair,” she exclaimed at one point.

She said she repeatedly turned down Neuman’s romantic advances, including an email that said “I love you and marry me.” She said she felt like she betrayed herself for allowing him to hold her hand during one business trip. She defended herself for sending emails expressing thanks for gifts such as roses and excitement over his suggestion to go to a nightclub during a business trip in London.

“I can’t control what he said to me. I can only control what I said to him,” she said. “I was doing the best I could to keep my job and keep everything together.”

At some points choking up and other times flashing anger, Andrea said she was under Neuman’s “manipulation,” and that his increasing role in her life strained her relationship with her husband and her friends. But she bristled at accusations she was involved in anything inappropriate.

“I admit to caring about Hemy Neuman,” she said at one point. “He managed to get me to care about him. He managed to manipulate people around him to feel bad for him.”

She also said she believed he was stable.

Neuman faces life in prison without parole if convicted. He’d be turned over to the state mental health system if found not guilty.

Neuman’s attorneys tried to portray Neuman as a brilliant but troubled child who was constantly in fear of his father, a Holocaust survivor who was wracked with guilt because he was able to escape the death chambers at Auschwitz while 11 other relatives died. He eventually moved from his home in Mexico to a boarding school in Israel, partly to get away from his father’s volatile behavior.

“It was a life of anger, it was a life filled with terror, of not knowing when or why their father would explode with rage,” Peters said.

Neuman later graduated from Georgia Tech and bought a pricey home in a Cobb County subdivision after landing a job as a high-ranking manager at GE, where he made $180,000 a year and supervised 5,000 engineers and a $800 million budget, prosecutors said.

Neuman hired Andrea Sneiderman in early 2010. She decided she needed to earn more money because her husband, a 36-year-old Harvard-trained entrepreneur, was having trouble finding steady work, attorneys said. They hit it off, and on work trips they would share long dinners, wine and occasionally romance, Neuman’s defense team contends.

Prosecutors say Neuman began planning Russell Sneiderman’s killing after she rebuffed one of his advances. They say he bought a gun, took it to target practice and then on Nov. 10 camped outside Sneiderman’s house to try to kill him. He bolted when Sneiderman, who couldn’t recognize Neuman, stumbled upon him.

Nine days later, prosecutors say, Neuman arrived at his office earlier than usual — at 5:36 a.m. — and then sneaked out a back door to avoid security cameras and to give himself an alibi. He drove to the Dunwoody Prep, shot Sneiderman four times and hopped in the minivan and tried to melt into morning rush traffic, they say.

Neuman was returned to work a few hours later and was so callous about his actions that participated in the religious ceremonies honoring his victim, including visiting Sneiderman’s house for a Jewish mourning ceremony, Geary said. He even went to Sneiderman’s funeral and shoveled dirt on his grave, another Jewish end-of-life ritual, the prosecutor said.

Peters said he’ll argue throughout the trial, which is expected to last several more weeks, that evaluations from mental health experts who diagnosed Neuman as bipolar and concluded he has a delusional disorder back his arguments that his client couldn’t tell the difference between right and wrong.

“This case is not about what happened. We know what happened,” Peters said. “It’s about why.”


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Day One of the Hemy Neuman murder trial focused squarely on the victim’s widow, Andrea Sneiderman, who both the state and the defense say was romantically involved with the man who has acknowledged killing her husband outside a Dunwoody daycare.

Yet as she testified for much of Tuesday afternoon in a sometimes bizarre case that has attracted national attention far beyond Dunwoody's close-knit Jewish community, where both the victim and his killer were well-known, Sneiderman adamantly denied having an affair with Neuman.

“I’m a pretty wholesome individual,” said Sneiderman, 39, the first witness called by the DeKalb County District Attorney’s office. “There was no affair."

Sneiderman's husband, 36-year-old Rusty Sneiderman, was gunned down by Neuman outside Dunwoody Prep preschool in November 2010.

Prosecutors contend it was an act of cold-blooded murder by a jealous lover determined to get the woman's husband out of the way. The defense says Neuman, who has pleaded innocent by reason of insanity, didn't know the difference between right and wrong at the time.

“I admit to caring about Hemy Neuman,” Andrea Sneiderman said. “He managed to get me to care about him. He was very good at manipulating everyone around him.”

Defense attorney Doug Peters leveled the same accusation against the widow.

Seeking to illustrate to jurors the woman's influence on Neuman, Peters in his opening statement quoted a friend of the defendant's who said the 49-year-old had been "played back and forth like a yo-yo by Andrea."

Questioned by DeKalb Chief Deputy District Attorney Don Geary about her relationship with the man, including reservations for adjoining hotel rooms, marriage proposals and other romantic emails, Sneiderman was at turns dismissive and defiant.

“I had no choice” for the sake of her job and career, she said when asked why she continued traveling with Neuman even after he allegedly had made unwanted advances. Neuman had been Andrea Sneiderman's supervisor at GE Energy.

The woman testified she did not recall emails from Neuman concerning chocolates and flowers left for her in her room during a business trip to Longmont, Colo. She also said she didn't recall her response to the emails, in which she wrote: "So thoughtful, so sweet. I knew you'd try something like this.”

Sneiderman had told Dunwoody police and the DeKalb County District Attorney’s investigators that Neuman was not in Longmont. In her testimony Tuesday, the woman explained her lapse in memory by saying the date of the interview, Jan. 5, "was the day after my boss was arrested for murdering my husband.”

Earlier, during the defense’s opening statement, Peters detailed the dozens of hours of phone calls and hundreds of texts exchanged between Andrea Sneiderman and Neuman.

The night before the shooting, they exchanged three calls, the last of which was 18 minutes long, Peters said. She tried to reach him again the next morning, Nov. 18, 2010, at 9:27 a.m. -- 11 minutes after her husband had been shot.

"In the first hour while she is on the way to the hospital ... she calls Hemy six times," Peters said.

But she never called her husband, a fact Sneiderman acknowledged when questioned by Geary.

“Is that for you to question?” she responded.

She said she been told, by a Dunwoody Prep staffer, that there had been an accident. “They said you need to come here,” Sneiderman testified.

“No one would tell me what happened,” she said. According to Sneiderman, it would be another hour before she found out, at the hospital, about her husband’s death.

In his opening statement, Peters said doctors who evaluated Neuman diagnosed him as bi-polar and suffering from mania and psychosis. Neuman thought Rusty Sneiderman's two children were his and that he was commanded to protect them, the defense attorney said.

But Geary said Neuman’s actions were not those of someone mentally insane. The prosecutor recounted how the defendant lay in wait for Rusty Sneiderman outside Dunwoody Prep, then emerging to pump three bullets into his victim's chest.

"As Rusty falls, the defendant's not satisfied,” Geary said. “He walks up and, in near contact, he puts [the gun] to Rusty's neck and fires again. Then this man who didn't know the difference between right and wrong goes to his van and drives off quickly, to be lost in the morning rush hour."

Andrea Sneiderman was still on the stand at day’s end under cross-examination by defense lawyer Bob Rubin. Her testimony will resume Wednesday.

Seth Kirschenbaum, the widow's attorney, said outside court, “Mr. Peters made clear in his opening statement that he plans to put Andrea Sneiderman on trial in an attempt to shift the blame from his client."

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The trial of Hemy Neuman enters the third day of testimony Thursday.

So far, jurors have heard testimony that Neuman was either in love with or obsessed with Andrea Sneiderman, the widow of victim Russell “Rusty” Sneiderman. She has denied having an affair with Neuman, her former supervisor, and has described him as a manipulator.

Rusty Sneiderman was gunned down in Nov. 2010 after dropping his son off at a Dunwoody daycare center.

Testimony on Wednesday revealed that Andrea Sneiderman received about $2 million in life insurance benefits after her husband’s death.

Sneiderman readily acknowledged the insurance payment and disputed any suggestion that she and her husband had any money trouble. Though her husband was unemployed and trying to start his own business, Andrea Sneiderman said and her husband had about $800,000 in the bank as well as two homes, including their house in Dunwoody, which is largely paid for

Neuman has admitted to killing Rusty Sneiderman. He has entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity and his attorneys have said he was driven to action by visions of both a demon and an angel.

Prosecutors are portraying Neuman as a man who knew right from wrong, and who developed a calculated plan to eliminate a romantic rival.

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Feb 23, 2012

Testimony continued Thursday in the Dunwoody daycare murder trial with two witnesses contradicting sworn statements made by the victim's wife.

Hemy Neuman has admitted killing Rusty Sneiderman outside his son's daycare center in November of 2010. Neuman worked with Sneiderman's wife, Andrea, and testimony has centered on whether the two were having an affair.

Shayna Citron, a longtime friend of Andrea Sneiderman, testified about a phone call she received from Andrea on the morning Rusty was shot and killed.

Citron was on vacation in Arizona and headed to a spa when the call came in.

"She immediately at the same time was screaming to me that Rusty had been shot, and she didn't know if he was dead or alive and she was on the way to the hospital," testified Citron Thursday morning.

"Are you sure she said she was still on her way to the hospital?" asked prosecutor Don Geary.

"Yes," Citron replied.

"And she told you Rusty had been shot at that time?" he continued.

Citron nodded her head "yes."

Rusty Sneiderman's father also testified about the morning of the killing.

"Around 9:30 in the morning, Andrea called us and said Rusty had been shot and she was so, so sorry, and she was going to Dunwoody Prep to find out what had happened," Donald Sneiderman told the court.

The two witnesses contradicted the testimony Andrea Sneiderman gave in court on Tuesday.

"I didn't know what had happened to Rusty until I got to the emergency room," testified Sneiderman at the time. "No one told me what happened to Rusty."

Later, during questioning by the prosecution, Sneiderman repeated several times that she was unaware of what happened to her husband when the daycare center called her and urged her to get to the school.

"I fell to the floor," Sneiderman testified.

"You found out at the hospital Rusty had been shot?" asked Geary.

"That's correct," Sneiderman answered.

"Is that the first time you found out he was dead?" asked Geary.

"Yep," said Sneiderman.

"And you found out he was shot?" Geary continued.

"Yep," Sneiderman replied.

Testimony will continue Friday morning.

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Dunwoody day-care shooting trial | Day 4: Andrea Sneiderman barred from court

By Joel Provano
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Day Four in the trial of Hemy Neuman, charged in the Nov. 18, 2010 death of Dunwoody businessman Rusty Sneiderman, began Friday morning in DeKalb Superior Court. Before the jury entered the room, Judge Gregory Adams, after meeting with attorneys, barred Andrea Sneiderman from the courtroom and courthouse after explaining that she had made improper contact with witnesses on Thursday and had made disruptive comments during the court session.


Here's ajc.com's minute-by-minute coverage from Thursday's court session:

11:58 a.m.: Judge orders break for lunch until 1:30.

11:56 a.m.: Alan Schachtely is recalled by prosecution, asked to confirm previous information.

11:45 a.m.: Prosecution questions Walter Pineida, who did an enhancement of the security video for Dunwoody Police. Enhanced video is shown in court.

11:40 a.m.: Jane Newman, executive director of Dunwoody Prep is sworn in as a witness. She says there are 48 security cameras at the school, both inside and outside. Video showing silver minivan leaving Dunwoody Prep is played in court. She describes the location where Rusty Sneiderman was shot.

11:35 a.m.: Jack Gay, a neighbor of the Sneidermans, is sworn in as a witness. He says he saw a silver minivan driving from the neighborhood the morning of the shooting.

11:30 a.m.: Alan Schachtely, a software engineer for GE Energy, is sworn in. He worked with Hemy Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman. He says on the morning of the shooting, he spoke by phone with Andrea Sneiderman, who asked him to tell Neuman that her husband had been shot and she was leaving GE to go to the hospital. Schachtely said Neuman never exhibited any unusual behavior during the time he knew him.

11:25 a.m.: Robert Rubin begins defense cross-examination of Farnam. Farnam says he went to lunch with Neuman; says Neuman never mentioned he was having an affair with Sneiderman and did not mention any marital problems.

11:20 a.m.: Michael Farnam, a quality manager for GE Energy, is sworn in. He says he attended a meeting with Hemy Neuman at 2:30 p.m. the day of the shooting. He describes it as a "typical meeting." During two-and-a-half years knowing Neuman he never saw anything to question his mental stability, never seemed mentally confused. He says Neuman's conduct was normal at the meeting the day of the shooting; says Neuman never told him he was having hallucinations. He also attended the shiva and said Neuman seemed normal.

11:15 a.m.: Judge Adams returns to courtroom, jury returns moments later.

11:05 a.m.: Judge Adams calls for 10-minute break.

11:02 a.m.: Copening says Neuman acted normally on the day of the shooting; she saw no reason to question his mental stability, saw nothing out of the ordinary. She says she saw him later at a Shiva and a Christmas party and saw nothing unusual about Neuman's behavior.

11:00 a.m.: Michelle Copening, who worked for Andrea Sneiderman at GE Energy, is sworn in. She accompanied Hemy Neuman when he entered Sneiderman's office the morning of the shooting. She says he told her Sneiderman's husband had been shot. She says he left with Andrea Sneiderman's laptop computer.

10:55 a.m.: Peter O'Rourke, payment systems manager for RaceTrac Petroleum, is now on the stand; says debit card that matches Hemy Neuman's bank records was used to buy gas at a RaceTrac station on Delk Road in Marietta at 6:51 a.m. on the day of the shooting.

10:50 a.m.: Judge Adams again asks jury to stand, explains there is coffee available for them when they come in.

10:48 a.m.: Gough explains that she conducted an investigation of "event logs" on Andrea Sneiderman's computer, showing when someone logged in and out using her password.

10:45 a.m.: Rubin is asking Gough to explain GE's expense policies and practices.

10:37 a.m.: Defense attorney Bob Rubin begins cross-examination of Gough.

10:35 a.m.: Judge Adams interrupts testimony and tells the jury to stand to ensure they "remain attentive."

10:32 a.m.: Gough says Andrea Sneiderman's work computer was used the day after the shooting.

10:25 a.m.: Travel and expense report showing Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman meal tab in Norfolk, Va., for $154.34 is admitted into evidence.

10:20 a.m.: Gough says Neuman accompanied Sneiderman on all the trips except one to Colorado.

10:15 a.m.: Kathleen Gough, an internal investigator for GE Energy, is sworn in as witness. Gough describes travel records for Andrea Sneiderman.

10:10 a.m.: Peters says Neuman went to Andrea Sneiderman's office to get her computer, which she had asked him to do.

10:09: Defense attorney Doug Peters begins cross-examination of Watson.

10:07 a.m.: Jury re-enters courtroom.

9:53 a.m.: Judge Adams calls 10-minute break.

9:50: Video played in court of Neuman obtaining visitor's pass at 4200 building of GE Energy at 12:14 p.m. Nov. 18.

9:47: Video of Neuman leaving the building is played in court. Video of him driving into the garage and leaving in the minivan is played.

9:45 a.m.: Watson says security video shows Neuman arriving at GE Energy early on Nov. 18 in a gray minivan. Video shows him leaving the building around 5:51 a.m.

9:40 a.m.: Watson says Neuman obtained a visitor's badge to access another building at GE -- the one where Andrea Sneiderman worked -- at 11:48 a.m. the day of the shooting. He went to the second floor, where Andrea Sneiderman's office was. He says Neuman obtained another visitor's card to access the 4200 GE building.

9:37: Watson says Neuman's card was used again to enter the GE building at 12:37 p.m. the day of the shooting.

9:30: Watson describes security at GE, including card access to many areas of the buildings and security video. He says records show Hemy Neuman entered the building at 5:37 a.m. on Nov. 18, the day of the killing, says Neuman normally arrived from 7:45 to 8 a.m.

9:27: Jeffrey Scott Watson, head of security at GE Energy is sworn in as a witness.

9:23: Harting, responding to Geary's questions, says she never saw Neuman acting irrational or like he was hallucinating. She says the week of the killing Neuman acted normally.

9:21: Carmen Harting, Hemy Neuman's secretary at GE Energy, is sworn in as a witness. She says Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman frequently arrived together for meetings and "had a lot of lunches together."

9:20: Judge Adams explains that a fire alarm that disrupted Thursday's session posed no danger to jurors, who were locked in the jury room.

9:15 a.m.: Jury enters courtroom.

9:10 a.m. Judge Adams orders Andrea Sneiderman barred from courtroom and courthouse and orders her not to have any contact with witnesses.

9:05 a.m.: Judge Adams says that after a witness testified on Thursday, she was hugged by Andrea Sneiderman. Adams warns that this is improper. Geary asks that Andrea Sneiderman be barred from the courthouse. He says she greeted the witness outside the courtroom and told her she was no longer her friend. She also entered a witness room against instructions, he says. Defense joins prosecution's request.

9:00 a.m.: Judge Adams enters courtroom, huddles with lawyers for both sides and with Seth Kirschenbaum, Andrea Sneiderman's attorney.

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She is .

I Loved what Pat Brown said on the Dr. Drew video. She (as she usually does) summed it up to a "t". Yes, of course the two were having an affair and I do believe she may have hinted to him to kill her husband. I think they are both but NOT Insane. And have never seen a trial where the defense is attempting to say the defendant is insane. Usually, a trial does not begin unless and until the defendant is deemed insane or sane to stand trial. Hope this makes sense. It's late..or early. :scratch:

Jurors see video of police interrogation of Hemy Neuman

By Jon Lewis
DECATUR, Ga. — When the jurors in the Hemy Neuman murder trial return to work on Tuesday, they'll see the final minutes of the police interrogation of the accused Dunwoody day care killer.

The videotape of the 5 1/2 hour interview was shown for the jury on Monday, but technical difficulties halted the viewing with about seven minutes to go.

During the questioning, police grill Neuman about his whereabouts on the morning of November 18, 2010, when Rusty Sneiderman was gunned down outside of Dunwoody Prep. Neuman claims he was at work at General Electric, and only left to return a rented van.
It was that van that was used as the getaway vehicle in the murder. During the questioning, one investigator tells Neuman, "Hemy, we've got video of that van and the more I look at you,the more I see the guy driving that van."

Also during the interrogation, police ask Nejman about his relationship with Andrea Sneiderman, at one point even trying to get Neuman to flip on her and name her as a party to the murder.

Also on Tuesday, agents from the FBI will be called to testify against Neuman, who has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Week two of the Dunwoody day care murder trial got underway Monday. Former DeKalb assistant medical examiner Dr. Steven Dunton testified how Rusty Sneiderman was shot four times, resulting in five wounds, including a grazing wound to his arm. Dunton, who performed the autopsy on Sneiderman, testified the first shot was to Sneiderman's neck, just below the jaw, and was a contact range wound.

The jury then watched a five hour video of the interview Dunwoody police conducted with Neuman on the morning of his arrest.

Week one ended with more testimony portraying Andrea Sneiderman as cold and unemotional the morning of her husband's murder.

Dunwoody Police Detective Jesus Maldonado was at Dunwoody Prep moments after Rusty Sneiderman was gunned down. Andrea Sneidman arrived 15-to-20 minutes later. Maldonado testified on Friday that he met her at the crime scene tape and did not tell her about the shooting when she asked what happened.

He says he met her to calm her down, but she was not crying. "No tears," says Maldonado. He also noted she never asked to see her husband.

Dr. Mark Waterman was working at the emergency room at Atlanta Medical Center when Rusty Sneideman arrived. Sneiderman was pronounced dead about 30 minutes later.

Waterman then met with the family in a separate room at the hospital and told Andrea that her husband had suffered multiple gunshot wounds and died.
DA: "How did she react."

Waterman: "there was no crying, no hysterics. She seemed very unemotional. It was very unusual, to say the least."

Friday testimony in the Hemy Neuman murder trial is focusing on the morning of the killing. The victim's widow, Andrea Sneiderman, was once again in the spotlight.

Aliyah Stotter was at the Dunwoody post office with her husband when they heard the shots. They ran to Dunwoody Prep and found Rusty Sneiderman on his left side, bleeding heavily and gasping for air.

Stotter was still at the school when Andrea Sneiderman arrived. According to Stotter, she got out of her vehicle screaming, "What happened?"

Stotter testified that later she told her husband, "It's really weird that she didn't have a tear in her eye. I told the detectives that, as well."

Andrea Sneiderman has also been banned from the DeKalb County Courthouse. Assistant District Attorney Don Geary made that request of Judge Gregory Adams, citing several incidents.

Geary says following Thursday's testimony from a former friend of Sneiderman, Shayna Citron, Sneiderman hugged and kissed her in the courtroom in the presence of the jury. In fact, she pushed a guard out of the way in order to reach Citron.

Afterwards, outside of the courthouse, she approached Citron to tell her, "Since you don't believe me, we're not friends anymore."

Previous Coverage: Dunwoody day care murder trial
Andrea Sneiderman banned from the courtroom
Prosecution details events leading up to Sneiderman murder

Sneiderman then returned to the courthouse and attempted to enter the witness waiting room. Geary told her not to go in, but he says she gave him a stare and went in anyway. Geary says the witnesses who were in that room (mostly employees of General Electric, where both Sneiderman and Neuman worked) have asked that she be kept away from them.

Geary also told the judge that, during testimony, Sneiderman has been sitting in the courtroom saying, "That's not true. You're lying. You weren't there," all loud enough for Geary and his staff to hear.

Judge Adams barred Sneiderman from the courthouse until such time that she is recalled as a witness.

Sniederman, who was not in the courtroom when the judge issued his ruling, was later seen storming out of the courthouse, accompanied by her attorney and an investigator with the District Attorney's office.

In other Friday testimony, a third witness contradicted Andrea Sneiderman's claim that she did not learn of her husband's shooting until she reached the Atlanta Medical Center.

A former GE coworker of Sneiderman and Neuman, Alan Schachtely, testified that on the morning of November 18, 2010 -- the morning Rusty Sneiderman was gunned down -- Schachtely received a call from Andrea, explaining her husband had been shot and she was leaving GE.

Sneiderman restored on Tuesday that she was not told that Rusty had been shot until later that morning.

Two other witnesses, a close friend of hers and Rusty Sneiderman's father, Don, also contradicted her story.

Prosecutors spent the morning questioning former co-workers of Neuman, asking about his mental state. They all said they did not notice anything unusual in his behavior. Two people who saw Neuman a few hours after the murder said they did not notice him acting in any manner other than normal.

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Submitted by Eve Chen, Web Producer
Tuesday, February 28th, 2012, 11:40am

DECATUR, Ga. -- Video tapes of Hemy Neuman's police interrogations show he initially suggested Al Qaeda may have been tied to Rusty Sneiderman's murder.

Neuman has since admitted to killing Sneiderman outside his son's Dunwoody daycare center and is pleading insanity.

However, right after the November 2011 shooting, he offered a different theory.

Just days before Sneiderman's murder, Hollywood publicist Ronni Chasen was gunned down in Beverly Hills. Police first said it looked like a professional hit, perhaps by Al Qaeda.

When authories asked Neuman who he thought was behind Sneiderman's murder, he said it could have been Al Qaeda. Both Sneiderman and Chasen were Jewish.

Police later then blamed Chasen's death on a known robbery and drug suspect who took his own life before he could be arrested.

Video tape of Neuman's police interrogations was shown to jurors during his murder trial in Decatur on Monday and Tuesday.

HEMY NEUMAN TRIAL | Watch Live | Live Blog | Photos

11Alive News is streaming the entire trial live on 11Alive.com and WIZ tv, our 24-hour weather channel. You can find WIZ tv on channel 11.2, Comcast channel 211 and Charter channel 84.

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DECATUR, Ga. -- Follow live updates of the Hemy Neuman murder trial. Neuman is accused of killing Rusty Sneiderman while he dropped off his two-year-old son at a Dunwoody daycare center on November 18, 2010.

DAY ONE | Wednesday, February 29, 2012

4:56 p.m. - Court is dismissed for recess until 9:00 a.m. on Thursday afternoon.

4:56 p.m. - Citron is dismissed from the courtroom.

4:55 p.m. - "My children have always called Andrea, "Aunt Andrea" and they have always loved her like we all have", Citron told the attorney.

4:54 p.m. - "When I learned that she was banned, I called my attorney and I called my children's school," Citron said.

4:53 p.m. - "I became frightened after Sneiderman was banned from the courthouse because I was thinking back to what she had said", Citron told the attorney.

4:51 p.m. - After the conversation with Sneiderman, Citron says "I didn't know how to feel, the entire experience was very surreal."

4:49 p.m. - "We were walking toward the doors and the prosecutor [ Don Gearry] approached and she pointed at him and said "NO! I'm going to talk to her now" and she steered me to the bench outside of the courtroom," Citron told Attorney Douglas Peters.

4:47 p.m. - "I was surprised but somewhat revealed," Citron tells the court.

4:46 p.m. - Citron details the day of her testimony.

4:46 p.m. - Shayna Citron, Andrea Sneiderman's best friend is called to the witness stand.

4:27 p.m. - Court is adjourned for the day.

4:25 p.m. - Attorney Adams dismisses Dr. Brian Thomas from the witness stand.

4:07 p.m. - Neuman tells Dr. Thomas that he saw Sneiderman in the shower on a trip and that he "thinks" he had intercourse with Sneiderman in England.

4:05 p.m. - Dr. Thomas talks about the fantasies Andrea Sneiderman had about Neuman and about their trips.

3:52 p.m. - When asked about Hemy Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman, Dr. Thomas testified Neuman told him that he and Andrea Sneiderman kissed and had intercourse. Dr. Thomas added he believed Neuman.

3:49 p.m. - Dr. Thomas testifies he does remember Neuman saying he regarded the children (Andrea and Rusty Sneiderman's children) like his own.

3:45 p.m. - Dr. Thomas said he can't recall for certain if Neuman mentioned having suicidal thoughts.

3:18 p.m. - Dr. Thomas said Neuman spoke in a way that was "very naive, yet, sophisticated" and he spoke in a way that was very "confusing." Thomas thought the defendant had very "bizarre" thoughts.

3:12 p.m. - Dr. Thomas discusses the personality evaluations he administered Hemy Neuman. And he explains.

3:07 p.m. - Thomas discusses his background and role in the Hemy Neuman murder trial.

3:05 p.m. - The defense calls Dr. Brian Thomas to the witness stand.

2:49 p.m. - Dr. Dorney is released from her subpoena and dismissed from the witness stand.

2:47 p.m. - The state conducts a redirect examination with Dr. Dorney.

2:45 p.m. - During Dorney's psychiatric examination, she said he seemed "confused."

2:33 p.m. - Attorney Robert Rubin of the defense conducts a redirect examination.

2:23 p.m. - The state and Dr. Dorney have an exchange about whether a defendant knows if they're wrong, both, morally and legally; and if or not that knowledge means they are guilty or not in the court of law in Georgia.

2:20 p.m. - During Neuman's psychological examination with Dr. Dorney, Neuman expressed that he saw Andrea Sneiderman naked, thought she was beautiful and that he felt that "he was David and she was Bathseba."

2:13 p.m. - Dr. Dorney is questioned by the state about Neuman's HPPA waiver.

2:09 p.m. - The state conducts a redirect examination of Dr. Julie Rand Dorney.

2:08 p.m. - Court resumes.

1:49 p.m. - Court is dismissed for a brief break.

1: 35 p.m. - Neuman talked about reading the Torah, daily, and he referred to the bible stories of David and Bathseba and Job.

1:35 p.m. - Neuman mentioned "demons" during his psychological testing.

1:33 p.m. - "When he [Neuman] was a child, I think he was feeling chronic feelings of depression", Dorney explains to the defense.

1:32 p.m. - Court is called back from lunch recess.

11:59 a.m. - The court is dismissed for a lunch break.

11:55 a.m. - Neuman disclosed that he began to experience"eurotomanic delusions" and was infatuated with Sneiderman.

11:54 a.m. - Dorney discloses that Neuman was stressed with his life, wanted his wife to contribute to his household and he had reached a dead end with his career.

11:52 a.m. - Dr. Dorney explains that Hemy Neuman was experiencing some issues with having a depressed mood overall.

11:40 a.m. - Dr. Donrney describes her training, her practice and her role in the Hemy Nueman case.

11:24 a.m. - Julie Rand Dorney, a forensic psychiatrist, is called to the witness stand by the defense.

11:24 a.m. - Court comes back from break.

11:19 a.m. - Judge Adams dismisses the court for a brief stretch break.

11:13 a.m. - Pitkowsky confirms Hemy Neuman's transcript from Georgia Tech, indeed, belongs to Neuman.

11:12 a.m. - Rita Pitkowsky, the registrar at Georgia Tech is called to the witness stand.

11:09 a.m. - Matsch is dismissed from the stand.

11:03 a.m. - Matsch explains her beatings to the jury. "I've been kicked and whipped and slapped; one time my father pulled a painting off of the wall and beat me with it."

11:02 a.m. - Matsch tells James that Neuman didn't tell her that he had attempted to commit suicide.

10:50 a.m. - "It would surprise me if my brother told a lie because he never lies to me," Matsch told James.

10:47 a.m. - D.A. Robert James asks Matsch if it would surprise her "if her brother lied?" She replies "no" because "he would always get hit."

10:46 a.m. - The state begins questioning Monique Matsch.

10:36 a.m. - The defense rests their questions. Judge Adams calls for a ten minute recess.

10:34 a.m. - During a vacation to Florida, Neuman talked to his sister about "a relationship he developed with a colleague"; he explained that he was able to "open up to her like no one else". He had a different relationship with her then he did with "Rellie". Rellie is a nickname for Nemy Neuman's wife Ariella Neuman.

10:32 a.m. - Matsch explains a time when Neuman exploded on their mother during the twins [ Hemy Neuman's son and daughter] graduation celebration; she says his behavior was "out of character."

10:29 a.m. - Matsch noticed that Neuman was living above his means. According to her "they barely had enough money to pay their housekeeper." Matsch said she noticed that he was "more social but more angry."

10:24 a.m. - Describes when Hemy bought a house in Boca Raton and the entire time he didn't have a job. At the end of the year, while they were living in Boca Raton, they moved back to Israel because they had sent all of their savings.

10:18 a.m. - Matsch explains that Hemy didn't want her to go to boarding school so she went to Puerto Rico and was raised by her aunt and uncle.

10:16 a.m. - Matsch explains an incident where she blamed Hemy Neuman for saying the "b-word" and he was, subsequently, beaten; while explaining the incident, she begins to cry.

10:13 a.m. - Neuman appears to be crying while his sister explains their childhood. The witness, Monique Metsch, appears visibly shaken.

10:12 a.m. - "It would be slaps that were continuous. He would give us open handed slaps. One time he shoved vegetable soup down my nose," Matsch says while explaining Hemy and Monique's childhood and their father's volatile temper.

10:11 a.m. - "As soon as he came home he would have one or two Scotches [drinks]", Matsch tells the defense.

10:09 a.m. - Metsch describes a very tense environment around her father; she says "we never knew how he was going to react, it was always a very tense environment."

10:05 a.m. - While examining the witness, the defense attorney asks Metsch, if she "remembers her father talking about his experience in the Jewish deathcamps".

10:04 a.m. - The defense calls their first witness, Monique Metsch. The witness is Hemy Neuman's sister.

9:36 a.m. - During opening arguments, Neuman's attorney Douglas Peters states, that the wife of Rusty Sneiderman, Andrea Sneiderman, is "playing each and every one of us for a fool."

9:18 a.m. - The defense begins arguments and argues that the removal of witness Citron was "not related to this case" and that the removal of Citron and Sneiderman was un-lawful and provides evidence. The defense wishes to call Citron to the stand.

9:14 a.m. - Neuman declines his "right to testify."

9:14 a.m. - Judge Adams advises Hemy Neuman that he has the right to testify.

9:13 a.m. - Court is called into session by Judge Gregory Adams.

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Feb. 29, 2012

The defense team in the murder trial of a Georgia man accused of killing his alleged lover's husband opened its case today with an emotional testimony from the defendant's sister describing their troubled childhood and her brother's "totally out of character" behavior in recent years.

Hemy Neuman, 49, is charged with shooting and killing Andrea Sneiderman's husband, Rusty Sneiderman, 36, in the parking lot of the Sneidermans' son's preschool in November 2010.

Neuman, Andrea Sneiderman's former boss at GE Energy, has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

His younger sister, Monique Metsch, was the defense's first witness today. Much of her testimony centered around the violent childhood she said they shared because of an abusive father.

"He was a very angry man, so there was always fights or screaming," Metsch said. "You never knew how he was going to react. He was very erratic in his outbursts. We never knew how the evening was going to go."

Neuman's defense attorneys said in their opening statements that Neuman's rough childhood was the start of his mental illness.

"I would blame everything on Hemy, so the hand would go …slaps that were continuous. He would hit with an open hand," Metsch said. "I've been kicked. I've been slapped. I've been whipped."

The attorney asked whether all those things also happened to Neuman, and Metsch said yes, "if not a lot more."

Metsch described an incident when she was about 7 and said a bad word while riding in a car with her father and brother. Her father asked who taught her the word, and she said that Neuman had.

"It didn't take one second for him to pull over, literally drag [Neuman] out of the car, pull him out of the car, lean him against the car and start beating him over and over and over again," Metsch said.

Neuman put his head down in the courtroom at this point of the testimony.

Metsch also described the struggle of growing up with a gorgeous but absent mother and how her brother was a bright student, while she flunked several grades.

The judge stopped the testimony to ask why it was relevant to the case, and the defense changed the subject.

Metsch later recalled visiting her brother and his family in 2008. She had heard from Neuman's estranged wife, Ariella "Reilly" Neuman, that the couple were having financial problems, and Metsch said her brother was acting "totally out of character" during the visit.

Despite the money troubles, he was having a waterfall built in the yard, throwing an extravagant party for his children, offered to pay for Metsch's airfare and his wife had a new diamond ring, she said.

At one point during the visit, she said, Neuman "exploded" at his mother.

"If he could've made her feel smaller than a granule of sand, then that would be how he made her feel," Metsch said, tearing up as she recalled the outburst. "Everybody felt very uncomfortable."

Ariella Neuman does not believe that the erratic behavior suggests her husband was mentally ill, according to her attorney Esther Panitch. The estranged couple have been married for 23 years and have three children together.

"My client did not see any signs of a mental illness, just the many signs of a man caught cheating," Panitch told ABC News.

On another visit in December 2010, Metsch remembers her brother talking about a colleague in Atlanta, presumably Andrea Sneiderman, with whom attorneys allege he was having an affair. Sneiderman denies the affair.

"He told me that he had befriended a colleague of his and that he had become close with her in the sense that, for the first time, he was able to really open up to someone about our childhood and talk," Metsch said. "He realized for the very first time that he didn't have that kind of communication with Reilly, but that this relationship was special because of that."

Neuman told his sister in late December 2010 that he was considering suicide.

"He told me he was very depressed, going through very difficult times," she said. "He had been thinking about suicide."

A forensic psychiatrist, Dr. Julie Rand Dorney, who spent three hours meeting with Neuman in jail to assess his mental state, also testified today, telling the court that she chose not to accept any money for her consultations for this case.

Dorney acknowledged on the stand that "when there's a murder charge, there's an incentive to exaggerate symptoms," so she wanted to meet with Neuman to see whether he was faking his alleged mental illness.

When asked about her findings, Dorney said Neuman was "severely depressed," was experiencing "severe marital discord" and was stressed about finances and a bad review at work. He also said that Neuman had considered suicide.

Neuman told Dorney his outlook changed when he met Andrea Sneiderman in April 2010.

"He felt moments of joy, connected, like he had feelings again," Dorney said. "[He] then became very obsessive and would ruminate about that relationship … hard to tease apart how much fantasy or reality."

Dorney said that what Neuman told him about his relationship with Sneiderman was "confusing." He talked to Dorney about his obsession with her, but his testing showed "some possible psychosis," so Dorney did not know whether the affair was real or not.

"[Neuman] would at one point say he had sex with this woman and at later points when I asked him if he was having an affair with her, he would say, 'I don't know, I guess if she says it didn't happen, I guess it didn't happen,'" Dorney testified.

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Posted: 10:57 a.m. Thursday, March 1, 2012
Psychologist: Hemy Neuman not criminally responsible for death

DECATUR, Ga. — After the prosecution rested, Hemy Neuman’s defense team is now presenting its case to show that Neuman was insane when he shot and killed a man in front of a Dunwoody day care.

Dr. Adriana Flores, a forensic psychologist, testified first thing Thursday morning about her evaluations of Neuman.

Neuman is accused of shooting and killing Rusty Sneiderman in November 2010.

Flores testified that based on detailed summaries of the case and her own clinical evaluation of Neuman, she found that Neuman is not criminally responsible for Sneiderman’s death. She said this is the first time she has testified that someone is not responsible for murder.

Watch Channel 2 Actions News beginning at 4 p.m. for live updates

Day care murder trial section

Neuman’s attorneys have admitted that he was the gunman but say he was suffering from delusions at the time. He has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.

Flores said Neuman did not have the capacity to determine the difference between right and wrong in the shooting because he had bipolar disorder with psychosis, a mental illness. She said his disorder is characterized by four periods of depression and seven manic episodes. She said he did suffer delusions and was not exaggerating or faking them.

Both the defense and the prosecution allege that Neuman was having an affair with Sneiderman's wife, Andrea Sneiderman. She denied the allegations repeatedly while on the stand last week.

Flores described Neuman's views on his relationship with Andrea Sneiderman as an "eromatic delusion." She said he thought he had more of a relationship with her than he really did.

Flores testified that Neuman also a "rescue delusion," believing that he was the father of the Sneidermans' children and that the children were in danger. Neuman believed he was protecting his children by shooting Rusty Sneiderman, Flores said.

The prosecution said delusions of an affair do not prove Neuman was mentally ill, alleging that the affair was real. They will also present a doctor later in the trial who also interviewed Neuman and will testify that Neuman is smart enough to have researched symptoms in order to fake them.

After explaining her credentials, Flores said the prosecution had also tried to hire her, but she had already been retained by the defense.

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Dunwoody daycare shooting trial: Day 8

Day Eight in the trial of Hemy Neuman, charged in the Nov. 18, 2010 death of Dunwoody businessman Rusty Sneiderman, began Thursday morning in DeKalb Superior Court. The defense began its case Wednesday with witnesses describing Neuman's mental state.

11:55 a.m. Judge Adams calls a recess until 9:30 a.m. Friday.

11:50 a.m.: Flores continues to explain how Andrea Sneiderman's push and pull of Neuman impacted him and his decision to kill Rusty Sneiderman.

11:40 a.m.: Flores used a diagram to show a spike in the volume of phone records and communication between Sneiderman and Neuman. the two went from texting two to four times a month to about 17 times a month during one period. She also notes that Sneiderman sent more than a hundred photos of herself and her children. Neuman told Flores it upset him that none of the photos included Mr. Sneiderman.

11:30 a.m.: Dr. Flores describes their trip to Greenville, S.C. Sneiderman asks Neuman to "touch her" while they were watching a movie. Neuman is not certain whether he had intercourse with Sneiderman or whether it was a fantasy. Flores said Neuman recalled Andrea Sneiderman expressing regrets for what happened. Flores said it was dangerous for Sneiderman to push and pull Neuman at that time because he was already delusional about their relationship.

11:25 a.m.: Flores said Neuman told her that while driving home after the second time he had met with Rusty Sneiderman, an angel appeared to him and told him Sneiderman was going to hurt the children and that he needed to protect them. That's when he decided he had to kill Sneiderman. "I got my marching orders. I was a faithful soldier doing what I had to do," she said Neuman told her. At work while busy with projects, Neuman said he was plotting how he would kill Sneiderman, according to Flores.

11:20 a.m. Flores said she discussed with Neuman his trips out of town with Andrea Sneiderman. He described their intimate conversations and how he opened up to Sneiderman. Neuman also told her about another intimate dinner at lake Tahoe where they shared a first kiss. He also told Flores that he flew out to Longmont, Colo. to tell Sneiderman that an angel had told him that Andrea's two children were his children. He told her at dinner that night that he would be the best father for her children. He said she told him that she would not leave her husband.

11:15 a.m. Flores said he experienced a depressive episode in February 2010 after his job performance was categorized as ‘average' and he was having marital problems. She said Neuman said he considered suicide at this point. He said the only thing that kept him going was his kids. He said during a trip to Greenville he heard the demon tell him he was a failure and he planned to kill himself by running into a concrete barrier and said he thought of his children.

11:10 a.m. Flores noted another time when Neuman had a manic episode in 2008 while working at G.E. When he went on a spending spree and spent thousands of dollars and ended up in debt.

11:05 a.m.: Flores said Neuman described to her a time when a demon visited him again when he was a sophomore at Georgia Tech in 1981. She said it was indicative of a depressive episode. Court documents include a college transcript that shows that fall 1981 that was the only time Neuman was not on the Dean's list.

10:55 a.m. Flores talked about Neuman's chaotic home life and his abusive relationship with his father. He told her about being sent alone at age 13 to a boarding school in Israel and having to find his way from the airport to the boarding school. He said he felt orphaned. She said he broke down discussing the boarding school experience. She said he mentioned that he first experienced the appearance of a demon while at the boarding school.

10:50 a.m.: Flores said Neuman told her he loved Andrea Sneiderman and she loved him and that with Rusty Sneiderman gone they could be married and raise the kids together. Neuman wore a disguise because he had to hide the fact that he was the one who killed Rusty because if she found out, then he and she and the children could never be together.

10:45 a.m.: Flores said Neuman admitted shooting Sneiderman to protect the Sneiderman children who he thought were his children because he wanted to raise them so that they would not experience what he and his sister went through when they were children.

10:35 a.m: Dr. Flores said she administered four psychological tests to Neuman: A cognition test that showed his cognition was normal, a second test that indicated he had bi-polar disorder, a third test for malingering (making up or faking psychological problems.) She said that test did not indicate any malingering by Neuman, and a fourth test that looked further at malingering. She said the fourth test showed no evidence that Neuman was malingering or faking psychological problems..

10:20 a.m.: Judge Adams calls for a short stretch break.

10:15 a.m: Flores testified that Neuman also had a ‘rescue delusion' at the time that he shot Sneiderman. She said Neuman believed he was the father of Andrea Sneiderman's children and that the children were in danger, so he killed Rusty Sneiderman to protect his children and so he could be with his real family and the mother of his children.

10:10 a.m.: Flores said she found ‘erotomanic delusion' in ‘Neuman. She described it as an irrational, romantic belief about one's relationship with another person -- believing you have more of a relationship with a person than you really have.

10 a.m.: Flores also explained severe depression and delusions. She explained that people who suffer from delusions are highly resistant to change even when you present them with evidence that is crystal clear that what they believe is untrue.

9:50 a.m.: Flores used an exhibit to explain her diagnosis of Neuman to the jury. She explains manic and depressive episodes, which are symptoms of bi-polar disorder. She said talks of angels and demons is not unusual in someone who is manic.

9:45 a.m.: Dr. Flores said that she determined Neuman is not criminally responsible for the death of Rusty Sneiderman. He didn't have the mental capacity to distinguish between right and wrong in the shooting, she said. He was rendered incapable because he had a disease, a mental illness. She said Neuman had ‘bi-polar 1 disorder with psychosis.‘

9:40 a.m.: Dr. Flores conducted her own evaluation of Neuman. She met with him three times for a total of 12 hours for a clinical interview, criminal responsibility evaluation and psychological testing. She said she reviewed transcripts of emails, texts and telephone records between Neuman and Andrea Sneiderman. She said she did not interview Andrea Sneiderman who refused to be interviewed. "I very much wanted to talk to her."

9:30 a.m.: Dr. Flores said she was provided with detailed summaries of the case, including interviews of witnesses, to help with her evaluation. She said, prior to her own evaluation of Neuman, she did not review other evaluations done on Neuman by other psychologists.

9:25 a.m.: Dr. Flores goes through her credentials. She said she has been asked by prosecutors to testify in cases involving malingering. She said the prosecution asked her in September to testify in the Neuman case but she had already been hired by the defense. She testifies that she was asked to evaluate Neuman by the defense.

9:10 a.m.: Dr. Adriana Flores is sworn in. She is a forensic psychologist who diagnoses cases of severe mental illness, including the criminally insane.

9:08 a.m.: Jury enters courtroom.

9:00 a.m.: Judge Adams enters courtroom.

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I suspect that she was having an affair and probably did manipulate Newman into killing her husband. She can deny all she wants but other witnesses testimony have me convinced she is lying.

The Olivia Newton John part is just so much BS it's almost laughable. I think Newman knew it would sound so outlandish that people would think he was- at least for a moment- delusional. But I think he was thinking 100% clearly when he shot Rusty.

How come this trial is occuring so fast after the crime, did he plead guilty or something? Will the judge be deciding the case and assigning the sentence (as opposed to a jury)????

Never mind, I see there is a jury.

He also said he heard Barry White tell him to kill the poor guy!

Yeah, I guess Barry white was added for "effect". OTOH, Barry white speaks to me all the time. LOL
What a nutcase.

DECATUR, Ga. (WXIA) -- "I'm a great, great executioner," is a phrase jurors heard from Hemy Neuman's own mouth during his murder trial on Friday.

Neuman made that statement during a videotaped interview with prosecution psychiatrist Dr. Pamela Crawford one year after the November 2010 murder of Rusty Sneiderman.

Sneiderman was gunned down outside a Dunwoody day care center just after dropping off one of his two young children.

Neuman admits the killing, but his lawyers are trying to convince a DeKalb County jury that they should find him not guilty of murder because he's insane.

Before resting their side of the case Thursday, the defense put up several witnesses who claim Neuman has a bi-polar psychiatric disorder that causes delusions.

He claims demons and angels drove him to kill Sneiderman so he could have his wife and rescue her children from the same type of abuse he suffered as a child.

Neuman was infatuated with the widow, Andrea Sneiderman, a co-worker at GE, who he claims shared an on again, off again romantic relationship on business trips.

But testifying for the prosecution on Friday, Dr. Crawford said she thinks Neuman is not insane and did know right from wrong when he shot Rusty Sneiderman.

Prosecutors played several clips of her November 2011 video interviews with Neuman.

In the video clips Neuman admitted that he methodically planned Rusty Sneiderman's killing, just as he would have planned any of the numerous work projects he managed for General Electric.

"He thought of stabbing him, but he said that would be too messy and he'd get stuff on him and he didn't think that was a good idea," Dr. Crawford testified.

"He thought about poisoning him and how he would go about doing that; he thought about staging an accident, but he said when he looked at each of those scenarios, he said that since his goal was to kill him, he didn't want to take the chance of just injuring him," she added.

In the videotaped interview, the jury heard Newman, himself, explain how he considered those various methods.

He also described how he rented a car, wore a disguise and snuck up to the Sneiderman home in a failed attempt one week before the actual killing.

But Newman said that attempt was thwarted when Rusty Sneiderman came outside to check on a gas leak and spotted Neuman lying in the yard.

At that point, Neuman said he fled on foot.

He also bragged at length in the video sessions with Dr. Crawford about how he juggled several multi-million projects for General Electric and earned exceptional reviews for most of his work.

That's when he said, "I'm a great, great executioner," to describe his abilities.

Dr. Crawford said anyone who was genuinely manic would not have been able to plan something like a murder in such great detail, but would have acted impulsively.

She said his approach to the killing was just the opposite.

"He said that he approached it as a project, as any detailed project that he does; in fact, he said, 'I did a concept review'," Crawford added.

In the videos he also told her about seeing demons and angels, but she said he does not exhibit the kind of mental behavior that would support those claims.

She pointed out he never mentioned the apparitions to anyone until he first told his defense attorney after being arrested for murder.

Dr. Crawford also said it was unusual that none of his family, friends or co-workers ever observed symptoms of his alleged manic depressive condition.

Prosecutors then called Neuman's former GE boss to the stand.

Eric Gebhardt testified that in the six years Neuman worked directly under him he never noticed any manic depressive behavior or anything that interfered with Neuman's excellent job performance.

"Was he having trouble keeping a grip on reality?" asked District Attorney Robert James.

"No," replied Gebhardt.

"Was there any reason to doubt his mental state?" James asked.

"No," Gebhardt said.

The state's final witness of the day was Dr. William Brickhouse, who runs the mental health program at the DeKalb County Jail.

He testified that he's observed and interacted with Neuman several times since his January 2011 arrest and never saw any evidence of delusions, hallucinations or anything else to suggest he is mentally ill.

Dr. Brickhouse will continue his testimony when the trial enters its fourth week Monday morning.

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Posted: Mar 12, 2012 4:36 AM CDT
Updated: Mar 12, 2012 12:18 PM CDT
By GREG BLUESTEIN
Associated Press
DECATUR, Ga. (AP) - Testimony from witnesses has wrapped up in the trial of a Georgia man who claims he was insane when he gunned down a romantic rival outside a suburban Atlanta daycare.

Defense attorneys and prosecutors are set to deliver closing arguments Tuesday in the trial of Hemy Neuman, who's charged in the November 2010 shooting death of Russell Sneiderman.

Neuman's attorneys say he couldn't tell the difference between right and wrong during the killing, but prosecutors say it was a carefully planned attack.

The testimony wrapped up on Monday as William Brickhouse, the DeKalb County Jail mental health director, testified that he didn't think Neuman was insane.

The 49-year-old could face life in prison if he's found guilty of the shooting.

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I have no doubt that he w/be convicted. Of course, we all thought the same of TMLS so who really knows?

Must see video!!

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He is NOT insane! I sure hope he doesn't walk!

I cannot see that happening. He admitted he killed him. I also think wifey poo should go down for this as well as I think she was part of the plan. MOO.

Oh I think she should go down on charges too! She was involved, without a doubt. JMOO.

I think she hinted that she wanted her husband dead. Or, just came right out and told him. MOO.

Day 14 in the trial of Hemy Neuman, charged in the Nov. 18, 2010 death of Dunwoody businessman Rusty Sneiderman, opened Tuesday in DeKalb Superior Court.

Watch the trial live

11:45 a.m.: Peters ends his closing arguments. Judge Adams gives the jury an early break until 1:15 p.m.

11:40 a.m.: Peters tells the jury that the "gun was in Hemy's hand, but the trigger was pulled by Andrea Sneiderman." "There's only one verdict in this case, not guilty by reason of insanity." He noted that Hemy would not go free. "He is paying the price for what he's done." A verdict of not guilty by reason of insanity is a version that speaks the truth, that says Andrea Sneiderman is responsible for the death of her husband. It's a verdict that says Hemy was used, Hemy as manipulated."

11:30 a.m.: Peters notes that Neuman never said he saw a 6-foot vision of Barry White or a 6-foot version of Olivia Newton-John. He continued to hammer away at Andrea Sneiderman. "On Nov. 18, when Andrea made the phone calls saying Rusty was shot before she got to the hospital, she knew Rusty had been shot, because she had primed the pump...stoked the fire, she knew that what she had set out to do with someone who was sick, she had accomplished."

11:28 a.m.: "I suggest to you there's one thing that we and the DA's office and each of you have in common in this case -- that Andrea Sneiderman is playing each of us for a damn fool." He then tried to discredit the testimony of Dr. Pam Crawford, the state's expert witness, who he noted was not board-certified.

11:25 a.m.: Peters notes that Neuman told the truth about all the details of the killing, including the disguises, but he he did it to hide it from Sneiderman because if she knew what he was doing they couldn't be together forever. Peters talked about what effect Sneiderman's push and pull of Neuman had on Neuman's delusional state of mind, according to the psychologists who testified. Dr. Marks said it's like stoking the fire at a time when Neuman was spinning out of control, according to Peters.

11:20 a.m.: Peters notes that Sneiderman tells her friend in late December that she thinks Neuman killed her husband, but doesn't go to the police for six days, but continues to email Neuman and sends him an email about wanting to meet him when she visits the office. "It means she wants to further manipulate him so that the trail does not leave back to her."

11:15 a.m.: Peters tells the jury: "When you now for a fact that she is a liar when she says she didn't have an affair, that you know for a fact that she is a liar when she says she didn't manipulate Hemy."

11:10 a.m.: Peters says that on Nov. 19, the day after the shooting, Sneiderman lies to police about whether Neuman tried to break up her relationship. In this case, Andrea has said two things: I didn't have an affair and I didn't manipulate Hemy. I suggest to you it's up to you to decide whose telling the truth in this case."

11:07 a.m.: Peters mentions phone records that show that the morning before Neuman earlier tried to shoot Rusty at his home. He notes that one hour before that Andrea put in two calls to Hemy and that 30 minutes after he ran away unable to carry out the shootng, they were back on the phone." Andrea Sneiderman set it in motion. Neuman was crazy."

11:05 a.m. Peters: "Andrea knew Hemy was losing his mind. No one else did." He asked the jury to consider the testimony of Dr. Flores and Dr. Marks. He mentions their second trip to Greenville where the couple were groping and kissing and dancing together.

11 a.m.: Peters reviews some of the those emails, especially those where Neuman asks Sneiderman to marry him and told her how close he felt to her children. "You telling me she didn't understand that he was losing his mind?" Peters reads other emails where Sneiderman is pushing and pulling at Hemy Neuman.

10:56 a.m.: Peters notes that in Greenville, S.C., the couple had dinner, dancing and sex, but then Sneiderman pushed Neuman away again. Dr. Flores reviewed telephone records in the case. Andrea and Rusty shared almost 1,500 telephone messages and calls between them over a short span of time. Peters mentions the hundreds of photos that Sneiderman sent to Neuman of herself and her children.

10:55 a.m.: Peters: Please consider what Dr. Marks and Dr. Flores have shared with you: under erotomatic delusions, a person will try to pursue the object of his delusion by trying to rescue him or her from some imagined danger. "What they have told you is fundamental medical science that has been put in the bible of medical science and it fits just like a glove for what Hemy was experiencing."

10:50 a.m.: Peters mentioned Dr. Marks' testimony about a common characteristic of delusion is the apparent normality when their delusions are not being discussed or acted on. "What does that tell us about who knew that Hemy was spinning out of control. The person who knew that was the object of his delusion, Andrea Sneiderman."

10:46: Peters says a trip to Melbourne, Fla. and other business trips with Sneiderman began Neuman toward his decision to kill Rusty Sneiderman. After expressing an interest in being with her, Sneidrman tells Hemy that will never happened. "I am committed to Rusty." But she then tells him she fantasized about him and allowed him to give her a foot rub back in the hotel. "

10:43: The testimony in this case was that Andrea was a shrewd, smart lady on her own. She was smart and knew what she was doing. The evidence shows she guided Rusty through several jobs, none of which paid out." For the first time in their marriage, she takes on the role of breadwinner and takes a job at GE, he notes. For the first time, Rusty Sneiderman was staying at home and that caused problems in their relationship.

10:40 a.m.: "This case is also about one bad, really bad woman, Andrea Sneiderman -- adulterer, tease, calculator, liar and master manipulator. I respectfully suggest to you that following this trial that Webster's dictionary should be changed and this day forward, anyone who looks up the definition of evil will see nothing more than a photograph of Andrea Sneiderman."

10:35 a.m.: Court resumes with Defense attorney Doug Peters. "This case is about two good men, Rusty Sneiderman, 36 years old, from a great family, bright well-educated, graduate of Harvard, a hard worker; a great father to two precious children. Hemy Neuman, 48 years old, from a good family but clearly a troubled family. Bright, well-educated; honor graduate from Georgia Tech, a hard worker, a great father to three precious children. On Nov. 18, the lives of each of these good men were altered forever. and so we are all left here asking why. why is it that this could ever possibly have happened?

10:22 a.m.: Rubin concludes: "At the end of the day we have shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, that Hemy Neuman is not guilty by reason of insanity. Thank you."

10:20 a.m.: Rubin tells jurors that if they find Neuman not guilty by reason of insanity, he will not go free but will be committed to a state mental health facility and "only Judge Adams can decide when, if ever, he is released."

10:12 a.m.: "There is not a single piece of evidence that Hemy researched how to malinger," Rubin says. "Which brings me to Pam Crawford, a psychiatrist in South Carolina ... who was a board certified forensic psychiatrist but let that lapse in 2008 and never thought to notify the South Carolina board ... the truth is, she's not board certified." Rubin says Crawford testified that she called the medical board in Georgia to make sure she wasn't committing a crime by practicing in Georgia, but "didn't get it in writing" and didn't know who she talked to. Rubin tells jurors, "Two people sat in that witness stand and lied to you: One is Andrea Sneiderman and the other is Pam Crawford. One got $2 million and the other got $60,000. That's the state's expert."

10:07 a.m.: All tests corroborate that Hemy Neuman is not faking and is bipolar with mania and delusions, Rubin says. The state hires Pam Crawford, but she didn't perform tests to determine if Neuman was "malingering." None of the state's experts performed such tests, he says. "They just chose not to confirm it ... they chose to ignore it."

10:03 a.m.: Rubin says in 2010, "things are falling apart" and sees the demon again. He's unhappy with his job, he's unhappy at home, he has financial difficulties. Neuman asks why Crawford, the prosecution expert, didn't explore these areas even though she took the time to read 7,000 pages of evidence.

10:00 a.m.: Rubin says Neuman never said the demon was "Barry White." Rubin calls it "significant" that in 1998 Neuman left a good job in Israel to move his family to Florida and "blows through" $100,000. And in 2008, despite being $70,000 in debt, he goes to his 401-K and pulls out $100,000 to pay off those debts but doesn't pay off the debts. He ‘blows through' that money. Rubin says.

9:55 a.m.: Rubin talks about Neuman being sent alone to boarding school in Israel and says Neuman is still traumatized by it, as seen in the interview with Dr. Pamela Crawford, the state's expert witness. When he's left along on a Jewish holiday, "It hits him: He is alone, he is on his own and he is depressed, and for the first time he sees and feels ... the demon. And the demon tells him to "come with me," which means suicide.

9:50 a.m.: Rubin says Dr. Marks said the center of this case is Hemy Neuman's childhood. Some people who are abused as children suffer for the rest of their lives. Flores and Marks both reached the same conclusion without conferring with each other: that Neuman's father was abusive. "And there's no question that Hemy Neuman's mom was not there for him," Rubin says. "She was not there for them, she did not protect them ... she was out partying, she was out traveling, she was everywhere but home."

9:45 a.m.: Dr. Adriana Flores, who has treated and evaluated hundreds of people ... did a forensic evaluation, put her reputation on the line ... Dr. Tracey Marks, who also evaluated Neuman ... neither one of them a hired gun for the defense. Both of them told you that the dozens of evaluations they conducted ... Dr. Marks said she didn't need to read 6,000 pages of documents, most of which didn't have to do with why, most of them had to do with "who." They didn't need to spend 300 hours looking at 7500 pages of documents.

9:42 a.m.: Rubin says the first tests performed on Neuman indicated there was evidence of bipolar disorder.

9:40 a.m.: Rubin cautions jurors against viewing "guilty but mentally ill" as a compromise, because that is still a conviction.

9:35 a.m.: Rubin says the defense has to prove insanity by "the preponderance" of the evidence. The state, he says, must offer "proof beyond a reasonable doubt" that Neuman committed the act and knew it was wrong. Absent that proof, "you must acquit Hemy Neuman," he says. Rubin tells jurors they have four options for a verdict: Not guilty, not guilty by reason of insanity, guilty beyond reasonable doubt and guilty but mentally ill. That Neuman did not kill Sneiderman "is not an option we're asking you to consider" but Neuman thought he was protecting the Sneiderman children and didn't know he was doing wrong, he says.

9:33 a.m.: Rubin says Georgia law requires that a person be able to distinguish between right and wrong to be convicted of murder. The law, he says, is for humane reasons. "There has to be both the act and the ability to know that the act was wrong."

9:31: Bob Rubin opens for defense. "On November 18 2010, two worlds collided with terrible, tragic consequences. Rusty Sneiderman died that day. Hemy Neuman is now on trial for murder." The Sneidermans "lost a brother, a son, two children lost a father. ... but we can't compound that tragedy by convicting Hemy Neuman of the murder. Hemy Neuman ... did not have the mental capacity to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the shooting ... in fact, he thought he was doing the right thing, as bizarre as that would be to any of us."

9:30 a.m.: Adams explains procedure to jurors, says each side can take two hours.

9:25 a.m.: Adams returns, warns gallery there must be no outbursts during closing arguments. Adams orders jury in.

9:20 a.m.: Adams calls five-minute break.

9:00 a.m.: Judge Adams enters courtroom. Prosecutor Don Geary is arguing for a motion about what can be stated to the jury regarding Neuman's confinement if he is found not guilty by reason of insanity. Adams rules defense can state that Neuman will not be released if found not guilty. Geary files a second motion to "restrict allegations that were never proven at trial" regarding whether prosecution expert Dr. Pamela Crawford was practicing medicine without a license when she performed a forensic examination of Hemy Neuman. Adams rules the defense cannot accuse Crawford of committing a crime.

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The rolling of the eyes and the interruptions drive me

4:37 PM, Mar 14, 2012
DECATUR, Ga. (WXIA) -- Wednesday morning, jurors in the Hemy Neuman murder case asked to review evidence from the case. However, the behavior of the jury perplexed onlookers.

As Judge Gregory Adams played the first video of Neuman's interrogation, two or three jurors were observed lounging in their chairs and not directing their faces toward the screen.

When told by the judge they could adjust themselves to hear the testimony, four of the jurors declined, while others moved closer. According to onlookers, at least three of the jurors began taking notes rapidly toward the end of the first tape as Neuman explained his relationship with Sneiderman's children.

When the judge announced that the second videotape was beginning, two jurors shrugged and looked at their watches.

After about an hour and a half, the judge said he received a note asking if they could "stop watching the video." Judge Adams sent the jurors to take a break and to decide if they had seen enough of the video, especially after noting that some jurors had their eyes closed.

Once the judge and jury returned to the courtroom, Adams quickly asked the jury if they wished to continue watching the evidence. After hearing that they wished to go back to deliberation, the jury went back to deliberate, saying they didn't want to view anything else.

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Georgia engineer gets life without parole in killing

DECATUR, Ga. – A Georgia man who was found guilty but mentally ill of killing a man outside a suburban Atlanta preschool was sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Hemy Neuman received the sentence Thursday for the 2010 shooting death Russell Sneiderman. DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams called the killing a "planned execution" with no justification.

Neuman supervised Sneiderman's wife Andrea at General Electric, and defense lawyers and prosecutors linked the shooting to an affair between the two. She has denied those allegations.
Neuman's attorneys argued he could not tell the difference between right and wrong during the shooting. Prosecutors had charged him with murder, saying the killing was by a jealous man who wanted Sneiderman's life.
The jury's guilty but mentally ill verdict means Neuman will go to prison but he will get mental health treatment.
Neuman did not show any emotion as the verdict was read.
"This was a senseless murder. It was a savage murder. We believe it deserves the maximum under the law -- life without parole," prosecutor Robert James said during the sentencing hearing.
Neuman, a Georgia Tech graduate and father of three, was a high-ranking manager at General Electric, where he supervised Andrea Sneiderman. He was arrested about six weeks after the killing when prosecutors discovered he rented a silver minivan seen speeding away from the shooting on the morning of Nov. 18, 2010.
The trial garnered attention because the slaying was brazen, Neuman and Sneiderman had impressive professional backgrounds and because of the questions surrounding Andrea Sneiderman, who was accused of goading Neuman into the killing by both prosecutors and defense attorneys.
She denied knowing anything about the shooting and has not been charged.
Neuman pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. If the jury had reached that verdict, Neuman would have become a ward of the state mental health department and a judge would have later decided when, if ever, he could be released.
Neuman told mental health examiners he was visited by a demon whose voice sounded like Barry White and an angel who looked like Olivia Newton-John. The angel ordered him to fatally shoot Sneiderman, Neuman said in one interview.
Experts on both sides of the case disagreed over whether Neuman was insane during the shooting.
Russell Sneiderman, a Harvard-educated entrepreneur, was killed shortly after he dropped off the couple's 2-year-old son at a daycare in Dunwoody, a wealthy suburb north of Atlanta. Police said a bearded man in a hoodie resembling Neuman fired four shots at the 36-year-old Sneiderman and sped away, blending in with rush hour traffic.
Neuman's lawyers said during the monthlong trial he fell so hopelessly in love with Andrea Sneiderman that he believed he was the father of her two children and that the only way to protect them was to kill her husband. Defense attorney Doug Peters called her a tease and an adulterer who took advantage of Neuman's deteriorating mental condition to get her husband's $2 million life insurance policy.
"The gun in this case was in Hemy's hand," Peters said. "But the trigger, I respectfully suggest, was pulled by Andrea Sneiderman."
Prosecutors also had few kind words for Andrea Sneiderman. James, the DeKalb County District Attorney, suggested in his closing arguments that she was Neuman's co-conspirator and that the two were covering up for each other. But he said her possible influence on Neuman shouldn't take away from the crime that he committed.
"This was not because of some made up, some contrived, some constructed mental defect. It's simple," James said. "Hemy Neuman killed Rusty Sneiderman because he wanted his wife, he wanted his money, he wanted his life. Period."
Andrea Sneiderman testified that Neuman weaseled his way into her life and attacked her husband after she refused many advances, and that she didn't air her suspicions that Neuman killed her husband because it sounded unbelievable.
"Seems kind of ridiculous, right?" she said. "The theory that my boss could kill my husband, it seemed kind of stupid at the time."
Days after she testified, she was barred from the courtroom for being disruptive and improperly engaging a witness despite being told not to do so.
Andrea Sneiderman was hired in early 2010, and she and Neuman hit it off, exchanging 1,500 phone calls and text messages in the months leading up to the killing. On work trips, they would share long dinners and intimate moments, including sex, according to attorneys.
Neuman didn't testify, but jurors heard him through hours of video recordings of interviews with investigators and mental health experts. In one interview, Neuman was asked if he thinks he's the biological father of Sneiderman's two children.
"I don't know. I don't know. I don't know," he said. "I feel like these are my children. I feel like I need to be there for them. I feel like I need to raise them and I need to protect them. But I don't know."
Neuman's attorneys tried to portray their client as a brilliant but troubled child who was constantly in fear of his father, a Holocaust survivor wracked with guilt because he was able to escape the death chambers at Auschwitz while many relatives died.
Born in Mexico, Neuman was sent to a boarding school in Israel and still suffers from fear of being abandoned, his attorneys said. He later landed the GE job that allowed him to buy a pricey home in an upscale Atlanta suburb.
Neuman first tried to kill his rival Nov. 10, 2010, when he camped outside Sneiderman's house with a gun and waited to attack, prosecutors said. He bolted after Russell Sneiderman noticed an intruder on his property and called police.
Eight days later, prosecutors said, Neuman arrived at his office much earlier than usual -- at 5:36 a.m. -- then sneaked out a back door to avoid security cameras and to give himself an alibi.
Days later, Neuman went to Russell Sneiderman's funeral and even visited Andrea Sneiderman's house for a Jewish mourning ceremony, prosecutors said.

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I'm so glad that he got life but can receive mental help in prison. The other way this idiot would have walked after a few years. I still think the wife was a co-conspirator and I guess she's getting away with it.

One things for sure- with Olivia Newton-John and Barry White he certainly had a weird combination of music going around in that crazy head of his.

And I agree the wife is in it up to her eyeballs- 1500 texts and calls??? Romantic dinners while away on business trips?? The whole thing was probably her idea, and his mental illness kicked in on top of that. JMO

Agreed! Also, why give him mental help? He is in prison for the rest of his life! How many people who have never committed a crime are of dire need and cannot get the help they need because they have no insurance? This is CRAP!!