Human remains found on a property in Onalaska earlier this month are those of a man murdered in 2018, according to identification released by the Lewis County Coroner’s Office on Friday afternoon. The suspect in the fatal shooting was later found not guilty following a trial in Lewis County Superior Court.
Paul J. Snarski was shot and killed in the Onalaska area on May 11 or 12, 2018. Part of his remains were found on a property in the 500 block of Gish Road on Tuesday, May 7.
The coroner’s office said it would not release additional information due to the nature of the ongoing investigation.
The suspect in the case, Two Dogs Salvatore Fasaga, 44, formerly of Onalaska, was found not guilty of murder in a ruling by Lewis County Superior Court Judge Andrew Toynbee in July 2023.
Fasaga had been accused of fatally shooting Snarski, also known as “Hound,” with a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol at Fasaga’s Onalaska residence and then dismembering Snarski’s body and having other people dispose of Snarski’s remains, vehicle and shoes, according to court documents.
He was found guilty of unlawful possession of a firearm following a 10-day bench trial and a subsequent week-long recess during which Toynbee reviewed evidence in the case. He was sentenced to nine years in prison for that conviction.
Fasaga remains incarcerated in Department of Corrections custody. He entered an Alford plea last February to charges stemming from a separate July 2018 incident where he allegedly used a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol to shoot at a vehicle in Onalaska.
The Lewis County Sheriff's Office issued a news release Friday stating that part of Snarski's body was previously found in Pierce County prior to Fassaga's arrest for the murder. It further identified the human remains found in Onalaska as a human skull. The property was searched by crew from Lewis and King counties following the discovery.
The Trial
In 2023, defense attorneys and state prosecutors followed the case down from King County, where it was initially charged in 2020 after an attorney’s request for a change in venue. The case was not prosecuted by the Lewis County Prosecutor’s Office.
Snarski was 40 years old at the time of his death. He was last seen alive on May 11, 2018, when he reportedly left his Auburn residence to spend Mother’s Day with his mom in Oregon, according to court documents.
Snarski’s brother reported him missing on May 29, 2018, starting an investigation into his disappearance.
About two months prior, on March 25, 2018, Snarski and Fasaga were reportedly involved in an unrelated incident in which Fasaga was the only person arrested, according to a prosecutor in the case, who argued that Fasaga was “paranoid” and the March arrest “planted the seed in Mr. Fasaga” that led him to kill Snarski.
Fasaga and Snarski were “longtime associates” who “likely met while incarcerated together in their late teens at Green Hill School in Centralia” and had associated together, “on and off,” for over 20 years, according to a detective’s report.
According to a prosecuting attorney during the trial, who was referencing testimony submitted by two material witnesses during the trial, Snarski and two others went to Fasaga’s Onalaska residence together on May 11, 2018, and while Snarski and one of the witnesses were alone in the living area of the house, Fasaga walked into the room with a firearm and shot Snarski in the head. The witness then reportedly helped Fasaga “clean up” the evidence and stayed with him for two months until they were both arrested in July 2018 for alleged involvement in an unrelated incident.
Verdict explained
Explaining his verdict last year, Toynbee said he did not find the evidence produced by the state prosecutors proved, beyond a reasonable doubt, that Fasaga murdered Snarski.
“Beyond a reasonable doubt is the most stringent standard and most difficult to meet in a court of law,” Toynbee said at the time.
Toynbee said he had no credibility issues with the physical evidence submitted or most of the witness testimony, but said the testimony of Rachel Donnelly, the key witness in the case, was questionable.
“My reasonable doubt falls primarily on Ms. Donnelly’s testimony,” Toynbee said.
While Fasaga’s defense attorneys, Peter T. Connick and Peter T. Geisness, argued throughout the trial that Donnelly’s testimony is not credible due to her criminal background and evidence proving she lied to law enforcement repeatedly throughout the investigation, Toynbee said he was not considering Donnelly’s background and found he could understand why someone would lie to police during an investigation.
However, recalling Donnelly’s four-hour testimony during trial and the statements she submitted to law enforcement during the investigation, Toynbee said, “I believe that she lied during her testimony.”
He cited aspects of Donnelly’s testimony that contradicted her reportedly truthful statements to law enforcement as well as her body language while on the stand and tendency to “fill in holes” in her account of the incident.
Toynbee additionally pointed toward Donnelly’s reported behavior after the alleged murder, where she — despite being in a relationship with Snarski at the time of his death and allegedly watching him die just hours prior — laid down with Fasaga and entered a romantic relationship with him.
“I’m no stranger to victimology,” Toynbee said, adding that Donnelly’s reported behavior fell into the realm of “extreme” and “bizarre.”
The questionable credibility of Donnelly’s testimony could possibly have been overlooked had it been supported by another key witness, identified as DJ Lancaster, but the prosecution did not call Lancaster to testify or obtain his statement at any point during the investigation, Toynbee said at the time.
“The glaring absence of anything regarding Mr. Lancaster is part of what contributed to my finding of reasonable doubt,” Toynbee said.
Toynbee did find beyond a reasonable doubt that Fasaga unlawfully possessed a firearm at the time of the incident.
In Fasaga’s own testimony, Toynbee said, Fasaga admitted to keeping firearms on his Onalaska property despite knowing that his previous convictions prohibit him from owning, carrying or using firearms. Testimony from Donnelly and other witnesses also agreed there were firearms on Fasaga’s property around the time of the incident.
Donnelly's testimony
According to Donnelly, she and Snarski were in a romantic relationship as of May 11, 2018, when he stopped by her house in Auburn after work and picked her up to go to a friend’s house before going down to Oregon to visit his mom for Mother’s Day.
Along the way, they picked up a mutual friend, identified as Lancaster.
After visiting another friend, the three stopped by Fasaga’s cabin in Onalaska to eat and hang out before continuing the drive to Oregon.
On the stand, Donnelly described the property as “a typical compound,” with a small one-bedroom studio cabin with a deck, a detached outhouse and a large number of cars. Fasaga reportedly had two dogs that roamed the property.
Donnelly testified Tuesday that she and Snarski went inside the cabin while Fasaga and Lancaster remained outside.
Donnelly, Snarski and Lancaster had reportedly consumed meth and alcohol earlier in the day.
Lancaster came inside after about half an hour, at which point Donnelly started heating up food she had brought for everyone to share, she recalled.
About five minutes after Lancaster came inside, Donnelly recalled seeing the door fling open and seeing Fasaga in the doorway.
“Paul’s last words were ‘watch out, fool,’” Donnelly said, adding that she presumed Snarski thought Fasaga was joking around, up until he wasn’t.
“He (Fasaga) was crouching down and pointed the gun up and shot (Snarski) in the face,” Donnelly said while testifying in 2023. “One minute we were just sitting there, the next that happened, so I didn’t know what to think. It all happened within seconds.”
After the shot went off, Fasaga ordered Donnelly and Lancaster to get face down on the floor, Donnelly said.
“It seemed like eternity but it was probably like a minute,” she said, adding, “I thought I was going to die. I didn’t know what was going on.”
Snarski was reportedly making “snoring sounds” at that point, but no one made a move to help him, Donnelly said.
While she was on the ground, Donnelly said she heard one of Fasaga’s dogs “ragdoll” Snarski’s head, at which point the snoring sound stopped.
Fasaga ultimately pulled Donnelly up and sat her on one of the two couches in the cabin beside Lancaster, she said.
“I didn’t know what to do or say, so I asked (Fasaga) ‘Do you need help?’” Donnelly said, adding, “He looked like he didn’t know what to do with what was in front of him.”
Under Fasaga’s direction, Donnelly and Lancaster cleaned up the scene, mopping up the blood with paper towels and burning them along with their clothes and anything else they could see blood on, she said.
Fasaga appeared “calm” during the process, Donnelly stated.
Lancaster was sent to dispose of Snarski’s car, according to Donnelly, who said she ultimately fell asleep as she came down from the drugs she had consumed and the stress caught up with her.
While she was sleeping, she reported being woken up by something that sounded like a chainsaw, then going back to sleep.
Fasaga is accused of dismembering Snarski’s body and having others dispose of Snarski’s remains, vehicle and shoes, according to court documents.
Donnely stated she later awoke to Fasaga approaching the bed. She said she invited him to sleep beside her, which he did, and the two slept for up to a day and a half, awaking sometime in the afternoon.
When she finally got up, Snarski’s body was gone, she said.
Donnelly stayed with Fasaga of her own free will for the next several months, she said, with the two of them entering a “romantic relationship.”
When asked why she stayed with Fasaga, Donnelly said, “Just to make sure that he was OK and that he knew I wasn’t going to run off. I don’t know why that was important to me. I think because I just saw that happen.”
Arrested
Donnelly and Fasaga remained together until they were both arrested in July 2018 for an unrelated incident.
Fasaga was subsequently taken into federal custody for a stolen firearm case, then was transferred to King County custody after the murder case was filed there in 2020.
Meanwhile, Auburn detectives were investigating Snarski’s disappearance. An Auburn detective interviewed Donnelly about Snarski on March 18, 2019, and Donnelly lied to the detective multiple times during that interview, Donnelly confirmed Tuesday.
Defense attorney Peter T. Geisness handed Donnelly a copy of the transcript for that interview during her testimony on Tuesday and walked her through multiple instances where her statement didn’t align with the testimony she had just given in court.
Donnelly confirmed during the trial that she lied during that interview, stating “I was scared” and didn’t want to incriminate any of her friends.
She did eventually cooperate with the detective during the 2019 interview, saying she ultimately “broke down” and told the truth.
In the defense’s opening argument, defense attorney Peter T. Connick argued Donnelly and Lancaster are both not credible witnesses due to their respective criminal backgrounds and existence of evidence proving the two separately lied to the police during the investigation into Snarski’s death invalidates their testimonies, without which the defense argues the state can’t prove Fasaga killed Snarski.
Anyone with information pertaining to the case is encouraged to call the sheriff’s office at 360-748-9286 or Lewis County Communications at 360-740-1105. Information can also be emailed to investigations@lewiscountywa.gov.
This article will be updated.
