Killer Of Putnam 21-Year-Old Studying At SUNY Potsdam Gets 22 To Life

PUTNAM COUNTY, NY —The man who admitted to killing a SUNY Potsdam music major from Putnam County last year will spend 22 years to life in prison.

Snow pleaded guilty in June to second-degree murder in the shooting death of 21-year-old Crane School of Music student Elizabeth Howell in February 2022, as she walked on a road just off campus.

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Howell, a graduate of Brewster High School, was shot while on her way home from class at the upstate college. A cellist with the university's Crane Symphony Orchestra, the 21-year-old Patterson resident was expected to graduate this year.

The sentence for 32-year-old Michael Snow was handed down in St. Lawrence County Court, according to a report from WWNY-TV7 news in Watertown.

District Attorney Gary Pasqua told the news station that Howell was not Snow’s original target. He planned to target former coworkers and a family member, but he instead targeted a random SUNY Potsdam student because that’s where one of his original targets works.

Snow said he wanted to create bad press for the school.

"He had set in motion a plan to do that dating back two years prior to this attack. When that plan was thwarted, and he didn’t believe that would be successful, he then changed that to an attack concentrated out of a location and that was SUNY Potsdam," Pasqua told News 7.

Prosecutors said Snow used a ghost gun he got online in the killing. Snow called Howell over to his car under the ruse of needing directions before shooting her three times.

Read more about this story at WWNY-TV 7 News