‘Unbelievable. There’s No Reason for It,’ Sister Says

The night before Sheldon Snyder was gunned down, he and his older sister knelt on the living room carpet of her Simi Valley home and reviewed the blueprints for his dream house.

Snyder had drawn up the plans himself and already had grading completed on the dirt lot in Simi Valley. Next week, a crew was to begin construction on the four-bedroom house.

Single and focused only on work, he had devoted his life to reaching this goal.

“He kept building this house, thinking that some day he would find a wife and fill it with kids,” Donna Wagner said Thursday, crouching on the same spot of her carpet, suppressing tears as she again looked over her brother’s plans.

“Now Shel is dead,” said Wagner, 38. “This is unbelievable. There’s no reason for it. I don’t understand it.”

Wagner said she had barely gotten over the shock and sadness of losing her 47-year-old brother, Cliff, who died last year of a brain aneurysm. The death of Sheldon 17 days before his 37th birthday was harder to fathom, she said.

Snyder, a quiet, easy-going man who loved nothing more than sitting at a computer and designing software, was shot several times Wednesday, allegedly by a former employee. The suspect, 29-year-old Mikhail Khaimchayev, who then shot himself in the abdomen, authorities say, remains in critical condition at St. John’s Regional Medical Center in Oxnard.

“My mom called me last night around 6 p.m. and blurted out, ‘The police are probably on their way; Shel is dead,’ ” Wagner said. “I thought: a plane crash, a car accident--but to be killed like that.”

Being a little more than a year apart in age, the brother and sister were close as children in Simi Valley, and grew closer in high school when their parents divorced. Their mother, Patricia, eventually moved to Pennsylvania, Wagner said.

“We were friends; we talked to each other about family stuff,” Wagner said. “When I think about Shel as a child, I see him at my father’s business, working at my father’s side.”

Snyder had business in his blood, Wagner said. An analytical child, he preferred spending days inside the office of his father’s compressed-gas company to tossing balls with neighborhood pals.

Clyde Snyder and his son would analyze gas mixtures and inspect the company’s books well into the night. The younger Snyder developed a strong work ethic even as a child, Wagner said. It came as no surprise to the family that he eventually owned two businesses.

After earning a degree in computer science from East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, where Snyder went to be closer to his mother, he returned to Simi Valley.

Back home, with Jon Westrup, his buddy since eighth grade, Snyder started a company that manufactures A-frame beams for buildings, Specialty Truss in Canyon Country.

“We sat next to each other, and from that point on we were friends,” said Westrup, 36, of Simi Valley.

Westrup and Snyder had gone to Simi Valley High School together, raced hot rods on weekends and worked side-by-side at part-time jobs.

“He was my best friend until yesterday,” Westrup said Thursday. “He was like a brother.”

Snyder was the first person Westrup called after each of his children was born--including Wednesday.

Several hours before the shooting, Westrup called Snyder at his Simi Valley home to announce that his wife, Cindy, had just delivered the couple’s fourth child, Hannah. Snyder told Westrup he would visit at Simi Valley Hospital in a few hours.

When his friend didn’t show up, Westrup paged Snyder, but received no response. When he called Snyder’s office, he got a voicemail message.

“It was about 4 o’clock that afternoon and we were sitting in the hospital room. The baby was with us and it was the first moment we had to ourselves,” Westrup said. “The TV was on and the news said a software engineer in Camarillo had been shot.”

What were the odds, Westrup said he initially thought. Seconds later, the words “Postal Innovations” were announced.

“Then I knew,” Westrup said.

At the same time he co-owned the truss business with Westrup, Snyder worked at a Unisys Corp. office in Camarillo, where he met Steve Simone. About three years ago, Snyder and Simone started a software company, Postal Innovations.

Snyder was the creative force behind the business, Wagner said. He designed the software, and Simone ran the business end, she said.

Preferring to work behind the scenes, Snyder didn’t normally do the hiring or the firing; nor did he often deal with employees, Wagner said. In fact, she said, he sometimes arrived at the office at night and worked until dawn. He kept in shape by exercising at the gym several times a week.

Although a co-owner of the company, Snyder was casual--wearing jeans and a sweatshirt to work rather than a suit and tie. Though not so much a people person, Snyder was well-liked by his employees, Wagner said.

“He was one of those incredibly intelligent and witty men who was brilliant at what he did,” said Denise Asvitt, controller at Postal Innovations.

“He’d work till the wee hours of the morning,” said Rick Woodman, a programmer at the company. “He would work 13 to 14 hours at a time, and he was a hell of a nice guy.”

Wagner elaborated.

“He was not an aggressive person,” she said of her youthful-looking, dark-haired brother. “He was quiet and kind of shy. He was a kind person.”

When he visited his sister’s house the evening before his death, Snyder mentioned nothing about problems at work, Wagner said.

Instead, he downloaded several computer games for Wagner’s two children, ages 5 and 8. Then Snyder spoke excitedly about his new home with his sister and brother-in-law, Jim.

“He talked nonstop about his house and what his next step was,” said Wagner, who owns a contracting business with her husband. “Then he gave the kids a big hug and kiss and said, ‘Goodbye, I’ll talk to you tomorrow.’ ”

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Times staff writer Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.