Andrea Sneiderman Trial: Sex, Death and Romantic Love

by Patrick H. Moore

The great British writer William Somerset Maugham once famously remarked that the tragedy of love was that it was always unbalanced: one party always loves more; the other always loves less. We saw that in the Jodi Arias case in which Jodi loved, or was at least obsessed with, Travis Alexander to an extreme degree — so extreme in fact that she slaughtered him because she could not keep him forever. Poor cavalier Travis, on the other hand, whether you like him or not, apparently thought that he could get away with playing the cad — the casual seducer who plucks the delicious fruit (and few honest men would deny that Jodi at her best was rather delicious) and then when the fruit begins to get overripe, discards it and moves on to something a little fresher.

Whatever one thinks about the Arias case, it’s pretty obvious that Jodi was obsessed with Travis and when the chips were down, he did not return the favor.

The case of Andrea Sneiderman is both similar yet different. Here the man, Hemy Neuman, is the obsessed lover, so obsessed that he too ultimately kills — not “the obscure object of his desire”, but rather the unlucky husband, Rusty Sneiderman, who in Neuman’s mind, stood between him and Andrea. (As an aside, it is interesting to speculate on what would have happened if Andrea had not gone along with Hemy to whatever degree she did.  Might he — while in the throes of bipolar derangement — turned his murderous hand against the one he loved?) We will never know because the clever and dissembling Andrea, whether or not she loved Hemy and whether or not she was actually sleeping with him, apparently never chose to reject him outright. If she had, would he have gone into a frenzy and killed her? We’ll never know.

Where the Sneiderman-Neuman situation differs from the Arias-Alexander nightmare is with respect to romantic love. There seems to be scant evidence that Jodi Arias loved Travis Alexander in a romantic way; in fact, given her convoluted psyche, it seems unlikely that she would have been able to experience romantic love with any partner. Obsessive desire, yes. Romantic love, probably not.

Whereas in the case of Hemy Neuman, it’s seems quite obvious that his feelings toward Andrea included both strong physical desire and tender romantic feelings as has been made clear in several of the key witnesses’ testimony:

Christine Olivera, the bartender in the Greenville, South Carolina nighclub testified she saw Sneiderman and Neuman dancing and kissing the October before Rusty Sneiderman was murdered. The DA Robert James tried to reduce their encounter to something purely sexual by wiggling his hips and apparently attempting to hump the podium, but my interpretation is that the dancing and kissing embodies both the sensual and the romantic, twin feelings that Hemy Neuman was undoubtedly experiencing.

The front desk clerk at the Hampton Inn in Longmont, Colorado testified that he jotted down notes instructing him to send Andrea chocolates and flowers. In his notes, he refers Heny and Andrea as a “newly married couple”.  Flowers and chocolates are certainly among the mainstays of romance yet simultaneously symbolize sexual passion and desire.

The email evidence from Neuman included the following nugget:

“I’m sorry… I caused you so much pain and all I wanted was to give you so much. You’re beautiful.”

Andrea’s return email seems to embody her penchant for the melodramatic:

“I know that I have to repent and live with for the rest of my life… I’m not sure how to live with this.”

Another email from Neuman described a night with Sneiderman:

“Besides the birth of Tom and Lee, that was the most beautiful, most wonderful experience of my life.”

Whatever, sexual activities may or may not have occurred, Hemy Neuman was clearly a very romantic fellow.

And then, of course, there was Melanie White’s testimony. She stated that Hemy described their encounter in Greenville:

“He told me that he got really close, and she gave in.”

And after the trip to London he told her:

“They were soul mates… they were on the bed and they petted.”

*     *     *     *     *

It’s clear that the torch Hemy carried for Andrea balanced romantic feelings with sexual desire. The problem was not these feelings as such; rather, the problem was that Hemy, as a result of his bipolar disorder, could not keep these feelings from being contaminated by an ultimately unhealthy obsession — an obsession that resulted in him murdering Rusty Sneiderman, believing that such an action would somehow bring Andrea closer.

Click here to view our previous posts concerning the Andrea Sneiderman trial:

Andrea Sneiderman Is Taking a Huge Risk by Going to Trial

Andrea Sneiderman Reportredly “Gave In” to Hemy Neuman in London