Daily Updates: Holbrook's murder trial opens in Calvert

After spending all of Monday picking a 12-person jury with three alternates, the trial of a Pennsylvania man accused of murdering a Huntingtown resident in September 2023 got underway Tuesday in Calvert County Circuit Court.

Judge Mark Chandlee is presiding over the trial, which is expected to take two weeks to complete.

The state is seeking life without the possibility of parole for the defendant, Brandon Ross Holbrook, 49, of Reedsville, Pa. Holbrook is accused of killing Joseph Shymanski at his home in Calvert County and then transporting his body to Pennsylvania.

In the trial’s opening statement, assistant state’s attorney Benjamin Lerner said that on Sept. 3, 2023, Holbrook “drove 200 miles” to Shymanski’s home, “shot and killed” him in his driveway and, driving 200 miles back to Pennsylvania, “dismembered Joe’s body and then burned it.”

Lerner told the jury Shymanski was “the father of two” and moved into the Huntingtown residence with his then-wife Heather Nicole Snyder in 2014. A few years later the marriage ended in “a bitter and contentious divorce.”

Lerner said that around 2021, Snyder, who had moved to Pennsylvania, had become romantically involved with Holbrook.

Snyder had gone to Shymanski’s home to drop off their two children off Sept. 4 only to discover he wasn’t there.

During Tuesday’s proceedings, Deputy Michael Daily of the Calvert County Sheriff’s Office testified that he responded to the initial call of a possible missing person and conducted a thorough search of the premises. Drones were also deployed to look for the missing man.

Lerner said deputies returned to the residence the following day and with the daylight, “they saw blood in the driveway.”

Lerner told the jury,  Holbrook had driven to Shymanski’s residence “prior to Sept. 3.”

Brendan Callahan, one of Holbrook’s defense attorneys, told the jury Holbrook and Shymanski did not know each other.

“Brandon Holbrook didn’t kill Joseph Shymanski, somebody else did,” Callahan said. “The state has the burden of proof. The state has this one wrong. There are more questions than answers.”

Callahan noted that medical examiners never determined the cause or manner of Shymanski’s death.

In his opening statement, Lerner said a forensic anthropologist will give testimony during the trial that will provide evidence that Shymanski sustained a gunshot wound to the head.

According to investigators, a neighbor claimed to have heard gunshots coming from Shymanski’s home on Sept. 3, 2023.

Lerner said in his opening statement that the state has visual evidence from various surveillance cameras in Maryland and Pennsylvania that link the defendant to the murder.

During Tuesday’s trial proceedings, one of Shymanski’s neighbors, Alison Pounsberry, said he had been over at her house on the afternoon of Sept. 3, 2023 helping her husband with a drywall project. Shymanski left the Pounsberry’s house around 4 p.m. after borrow the couple’s lawn mower.

She said the following day Snyder came to her home and said Shymanski was not there for the custody exchange. Pounsberry went to Shymasnki’s residence to help in the search, during which she found his cellphone and keys.

Of Snyder, Pounsberry told the jury, “She was starting to get a little emotional.”

A few days after his disappearance, what Lerner described in his opening statement as “piles of ash and bone” along with a human skull — remains that were determined to be those of Shymanski — were found in a wooded area near Holbrook’s home.

Holbrook has been held without bond since being arrested by Pennsylvania authorities and remanded to the custody of Calvert County.