A conversation with Michael Cisneros

by Matt Marquardt –

I accepted a phone call from Michael Cisneros Wednesday evening.  We spoke for nearly two hours.

I didn’t attend his trial; he was found not guilty this week by a 12-person jury in the death of John Snyder, Jr., a heinous crime that occurred 20 years ago in Mason City.  Police and prosecutors did their best to convict him; in the end; a jury found too much reasonable doubt for a conviction.

With Michael Cisneros exonerated, no one knows for sure what happened to this little boy who did not deserve his terrible fate.  I will tell you, after our conversation, I feel like I have some pretty good insight as to many of the details of what Michael Cisneros went through the night of John Jr.’s death and many of the events that took place in his life leading up to accusations from Mason City police investigators while he was in a jail cell in Clarion and his eventual arrest as he was checking out of a Dubuque halfway house.

Our conversation was off the record.  I will not write about these details until or unless Michael Cisneros gives me permission to do so.  He asked me if he could trust me; I promised that he could.

What I can write about is my impression of him.

Michael Cisneros is a man I knew – only vaguely – growing up in Mason City.  He is three years younger than I am.  I was a runner, and he followed behind me in Mason City High School athletics.

What I knew of him back in the early 90’s was a kid with some running talent, soft-spoken, somewhat goofy.  He had friends.  Never struck me as a person with a temper.  I had bumped into him maybe 2-3 times since those years and he always made a point to say “hello” and ask how I was doing.  He would always ask me if I was still running.

Without divulging details of that fateful morning in July of 1994, I can say Michael Cisneros struck me as a somewhat articulate man; knowledgeable.  He has had his struggles in life in the last 20 years, as we all have.  He has had his ups and downs, some tough breaks in relationships.  He was employed in a job where – at times – people’s lives could have been in his hands.  He had responsibilities beyond what I thought he did.

Michael Cisneros struck me as a person who, obviously, is still very troubled about this incident in his life where he was at the mercy of a jury, prosecutors, his defense team, the media, his own family and the family of the Snyders.  Some of the words he heard people say during the trial would leave a scar on anyone, I think.  He maintained his innocence throughout the trial and I believe this is what helped him through the months after he was first approached by investigators until the jury uttered the words “not guilty”.

I believe the Snyder case is at least as fascinating as the Jody Huisentruit case, especially now that I know some of the detail of the night of the crime.  Instead of a missing anchor woman, in this case, we have a murdered child and several players who could all be thought of as involved in some way – but no ones for sure knows in what way or to what extent.  We have a man now declared innocent by a jury of his peers who, seemingly through a horrible chain of events and perhaps just plain bad luck, had his DNA on what police called the pajama bottoms of a baby with a crushed skull.  Simply overcoming that set of circumstances strikes me as one-in-a-million.  Many people say that when you have DNA evidence, the case is “open and shut”.  I told Michael Cisneros that I attended the press conference months ago where Mason City police and other investigators basically did a victory lap and might as well have said “we got him” in announcing the discovery of the DNA evidence in the case and announced their suspect.

I guess it seems that all is not always as it appears, and the lesson may be to withhold judgement until all the facts can be disseminated.

Michaels Cisneros may have a statement to make.  My advice to him was to wait, let the emotions of the situation dissipate, confer with his family, and then create a thoughtful response should that be his choice.  We will wait and see what, if anything, he will share.