Left: Kaley Snow (Facebook). Right: Bobby Alsup (Clackamas County Sheriff's Office).
An Oregon woman vanished after texting her friend, "I think this dude staying here might try to kill me," in reference to a roommate she was in a secret relationship with, then turned up dead in a shed on their property weeks later — bludgeoned with a hammer and wrapped in a blanket, according to prosecutors.
Bobby Alsup, 33, was found guilty Tuesday of second-degree murder, arson, theft, abuse of a corpse, and unlawful use of a weapon for killing Kaley Snow, 31, in 2024 and then burning her body in an attempt to cover up the slaying.
A Clackamas County press release announcing Alsup's conviction says he smashed Snow's head in with a hammer, then wrapped her body up in a blanket and "left her to rot" in the shed on their Flavel property, which he set ablaze to hide the evidence. He also dumped cleaning fluid on her body and the hammer he used to try to cover up what happened.
Prosecutors revealed text messages during Alsup's murder trial that Snow sent weeks before her death, telling a friend, "I think this dude staying here might try to kill me," after Alsup moved in with her, according to The Oregonian newspaper. The two of them had met through Alsup's girlfriend, who was friends with Snow, and secretly formed a romantic relationship together.
As the affair unfolded, prosecutors said Alsup began displaying alarming behavior, including selling items belonging to Snow online, which he did after her death as well.
"[Alsup] began renting a room in the house a few weeks before the murder, immediately started taking items from the home on multiple occasions and selling them," the Clackamas County District Attorney's Office said in its press release announcing Alsup's conviction.
"I'm not afraid to die, just afraid of nobody knowing who it was," Snow texted her friend, according to The Oregonian. She referred to Alsup as acting "sketchy" and being behind on his rent, while also hiding their relationship from his girlfriend.
"You've been gone awhile, so I gotta ask what's up with the room," Snow reportedly texted Alsup on March 12, 2024, just five days before she was murdered. "Do you even still want it?" she asked.
On March 17, 2024, cellphone data showed Alsup at the property they shared for roughly four hours. Prosecutors said this is when he killed her.
"Alsup struck Snow twice with a hammer, once on each side of her head," the DA's press release states. "He also took steps to cover up the crime, such as texting Snow after the murder to establish an alibi and dousing the hammer with a household cleaning product to destroy DNA evidence," the release explains.
During his trial, one of Alsup's defense attorneys argued that Alsup returned to the house and found Snow's bludgeoned body, per the DA's office. Alsup, who has several prior convictions for assault, "feared he might be blamed for the murder, so he hid her body," according to his lawyer's claims.
Prosecutors say the evidence and facts, however, pointed to Alsup being responsible.
"It is implausible that Alsup thought he would get in trouble, so he cleaned up someone else's mess," Senior Deputy District Attorney Stacey Borgman told jurors, according to the DA's press release.
Alsup returned to the pair's house just past midnight on March 21, 2024, and set the shed on fire using gasoline. Firefighters found Snow's remains after responding to put out the blaze.
"Detectives used cell phone tracking data to document Alsup's whereabouts, found Snow's blood on his clothing and noted that Alsup conducted numerous internet searches to determine whether police had found Snow's body or were conducting a missing person investigation," the DA's office says.
Alsup's physical and digital DNA "was all over that crime scene," according to Borgman.
Alsup faces a minimum sentence of life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years. He is scheduled to be sentenced on March 25.
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