Jane Snyder hoped the $10,000 reward she was offering for the return of her three Pomeranians would attract attention.

And it did.

But the man who called Tuesday afternoon saying he had stolen the Wrightsville woman's dogs turned out to be a con man, and the exchange he arranged at a local Kmart was an elaborate swindle.

So now, Snyder is missing both her dogs and $7,000.

"We were trying to do this in the best way we knew how: intelligently, methodically, but also I didn't want to risk him harming my dogs," Snyder said.

The dogs that Snyder calls "my kids" were taken from her car on Jan. 14, sometime between 9:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. while she was at Ades Auto off the Strinestown exit of Interstate 83 in Conewago Township, York County.

Snyder subsequently offered a $10,000 reward for Levi, 8, a light tan and white Pomeranian and his daughters, Kaylee and Maddie, two 6-year-old females, who are black. The reward was the subject of a front-page story in the New Era on Jan. 16.

At 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, Snyder got a call from what she later learned was a payphone outside a Rutter's Farm Store in Wrightsville. The man on the other end said simply, "I have your dogs."

The purported dog-napper said he took the dogs for his children, but said they were no longer eating or drinking and he wanted to return them. While laying out instructions for an exchange, the man said police couldn't be involved since he had a criminal record, Snyder said.

"If I get any inkling that there is any law enforcement there, you will not have your dogs. Ever," Snyder recalled the man saying.

Eager to get her dogs back, Snyder agreed to the terms and quickly tried to raise the money. She borrowed some from friends and from her business, Backroads Select Pre-Owned Vehicles on Dillerville Road. By 5 p.m., she was able to put together $7,000 in $100 bills.

Around 5:30 p.m., Snyder and a friend arrived at the agreed-upon exchange point, the Kmart at 3975 Columbia Ave, just off Prospect Road. Once there, the man, who called from an "unknown" number, gave them further instructions, which Snyder followed.

Snyder put the cash envelope on the top of a white, donation drop-off box in front of the store. The man then told her to drive around the back, where he said the dogs would be in a box.

"And then he said bye. I never heard from him again. The dogs were never there," Snyder said.

Now, Snyder said she isn't thinking about her lost money, or the mistakes she made in trusting the man, but is focused on pursuing her lost dogs. To help fund a new, $10,000 reward and repay the lost money, Snyder plans to sell a 1957 Mercedes-Benz Roadster Convertible.

"(The money) is secondary because I don't want to let this get in the way of me doing my work. I'm on a mission," she said.

If you have information about the dogs, call Snyder at 330-3167.

The reward-money dropoff and theft was reported to West Hempfield Township police; no one in the department was available for comment Wednesday afternoon or this morning.


Staff writer Chad Umble can be reached at cumble@LNPnews.com or 481-6031.