More than four decades after Annapolis woman Nancy Snow disappeared, Paul Collins — a longtime “person of interest” — has remained silent as Dateline, newspapers, crime websites and podcasts have aired and published dozens of stories about the disappearance.
At 74, as the 45th anniversary of Snow’s disappearance approaches, Collins tells his story for the first time in a series of interviews with The Baltimore Sun.
One afternoon in mid-October, The Sun tracked down Collins in a leafy neighborhood in Alexandria, Virginia, where he lives with his wife, Lydia, in the one-story ranch-style house he inherited from his mother. He was the last person to see her alive when he said he took her to Annapolis.
Lydia opened the door and said that her husband was sleeping and did not want to be questioned. The Sun asked her if Collins could come to the door and say it himself.
A few minutes later, Collins appeared in jeans, sneakers and a T-shirt. Collins filled the door: he’s 6ft 2in tall and stocky, built like a retired football player with a full head of gray hair. “My lawyer said I shouldn’t talk to anyone,” he said.
“I don’t know anything,” Collins told The Sun for the first time. He slowly opened up and gave his version of events over the course of an hour and forty-five minutes. Collins said some coverage of the case over the years has been inaccurate.
For example, at least one story reported that Collins appeared before a grand jury in 2000 and exercised his 5th Amendment right to remain silent. “I never appeared before a grand jury,” he said.
He was gentle and calm during the interview.
“I don’t know what happened to her the last time I saw her, when she waved at me and turned the corner. It’s not my fault, I just waved goodbye.”
With his wife by his side, Collins answered questions about his relationship with Snow, who was 44 when she disappeared. Collins answered additional questions during a two-hour phone interview.
“I don’t know what happened to her,” he said in every interview.
Snow’s three daughters, who were teenagers when their mother disappeared, aren’t convinced. “We always knew he was responsible for her disappearance,” said Justine Snow, the middle daughter.
in 1980 Collins stayed at Snow’s apartment for two months while she was in Missouri working for the Republican National Committee on the Senate campaign. She returned to Maryland on Election Day, 1980. November 4th, the day Ronald Reagan was elected. She disappeared the day after Collins picked her up outside a luxury Towson hotel where she had spent the night with a boyfriend, police told The Sun.
Sharp and vague memories
Collins gave specific details about the last time he said he saw Snow, whom he described as a friend and casual lover. “The relationship was physical,” Collins said.
His memory today is not so clear because of what happened when Snow returned to Maryland. Collins said he remembers picking up Snow to drive her to Annapolis, but he’s not sure if he picked her up from the Towson hotel or the BWI airport. He doesn’t remember driving Snow’s Volkswagen, which he said she let him drive. After all this time, “some things are unclear,” he said.
in 1981 in April in a missing person’s report filed, Collins told police he picked up Snow from a Towson hotel on Nov. 5.
She was pronounced dead seven years later.
“No one saw her again”
Police believe Collins picked up Snow at a Towson hotel, not BWI Airport, in 1980, based on witness statements. November 5
“There’s no accounting for what happened between the time she got into that car and now,” said Corporal William Noel, the Annapolis Police Department’s cold case detective investigating Snow’s disappearance. “Nobody saw her again. I don’t know if she made it to Annapolis.”
Collins told The Sun, as did Snow’s daughter after her disappearance, that he drove her to Annapolis where she went to a bar and later returned home saying she planned to go on a boat with a man called “J” or “Captain Jay”. He said he didn’t join the bar because he wasn’t feeling well, so he stayed at the Annapolis apartment.
Snow wanted to work as a cook on a ship
While in Missouri, Snow wrote to one of her daughters that she could soon work on a ship. “Looks like Paul thinks I have a job as a boat cook in my pocket,” she wrote. “It’s supposed to go between Fort Lauderdale and the islands. I don’t know if I’ll take it or not. It’s all so uncertain, isn’t it?”
Snow also wrote that she met “a wonderful, exciting, intelligent and funny man. He is a writer, producer and director of political TV commercials and short films. 53 years old. Lives in Baltimore.”
The man was never a suspect and has since died, police said.
Collins said he last saw Snow a few hours after she told him about going on a boat with “Jay,” or “Captain Jay,” when he escorted her from the third floor of the apartment building where she lived.
“I took her down the stairs,” he said. “We said goodbye. She went to the corner. She was carrying a couple of sea bags and a large straw purse. I got the impression she was going to the harbor to get a ride. She said something about riding in a van because they had a lot of sails. I got the impression she was going to Florida. She was swimming in a hat. Goodbye.”
Snow may have aspired to work on the ship, but “she’s not going on a trip without telling her daughters,” Noel said.
The police file on Snow’s disappearance is eight inches thick, including a 3.5-inch file from the Naval Criminal Investigative Service on a former Navy member suspected of being “J” or “Captain J.” Investigators found no evidence linking the man to Collins’ story or Snow.
“We went down a lot of rabbit holes,” Noel said.
Collins “lives in the middle”
in 2021 in March Collins declined Noel’s invitation for a face-to-face interview.
The invitation stands, Noel said. “I’m trying to reject you, not box you,” Noel said. “He [Collins] never provided any effective information to exonerate or incriminate him. He lived in the middle.”
A friendly and charismatic woman and a quiet “nerd”
Snow and Collins were a study in contrasts.
Her daughters and friends described Snow as gregarious and charismatic, an excellent cook who spoke seven languages. Snow’s ex-husband, the father of her three girls, served in the military; the family has lived in or visited many countries, including Brazil, Portugal and Germany. In the 1970s, Snow hosted a daytime television show in California, as well as a radio program.
Collins is a self-described “nerd” who operates a radio and, according to his wife, “doesn’t like conflict.”
Of Snow’s friendship with Collins, Noel said: “I think she felt sorry for him and he was comfortable. He was a step above because he was a drifter. She didn’t take him seriously. I wonder how he reacted when he found out she was seriously interested in another man.”
Collins said he wasn’t upset that Snow was nervous about a new love. “I’m not jealous,” he said.
Snow’s daughters find Collins’ behavior suspicious
Snow’s three daughters, Stacy, Justine and Kimberly, said much of Collins’ behavior after their mother’s disappearance was suspicious. Due to privacy concerns, they asked to be identified by their first names.
For example, they said that in the weeks after Snow’s disappearance, Collins gave away many of his mother’s clothes, artwork and other items, as if he knew she wouldn’t return.
Not true, Collins said. Snow had previously rented a house in Maryland and had too many things for the Annapolis apartment, so she asked him to get rid of some of them, he said.
Why, the sisters ask, did Collins not file a missing persons report with Annapolis police until 1981? in April, a little over five months after Snow’s disappearance?
“I thought she was on the boat,” Collins said.
In the years after Snow’s disappearance, Collins said he worked as a bartender at two high-end Washington hotel bars and had a long career in IT.
Snow’s daughters believe Collins is crucial to solving the mystery. September the sisters started a GoFundMe to raise money for information leading to the “apprehension and conviction of the person or persons responsible for Nancy’s murder” or the recovery of her remains.
“I’m still sad and disappointed,” said oldest daughter Stacy Snow. “I think Paul knows what happened. I think he’s the key.”