GOLDEN SENTENCED TO LIFE FOR 1988 MURDER

December 18, 2008
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(Walhalla, SC). Mark Neal Golden, originally charged with the murder and sexual assault of Daisy Ruth Snider which took place in 1988, pled guilty today in Oconee General Sessions Court to Murder. The Honorable Alex Macaulay sentenced Golden to life in prison. This sentence will run concurrent with his July 2003 conviction for criminal homicide in Pennsylvania. Mr. Golden will finish the remainder of his sentence in Pennsylvania and will then return to SC to serve the remainder of his life sentence. 

On November 27, 1988, 42 year old Daisy Snider attended church services at Geer Memorial Baptist Church in Easley, SC. She then stopped by the store and purchased milk, but apparently never made it home. Her car was later found at the Easley Jr. High School track, locked, with her purse, shoes, and the milk still inside. Several days later, a hunter found her body in the woods near Duke Power. She had been strangled and shot. In 2004, DNA evidence which had been collected at the scene of the murder was found to be a match with Golden’s DNA on file from his arrest in Pennsylvania. Following extradition proceedings Golden was returned to South Carolina in 2008.