Snapped: Women Who Murder - Joyce Pelzer

Episode Date: August 16, 2026

A Georgia woman who is brutally stabbed provides police with a suspect's name before succumbing to her injuries. As the manhunt for the killer begins, a pattern of toxicity will expose a violent past and more than one murder.Season 34 Episode 15Originally aired: Sun, Oct 20, 2024Watch full episodes of Snapped on the Oxygen app: https://oxygen.tv/watchsnappedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A woman and her wife were building their life together. It got married on a beach. They were laugh together. They were getting along good. Outside looking in, it seemed normal. Until it ended with a bloody assault in a Georgia hotel room. Not only was there a pool of blood. There is blood smeared up the door.

The victim's halfway in and halfway out of her door. She is bleeding profusely. She had been stabbed 34 times total. The investigation reveals one of them has a history of violence. Like any other couple we are here. Shondell stated that she was verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, physically abusive. She finally broke free, but her ex-girlfriend was still stalking her. But was the stabbing a repeated pattern or an attempt to silence

of co-conspirator. I asked her what was wrong. And she said, I killed my ex-girlfriend. She was completely paranoid and scared that the ball was going to drop any day. She threatened to kill her over the situation in a sense of, if I can't have you, nobody can have you. On the morning of December 10, 2018, police in Congress. Conyers, Georgia are called to the scene of a bloody crime.

He stated that he had guests telling him that there was a lady screaming for help, saying that she's trying to kill me inside of the hotel room. A maintenance worker was unable to make contact by knocking on the door, so the hotel manager called 911, and as he's talking to us on the phone, the door opens, and the victim falls outside the door and he sees all the blood. When I arrived, I could see that the victim had shallow breathing. She appeared to be in a state of consciousness.

You could tell that she was very weak and was losing tremendous amount of blood. EMS began to arrive shortly after. She's bleeding profusely from the abdomen. I see the knife. The knife on the floor. I see it. Hey, honey, what's your name?

Come on. The hotel room itself also bears the signs of a brutal attack. Not only was there a pool of blood there, there is blood smeared up the door, as if I would smile that she probably slid on her back. There are also bloody handprints all over the curtains. You would smile, she's trying to get curtains open, because she's hollering for help.

You did this? Do you know Joyce's last name? Okay. Who is she to you? Rosalind Lewis was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 31, 1971. It's my two older brothers, and then it was Rosal and myself. We had loving parents, my mom, my dad. We was brought up just to love and the nurture and the care and to have laughter.

and just be good people. Rosalind was a bundle of joy. She literally met no stranger. Coming from New Orleans, our culture, everyone is baby or sweetheart. She talked to everybody. She made you laugh. She had this huge smile,

beautiful white teeth that just lit up the room. She went to college in New Orleans, Louisiana, for a period of time. And then she started working in healthcare, medical billing and things like that. She liked the seniors. She liked the elderly people. She was able to give them some kind of joy.

Rosalind's open acceptance of people also extended to her love life. Rosalind was around the age of when she first started dating same-sex, mid-20s, I want to say. With Rosen coming out as being a lesbian, it was mixed feelings within the family. Some of the family understood. Some of the family was taken back, shocked. We grew up very Christian family, very religious family, so that was maybe taboo, to say the least. It never wavered our love for her. I just wanted her to be genuinely happy at the end of the day.

In the early 1990s, Rosalind decided it was time to make a change and moved east to Atlanta, Georgia. She wanted to go to better herself, get a different environment, a different take on the world. and my dad would call a thousand times a day because that was his first daughter, his baby girl. Rosalind found a new job in a medical call center. She also found the love of her life, Joyce Pelser. I want to say they just met out somewhere through a mutual friend.

One of the things that she liked about Joyce that she was spontaneous, that she was adventurous. Adventure was one of Rosalindler's key things she just get up on a whim and go. First meeting Joyce, she looked like she had a good head on her shoulders. She seemed to be educated, kind, nice. She just was a well-put-together person.

She just was a normal person. After dating for several years, the two women got married in 2016. It got married on the beach. My mom and my dad didn't attend a wedding. They loved Rosal with everything in their hearts. But that was just something that they wasn't willing to participate in. Some of my cousins went in witness, but we didn't go.

Seeing Rosaln and Joyce interact as a couple, outside looking in, it seemed normal. They would laugh together. They were getting along good. This is what she wanted. Now, two years later, Rosalind is barely clinging to life outside a hotel room in Conyers. And she says her wife, Joyce, was the one who attacked her. Of course, there were lifesaving measures trying to happen in order to keep her alive.

It was an overabundant amount of staves, a tremendous amount of blood loss. Once they approached the ambulance, Rosalind went into cardiac arrest. So they had begun CPR. She was taken by ambulance to the hospital. The information that she told us that her wife, Joyce, had stabbed her. We're knocking on doors, interviewing witnesses, collecting video. We had to apprehend her and keep her from hurting someone else. I go to the front desk and I meet with a manager of the hotel.

He provided me with the registration for the room that had been occupied for about three days by Joyce Pelser. I had him pull the video up for me to watch at the hotel, and you can observe during the altercation the curtains moving back and forth. I'm watching the video, you know there's a severe fight going on behind the curtains. Short while later, you see a maintenance worker knock on the door of the hotel room and then walk away, and then the door opens. You see the arm of the victim fall outside the door as the suspect begins to walk away. toward the rear parking lot.

Next, officers speak to the maintenance worker that saw Joyce flee the motel. What else do you know about loud? I'm hearing somebody scream, so I knocked on the door, she coming up. She went straight down. So I took out, I took her in behind the girl and stabbed her. And when she saw me follow him, she got to run.

Where did she run to? To a car. He gave a description of Joyce leaving the hotel room. She was not wearing shoes, she was only wearing socks. We did find bloody footwear impressions on the sidewalk, and the pattern was consistent with wearing just socks. Witnesses did describe that she appeared very calm, but that she was bloody.

Her hands were bloody, her clothing work was bloody on the front. The innkeeper told us that the car that left was a dark car that was an out-of-state plate that had the numbers thrilled. As the manhunt swings into high gear, police are left wondering what could have caused such a vicious attack. We had a lot of law enforcement south on I-75 that was looking for Joyce Pellzer and the black Nissan that she was operating. They need to use caution because she was somebody that we felt was a danger. Coming up, a previous missing persons investigation suggests that

a pattern of behavior. She was going to have a violent relationship with her ex-girlfriend, Joyce Pelser. And police begin to suspect the two cases are connected. She has a pattern of not allowing people to leave her. Conyers police are tracking down Joyce Pelser after paramedics have transported her wife, Roslyn Lewis, to the hospital in critical condition. Emergency room doctors are fighting to save her life.

Rosa had been stabbed 34 times total. There was one penetrating wound from the back that caused her lung to collapse at that point. Another significant stab wound was in the neck. Unfortunately, she did pass. She was not able to make it. Now this has gone from attempted murder to an actual murder investigation. We contacted George State Patrol and the Marshal Service. At the same time, we have crime analysts back at headquarters.

We have been feeding information as quickly as we could get it to them. Analysts conduct a background search on Joyce looking for any possible motive for the murder. What they find is surprising. Our analysts had found out that Joyce was the person of interest in a missing person. a missing person case into Cab County. So we felt like she was dangerous. The missing person's case was filed seven years ago, and the woman in question was Joyce's ex-girlfriend,

35-year-old Shondell McLeod. Her mother called the police after she didn't show up for dinner on a Sunday night on September the 25th of 2011. Shondell also hadn't gone to work that morning. that was very unlike Shondell. Shandale was hired on that nurse care bucket as a cook. And that's how I met her. That Sunday morning, another young lady called me

and told me that Shandale wasn't at work. And that was kind of unusual for Shandale because she always called me if she couldn't make it that day, but so I can step in. Unfortunately, you have to wait 24 hours before you can upgrade this case to a missing person's case because she is an adult. After two days passed with no sign of Chandel, the case was assigned to Detective Henry Guest. I gave me the report. I called Ms. McLeod.

I said, hey, I see you made a post report about your daughter being missing. This lady was hysterical. And then she explained her relationship to me of her and her daughter how close they were as a family, and that she would never just walk away from the family. Miss McLeod had told me Chondell was in a violent relationship with her ex-girlfriend Joyce Pelser. From there, I just started reaching her to track down Joyce. Detective Guest begins by digging deeper into Shondell's background. Shandale has six brothers and one sister.

The family was originally from Guyana, and her mother moved with her children when Shondell was fairly young to New York originally. They then moved to Atlanta. She was very close to her family, you know. They depended on her, especially her mother. Shandelle took her to the grocery store, just whatever her mother needed. Just a loving family, you know, from day one since I met him. They were always bonded and they eventually started cooking together.

And it actually eventually led to her getting a job in Gwinnett at the Life Care Center. Cooking was her passion. She took pride in whatever she do. Everybody was, you know, ready to eat whatever she cooked. Detective Guest learns the job, provided Shondell with more than just a source of income. While Shondell was working at the life care center of Gwynette, that's where she met Joyce Peltzer.

They developed a friendship, but that friendship turned into something a little bit more. And eventually her mother found out she was dating a woman, and her mother was very upset. It was brand new to her. She accepted it, you know, but she didn't like it. I think her family was most supported, you know, because they wanted to see Shandale happy. Shondell's mother tells investigators she thought the relationship was going well.

So she was shocked to learn the truth was quite different. Chondell was telling her mom everything that was going on. Shondell stated that Joyce was verbally abusive, emotionally abusive, physically abusive, how she was controlling. She didn't like when certain people would really be around. she would want Shondell to really end certain relationships that she did not like. Mind you, Shondell is also stating that Joyce was having her own relationships on the side. She had been a mother that she felt Joyce is out there, being unfaithful.

The woman Shondell suspected Joyce was cheating with was Rosalind Lewis. Shondell's mother tells Detective Guest that led to a breakup in 2011. She finally broke free of her. She finally got her out of the house, but the lady was still stalking her. She would call Shondell's friends and ask them about her, plead with them to convince Shondell to come back, to give her another chance.

She would follow Shondell around. Over the following months, Joyce's harassment only continued to escalate. One day, Joyce came and pretty much took everything out of their house. Even the toilet seats off the toilet. Took all the furniture, all the fixtures, everything. Shondell was pretty much sleeping on the air mattress. Shondell was very, she was distraught.

She was crying. She was very upset. You know, you come home to, you know, told pictures up, throw them in the yard, taking everything that she had ever worked hard for. Shondell spent the next month trying to put the incident behind her and rebuild her life. At this point, they've broken up.

Joyce is out of the house. She thinks she's at peace. Just to wake up in the middle of the night of Joyce standing over her with a knife. Joyce threatened to kill her over the situation in a sense of, if I can't have you, nobody can have you. In July, Shondell went to the court and asked for a protection. order.

Shondell told her mother that she was scared she was going to die that night. Investigators are searching for Joyce Pelser after her wife, Rosalind Lewis, named her responsible for the stabbing, before ultimately succumbing to her injuries. In a shocking revelation, investigators learn, Joyce was considered a primary person of interest An ex-girlfriend, Chandel McLeod's disappearance seven years earlier in September of 2011. At the time, my biggest thing was to talk to Joyce. We have our suspicion, but there's always two sides to the story.

Joyce eventually comes into the police station, and she also brings Rosanna Lewis, her current girlfriend, and Joyce sits down for questioning. This is going to be in reference to a missing person. Miss McLeod. How do you know Miss McLeod? We used to date for a couple of years, and we also lived together.

We never served with a TPO order? We stopped no contact with her. Yeah, but she called me still. She just sat there and looked at me. It was like, you know, if you've been in a relationship for five or six years, I believe you would have some kind of expression. She had no expression. I asked her about that.

She said, well, Shanda had hurt. So she said she wanted to go back to her family. She don't believe she's missing. She believes she's in Guyana. That was the relationship between you two? It was good. Like in the other couple, we argued. Never got violent?

No. Police was never called? Yeah. She made it seem like all of these details that were coming out from family and friends were completely untrue. Joyce also claimed to have an airtight alibi the night Chandel disappeared.

She indicated that she had been home with Rosalind all weekend, the weekend that Chondell's believed to have gone missing. How about on 26? Went to work. Because Rosalind was part of Joyce's alibi, police went on to question Rosalind about what took place. I'm just going to take a statement from you. What I'm investigating is a missing person.

Who's missing? Who's missing? Yes. Joyce's ex-girlfriend, you know what they? Yeah, Shandau. She indicated, like Joyce did, that they had been home all that weekend, that they really hadn't left the house. But unlike Joyce, on the Monday, she indicated that she went to work.

Rosalind said that on Monday they had stayed home as well. Yeah, I both stayed home. Yeah. We chilled out. It was one of those days. I just want to just chill out. We didn't really do a whole lot. I was like, okay, let's just stay home today.

And the crazy kids. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. Joyce lied to police. Police still have a lot of lingering questions. After investigating and interviewing Joyce and Rosalind, certainly had them as people of interest. interests. Detectives don't have enough to charge Joyce, so they follow up on her other alibi.

I checked records, her supervisor pulled the records. She said she did not show up that day, so, you know, that's a force-fire statement. The detectives get a search warrant for Joyce Peltzer's phone records as well. And what they're able to determine is that not only did she lie about going into work on Monday, but she wasn't at home on Sunday or Saturday. She wasn't with Rosalind, as she said. In fact, there were multiple phone calls and text messages between Joyce and Rosalind,

showing that they weren't together. Basically, her whole alibi gets blown up. So if you're lying about that, what else are you lying about? The phone calls and false statements suggested to police that Roslyn was covering something up for Joyce. So investigators searched Shondell's home, looking for signs of a struggle. Shondell lives in the up-and-coming part of DeKalb County.

We was thinking maybe she got abducted from in front of the house. While there's no evidence of a struggle or anything like that, they do find a man's watch on the floor in her bedroom, as well as some shot glasses in the sink. It looks like someone may have come over. She may have had company and they had a drink together. There was also an ashtray with some cigarettes. Ms. McLeod had told us, you know, Shandelle didn't really drink, she didn't smoke, you know,

we found cigarette butts, we found a man's watch there, and I believe we found liquor. Joyce is a person of interest that keeps coming up, but now they're trying to figure out who his person was, who was in the house of Shondell, because the evidence is right there saying that there's another person involved. Coming up, investigators zero in on the truth. Joyce and Rosalind, their relationship is troubled, just like Shondell and Joyce's relationship was troubled. And they learn of Joyce's plan to silence her own wife. She said, I am not a good person.

She said, I knocked off my ex-girlfriend. Investigators believe the murder of Rosalind Lewis may be connected to the disappearance of Shondell McLeod seven years earlier. through their shared ex-Joyce Pelser, who is currently on the run. When evidence of a third party was found at Shondell's home, detectives wondered if they had a new person of interest or a possible witness. So now investigators are trying to really figure out the pieces

of who this person was. So in talking to Shondell's co-workers, they learned that she struck up this flirtation and romance with the food delivery driver, Rico. He was very nice, so friendly. That's the person who she would ha-ha-haggle-giggle with every morning. Shondell wanted to have kids. She wanted to start back dating men.

The issue, though, is that Rico was actually married. That certainly created an inference of motive that he might have had something to do with Shondell's disappearance. To find out that, The details of the potential affair, investigators brought Rico in for questioning. When he comes in, he's a little nervous because police are telling him that Shandelle is missing. Unlike Joyce, he appears very concerned, very upset, and emotional. He said he had been seeing her for quite a while now, but he didn't plan on leaving his wife

or his children anytime soon. He knew all about Joyce. He said Chandel was so afraid of her that he used to leave a pair of his work boots over at her house to sit him outside. But Joyce would drive by the house. Rico confirms he was with Chandel on September 24th the night before she disappeared. He said it was him that was smoking, that was his watch. He explains he went over to Chandel's house. He had a few drinks.

And because he was drinking, he wanted to kind of sleep it off for a second. A little after midnight, he's rushing to try and get back to his house. And that's why the watch was still at the house. But he does go back home to his wife. He sleeps with her the rest of the night. He was very cooperative, but based on our records, he was the last one that saw up. Although Rico seemed genuine, detectives needed to verify his story, which involved an uncomfortable conversation.

They called the wife. She's obviously distraught because she just found out her husband has been cheating on her. She verified all of his information of what he told us. She had every opportunity to throw this guy under the bus for cheating on her, but she confirmed he was there at home. There wasn't anything to indicate that Rico or his wife had been untruthful or that they had done something to Shondale. With Rico and his wife officially cleared from any involvement in Shondon,

When the D.L.'s disappearance, detectives are left with Joyce Pelser as the only suspect. But they still need more evidence. We checked our credit cards. Seen that last time it was used, it was used at a gas station in Connecticut County, right on the line of DeKalb County. So I went out there and so happened they had videos of that pump so we was able to see She's Shondell heading to work getting gas in her car. She never actually made it inside her place of employment. The working theory at that point was that Chondell had been kidnapped somewhere in between.

So at this point in the investigation, police certainly have strong suspicions that something bad has happened and that Joyce and Rosalind know more about it than they're letting on. I tried to get a warrant on them, but the DA wanted more. We didn't have a body. We know she was missing. We know foul play was in play. But we just needed a little more. Detective Gass pursued this case for seven years, keeping up with leads for all these years,

and always thinking that Joyce Peltzer had some involvement. Conyers' police investigating Rosalind's murder questioned why would Joyce have reason to hurt her wife seven years after Chandel. Joyce was able to get away with what she did for years, but she knew that Rosalind knew what she did. Their relationship is troubled just like Shondell and Joyce's relationship was troubled.

And she has a pattern of not allowing people to leave her, not allowing people to move on, and retaliating against anyone who broke up with her or hurt her. Over the seven years before the murder of Rosalind Lewis, Georgia investigators worked diligently to close the case on Shondell McLeod's disappearance. It was hard on the family. I'm a parent myself. If something was to happen to my kids, I would want that investigator, that police officer,

to exhaust all avenues. Those efforts included keeping tabs on their prime suspect, Joyce Pellon. her. Detective Guest doesn't give up. He continues to have the media cover the case on Shondell's birthday every year, see if he could generate some information from the public. Detectives believe Joyce got rid of Shondell once she realized she couldn't control her. And similar issues emerged shortly after her marriage to Rosalind in 2016.

found out that Joyce was cheating, and she was not happy with that, of course. I had been doing interviews with a lot of Joyce family members. They pretty much told me that Joyce had a new girlfriend. I did some workup on her and found out who she was. Joyce's latest affair was with a woman named Katie Long in August of 2018. It took me a minute, but I tracked down Miss Long. She was in Clearwater, Florida, and she said, I've been waiting on you to call me. She told me she had some things for me to hear.

Katie told investigators about a conversation she had with Joyce a year before Rosalind's murder. She got real quiet, and I asked what was wrong. And she said, I have to tell you something. And she said, I knocked off my ex-girlfriend. And I said, who? And she said, Shondale. And I said, knocked her off meaning. And she said, Katie, I killed my ex-girlfriend.

She said, I just feel like I can talk to you and that this is something that you needed to know so that you know who you're dealing with. And I said, well, who am I dealing with? And she said, I am not a good person, Katie. But they don't have evidence of an actual crime being committed. They have nothing concrete to prove that Shondale has been kidnapped or murdered. Following her interview, Katie agreed to help detectives get the evidence they needed. Katie is starting to realize the type of person she's in bed with, and she truthfully is scared. Katie records Joyce in their phone conversations.

Joyce is making statements about why she did what she did. She makes statements about implicating Rosalind and that she seems basically to express fear that Rosalind's going to go to police. Katie reached out to DeKalbate County Police, to Detective Guest in December of 2018 and was very concerned about threats that Joyce was making about Rosalind. She was going to point it all towards Rosalind. Rosalind. As Conyers police finish reviewing the Shondell McLeod case, the reason for Rosal

stabbing comes into sharper focus. Despite the violent threats from Joyce, Rosalind agreed to meet her in that hotel room on December 10th with the intent to end their marriage. They had talked back and forth, and I think Joyce thought there was some room for reconciliation between her and... When Roz began telling her that she had filed for divorce, Joyce snapped. Joyce's world was falling apart. I think that she was completely paranoid and scared, that the ball was going to drop any day,

and that she was finally going to be held responsible for Shondell's murder, and that Rosalin was going to be the reason. Before Joyce can be charged with any crimes, investigators need to find her. We went up on an exigent request for services with a phone company, and they began to ping Joyce Peltzer's cell phone live. And the first ping that we got indicated

that she was heading south toward Florida. Katie Long lives in Florida. I immediately asked the sergeant to notify Georgia State Patrol in all agencies that would be On I-75 toward Florida, tried to apprehend the suspect before she reached Florida and did violence to another person. Georgia investigators have notified State Patrol

and Federal Marshals to be on the lookout for Joyce Pelser. Three days after she allegedly stabbed her wife, Rosalind, Joyce is spotted heading south on I-75. We were notified by Georgia State Patrol Dispatch that they had made contact with the car in Chris County. They initiated their emergency equipment to try to conduct the traffic stop. Joyce fell to yield to the traffic stop and continued traveling at a high rate of speed. Third State Patrol performed a pit maneuver, which is a precision immobilization technique on the vehicle

to try to stop the vehicle before she caused any more harm. There's dust, dirt, all in the air, the sirens are still going. The officers are running up, surrounding the car, trying not to create crossfire. They've got their guns drawn, and as soon as it clears enough, they see her raise a gun, and that's a threat to the officers, and they fire. The troopers fire into her vehicle. They're able to take her into custody. She's transported to the hospital where she's treated, but there was no significant

trauma. Once Joyce recovered from her wounds at the hospital there, she was then transported to Rodney County Jail. Myself and crime scene investigator began searching Joyce Pellers' vehicle. We were able to locate the bloody clothing, along with a knife, believed to be being used during the attack on Roswell. When Joyce is confronted with the evidence, she confesses to the assault. December of 2019, Joyce decided to negotiate a plea with the Rockdale District Attorney's Office, and she pled guilty to the murder of Rosalind Lewis. She was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole

for the incident that occurred in Rockdale County. Detectives are hoping she will do the same regarding the suspected murder of Shondell McLeod. Detective Guest comes to interview her, and this is someone who has been pursued this case for seven years at this point, keeping up with the family, keeping up with leads, and always thinking that Joyce Peltzer had some involvement. We spoke for about an hour and a half, and she confessed to being there when Shondell was killed.

But Joyce said she had nothing to do with it. Joyce said it was Rosalind. Rouse was upset that Shondell gave her herpes, and she transmitted it to Rosal. So Rosal wanted revenge for that. She said that Roz hired a few guys. They drugged her, put her in the car, and buried the body in Arabian Mountain Park.

What Joyce doesn't realize is that investigators know she's lying. We had a phone call, a recorded phone call between Joyce and Katie, where she laid out her plan to tell detective guests this very story. And she followed through with that plan. Joyce told story was that she was afraid of Roz, that Roz was the violent type in this relationship.

And doing all my investigation, that's not true. Shondell wanted to move on from Joyce Peltzer. And that was something that Joyce Peltzer was not going to accept and was not going to allow it to happen. When she faces trial in 2023 for the murder of Shondell McLeod, Joyce's attorneys argued, the state has insufficient evidence to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defense for Joyce Peltzer was that since there's no body here, there's not enough evidence to show that Joyce was the one that did it. And they leaned into implicating Rosalind Lewis and the murder of Sheldell McClau. Prosecutors use Joyce's ex-girlfriend Katie Long to refute those claims.

Katie Long's testimony was so impactful. She didn't share friends with Joyce or Rosalind, but she had these details that she would only have if she had gotten them from Joyce. And then when we played that recorded phone call, and when the jury listened to her hatching her plan to frame Rosalind, the air changed in the courtroom. I felt like it was over.

Joyce was convicted of both malice murder and felony murder. After the trial, the judge sentenced Joyce Peltzer to life without the possibility of parole. The most bizarre thing of this case is the amount of hatred and violence that could be built up into one person is just very disturbing to me that a person could be that way. Prism is not good enough for her. Shandelle's life was took too soon. Shandelle was the most kindest person I ever met. Rosalindal should be remembered as a person who saw the good,

who loved with her whole heart. To have known her was truly an experience and a joy of a life that so many won't get to experience because she isn't here anymore. But those who knew her could cherish that for a lifetime.