He was arrested as a co-conspirator in the 1964 murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in Philadelphia, Mississippi, for transporting the kidnapped activists to a remote location to be killed.

He was sentenced in 1967 by federal district judge William Cox to three years for depriving the murdered men of their civil rights.

[2] Klansman James Jordan testified Snowden was among the men who gathered at Akin's Mobile Homes in Meridian, Mississippi to meet Edgar Ray Killen, who had instructed them about the three civil rights workers in jail in Philadelphia and needed to hurry before they were released.

Klansman Horace Doyle Barnette said Snowden traveled with him to Philadelphia, where Killen showed the jail where the trio was being held and instructed them on where to wait behind an old warehouse.

The trio pulled the station wagon over, and Sheriff's Deputy Cecil Price ordered them into his patrol car.

Snowden was still with them at about 2 a.m. when fellow Klansman and alleged co-conspirator Lawrence A. Rainey, who was Sheriff of Neshoba County at the time, warned the others not to talk.