Family statements at sentencing pushed the human cost of Kaley Snow’s killing to the center of a case prosecutors said was methodically concealed.
OREGON CITY, Ore. — Bobby Lee Alsup was sentenced to life in prison on March 25 after a Clackamas County jury found him guilty of killing Kaley Ann Snow, hiding her body in a shed and burning the structure days later, authorities said.
The hearing turned a long investigation into a public reckoning. Snow’s family confronted the man convicted of killing her, while prosecutors and the judge fixed the formal penalty in a case that had already exposed violent evidence, a failed cleanup and digital records that placed Alsup at the scene. The sentence means Alsup, 33, must serve decades before he can seek parole, and it leaves the case in a new stage: no longer a trial over guilt, but a record likely headed toward appeal.
Much of the emotional force in the courtroom came from Tracey Snow, the victim’s mother, who described her daughter as a person who tried to help others. Speaking directly about the man convicted in the case, she said Kaley Snow had tried to help him, too. Her statement, carried by local television coverage and other reporting from the hearing, placed family loss before the mechanics of the prosecution. That order mattered. By the time Judge Jeffrey Jones imposed sentence, the facts of the conviction were already known: a jury had convicted Alsup on March 17 of second-degree murder, first-degree arson, first-degree theft, first-degree abuse of a corpse and unlawful use of a weapon. The hearing instead showed how the case continued to widen beyond the verdict, into the family’s account of what Snow’s death had taken from them.
The prosecution’s version of the killing was stark. County officials said Snow, 31, rented Alsup a room at her home on Southeast Flavel Drive and that he killed her on March 17, 2024, only weeks later. Prosecutors said he hit her twice with a hammer, wrapped her body in a blanket and hid it in a shed. On March 21, they said, he came back after midnight, used gasoline as an accelerant and set the shed on fire. Firefighters discovered her remains after responding to the blaze. Prosecutors also told jurors that Alsup texted Snow after she was dead to make it appear she was still alive. In court and public releases, they described that as part of a cover-up, not a panicked act after the fact.
Snow’s own words became another major part of the public understanding of the case. During trial, prosecutors introduced messages she had sent to a friend weeks before the killing. In one, she said she thought the man staying at her home might try to kill her. Reporting from the trial said Snow and Alsup had formed a secret romantic relationship after he met her through his girlfriend, who was also friends with Snow. Snow’s messages, as described in court coverage, also complained that he was behaving in a suspicious way, falling behind on rent and taking property from the home. That material gave jurors a picture of tension building inside the house long before the fire. It also reframed the sentencing hearing: the family was not speaking only after a sudden act of violence, but after weeks of fear that prosecutors argued had gone unanswered.
The public record of the evidence was detailed and physical. Investigators found a large pool of blood in the living room that had been covered, the district attorney’s office said. They recovered a hammer from a toilet containing cleaning fluid and said Snow’s blood and DNA were on it. Her blood and DNA were also found on Alsup’s shoes and sweatpants, according to prosecutors. Detectives used cellphone records to place him at the property when Snow was killed and again when the shed was burned. Authorities also said he made internet searches about whether police had found Snow’s body or opened a missing-person case. Alsup denied responsibility and said in court that he intended to appeal. His lawyers had argued at trial that he found Snow already dead and hid her body because he feared blame, a claim prosecutors called implausible.
The sentence itself reflected more than the murder case alone. Jones imposed life with the possibility of parole after 25 years, plus additional prison time on the arson and abuse-of-a-corpse counts. County officials said those Clackamas County terms run consecutive to a separate 70-month Washington County sentence Alsup received after being convicted of assaulting a jail inmate. Prosecutors also pointed to older convictions, including assault and arson, as part of the background surrounding the case. Where the matter stands now is clear in one sense and open in another: the trial court phase is complete, but any appeal could test the conviction record built from messages, forensic evidence and the jury’s rejection of the defense theory.
Snow’s family left court with a sentence in place and a long appeals process possibly ahead. The next milestone is any appellate filing following the March 25, 2026, hearing that turned their grief into the case’s final trial-court chapter.
Author note: Last updated April 9, 2026.