(EDITOR’S NOTE — In the following story, writer Benjamin Joe spoke with Jason Gusmann and Aaron O’Brian, creators of the DIY comic and true crime podcast, ‘Return to Snakeland,’ which explores a shocking time in mid-80’s Kenmore. We thank them for their time. — Photo by Benjamin Joe. Art provided the creators.)
It started with a girl.
Kathy Herold was murdered in the mid-eighties at a place called Snakeland, a popular party spot for Kenmore West students.
The old grain elevators were about smoking weed, getting drunk and partying. Herold’s murder was never solved, but there were leads to some kind of alleged Satanic cult operating there, as reported by The Buffalo News. The following year, John Justice of Kenmore West stabbed his mother, brother and father to death. Then, after a failed suicide attempt, drove the family car through a stoplight and smashed into Wayne Haun’s vehicle, killing Haun.
That same year, three other students committed suicide. And research two decades
later by writer Jason Gusmann and artist Aaron O’Brian uncovered even more cases of murder, suicide and accidental death around the time of Herold’s murder in the “quaint” community of Kenmore.
Gusmann started to delve into and write about these incidents around 2010, posting them online with some popularity in a blog called “Fragments.” When O’Brian discovered the blog upon the recommendation of a friend, he was so impressed that he drew up some “fan-art” based on what he read.
“I fell completely in love with his writing, and how he structed everything,” O’Brian said of Gusmann. “And at that time, too, I was looking for an artistic project in comics, because that’s what I loved to do. So, I was just, like: ‘I’ll draw a little fan art.’”
The two eventually got together at Kelly’s Corner, a popular Buffalo bar, got “shitfaced” and agreed to work together. They created three volumes of DIY comics, eventually starting a Kickstarter to bind them all into one graphic novel, selling all the copies.
Later, in 2021 they started the true crime podcast, returntosnakeland.com. And now they are working on Vol. III of an Instagram comic — @returntosnakeland — that also pulls themes from those gruesome events and time in Kenmore.
“We definitely tried hard, for a while, to really try to solve Kathy’s murder,” said Gusmann.
The drive behind documenting the events at Snakeland, which was torn down in 2000, are both multifold and personal. Gusmann, who was in high school when those horrible events occurred, said that Herold sat directly in front of him during freshman year. Less than a year later, she was killed, and it still haunts him.
That connection to Herold sparked Gusmann’s research, as he combed through microfiche at the local library and filed Freedom of Information requests to uncover more data on the murder. Those requests were denied, but still, he would go on to realize his own findings through dogged research and investigation.
“We uncovered a shitload of evidence — and I can’t stress this enough — all circumstantial, and we got into many, many theories,” Gusmann said.
Through their work, Gusmann and O’Brian aim to show what life was like growing up in the mid-eighties.
“I was thinking about Kathy for some reason, and it made me start reflecting on the whole thing. About the punks and the metal heads and growing up in the mid-eighties living in Kenmore,” Gusmann said. “One of things I wanted to hit on with this whole thing is the huge difference between growing up then and growing up now and that became us presenting what ’85-‘86 was like. Not really bringing the present up, just letting the chips fall and people just looking at them and saying, ‘Well, how odd it is that people aren’t still smoking inside at restaurants. People aren’t literally hiding their weed behind a brick in their garage.’”
The pair acknowledged that “Return to Snakeland” isn’t likely to generate any sort of profit. And, given the roadblocks they’ve encountered in probing Herold’s murder — and the criticism they received from some who’ve accused them of exploiting a tragedy — they’ve encountered a fair share of challenges.
But Gusmann and O’Brian say they’re proud that through their art they’ve explored, and have expressed themselves on, a subject of great importance to them.
“We never quit,” said Gusmann. “That’s the only advice I have for writers and artists: Never quit.”
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