As the Americana, country, East Nashville, and songwriting communities mourn the death of Todd Snider on November 14th, many questions remain about what happened to Snider during his time in Salt Lake City leading up to his hospitalization and eventual passing. Snider was scheduled to play a show at The Commonwealth Room in South Salt Lake on November 1st, but the show never happened.
The reason for the cancellation given by Todd Snider’s camp on November 3rd is that Snider had been a victim of a violent assault on Halloween night, October 31st in Salt Lake City outside of his hotel. This alleged assault of Todd Snider is what set everything in motion that would ultimately result in Todd Snider dying in a Nashville hospital. However, there has been little public information about the assault. No suspects have been named. No video footage or photos of alleged perpetrators have been released. All we know is Snider did visit a hospital after the alleged assault, and received 22 staples in his head.
One complicating factor in finding information about the assault, and potentially why it was never investigated in-depth seems to have to do in part with the geography of Salt Lake City. Where Todd Snider was staying on October 31st, and where the alleged assault occurred was like in Salt Lake City proper. Meanwhile, the venue Todd Snider was scheduled to play called The Commonwealth is located in a part of the city designated as “South Salt Lake.”
Salt Lake City and South Salt Lake are contiguous, but have different police departments, and are different jurisdictions. When the alleged assault occurred on October 31st, nobody called the police. They were not called until November 1st when Snider was at The Commonwealth Room in South Salt Lake. So even though the South Salt Lake Police were involved, if the assault occurred in Salt Lake City, it would be Salt Lake City’s crime to investigate. The Commonwealth Room sits mere yards from the dividing line of Salt Lake City and South Salt Lake.
After speaking with both representatives of the Salt Lake City Police Department, as well as the South Salt Lake Police Department, neither seems to believe the alleged assault happened in their jurisdiction, though it must have happened in one of them. Salt Lake City says there is no investigation. South Salt Lake says they’re likely to close their investigation, unless some new evidence or information is presented.
“There was no assault in our jurisdiction,” Salt Lake City Police Detective Michael Ruff tells Saving Country Music. “As far as anybody can tell, it occurred in South Salt Lake jurisdiction. I know they will have a bunch of information about it, but nothing actually occurred in our jurisdiction. We arrested him later at the hospital. But did not take a report of an assault. We have no report. We’ve never taken an assault report.”
Records Supervisor Aretha Edwards for South Salt Lake tells Saving Country Music, “This case is with Salt Lake City. I’m not sure why they keep sending you guys our way to be honest with you. We did not have necessarily a hand in it to the totality of which Salt Lake did. They are the ones who took the aggravated assault information. I do have a Salt Lake case, and it did occur within their boundaries. So I don’t know where the confusion is.”
When challenged by Saving Country Music if indeed the assault did occur within Salt Lake City’s jurisdiction, Salt Lake City Detective Michael Ruff responded, “We have never taken a report of anything at a hotel. We have no idea where he was staying. That is all news that I have not heard in the last three weeks after dealing with it ad nauseum. No one has ever produced a hotel in Salt Lake City, or an address. That’s not something that’s ever been produced. Someone from his publicity team put that in a social media post.”
Detective Michael Ruff goes on to say further, “I don’t know that we will ever be able to determine what happened. Every time we tried to talk to [Todd Snider], unfortunately he provided very little information. Very vague information … So there’s nothing for us to follow up on in out jurisdiction. There is not active investigation, and unfortunately with the Mr. Snider’s death, that would stop any investigation because there’s not a victim anymore.”
When pressed on what would happen if the alleged assault was found as important or responsible for the eventual death of Todd Snider, Detective Ruff said that would depend on an autopsy report. The autopsy report will be conducted in Tennessee, and is expected to take 5 to 7 weeks.
As far as any active investigation in the South Salt Lake precinct, Records Supervisor Aretha Edwards says, “We do have a lead investigator on it. However, they might close it sooner than later unless something else comes up.”
Incidentally, Todd Snider did have another interaction with the Salt Lake City Police Department on November 2nd, or two days after the initial assault. It interaction occurred near 245 E. State Strett. Snider himself also said after returning home to Nashville that he’d been assaulted a second time in Salt Lake City, potentially in a laundromat where he’d sought shelter to get warm.
“When he called later, he flagged somebody down and basically said, ‘I need an ambulance because I need some place to sleep.’ But at that point he’d already been treated for injuries,” Detective Ruff explains. “That’s when he was taken to a second hospital, after he was taken to the first one in South Salt Lake.”
Saving Country Music has filled out a records request for any body camera footage, or dispatch/911 tapes from the police interaction with Snider at 245 E. State St. on November 2nd.
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Another major point of inquiry from Todd Snider fans and friends was the characterization by Snider that his band had “abandoned” him. This information came both from police statements quoting Snider, as well as in the body cam footage from Snider’s arrest at the Holy Cross hospital later on November 2nd where Snider says this.
It has been confirmed that Todd Snider’s band did leave Salt Lake City shortly after the cancellation of the show at The Commonwealth Room. However, speaking to numerous sources with direct knowledge of the situation, once Snider was injured in the assault on October 31st and it was clear the tour would have to be cancelled, there was no reason for the band to remain in Salt Lake City, and they were sent home by the tour manager.
The tour manager then remained behind in Salt Lake City for a period to attempt to care for Todd Snider, but he was unable to, with Snider acting erratically and running off. Todd Snider did not carry a cell phone. It was the tour manager who called the police at The Commonwealth venue on November 1st after discovering that Todd Snider had been assaulted the night before.
Though there was no formal investigation, Saving Country Music has obtained a record from the South Salt Lake Police Department that gives some more insight. Patrol officer Tanner Doria reports,
On November 1st 2025 at approximately 1518 hours I spoke with [The Manager] over the phone about an assault that had taken place at 195 W Commonwealth Ave South Salt Lake Utah 84115. [He is] the manager for an artist that performed at the venue at the dispatch address and had discovered his artist had been assaulted the night previous. The artist had been transported by The South Salt Lake Fire Department to {redacted} Medical Center in Murray.
After not being able to contact the manager by phone, I began to head to the hospital to gather victim information and gain more information about the incident. While en route to the hospital, the manager returned my phone call. I identified myself over the phone and was inquiring for more information about the incident. [The manager] expressed that he didn’t know why I was calling and he said he only requested an ambulance and did not request police.
I asked [the manager] if he wanted to make a report further about the incident and he declined. This concluded my conversation with [the manager]. He never provided me with the information of the party that was actually involved and insisted they did not want to speak to law enforcement.
Whoever allegedly assaulted Todd Snider, and wherever it occurred, it resulted in 22 staples in Snider’s head. This could have also resulted in a concussion or brain trauma that could have affected his judgement in significant ways, and/or Snider’s overall health. Perhaps the assault is irrelevant in the big picture since pneumonia and sepsis is what is being given as the reason for Todd Snider’s death. But the assault is what set off the string of events that ultimately led to Todd Snider’s death.
If someone is responsible for the alleged assault, it would seem to be in the public interest to find this person and prosecute them so it doesn’t happen to anyone else. There was a victim of the assault, if it in fact did occur. His name was Todd Snider.
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Saving Country Music’s investigation into the death of Todd Snider is ongoing. Anyone with further information can reach out via Saving Country Music’s Contact Page.
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