NEW BERLIN — The man accused of killing Union County yoga master Sudharman at one time loved and admired him.

That's according to Sudharman's son, Jonathan, who took classes with murder suspect Joel Robert Snider at Yogaville about nine years ago and, at the time, considered him a friend.

It was during that time that Snider met Sudharman, who would visit Yogaville, in Buckingham, Va., and regale its students with tales of his football days at Cornell University and with the Navy's Underwater Demolition Team, the precursor to the Navy SEALS.

"Joel bonded with my father," Jonathan, 35, said Thursday. "I remember Joel telling me he really loved my dad's stories about UDT and about football."

After they completed yoga teacher training at Yogaville, Snider spent time in New Berlin living at Sudharman's Integral Yoga Center of Pennsylvania. Sudharman even attempted to get Snider to stay on there to teach classes.

"(Snider) was actually staying in the loft where he murdered my father," Jonathan said. "He knew the layout of the place."

Snider remains jailed in Baltimore County, Md., charged with an open count of criminal homicide in the shooting death of Sudharman earlier this week.

State police Trooper Matthew Burrows said Snider has retained an attorney and appears to be fighting extradition to Pennsylvania, which could delay his arraignment here until next week or later.

Jonathan said he was shocked to hear that Snider had been arrested in connection to his father's death, and angry.

"I don't know how he changed," Jonathan said of his former friend. "I would not know any reason why he would be upset with my father."

Jonathan and his older brother, Rham, 40, did say that Sudharman had begun to pull away from Yogaville, the yoga center with which Sudharman's small New Berlin center was affiliated. It was not known whether his decision to break ties with Yogaville threatened Snider.

"It was not a place he could approve of or respect any more," Rham said of his father's attitude toward the Virginia yoga center. "My dad made that clear to the leadership."

Sudharman helped to found Yogaville, along with his own guru, Swami Satchidananda, in the 1980s.

"The message I got was it was just the bureaucracy of it," Jonathan said. "(Sudharman) was struggling with being his own entity or being affiliated with Integral Yoga. I just got the sense that there were people there that were continuing the message of his guru and people there who were holding on to different things and it didn't resonate with him."

Rham said the Virginia yoga center did not offer much support during the eight years his father operated the New Berlin yoga center, despite the fact that Jonathan said, as an affiliate, Sudharman would have be required to pay dues to Yogaville.

"They should have reached out more than they did," Rham said. "He's been struggling for eight years."

It is clear in e-mails he sent to Swami Karunananda that Snider seemed to align himself with Yogaville and viewed Sudharman and spiritual leader Andrew Cohen, founder of EnlightenNext, Lenox, Mass., as "evil."

"May God's might be swift and strong," Snider wrote in a May 10 e-mail to Swami Karunananda. "May evil be utterly destroyed wherever it is lurking. May all be set free from the clutches of evil."

According to Bob Voss, chief executive officer of EnlightenNext, Snider has no connection to Cohen or to EnlightenNext.

"We are cooperating with the Pennsylvania State Police to be of any help possible to their investigation," Voss said in a short statement.

Police discuss swami

Burrows said investigators on the case met Thursday and that Swami Karunananda was discussed at that meeting. He would not comment regarding whether the woman would face charges for her apparent failure to contact law enforcement regarding Snider's e-mails.

Neither Rham nor Jonathan are angry with her, they said, nor do they believe she could have been involved in the plot to kill their father.

"She could have been informing my dad about this and he would have still gone to bed that night with the door unlocked and slept like a baby," Jonathan said. "He's not afraid of anything and I know Joel would know that."

Said Rham: "Even if he was in danger, he was a risk-taker. He would never go out of his way to get out of harm's way."

Rham said he knows that Swami Karunananda did try, at least once, to reach Sudharman — at midnight Sunday, nearly seven hours after Snider sent his final e-mail to her telling her that he was in Pennsylvania prepared to carry out his assassination plan.

"My dad got a call at midnight and he was probably already dead," Rham said.

According to family friend Keri Albright, Sudharman may have had an inkling of his impending death.

After speaking with a mutual friend of hers and Sudharman's following his death, the yogi is to have said Sunday morning that "he'd be in a different place on Tuesday."

"He knew something was changing," Albright said. "He knew his spirit was leaving his physical body. He knew that intuitively."

In recent months, Sudharman had begun to separate from Yogaville, and had begun the process of changing the New Berlin yoga center's name and making it into a nonprofit entity, Rham said.

Sudharman would never see those plans come to fruition.

Now Sudharman's sons, and his daughter, Lila, are on a mission to keep Sudharman's yoga center open.

"My brother and sister want this to be better and larger and something that rivals all the bad (Snider) created," Rham said.

Said Jonathan: "The message is so important to me and the truth of the message that he lived every day is so important to share with people. It would just be a shame to let that just go away."

Swami Karunananda failed to return repeated telephone calls Thursday.

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