i did tons of research on it myself.
as an avid, avid horror fan. did a paper on it in college.
http://www.snopes2.com/horrors/madmen/snuff.htm
Claim: Films are routinely made for distribution in which participants are murdered on camera.
Status: False.
Origins: All
the fretting about it aside, not so much as one snuff film has been found. Time and again, what is originally decried in the press as a film of a murder turns out, upon further investigation, to be a fake. Police on three continents routinely investigate films brought to them, and so far this has always been their verdict. No snuff films. Some clever fakes, yes. But no real product.
(Al Goldstein, publisher of Screw magazine, has a standing offer of $1 million for anyone who can come up with a commercially sold snuff film. That offer has been in place for years. No one has yet laid claim to it.)