Ruth Brown Snyder (1895 – January 12, 1928) was an American murderess. Her execution, in the electric chair at Sing Sing Prison, for the murder of her husband, Albert, was captured in a well-known photograph.

The crime

In 1925, Snyder, a Queens Village, Queens housewife, began an affair with Henry Judd Gray, a corset salesman. She then began to plan the murder of her husband, enlisting the help of her new lover. Her distaste for her husband apparently began when he insisted on hanging a picture of his ex-fiancee, Jessie Guishard, on the wall of their first home, and also named his boat after her. Guishard, whom Albert described to Ruth as "the finest woman I have ever met", had been dead for 10 years.

Ruth Snyder first persuaded her husband to purchase insurance, but with the assistance of an insurance agent (who was subsequently fired and sent to prison for forgery) "signed" a $48,000 life insurance policy that paid extra ("double indemnity") if an unexpected act of violence killed the victim.

Ruth, according to her paramour, Judd Gray, made at least seven attempts to kill her husband, all of which he survived. On March 20, 1927, the couple garroted Albert Snyder and stuffed his nose full of chloroform-soaked rags, then staged his death as part of a burglary. Detectives at the scene noted that the burglar left little evidence of breaking into the house; moreover, that the behavior of Mrs. Snyder was inconsistent with her story of a terrorized wife witnessing her husband being killed.

Finally, stolen property started turning up in the house. Snyder had dated Jessie Guishard before meeting Ruth and a detective found a paper with the letters "J.G." on it, and asked about it. Mrs. Snyder immediately asked what Judd Gray had to do with this, which was the first time Gray had been mentioned at all.

Gray was found upstate, in Syracuse. He claimed he was there all night, but eventually it turned out a friend of his had created an alibi, setting up Gray's room at a hotel. Gray proved far more forthcoming about his actions. (Dorothy Parker told Oscar Levant that Gray tried to escape the police by taking a taxi from Manhattan to Long Island, which Levant noted was "quite a long trip". According to Parker, in order "not to attract attention, he gave the driver a ten-cent tip".) He was caught and returned to Jamaica, Queens and charged along with Ruth Snyder.

Trial and execution

The trial at the Long Island City Courthouse was covered by such figures as Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Mary Roberts Rinehart, D. W. Griffith, Damon Runyon, and, a year before her own death from cancer, Nora Bayes. Runyon dismissed the value of the crime as a clever attempt at a murder - he nicknamed it "the dumb-bell murder case" because "it was so dumb!" It became a 'cut-throat' case: Snyder and Gray's defense was that the other was responsible for killing Albert. The jury ended up believing both, and Gray and Snyder were eventually convicted and both sentenced to death.

The final moments of her execution (by "State Electrician" Robert G. Elliott) were caught on film with the aid of a miniature plate camera custom-strapped to the ankle of Tom Howard, a Chicago Tribune photographer working in cooperation with the Tribune-owned New York Daily News. Howard's camera was owned for a while by inventor Miller Reese Hutchison, then later became part of the collections of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.

Snyder was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York with a gravestone that simply reads "Brown".

Lorraine Snyder

The fate of the Snyders' young daughter, Lorraine (born 1918), was never clarified. It is not known if she was adopted by relatives or another family.

Depiction in popular media

Sophie Treadwell's play Machinal (1928) was inspired by the life and execution of Ruth Snyder. The case was also the inspiration for the novel Double Indemnity by James M. Cain, which was later adapted for the screen (1944) by Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler. Cain also mentioned that his book The Postman Always Rings Twice took inspiration from the crime. Another novel was based on the case, To the Gallows I Must Go (1931) by T. S. Matthews. The Pre-Code Hollywood films, Picture Snatcher and Blessed Event, both make references to Snyder's execution.

Miscellanea

Snyder's cell at Sing Sing was also used for Eva Coo and Lonely Hearts killer Martha Beck. Photographer Scotty (Douglas Spencer) in The Thing from Another World (1951) informs the USAF crew that he attended the execution of Ruth Snyder and Judd Gray.

Guns N' Roses' 1991 Use Your Illusion albums feature, as part of their enclosed artwork, a photo of the band posing in front of an oversized reproduction of the Daily News' headline/photograph announcing Ruth Snyder's execution.

Bibliography

• MacKellar, Landis: The "Double Indemnity" Murder: Ruth Snyder, Judd Gray, & New York's Crime of the Century: (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2006). ISBN 0-8156-0824-1.

Wikipedia.org

SNYDER, Ruth (USA)

Just as Irene Schroeder had dominated Glenn Dague, so Ruth Snyder had a stronger character than Henry Judd Gray, hence her nickname in the press of ‘The Granite Woman’ and his of ‘Putty Man’. Ruth, tall, blonde and attractive despite her icecold eyes, had married Albert Snyder, thirteen years older than her, but the marriage was not a success. It was hardly surprising that on meeting corset salesman Henry, weak-chinned with a nature to match, whose marriage was also on the rocks, they found much in common and started a passionate relationship.

But Ruth wanted more, she wanted money, and so insured Albert for $96,000. Then she tried gassing him, adding poison to his food, and arranging near fatal household ‘accidents’; when she told Henry what she was doing, he naively asked her why. ‘To kill the poor guy!’ she replied, and she persisted in keeping up the pressure on her lover until he agreed to help her.

On 19 March 1927 Ruth and Henry went shopping, buying a 5 lb sash weight, some chloroform and lengths of picture wire.

The next evening, while the Snyders were out at a party, Henry entered their house and hid. Husband and wife returned later, Ruth having plied Albert with sufficient drink to dull his senses; he staggered up to bed, whereupon Ruth and Henry followed shortly afterwards and Henry struck him a crushing blow with the sash weight. It didn’t kill him, whereupon the would-be killer shouted desperately to Ruth, ‘Momsie, Momsie, for God’s sake, help!’ She responded by joining in with a chloroformsoaked cloth, and when Albert had lost consciousness, they strangled him with the picture wire. Gray then tied Ruth’s wrists and ankles, and after gagging her – not too tightly – left the house.

The next morning she managed to raise the alarm, telling the police that she and her husband had been attacked by a burglar who had also stolen several valuable items. Things went pearshaped for her when, in searching the house for clues, they not only found the ‘stolen’ objects but also a tie-clip with Henry’s initials engraved on it and his name in her address book. Taking a chance, they told her that Henry had already been arrested and had confessed everything; panicking, she then accused Henry of plotting the murder and claimed that she had only stood and watched him killing her husband.

Amid nationwide publicity they went on trial at Queens County Courthouse, Long Island City, in April 1927, thousands of people applying for tickets to see the Granite Woman and the Putty Man, and to savour the gruesome details of the crime.

Outside the courthouse enterprising traders sold miniature sash weights mounted on tie-pins as souvenirs.

Both Ruth and Henry blamed each other, both were found guilty and sentenced to death. While in Sing Sing Prison each wrote their life story, Ruth’s notoriety bringing offers of marriage from nearly 200 men. Executioner Robert G. Elliott also received letters, one of which read: ‘If you don’t want to do it, will you let me have first offer? I won’t mind one bit to execute Mrs Snyder. It is just what she should get, the chair. I could execute her with a good heart. I also think that if they did have a woman executioner to execute a woman, it would take a whole lot off your mind. If you would like to have me help you the night she is put in the chair, I would be more than glad to do so. I hope to hear from you soon.’ Needless to say, he didn’t.

In an attempt to shift all the blame on to the adverse publicity she had received from the press and thereby obtain a reprieve by arousing public sympathy, Ruth wrote a self-pitying verse:

You’ve blackened and besmeared a mother Once a man’s plaything – a Toy – What have you gained by all you’ve said, And has it brought you Joy?

The ploy didn’t work, and on 12 January 1928, wearing a brown smock over a black, knee-length calico skirt, she was led to the execution chamber. Her blonde hair had been freshly combed; once thick, the tresses were now so thin that it was not necessary to clip it short where the electrode was to be positioned. On seeing the electric chair she swayed and almost collapsed, a wardress having to assist her to sit in it. There, she broke down and wept: ‘Jesus, have mercy on me, for I have sinned,’ she sobbed.

The black stocking on her right leg had been rolled down so that the electrode could be attached, and the executioner, Robert G. Elliott, parted the hair at the back of her head so that the other electrode would make good contact, then fixed it in position. As he put the mask over her face, she cried, ‘Jesus, have mercy.’ He threw the switch, the series of high voltage currents surged through her body, and after two minutes it was turned off to allow the prison doctor to use his stethoscope and announce that Ruth Snyder was dead.

Macabre souvenirs of executions were also all the rage during the French Revolution. The new plebeian Parisian society took the guillotine to their hearts (while aristocrats were taking it somewhat higher up). The popularity of the device was not overlooked by manufacturers, who wasted little time in bringing out miniature versions of the death-dealing device as toys for children, no doubt resulting in the early demise of many a household pet.

Larger versions for adults included dolls resembling unpopular politicians which could be decapitated at the dinner party table and would exude ‘blood’, this being a liqueur or perfume, the latter for the benefit of the ladies present, many of whom wore silver or gold earrings in the shape of the guillotine, or brooches bearing the same image.

Amazing True Stories of Female Executions by Geoffrey Abbott