The Slow Death of Ocey Snead

22 min readNov 22, 2020

Ocey Snead, December 1907, public domain image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

At 4:30 PM, November 29, 1909, the police station in East Orange, New Jersey, received a telephone call. The woman on the line asked for a coroner. The officer explained there wasn’t one and advised her to contact a local doctor. A half-hour later, the woman telephoned Dr. Herbert M Simmons, deputy county physician, and asked him to come to her house at 89 West 14th Street. The woman explained that a girl had killed herself in the bathtub.

Upon arrival, Dr. Simmons thought the police erroneously sent to a vacant home. The paint on the house was chipped, the lawn grown over, and the windows had no curtains. He knocked on the door, thinking no one would answer. However, the old, heavy door creaked open to reveal a specter of a woman draped from head to toe in black mourning garb. “Coroner?” she spoke in gruff tones, “This way…”

She turned before a chilly gust of Autumn air extinguished her candle and ascended the stairs, the bewildered doctor at her heels. He noticed the coldness of the place; there was no heat source. The home also lacked furniture or blankets aside from a few old chairs, a single cot, and barrels that served as side tables.

The woman led the way to the sole bathroom in the house, located on the second floor. By the light of a single candle, Dr. Simmons saw a Zinc-lined wooden bathtub about four feet long and half-filled with a foot of soapy water. Just under the surface lay the corpse of a young woman. Her long, auburn hair floated ethereally around her face.

Her head was toward the faucets, and her hand still clutched a washcloth.

“When did this happen?” The doctor asked.

“I don’t know. I discovered the bod a few minutes before I called you.”

“Who is she? Who are you?”

“You’ll learn that soon enough!” The veiled woman replied as if the doctor had no right to ask.

“Do you live here? Did she? Have you been in the house all day?”

The rapid-fire questions made the woman nervous. She claimed to have last seen the girl that morning when she said she was going to have a bath and a long nap. The woman further claimed she hadn’t checked on her all day because it wasn’t unusual for her to sleep the day away.

“This morning! Why this girl has been dead a full 24 hours! I’ll have to call the police.” The doubtful doctor started to leave the bathroom when he noticed the girl’s clothing folded neatly on the floor. A note fell out when he picked them up.

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“Last year, my little daughter died. Other near and dear kindred, too, have gone to Heaven. I long to go there too. I have been ill and weak a very long time now. Death will be a blessed relief to me in my sufferings. When you read this I will have committed suicide. My sorrow and pain in this world are greater than I can endure. Ocey W.M. Snead”

Ocey’s alleged suicide note, 1909, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Immediately, Dr. Simmons notified the police. Who was this poor girl, and how did she come to die in this bathtub?

Investigation

The girl’s body was raised from the bath and taken for an autopsy. Detective Officer William H O’Neill was assigned to investigate the death scene. He immediately set out to examine the suicide note, question the woman in black, and search the house for evidence.

The woman in black asserted that she was Miss Virginia Oceana Wardlaw, former president of Soule College in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and the former co-owner of Montgomery College in Christiansburg, Virginia. She was also the aunt of the victim. The girl was Oceana Wardlaw Martin Snead, daughter of Mrs. Caroline Wardlaw Martin and wife of Fletcher Wardlaw Snead. But everyone called her Ocey.

Virginia told Officer O’Neill that Ocey hadn’t been well since her first child died in 1908. She had grown despondent since her husband’s disappearance in April. The only light in Ocey’s life was her newborn son, who was sickly and recently admitted to a hospital.

Officer O’Neill toured the house and found it cold and bare. He asked Virginia why the home had no furniture, and she hadn’t bothered to turn the gas on or even build a fire. She and Ocey, she claimed, only arrived two weeks prior, and the furniture hadn’t been delivered.

Miss Wardlaw tried to ignore the officer’s questions and prattle on about her noble genealogy and what an upright ilk she stemmed from. The detective listened while he studied the suicide note.

“Got a pen and some ink?” He asked.

“No, there’s none in the house.” Miss Wardlaw responded.

“Is that so? Then when did this girl write her suicide note? And how does it happen that she had soap and a washrag!”

Officer O’Neill arrested the 62-year-old aunt for murder and placed her in Essex County jail. O’Neill never believed Ocey killed herself. Detective O’Neil launched an investigation into Ocey Snead’s death that would unveil three of the most twisted sisters in criminal history.

The Knoxville Journal
Knoxville, Tennessee
21 Apr 1946, Sun • Page 36

Ocey’s Early Years

Ocey in happier times, Public Domain Image, Courtesy of Wikemedia Commons

She was born Oceana Wardlaw Martin in Manhattan in September of 1885. Her mother was a southern aristocrat named Caroline Bell Wardlaw. Her father was a veteran of the Confederacy named Colonel Robert Maxwell Martin. Ocey had a brother, Hugh Martin, who was four years older than her.

When Ocey was three, seven-year-old Hugh suffered a terrible fall down a flight of stairs. Sadly, the child passed away from his injuries. His parents previously took out a life insurance policy on the child and received $22,000 when he died.

After Hugh’s death, the Martin family disappears from public record until January 9, 1901. On that day, the neighbors heard a loud crashing sound coming from the Martin home. They rushed over to find Ocey’s father lying dead on the ground. Mrs. Martin hovered over his body as Ocey sobbed nearby. Caroline glared at her little girl and growled a single word to the child, “Remember!” Ocey immediately became quiet.

As with her son, Robert’s life was insured, with Caroline as his beneficiary. Per his obituary, the colonel suffered a long illness before death, though the exact disease is unclear. When her husband passed, Caroline collected $10,000 and took Ocey to live with her family in the south.

A Veiled Past

Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Fort Worth, Texas
16 May 1910, Mon • Page 1

Caroline was born in 1847, the eldest daughter of John Wardlaw and Mary Elizabeth Goodall. Her first sister, Mary, came a year later, followed quickly by Virginia. The three women were inseparable. All of them possessed teaching credentials from Wesleyan Female College.

The three women were very close. They habitually dressed alike in heavy black clothes, including long black capes and thick dark veils, making it difficult to tell who was who.

Virginia worked as Head Mistress of Soule Female Academy, a prestigious boarding school in Murfreesboro. Mary was her assistant. When Caroline came to town, Virginia offered her a job managing the school’s funds. Caroline agreed and enrolled Ocey.

Over the year, Virginia allowed Caroline to gain control of the school. Caroline possessed a strange persuasive power over her sisters that some thought was hypnotic, even supernatural. Caroline completely changed the curriculum. The students became uneasy when the Wardlaw sisters began padlocking random rooms and switching pupils from class to class for no reason. Most unsettling, the women walked the campus corridors in their black garb to startle students. Sometimes, they would appear in a sleeping girl’s room like phantoms in the night.

On more than one occasion, the Wardlow sisters hired a man to bring them to the Evergreen Cemetery after the sunset. Caroline, Mary, and Virginia gathered around various graves where they would hold hands and chant unintelligibly until dawn.

The sisters’ behavior caused attendance and enrollment to dwindle. Worse, Caroline misspent the school’s money. In 1907, the sisters were relieved of their professional duties at Soule Female Academy.

On to Christiansburg

Virginia Wardlaw found employment quickly. Their 93-year-old aunt, Oceana Seaborn Goodall Polock, owned and directed Montgomery Female College in Christiansburg, Virginia. Because of her advanced age, Oceana decided to pass the school and her position to her niece.

Mary Wardlaw followed Virginia almost immediately. Her sons Fletcher and John were married to a set of sisters named Anna and Vashta McLaurine and stayed behind with them in Lynnville, Tennessee. The school was successful until Caroline returned.

After a brief hiatus in New York, Caroline brought Ocey to Christiansburg. Before long, Caroline acted as the school director. This time, Caroline declined to enroll Ocey in school. Instead, she stayed with her aunt Mary. The women claimed Ocey was introverted and preferred the company of family to that of outsiders.

Caroline somehow convinced her nephew John to leave his wife in Lynnville and take a school position. After his arrival, John began experiencing bouts of depression. Calamity seemed to follow the man everywhere. While on a trip with Caroline, John fell from the train. Caroline and John insisted the fall was accidental, but the brakeman was certain he intentionally jumped.

A few weeks later, a groundskeeper at the school found John nearly drowned in a cistern. John swore this, too, was accidental. He claimed he was taking measurements and slipped.

A week later, the sound of Virginia’s screams rang through the sleepy halls at Montgomery. Two teachers followed her cries to John’s sleeping quarters. When they opened the door, they found Virginia standing over her nephew as he thrashed about. His sleeping gown mysteriously caught fire.

Virginia said the accident happened while he was lighting the kerosine lamp. However, the lamp had no fire. John’s clothes were drenched in Kerosine. He suffered first degree burns.

Tragically, John died from his injuries 20 days after the incident. As one of his last acts on earth, John named Virginia the beneficiary on his life insurance policy instead of his wife.

Police conducted a half-hearted investigation into John’s death. When the sisters swore the death was accidental, investigators believed them. In the end, they split his $18,000 life insurance policy.

Ocey’s Wedding

After John’s horrible death, Caroline returned to Lynnville. She asked her remaining nephew, Fletcher, to leave his wife and son in Lynnville and replace John at the school. Fletcher resisted, but eventually, Caroline convinced him. When Vashti tried to visit, Caroline wouldn’t allow it, and the couple divorced.

Fletcher and Ocey were always close, according to Mary. When he came to Christiansburg, they spent most of his free time together at the home of Mary Snead. Fletcher and Ocey’s relationship evolved from a natural affection most people feel for their first cousins into a romance.

The sisters disapproved of the affair between Ocey and Fletcher. When Ocey turned 18, the couple eloped to New York, where Fletcher found work in a lumber mill.

Fletcher Wardlaw Snead, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The sisters were furious to learn the cousins were married but quickly reconciled themselves to the union. Perhaps they had to because once again, Caroline ran this school into the ground, and they needed Fletcher’s income.

Virginia mortgaged everything she could to try and save Montgomery School, but to no avail. The school went belly up and closed. The sisters took what little money they had and headed north to live with Ocey and Fletcher, where creditors couldn’t find them.

By 1903 Ocey had four policies totaling $24,500. Fletcher had $24,000 on his life, with his mother and two aunts named as beneficiaries. Ocey’s policies made her maternal grandmother the first beneficiary and her mother the secondary beneficiary. Little did she know, these insurance policies spelled a short, lonely life for Ocey that would end at the hands of her own family.

Brooklyn

Nearly broke, the three sisters, Ocey, and Fletcher made their home at a small tenement at 1693 East 48th Street in the Flatlands neighborhood of Brooklyn. The family had no income and very little left to sustain them. However, Caroline had an insurance policy for Ocey valued at $32,000. Fletcher’s life was worth $24,000.

Shortly after the family arrived, Ocey realized she was pregnant. The pregnancy was rough on the young woman. Instead of gaining weight, Ocey started to waste away. Some thought she wouldn’t survive the pregnancy, but she delivered a daughter on February 9, 1908. The baby, Mary Alberta Snead, was not so fortunate; she only lived two days.

Ocey became pregnant again by autumn. Fletcher must have realized he was worth more dead than alive because he vanished during the early part of the pregnancy. He allegedly left behind a suicide note. Ocey’s aunt and mother inlaw informed her that Fletcher killed himself.

The three sisters attempted to collect Fletcher’s insurance. The agency issuing it wouldn’t pay the sum because there was no proof that Fletcher was dead.

Frustrated, Caroline began to drop hints to Virginia about how relieved she would be to get Ocey’s life insurance.

On July 18, 1910, Ocey gave birth to a frail son and named him David Pollock Snead. A neighbor named Ethel Moore assisted with the delivery. According to Ethel, Ocey appeared weak and hungry. When the women in black were out of earshot, Ocey told Ethel her mother and aunts were starving her to death. Whenever the sisters sensed agitation in Ocey, or maybe suspicion, they dosed her with morphine until she was quiet again.

Ocey’s Decline

Ocey Snead and Son, Public Domain Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Dr. William Pettit came to visit Ocey in her Brooklyn home after she delivered David. His diagnosis was that she and the infant both needed nourishment. Otherwise, Ocey was a typical, healthy, young lady. When he made a second visit, he discovered that Ocey’s carers completely disregarded his orders — Ocey and the baby were weaker than before.

On his third visit, the sisters refused to let the doctor inside. Eager to treat his patient, Dr. Pettit climbed through a window. Ocey laid there listless, reduced to skin and bones. Still, she found the energy to flash a warm smile towards her doctor.

Dr. Pettit informed the three sisters that Ocey desperately needed a postpartum operation. Of course, they rejected the idea claiming they didn’t have the money. The doctor shrugged. It was just as well, he told the women, since the operation might save her life but might also kill her.

The prospect of Ocey’s death made the women almost giddy. Dr. Pettit operated successfully and again instructed the women to provide her with good food and fresh air. He promised to return and remove Ocey’s stitches.

The sisters suggested the doctor inform Ocey she would soon die and advise her to change her insurance policy. They indicated that Ocey could bequeath him $1,000 for his services. He refused and notified the police, who didn’t bother to investigate.

On September 9, 1909, Virginia visited a Brooklyn attorney named Julian V Varabba. She asked him to alter her dying niece’s will. He refused to do anything without Ocey’s consent, so Virginia allowed him to visit the home and ask Ocey’s permission.

According to the lawyer, Ocey looked like a corpse and appeared to be in a coma. Virginia and Caroline hovered over the bed and chanted what he thought were prayers. Caroline abruptly stopped chanting and asked Ocey if she wanted to make a new will. Julian was startled when the catatonic woman answered, “Yes, I do.”

“My God, woman! This girl needs a doctor!” Julian asserted. Of course, the women claimed they couldn’t afford a doctor. “Well, what about food? She is starving!” suggested the lawyer. The women claimed food for Ocey was another extravagance they couldn’t afford.

Acting quick on his feet, Julian took out his checkbook but pretended he didn’t have a pen. The sisters hurried out of the room to find one. When they did, Ocey perked up.

“I’m dying! I’m dying! I see a Masonic pin on you, and I believe I can trust you. Oh, for God’s sake, please don’t leave me!” Ocey cried as she reached for a paper under her pillow. “Here! This is my will. Take it and make yourself executor. Do anything you like, but for God’s sake, take care of my child!” Julian hid the will in his pocket just as the sisters returned.

After accepting Julian’s $5 check, they offered him two of Ocey’s insurance policies for a total of $7000 for one small favor — change the beneficiary from Ocey’s aging grandmother to them.

Julian had no intention of doing anything of the sort, but he played along to save Ocey’s life. He placated the sisters, saying he needed to make sure the policies were valid. The next day, Virginia and Caroline went with Julian to the insurance company. They learned that even though the policies were valid, they needed consent from the current beneficiary to change it since Ocey was not in any position to make such a decision.

The sisters would not ask their mother to relinquish her rights. Julian, thankfully, was off the hook.

A Suspicious Death

In early November, Caroline asked the milkman if he’d like to earn a quick buck. He agreed before asking what job Caroline had for him. She told him to be ready to take a sick woman to the country in his wagon the next day. Caroline assured him it didn’t matter where in the country, as long as he got rid of her. Of course, the milkman declined.

Caroline offered a plumber named John Barnes the same deal. He also declined, but on November 13, he agreed to move some belongings from the Brooklyn apartment to a hotel in Manhattan where Mary and Caroline suddenly decided to move.

Just a little while before, and against Ocey’s will, they sent baby David to St. Christopher’s hospital for treatment. Virginia rented a house at 75 N 14th street, East Orange, New Jersey. She didn’t bother to turn on any utilities.

Virginia told Ocey and Mary they were going to try out the new house. If they liked it, she said, Caroline and Mary would join them there.

On the day Ocey died, neighbors reported seeing a strange woman enter the house and stay for several hours. Later, they would identify the stranger as Caroline Martin, Ocey’s mother.

Detective O’Neill remained convinced that Caroline, Virginia, and Mary withheld food from Ocey and dosed her with morphine. He speculated that Caroline or Virginia overdosed Ocey and slipped her emaciated body into the bathtub to drown.

County physician William H McKenzie confirmed that Ocey died of drowning, with a nearly fatal amount of morphine in her system. He added the sad fact that she would have died anyway, due to advanced Malnutrition. As noted, she had been dead in that bathtub at least 24 hours before anyone notified the police.

The police sought Caroline, Mary, and Fletcher Snead — whose death still wasn’t proven.

Trial

Virginia stuck to her story; she hadn’t seen Ocey since the morning of her death. She had no reason to go upstairs that day, not even to use the only toilet in the house. Furthermore, she had no idea where her sisters or Fletcher were.

Handwriting expert William J Kinsley studied the alleged suicide note. He concluded that the body was written with one pen, and the signature with another. Yet, there was neither pen nor ink in that house.

Meanwhile, Fletcher Snead, who had supposedly killed himself, was located in Ontario, Canada. Fletcher was working under the name of John Lucas as a dishwasher. Ocey’s husband did not explain why he left, though he had no part in Ocey’s death. Police did not extradite him, and he remained a free man.

On December 16, 1909, officers arrested Mary Snead, Ocey’s aunt and mother in law, in a New York hotel room. When they asked her what she thought the outcome of her arrest would be, she responded, “It will end in death. I would welcome death. I am old. I can’t help anyone. I am of no use.” She was charged with murder and placed in a cell near Virginia’s.

Earlier that day, Caroline Martin turned up in a different hotel registered under the alias Mrs. Maybrick. Investigators found several notes — all nearly identical to the one pinned to Ocey’s dress. Yet, Virginia claimed Ocey hadn’t left the East Orange house since they moved in.

Officer O’Neill decided to search the Flatlands home for clues. Janitor George Kelly let him in and aided in the search. The rooms were just as bare as the East Orange house, with broken bits of furniture scattered around. They noticed suspicious dark stains on the living room floor leading to the bathroom where Ocey died. In the kitchen, investigators opened the oven and found a burnt bundle. The pile was a mass of yellow hair and bones. One of the bones appeared to be an impossibly small femur. Another bone looked like part of a human infant’s skull.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch
St. Louis, Missouri
12 Dec 1909, Sun • Page 21

Caroline Jailed

Caroline, locked in a cell block with her sisters, attempted to call all of the shots. She ordered lavish meals — which would have saved her daughter if offered. “Why she can even make us keepers do almost anything she wants us to do,” said one of the jail matrons.

Caroline wouldn’t speak to law enforcement or media without her lawyer present, and she forbade her sisters to talk as well. Their lawyer, Franklin W Ford, quit the case because his clients thought they knew the law better than he did. The judge appointed Chauncey H Beasley to take his place.

Chauncey filed the typical postponements, writs, and injunctions to give himself time to build the case. Inevitably, all three were formally charged; Caroline would face trial for the premeditated murder of her daughter, Ocey Snead. The other two were charged with accessory to murder, before the fact, and for talking Ocey through suicide.

Shortly after the arrests, baby David died. He was buried next to his mother and sister.

Justice

It seemed justice was on its way for the Wardlaw sisters. Virginia had one more death up her sleeve; her own. During the summer of 1910, Virginia became ill. Doctors suspected Virginia was starving herself and that she would die if she didn’t eat. Relatives from Christiansburg came to be with Virginia and to convince her to have some food. On August 11, 1910, Virginia succeeded in starving herself to death. Her attorney told the press:

“Miss Virginia O Wardlaw starved herself to death in the same manner as did Ocey WM Snead, with whose murder she was charged. Both the young woman and Miss Wardlaw were driven to the course by some mastermind that seemed to have full control over them.”

Reporters asked if Caroline was the mastermind. Chauncey declined to state. Like the first attorney, he eventually abandoned the case.

Caroline began to behave erratically after Virginia’s death. Relatives from the south asked the judge to declare her insane. Caroline insisted her mind was sound. A team of psychiatrists agreed, and Caroline was allowed to proceed to trial along with Mary.

Attorney Samuel Kalisch became Caroline’s third lawyer and was able to negotiate a plea bargain. On Jan 9, 1911, Caroline pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. The judge sentenced her to seven years in prison, a sentence Caroline thought was too harsh. She screamed and shouted that she was innocent and had nothing to do with Ocey’s death. But the gavel went down just the same, and Caroline was sent to prison.

The final sister, Mary, escaped all consequences. Because Caroline’s conviction was manslaughter and not murder, Mary couldn’t have been an accessory before the fact. Mary was a free woman.

Not long after her conviction, Caroline became insane. She served two years in a Trenton, New Jersey insane asylum before she died on June 21, 1913.