That was not how the murder happened in Judd’s telling of it.  He agreed that he had purchased the chloroform, sash weight, and picture wire but said it was all Ruth’s idea.  If Ruth did indeed suggest the last item, she may have been thinking of the portrait of Jessie Guishard that hung from a picture wire.

He was in her mother’s bedroom, as Ruth said, when he saw her taking little Lorraine to her bedroom.  Ruth came back to him and whispered, “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?”

“I think I can,” Judd replied firmly even though, he claimed, a wave of terror washed over him.

Ruth turned around and her lover followed her to the bedroom.  There Judd struck the first blow, hitting a sleeping Albert with the sash weight. Albert instantly woke up and began a furious fight for his life.  He grabbed Judd by the necktie, choking him.  Then Ruth hit her husband with the sash weight.  Even with the two of them on the man, he fought mightily.  Ruth put chloroform on Albert but that did not stop his struggle.  She handed a necktie to Judd, saying, “Tie his hands!”  Judd could not manage it and Ruth tied his hands with a towel.  Then she tried to cover his head with a sheet while Judd wound the necktie about the struggling man’s feet, tying them together.

“Is he dead?” Ruth asked.

“No!” Judd told her.

“This thing has absolutely got to go through or I am ruined!” she wailed.

Judd slugged the man who refused to die and screamed, “Help me, Momie!”

“Momie” wound the picture wire around the bleeding man’s throat and pulled on it, hard. 

Finally, Albert Snyder ceased moving.  The murderers paused and waited and were certain that he was also no longer breathing.

Albert Snyder on his deathbed

Judd looked down and saw his that his shirt and hands were gleaming with blood.  He felt disoriented and numb.   His mind was blank.

“Here,” a helpful Ruth said, holding a blue shirt of her late husband before her crime partner, “Put this on.”

Mechanically, Judd took his shirt off and, just as mechanically put this replacement on, slowly buttoning it up.  A more efficient Ruth took his bloodstained clothes and hers down to the basement where they were incinerated.

He followed her down there and fortified himself with a few drinks.  Then he threw things about to simulate a robbery.

On the way to the Snyder house, Judd had picked up a scrap of Italian newspaper.  That would fit into their plans, the killers decided.  They would pin this crime on a couple of immigrants so they left it in the bed as a false clue.

Dawn was breaking as Judd bound his partner to a chair.  She opened her mouth so he could place the cheesecloth in.  Before he turned to leave, he said, “It may be two months, it may be a year, and it may be never before you’ll see me again.”