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Shortly after the sentence was passed,
Ruth Snyder converted to Roman Catholicism. Some more cynical
observers believed that this was a calculated ploy to win a
commutation from New York Gov. Alfred Smith, also a Roman Catholic.
If so, it was a mistake. The governor was even less likely to
extend mercy to a co-religionist and leave himself vulnerable to
charges of religious favoritism.
Ruth and Judd were taken to the Death
House at Sing Sing where Ruth would be the only woman during her stay.
While much of the general public sympathized with Judd as a man caught
in the “coils” of an evil woman and hated Ruth, sentiment in Sing
Sing was precisely reversed. There is nothing more despised in
the hyper-masculine world of male criminals than male weakness.
Shifting blame for one’s own crime onto a woman made the “Putty
Man” lower than a slug in the eyes of most of his fellow prisoners
and they shunned him. He was, however, able to make a few
friends, according to Murderess!, “Gray found it possible to
converse with the occupants in the cells bordering his. He even
managed to play checkers with them by calling out moves corresponding
to the numbered squares on a checkerboard.”
While denounced in the press in terms of
horror, Ruth did have her admirers. They were submissive men who
swallowed hook, line, and sinker Judd’s depiction of her
“powers.” According to Crimes of Passion, “Ruth
received 164 offers of marriage from men who – in the event of her
being reprieved – were eager to exist humbly beneath her
dominance.”
Even more isolated than her
co-defendant, Ruth spent her time writing. Her memoirs would be
published as My Own True Story – So Help Me God! In the New
York Daily Mirror. It was a confused mishmash of
observations, memories, and outright craziness. The first step
on her way to her present predicament had begun with adultery, Ruth
believed, so she devoted much of her prose to warning other women away
from affairs.
“I wish a lot of women who may be
sinning,” she penned, “could come here and see what I have done
for myself through sinning and maybe they would do some of the
thinking I have done for months and they would be satisfied with their
homes and would stop wishing for things they should try to get along
without when they can’t have them.
“Maybe there are women who have nice
homes (and husbands who do the best they can for them) even if they
don’t like their husbands and they could bear it if they would only
make up their minds everything can’t be just perfect.
“Some husbands don’t make enough
money to get their wives the things they wish they had and if the
wives have the brains they will just take what they can get and try to
make the best of it.”
As the months of sustained terror wore
on, Ruth’s mind began to unravel. It showed in her writing.
She wrote, “Judd Gray talks! – ‘about the big brown bug’ –
he ‘put out of its misery’ – does (he) – J. G. – ever think
back of RUTH BROWN’S BUG he ‘put out of his misery?’”
What Ruth refers to here is quite unclear but the question
automatically occurs to the reader: was Albert Snyder “RUTH
BROWN’S BUG”?
On January 12, 1928, both people
convicted of murdering Albert Snyder were put to death. In
keeping with the Sing Sing tradition of executing the most distressed
prisoner first and getting the worst of an inevitably grisly business
out of the way, Ruth was taken to the electric chair before Judd.
Her entire head was not shaved but a
bald spot was made for the electrode. Her eyes were red and
swollen from crying as she was led to the death chamber, a matron
holding her under each of her arms. When she saw the electric
chair, she started screaming hysterically and her body went limp.
The matrons forced her to the chair as she shrieked, “Jesus, have
mercy on me!” Then as the black leather mask was placed over
her face, she prayed aloud for her executioners using Christ’s
words, “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.”
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| Ruth Snyder’s
electrocution |
Just as her body shook with the force of
electricity, a newspaper photographer raised his trouser cuff where he
had secreted a small camera, and snapped a picture of her dying.
Cameras were forbidden at executions but this man had smuggled it in
and the photograph appeared in front pages the next morning. It
is still frequently displayed in articles about the death penalty.
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