Indianapolis Times, Volume 39, Number 213, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 January 1928 — Page 1

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SCRIPPS-HOWARD

RUTH SNYDER AND GRAY DIE IN ELECTRIC CHAIR; KILLERS GO CALMLY TO THEIR DOOM Pair Walk Without Sign of Fear to Seat of Execution, Praying for Mercy; Double Electrocution in Fourteen Minutes. WOMAN PLEADS FOR FORGIVENESS Blonde Slayer Goes First to Death; Forty Witnesses in Sing Sing Chamber as Murderers Expiate Their Crime.

Other Snyder-Gray details on Page One, Section Two. By LOUIS F. KEEMLE , United Pres* Staff Correspondent SING SING PRISON, OSSINING, N. Y., Jan. 13.—Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray, lovers and murderers, have paid the penalty for their love aud murder in the same electric chair. They went to death, between 11 and 11:11 o’clock last night, without a sign of fear and praying to God for mercy. The first woman to die in this state in twenty-nine years, and one of the few ever to suffer capital punishment in this country, met death with calmness and resignation. She and Gray, who had been illicit lovers, were put to death for killing her husband, Albert Snyder, in Queens Village, N. Y., last March. They chloroformed him, beat him to death with a sashweight and strangled him with picture wire. Their lives were ..forfeited to the State in a little high-ceilinged room about forty feet long and twenty feet wide, in which a group of forty persons, including two women, had gathered. Forgiveness Asked . .. - ¥ “Forgive me. Father, for all my ■sins,” Mrs. Snyder said in a low, thin little voice just before 2,200 volts of electricity were shot into her body. Then she whimpered and sobbed ever so faintly. In the solemn, strained stillness of the execution chamber it was plainly audible, and it sounded like a little child about to be punished. Then the current was turned on. She never moved again. The witnesses, gathered in the warden’s office, were led to the death chamber in a far corner of the prison by a long route under the open sky. A few stars showed. It was cold. Warden Is at Rear Warden Lewis E. Lawes stpod at the rear. Guards and the doctors ranged either wall. At the left rear, opposite the witness benches, was the closed door of the autopsy chamber. The witnesses were ushered in a minute or two before 11 o’clock, all the others were In their places. No one spoke. There was a shuffling as the witnesses took their places. The guards stood with folded arms. The shuffling stopped. There was a second or two of silence as the witnesses eyed the empty chair. It was something like an old-fashioned barber’s chair, with high back. Mrs. Snyder, her faded blonde hair hanging straight in a sort of Buster Brown bob, was dressed in a short, dark skirt of cheap prison material and a light green smock. She wore slippers and one of her white stockings was rolled halfway down the calf. A matron was on either side and the Rev. John P. McCaffrey, Catholic chaplain of the prison, walked in front, holding a crucifix .before her eyes and praying in low-voiced Latin. A guard was well in the rear. Mrs. Snyder, a little woman against whom the silent guards appeared like giants, walked slowly and steadily. Her eyes were straight ahead and apparently were taking in the figure of the cross. She advanced to the chair, guided by the matrons, who then stood in front as though shielding her from view. She was assisted into the chair. Guards Work Swiftly As she sat in the chair, the guards closed in and moved swiftly. Two knelt and fastened her ankles to the short straps in front of the chair. The electrode was attached to her bare right leg. A strap went around her waist and another across her chest, pinning her in. The death cap,'a regulation black leather football helmet with an electrode in the crown to meet the bare spot clipped on top of her head, was fastened in place. The death mask, a double affair that covers the eyes and mouth, with only a strip across the nose bare, was adjusted and the guard? stepped back. #. Until she sat in the chair*,' Mrs. Snyder had made no sound. -* As she sat .down, she suddenly began. to speak. Her voice, low and with that note of a frightened child in it, shattered the stillness like the breaking of a glass tumbler. “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” Tbs words tumbled out less like a prayer than like some familiar line, spoken to keep her courage. "Forgive them, Father.” Her voloe was a note higher and half-stifled.

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The Indianapolis Times Mostly fair tonight, probably becoming unsettled Saturday; moderate temperature, lowest tonight 40-to 45.

VOLUME 39—NUMBER 213

( Contrast E.u Vnited Press OSSINING, N. Y., Jan. 13. Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray were in decided contrast, when a few hours before their execution each was advised that last-minute efforts at clemency had failed. “I expected nothing more Gray said calmly, and turned back to his Bible. “Ain’t there anything anybody can do?” Mrs. Snyder asked, and wept violently.

“Jesus, have mercy.” The mask was snuffling the sound. “Forgive me, Father, for all my sins.” Then the executioner in the alcove threw down a switch, hard. The figure in the chair, that had been limp, threw itself forward against the restraining bonds, stiffened and stayed that way. It never moved voluntarily again. It was 11:02. The silence endured for three minutes. The only sound was the heavy., breathing of a stout witness. At 11:05 the current was shut off and the body slumped down in the chair. In another minute the group Stepped forward, the front of Mrs. Snyder’s frock was laid back and f)r. C. C. Sweet, prison physician, and one of his assistants, applied their stethoscope. Dr. Sweet faced the witnesses and said—“l pronounce this woman dead.” That was 11:07. The guards stepped up, unbuckled the straps and two white-robed doctors lifted the limp body and placed it on a wheeled, white-* enameled hospital table standing ready. It was wheeled past the witnesses. At 11:07*4 the door of the autopsy room closed behind Ruth Snyder, Judd Gray Enters The prison door opened again. Judd Gray, escorted by the principal keeper, John J. Sheehy, and the Protestant chaplain, . the Rev. Anthony Peterson, entered. Rev. Peterson was reading aloud from a prayer book. “ that the world through Him might be saved.” Gray walked erect, fils eyes fastened on some Infinite point straight ahead. He noticed neither the witnesses nor the waiting chair. His lips were moving in prayer. He seemed to be repeating after the chaplain: “Blessed are the meek ” He was in a gray sack suit of cheap prison material, with a white shirt, collar attached and necktie. A handkerchief peeked absurdly from his breast pocket, over his heart. His back was to the chair and he down. It was 11:09. Strapped In Rapidly Then quick activity ensued and Gray was strapped in. He had no strap across his waist, only one over the chest. Until the mask covered his face, his lips moved in earnest prayer, that the witnesses could not hear. He did not appear like a murderer. His open, attractive f&ce had a helpless kind of dignity about it. It was a face, you would think, that would attract children. At 11:10 the current was turned on. Gray shot forward just as Mrs. Snyder had done and remained fixed. After that first leap against the bonds, the body never moved. The left hand curled slightly upward. The right was palm down. Not even a finger twitched. Forty pairs of eyes watched th* still figure for two minutes that might have been ten. At 11:12, the reality of the execution came home, when a wisp of smoke spiralled up from the right temple. At 11:13 another little burst of smoke coiled up. The hand of the executioner, Robert Elliott, moved and the current went off. “I pronounce this man dead,” Dr. Sweet announced at 11:14. Half a minute later, the body was wheeled through the autopsy room and Ruth and Judd, for the first time since their crime, were together again. >

WOMAN ‘SAINT’ OF TENEMENTS SLAIN AS SACRIFICE BY RELIGIOUS FANATIC

NEW YORK, Jan< 13.—Sorrow visited the Italian tenements of Brooklyn today while thousands mourned for Mrs. Rose Licata, known to them as "the Saint,” who was shot to death as she knelt praying before the altar in her home here Thursday night. While Italians from all over the city wjio had prayed with their

Who Killed The Canary? > —■— 4 Margaret Odell, the toast of Broadway, known internationally among theatergoers as “The Canary,” was found murdered in her room. And out of the maze of clews left in the luxurious room, after long and patient search, Philo Vance, the most amazing detective of all fiction, achieved solution of a fiendishly ingenious crime. “The Canary Murder Case,” by S. S. Van Dine, starts Monday in The Times. Don’t miss a chapter of this enthralling story.

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Margaret Odell, known to Broadway as “The Canary.”

GRAY’S BODY GOES TO GRAVE TODAY

Police Forced to Disperse Throng of Curious at Funeral Home. By United Press EAST ORANGE, N. J„ Jan. 13. Judd Gray, electrocuted with Mrs. Ruth Snyder last night at Sing Sing prison, will be given 1:1s funeral and burial at 3 p. m. this afternoon. The funeral services will be at the Colonial funeral home, where the body now rests and the burial will be in Rosedale cemetery. The crowd which began to collect about the place when it was known that Gray’s body was there became so great that three detectives were sent from police headquarters to disperse it and keep the curious moving. Persons who saw the body in the undertaking establishment said it looked natural and the face bore an expression of calm repose. It remained somewhat reddened from the effects of the electricity, they said, but otherwise resembled Gray. There were bad burns on the back of the neck, the left side of the face and the right leg. At dawn when Gray’s body was started here from Ossining, the car which carried it was followed closely by a dozen containing reporters and othesr, bent on seeing where it would be taken. The car turned into the New York entrance of the Holland, vehicular tunnel, which goes under the Hudson River to the New Jersey side. As if by pre-arranged plan, the car containing the body was allowed to pass swiftly through the entrance of the tunnel, but the cars that trailed it were held up for a quarter hour by tunnel police. Only a few members of the family will attend the services this after-

“saint” and felt the comfort of her blessing, tried to console her grief- ; stricken husband and five children, police seSVcherd for Santo Nicastro, the assailant. Nicastro was believed a religious fanatic. He visited the* tenement j shrine of Mrs. Licata often, pray- ! ing for hours in the room dimly | lighted by tapers and adorned

INDIANAPOLIS, FRIDAY, JAN. 13, 1928

Painless B,u United Press SPRINGFIELD. 111., Jan. 13. —Electrocution is a painless death, Dr. Elmer Trapp believes, after conversing with a man who regained consciousness after a 33,000-volt shock, dying later. "It was apparent,” Dr. Trapp said, “that death was imminent when I was called to attend Elmer G. Carstens, a civil engineer, who had come in contact with a 33,000-volt wire. “To my surprise, he regained consciousness. He told me that he just became insensible when the charge hit him; that there was no pain, and that he would get up in a minute and be all right. He died a few minutes later.”

noon. Among them will be Gray's mother, Mrs. Margaret Gray; his sister, Mrs. Harold Logan, and her husband. Bodies Taj<en Away P.i Unit< tl Press OSSINING. N. Y„ Jan. 13.—Before daylight today undertakers’ wagons came to Sing Sing prison and carried away the bodies of Henry Judd Gray and Ruth Brown Snyder, electrocuted last night. Gray’s body,. claimed by his mother, was taken to East Orange, N. J. Mrs. Snyder’s body, claimed by her mother, was taken to an undertaking parlor in the Bronx, New York. Before the bodies were taken from the prison, an autopsy w r as performed. The surgeons reported they found the brains of both normal, but that their examination revealed “an abnormal gland” in the back of Mrs. Snyder’s neck.

with statues and relics of the saints. But Mrs. Licata feared him. “He spoke of killing me as a sacrifice,” she told her husband one day. But the husband laughed her fears away, and Thursday afternoon Mrs. Licata welcomed Nicastro without alarm.

POLICE CLASH WITH GARAGE ON STOP LINE Circle Motor Inn Smudges 1 Off New Paint; Worley Puts It Down Again. COURT TO SETTLE ROW Left Turns Tie Up Traffic, Says Chief: ‘Not So/ Retorts Manager. The score stood one to one in the game of “traffic, traffic, who'll block the traffic?” between police and T. B. Rogers, manager of the Circle Motor Inn, W. Market St. and Monument Circle, today. Police, for the moment, had Rogers nonplussed, but he bided the hour when he would go to Superior Judge Byron K. Eliott’s court to press a plea for a permanent injunction to prohibit police from standing in front of the garage and keeping motorists from making left turns into and out of the garage. Caused Traffic Jams Twice within two days employes of the Inn smudged out the yellow line which police painted down the center of the street in front of the garage to prevent the left turns, which they say h tve caused serious traffic jams for months. Not only motorists trying to get into and out of Monument Circle, but pedestrians trying to get past the garage entrance on the sidewalk have appealed to the police for relief. Police and newspapers received many complaints that the garage management parked dozens of cars outside in the sub-zero weather New Year’s Eve instead of in the warm, but crowded interior where car owners thought their property was being safeguarded. Officer Guards New Paint The fact that Inn employes smeared pitch over the latest line painted last night did not to sweeten police disposition. Police painters scraped off the pitch and painted anew line this morning. A uniformed man stood guard with instructions from Police Chief Claude M. Worley to arrest and haul to headquarters in the patrol wagon anyone who laid a finger on the new line. The garage management late Thursday obtained a temporary restraining order from Judge Elliott prohibiting police from standing in the middle of the street and refusing to permit motorists to make left turns into and out of the garage. Worley obtained an opinion from Corporation Counsel John W. Holtzman that putting the line down was no violation of this order and that any interference with the line on the part of the garage management was a law violation.

FLAGMAN IS KILLED Train Strikes Car, Crushing Aged Crossing Guard. John Pedigo, 68, of 955 N. Tibbs Ave„ flagman at the Pennsylvania crossing on Tibbs Ave., died at the Methodist hospital at 10:45 a. m. today from injuries received as the result of a train crashing into an automobile at his crossing earlier in the day. The demolished car was driven by Virgil K. Wayland, 36, of 3605 Rockville Rd., pressman at The Times. En route to work, he saw neither flag nor flagman at the crossing and was almost on the tracks before he saw the train approaching, he reported to police. * Applying the brakes he leaped from the machine. The car skidded in the path of the locomotive and was tossed aside. It is thought that it struck the aged flagman and threw him against a crossing sign. The sign was broken off. Wayland was uninjured. The only known relative of Pedigo is a brother, David Pedigo, Kokomo, Xnd. He was notified of the death and funeral arrangements are being made. BIG POST TO CITY - MAN F. E. Floyd Named Executive Secretary of Paper Trade Group. Appointment of Frank E. Floyd, 4450 Park Ave., secretary and general manager of the Crescent Paper Company, to be executive secretary of the National Paper Trade Association, with headquarters in New York City, was announced today. Floyd will leave Indianapolis in February. He is a former president of the Rotary Club.

ANOTHER woman, Mrs. Rose Lombardi, had come a few minutes earlier to pray that the baby she was expecting might be a boy. With “The Saint” and Nicastro, she kneeled before the crude little altar. They prayed for three hours. Then suddenly Nicastro rose.

Donkey Bray ~ y Rogers Pours Fiery Banter on Democrats Attending Dinner.

WASHINGTON, Jan. 13.—Will Rogers, cowboy humorist, told the Democratic national committee all about politics at the Jackson day banquet, Thursday night. “A politician,” he said, “is a bandit who having made a local reputation, is sent to Washington to raid the treasury. He takes his loot back to his constitutuents and is then sent to the Senate. "The Senate is a body that opens with a prayer and closes with an investigation. First they investigate the chaplain, then they investigate each, other to see how much each pays to get in. If one paid more than the other did, they throw him out. “The House never has an in-' vestigation. They just figure that if you paid to get in you are a simp. Rogers said he was glad the Democrats were having a harmony dinner. “Democrats ought to eat in harmony if they can’t drink in harmony,” he explained. 'WE' TAKE REST IN PANAMA CITY Lindy Will Take Off Next for Venezuela. Bjr United I‘rrss _ „ _ COLCN, Panama, Jan . 13.—The mechanical half of Col. Charles A. Lindbergh’s good-will combination of “We”—his airplane. The Spirit of St. Louis—today was undergoing inspection and overhauling, after strenuous hours in the air in the tour of Central America. As soon as the plane is reconditioned, Lindbergh will take off for Venezuela, but he is not certain when, neither is he certain what stops he will make after leaving Venezuela. He said today he would like to visit Colombia, but he had not received reports of the flying fields there and until he was certain about them he would not decide on his itinerary. Lindbergh flew here yesterday from Panama City and was received joyously. Lindbergh said he also would be very glad to met Dieudonne Costes and Joseph Lebrix, French fliers en route here from South America. He said he had watched progress of their flights—across the South Atlantic and thence up through South America—and had been interested greatly.

AMNESIA VICTIM IS IDENTIFIED AS HOOSIER Temple Ave. Man Wakes Up In Chicago; Friends Go to Aid. H. C. Steinkamp and Harold Mancries of Indianapolis, today identified the amnesia victim held in the Pyschopathic Hospital at Chicago as Harry Price, 24, of 2522 N. Temple Ave., according to a United Press dispatch. Steinkamp, of 2942 Brookside Ave.. is Price’s employer and father of Price’s fiancee, Miss Henrietta Steinkamp. Mancries, 23 N. Gray St., is price’s cousin. Price stumbled into the Chicago Central Y. M. C. A. Wednesday, and asked aid in identifying himself. He remembered nothing. Price left home Tuesday morning to go to a downtown bank to make a payment on a truck. THREE - HURT ”lN CRASH Motorman, Two Passengers Bruised as Street Cars Collide. Three persons were slightly ( injured when Lexington and English Ave. street cars collided head-on at Lexington Ave. and Pine St. early today. Both cars were damaged. Leg of Fayne Malloy, 1265 Naomi St., motorman on the Lexington Ave. car, was injured. Miss Datha Hester, 906 Lexington Ave., and Willis Mings, 1226 Pleasant St., passengers, also were bruised, police said. ‘MISSING’ MAN WRITES _On Way to California to Rest After Illness, Says Letter. Lee Conaway, 22, of 234 N. State Ave., missing since Monday, is on his way to California to rest and recuperate from a recent illness, according to a letter from him postmarked Kansas, his family announced today. His father, W. B. Conoway, had asked police to search for the youth, a salesman for the Pearson Piano Company, when his auto was found abandoned on the street Monday morning.

Mrs. Lombardi saw the gleam of frenzy in his black eyes. Terror stricken, she watched him slowly draw a revolver from his pocket and without a word, fire two bullets into the kneeling form of Mrs.JLicata. As she sank to the floor. He fled. A 9-year-old son found the visitor wringing her hands and wail-

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis

CHILD LURED INTO AUTO BY KIDNAPER, TAKEN TO WOODS AND MURDERED WITH KNIFE Enraged Michigan Posses Search State for; Killer, Believed Fleeing From Scene of Crime in Auto. TWO SUSPECTS QUIZZED BY POLICE Body, With Incisions by Skilled Hand, Found Near Creek; Farmer Gives Description of Slayer. Bn United Press FLINT, Mich., Jan. 13. —An aroused citizenry joined hands with the forces of the law today to apprehend the kidnaper and slayer of Dorothy Schneider, 5 years old. Dorothy, blonde kindergarten pupil in the suburban Mount Morris consolidated school, was lured into an automobile by an elderly man yesterday and driven away. Her body was found last night in Benson creek, three miles from home. It had been mutilated with incisions that might have been made by the precise hand of a skilled surgeon.

The clothing had been stripped from her body and scattered through the ravine where the creek flows. Two suspects were arrested today. One was rushed to the scene of the crime in police efforts to obtain a confession. First Suspect Freed The first suspect, proved to the satisfaction of police that he was not the man wanted. The second man arrested answered the description of the hunted criminal, except in weight. He weighed about 175 pounds, whereas the description of the suspects slayer fixed his weight at 200 pounds. Police said they found blood stains in the auto driven by the second suspect. The first man arrested, police announced, was one stupid from the effects of liquor, in Hurley Hospital. He was released when he convinced detectives he had been on a week’s “spree.” Today heavily armed posses, in which private citizens advanced

REMY PROMISES FIGHT ON VENDER MACHINES Slot Gambling One of Worst Forms, Says Prosecutor. Prosecutor William H. Remy announced today that his office will fight the injunction sought by the Superior Confection Company to prevent Sheriff Hawkins and Police Chief Claude M. Worley from confiscating mint-vending machines as gaming devices on orders of the board of safety. Superior Judge James M. Leathers issued a temporary order against county officials Thursday afternoon and set Jan. 28 for hearing on the permanent injunction. “I will make every effort to see that the temporary orded is dissolved and the permanent injunction denied,” Remy said. “This office has leveled its guns against all forms of gambling in Indianapolis and this is one of the worst.” DEFIES SLACK OUSTER Marketmaster Says He Will Not Quit, as Mayor Orders. The city may have two marketmasters after Jan. 15. William T. Cook, appointed six months ago by former Mayor John L. Duvall, today declared he does not intend to resign on that date when, acccording to appointment of Mayor L. Ert Slack, Harry Springsteen, cousin of Councilman Robert E. Springsteen, is to become marketmaster. Seven hundred of the 1,000 standholders of the market have signed a petition asking he be retained, Cook said. Mayor Slack said he postponed ousting Cook Jan. 1 when Cook said he would resign if given until the 15th to arrange another position. OUT“OF~JAIL, IN AGAIN Youth Released From Farm Saturday Held as Auto Thief. Carl Wencke, 21, of 412 Spring St., faces charges of vehicle taking. He was captured Thursday by Luther Purdue, 333 Leeds Ave., after he is alleged to have taken Purdue’s car from in front of the Real Silk Hosery Mills. Wencke returned Saturday from serving 180 days at the Indiana State Farm for issuing a fraudulent check. Willis Vinson, 22, Negro, 1133 N. Tremont Ave., is held for stealing an automobile from Ike Wolf, 55 N. Capitol Ave.

ing over the body when he entered the house two hours later. He screamed ,an alarm and neighbors filled the tenement, increasing the wailing. When police were notified and obtained a description of the slayer, Nicastro had had ample opportunity to escape and hide.

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shoulder to shoulder with State troopers, county sheriffs and city police, spread fanwise in all directions from the scene of the crime.* So great was the city’s revulsion at the atrocious crime that many of the searching parties were private ventures, organized and led by professional men, merchants and workers from Flint's automobile factories. Clubwomen Enraged Twenty clubwomen viewed Dorothy’s body and afterwards several told Sheriff Grean that they would be willing to aid in the execution of the man responsible. The killer, however,. will escape death, even though he is captured, if he is guarded closely by authorities. Capital punishment was outlawed in Michigan many years ago and the most that he would suffer would be imprisonment for life. Farmer Gives Clew* The best clew to the identity of the wanted man was furnished by Archie Bacon, a farmer, who lives a stone’s throw from the spot where the body was found, and who assisted the suspected man to get his car out of a mudhole after he had disposed of the body. Bacon said the man appeared to be about 50 years old, was five feet ten inches tall, and weighed nearly 200 pounds. He was stooped slightly, Bacon recalled* of light complexion and full-faced. He wore a fur cap, and a gray overcoat, both respeaking moderate circumstances. Bacon’s description of the man, who, it was indicated without doubt, was the actual slayer, was substantiated by William Lawrence, a neighboring farmer, who helped for about 15 minutes in the process of extricating the car. Crime Pieced Together From several sources, authorities pieced together a resume of the girl's activities immediately preceding the time she was killed, and were able, with little conjecture, to reconstruct the murder down to the smallest details. Dorothy was known to have left school at 11 a. m. She passed a gasoline station en route to her parents modest home and was seen by Mrs. R. Hodges, wife of the proprietor. As was her custom, Mrs. Mabel Schneider, Dorothy’s mother, was watching for her from a window of her home. She sighted her when she was about two blocks away, and immediately left the window to prepare lunch. But when-she returned to the window Dorothy had disappeared Nor did she reappear, and by 2 and. m. an extensive search was under way. Father Starts Hunt Leslie Schneider, Dorothy's father, was called home and led the hunt in his automobile. About sundown, he had got as far as a deserted road three miles west. There he met Bacon, who recalled the strange man he had helped out of the mud. In a flash, Schneider was convinced that the stranger had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance. Neighbors were roused and the search started, resulting in finding of the carved and battered body. Then Mrs. Hodges recalled that at about the same time she saw Dorothy trudging home from school, she saw a dilapidated sedan on the street corresponding to the one described by bacon. Car Is Recalled Mrs. Hodges had a good memory. She was sure that she had seen the car Bacon saw. She remembered small details. For instance, she recalled that Dorothy, when she saw her, was having difficulty keeping her oversize ruhbers on her feet when they became stuck in the mud. One of the rubbers was found oil the girl’s torso. French Population Increasing Bil United Press / PARIS, Jan. 13.—Since the war the population of France slowly is increasing, although during a century before that time the population had fallen steadily. During the third trimester of 1927 births jn France numbered 184,745 and deat.is 136,867, jp excedent of 47,878.