Please welcome author Justin L. Murphy to the blog today
as he shares an excerpt from his new book, Ruth Snyder: The Real-Life
Murderess Inspiring The Modern Femme Fatale.
Introduction
One Christmas, I received a collection entitled The
Four Novels of James M. Cain. It was an out-of-print item released in 1988,
purchased on Amazon, and consisted of the author’s classic works. Among them
were The Postman Always Rings Twice, Mildred Pierce, Double Indemnity, and
Serenade. I’ve also watched the film Body Heat, starring William Hurt and
Kathleen Turner, a few times.
A few nights after I watched the film again, I also
saw the 1946 adaptation of The Postman Always Rings Twice. When I earlier read
the novel, I felt Frank Chambers was an asshole for wanting Cora Papadakis to
take the rap for the murder of her husband, Nick. I noticed how much the story
resembled Body Heat. Both depicted a married woman and her male lover plotting
to kill her much older husband.
I dug around online to find any connections, and not
only were The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity written by Cain,
but they were also based on the same real-life murder. In 1927, Ruth Snyder and
her lover, Henry Judd Gray, murdered her much older husband, Albert. These two
were executed at Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York. For almost a century,
this event and its participants affected the culture and helped shape true
crime and tabloid fodder in the modern era. It also helped form the hardboiled
crime genre and defined its visual counterpart, film noir.
My aim with this book is to examine the case, its
cultural influence, and the real-life family members it affected, despite their
choices to remain silent. I hope those who read this come away with a better
understanding of why Ruth Snyder and Henry Judd Gray committed this horrible
act and what drove them to murder her husband, Albert. Above all, learn and
examine the traces they leave behind, even a century later.
Regards,
Justin L. Murphy
A Writer Who Remains Curious
Chapter 1
The Art Editor and Telephone Operator First Meet
“Please excuse me.”
May Ruth Brown in the first conversation between her
and her future husband, Albert Schneider.
Albert Edward Schneider was born in Brooklyn, Kings
County, New York, on October 11, 1882, and was described as very intelligent
with a passion for sports and the outdoors. One of six siblings, he maintained
a close relationship with his mother, Mary Elizabeth Mealio Schneider, to the
point that he painted and papered her walls. The man often tanned as an adult
from hours of boating and fishing, which resulted from his love of the sea and
the wind blowing in his curly hair. He was also interested in bowling and
served as the art editor of Motor Boating Magazine, owned by William Randolph
Hearst.
He fell in love with and became engaged to Jessie
Guishard, even considering her the finest woman he ever met, but she contracted
pneumonia before they could marry. She passed away on November 21, 1912, and
Albert never got over her death. While working one day, he was irritated with a
telephone operator who wanted to call a manufacturer to ease the situation. He
spewed a great deal of harsh language at her expense, but soon regretted his
behavior and apologized in person within a few hours. It was love at first
sight between him and May Ruth Brown, the blonde-haired and blue-eyed
nineteen-year-old everyone called "Brownie.” She was born on 125th Street
in Manhattan on March 27, 1895. This woman quit school in the eighth grade, but
attended night classes in shorthand, typing, and stenography. Soon, he visited
her at work regularly. Albert offered her a reader and copyist job at his
magazine; two weeks later, she jumped at the chance. It paid better, and Ruth
quit the New York Telephone Company after two years.
They dated often, as Albert wanted to get her in bed,
but premarital sex was looked down upon in the 1920s. Ruth was the daughter of
old-fashioned Scandinavian parents, Harry Sorenson of Norway and Josephine I.
Anderson of Sweden, and hoped to remain a virgin until the night she married.
He proposed, and Ruth accepted. Her European heritage was ironic, as there were
claims she wanted Albert to Americanize his name to “Snyder,” as “Schneider”
sounded too German. Her father was a sailor who became a carpenter and changed
his name to Brown for similar reasons. Other sources disputed that Albert did
this of his own free will, and his application for military service in World
War I also listed his last name as Snyder a decade earlier.
She longed for the finer things in life, a contrast to
her frugal upbringing with her parents and a brother, Andrew, born on October
17, 1889, in Norway. During her childhood, several items she wanted couldn't be
afforded. A blonde-haired doll, a Shetland pony, a wristwatch, a white bedroom
set, or a party dress. Ruth passed by the storefront window to see the doll
each day and was upset when someone else bought it. Her parents also couldn't
afford to take in plays at the theater.
However, Harry and Josephine Brown spent money on
Ruth's medical procedures since she had seizures due to epilepsy. The
six-year-old girl underwent intestinal surgery before her appendix was removed
a few years later, and the botched operation left her with internal issues. Her
family attended the Methodist Episcopal Church, and she was raised to pray each
night before bed, but her faith wasn't strong. The girl even questioned the
existence of God. She also had no high academic achievements in school or career
goals.
Ruth desired marriage and got it with Albert. She was
a housewife who cleaned, sewed, and cooked. Her wish was that he would provide
“the good life,” not the humdrum existence of her immigrant parents. After they
married in 1915, she realized she and her husband were two different people. He
was introverted, deaf in one ear, and preferred conversations about artwork and
books. He wanted to sit back and smoke a pipe while in a smoking jacket and
slippers. She desired to socialize, play bridge, flirt, and dance at
speakeasies like the flappers who emerged during the Jazz Age. The extrovert
also never took to his main passions, sailing and hiking, but instead wanted to
see movies.
Not only did his in-depth conversations bore her, but
Albert compared Ruth to his dead love each time she turned around. He sported a
necktie pin with the initials J.G., named his sailboat “the Jessie G.,"
and had an entire photo album featuring pictures of the beloved he lost on
vacations they took. He topped this off by hanging her portrait in the living
room. She was angry and took it down. This led to many arguments between the
couple as he wanted it back up. At her insistence, his boat was renamed
"Ruth.”
Ruth soon learned she was pregnant, although Albert
didn't want to be a father. He was even more upset that it was a daughter.
Lorraine Snyder was born on November 15, 1917. This further drove a wedge
between them, as she became a devoted mother while Albert grumbled at the sound
of a baby's cry early in the morning. He also detested the smells of diapers
and how she ruined her body after childbirth, though some claim she agreed with
him on that matter.
As things progressed, he spent more time on his boat
or tinkering with his Buick while Ruth tended to the child. He allowed her to
spend eighty-five dollars of his paycheck, one hundred and fifteen dollars a
week, to teach her how to pay their bills and save money, but she blew every
penny. By some accounts, he subjected them to emotional and physical abuse if
she didn’t keep house the way he wanted.
The couple moved to an apartment in Brooklyn and then
a larger one in the Bronx after Lorraine was born. Once Albert got a promotion
at Motor Boating Magazine, they settled into a muted pink two-and-a-half-story
house with green trim in the Queen's Village section of Queens in 1923. A
driveway to its right led to a rear garage, not far from a birdfeeder made from
a saucepan and a pole. Five-year-old Lorraine often filled the pan and awaited
them. Sure enough, Jessie Guishard's portrait was installed in the new living
room. While Ruth sewed curtains, slipcovers, and clothes for herself and
Lorraine, her mother Josephine soon moved in to care for the grandchild.
This at last enabled her free-spirited daughter to
party, dance, and drink. She even earned the nickname, “Gay Tommie.” Friends
often said, "Ruth’s a lot of fun; let’s have her over, but Albert’s kind
of a stick.” She lunched on a smorgasbord buffet with a girlfriend at the
Swedish restaurant Henry's in 1925 when the thirty-two-year-old wife and mother
met a Corset and brassiere salesman named Henry Judd Gray, who wore glasses and
sported a chin cleft. Concerned about her weight since having a child, she asked
for his help, and fell in love on their second meeting. A phrase he used to
entice buyers in upstate department stores was, “Here’s a new line of bandeaux
we’re putting out.”
Born in Cortland, New York, on July 8, 1892, the
beloved son of Charles Beach and Margaret Ursula Carr Gray, he had an older
sister, also named Margaret. Like Albert Snyder, he bonded with his mother and
loved sports, like tennis and football. Like Ruth, his family was religious and
attended church, but cared little for education. Judd, as he preferred to be
called, left high school after two years thanks to a bout with pneumonia, while
some claimed he graduated. He worked with his father at a jewelry store, but he
soon found employment with the Ben Jolie Corset Company. A great guy who played
golf and bridge, and motorboated, also much like Ruth and Albert. He also loved
to drive his prized vehicle, served as a Red Cross volunteer during World War
I, and belonged to the Orange Lodge of Elks, as well as the Corset Salesmen of
the Empire Club.
He married his wife, Isabel Kallenbach, a shy woman
who stayed at home, after they had dated for several years when he was
twenty-two, and she was twenty-one. Many of his co-workers had no idea he was
married to her. Ironically enough, they wed in 1915, the same year as Albert
and Ruth Snyder. They attended a First Methodist Church, but some contended he
was Episcopalian, not too different from his secret lover and her parents. The
corset salesman was also involved in their Sunday school, and they resided in
East Orange, New Jersey. The two couples even had daughters at almost the same
age. Judd and Isabel's child, Jane, was born on August 25, 1916, in Albert's
birthplace of Brooklyn, Kings County, New York.
Justin L. Murphy ©2026
Justin L. Murphy has self-published numerous works of fiction and non-fiction through Amazon Kindle and Audible. His book Gene L. Coon: The Unsung Hero of Star Trek has been featured at events in Coon’s birthplace of Beatrice, Nebraska. Other books he has written and released include Jack Kirby: The Unsung Hero of Marvel, The Original Night Stalker: Portrait of A Killer, and Joseph James DeAngelo: His Reign of Terror Is Over. He enjoys Photography and sells his work through Adobe Stock and enters his photos in contests through Gurushots. He travels to Florida campgrounds with his mother and brother.
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