{"id":7311,"date":"2019-06-11T15:00:45","date_gmt":"2019-06-11T20:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=7311"},"modified":"2023-12-10T11:11:51","modified_gmt":"2023-12-10T17:11:51","slug":"mfdj-06-11-2019-the-sneaky-photographer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/?p=7311","title":{"rendered":"MFDJ 06\/11\/2019: The Sneaky Photographer"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today’s Sneaky\u00a0Yet Truly Morbid Fact!<\/h3>\n

The following is an account detailing the execution of Ruth Snyder, a housewife from\u00a0Queens Village, Queens,\u00a0New York City\u00a0and her lover Henry Judd Gray, a married\u00a0corset\u00a0salesman, with whom she murdered her husband for his insurance money in 1927:<\/p>\n

Ruth Snyder came first, wearing a black cotton skirt and a plain brown smock. She carried a crucifix, mumbling to herself over and over, “Jesus, have mercy on me,” even after the mask was put over her face. The executioner pulled the switch on the control panel, releasing a current of 2,000 volts through the wires, sending her body lurching forward against the restraints. He threw the switch twice more, just to be sure. Her hair caught fire. Her skin could be seen charring around the edges of the mask. The wardens untangled her from the chair, put her body on a gurney, and wheeled her out of the room.<\/p>\n

Gray came next, meticulously groomed in a pinstripe suit. He waited quietly until the mask was in place and then began to recite the Twenty-third Psalm. “The Lord is my Shepherd,” he murmured, “I shall not want.” The executioner hit the switch. Gray’s right sock began smoldering. Plumes of smoke uncoiled from under the helmet. The executioner pulled the switch again, sending another 2,000 volts. The wardens again stepped forward with their gurney. Both bodies were put into gray hearses and shuttled away for burial.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nRuth and Henry<\/em><\/p>\n

To the outrage of state officials, from the Sing Sing director to the governor, the front page of the next day’s\u00a0New York Daily News<\/em>\u00a0was filled by a single photo: Ruth Snyder at the moment a surge of electricity ripped through her body.<\/p>\n

The paper had imported a famously devious photographer from Chicago’s\u00a0Tribune<\/em>and sent him into the Death House posing as a writer. The photographer had a camera strapped around one leg, attached to a cable that ran up his trouser leg and into a pocket. He could squeeze a bulb in his pocket to take one picture which would be unnoticed in the glare of sparks and the horror generated by the chair.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nTom Howard’s Ankle Camera<\/em><\/p>\n

The photographer had muscled his way into the first pew and caught an unobstructed view of Ruth Snyder’s body rattling with electricity. The Daily News placed a single word over the photo: “Dead!” The picture was maybe a little grainy, but that only made it more exciting. The paper sold more than 1.5 million extras of that edition. Fearing that its prized photographer, Tom Howard, might be arrested, the Chicago paper sent him straight from New York to an assignment in Cuba. As he related later, a group of Marines there recognized his name – he’d become temporarily nearly as infamous as the subject of his photograph.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Howard’s first thought was that the Marines had come to take him to jail. But it turned out he troops merely wanted to celebrate his Marine-worthy daring. They carted him off to a bar, where the group spent an evening cheering his success with good Havana rum.<\/p>\n

Culled from:\u00a0The Poisoner\u2019s Handbook: Murder and the Birth of Forensic Medicine in Jazz Age New York<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today’s Sneaky\u00a0Yet Truly Morbid Fact! The following is an account detailing the execution of Ruth Snyder, a housewife from\u00a0Queens Village, Queens,\u00a0New York City\u00a0and her lover Henry Judd Gray, a married\u00a0corset\u00a0salesman, with whom she murdered her husband for his insurance money in 1927: Ruth Snyder came first, wearing a black cotton skirt and a plain brown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-facts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7311"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10512,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7311\/revisions\/10512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.decidedlygrim.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}