AMERICAN CRIME

Greymouth Evening Star, 14 May 1927, Page 8

AMERICAN CRIME

MURDERS OVER WIDE AREA. * SAN FRANCISCO, March 31. The jazz mania and extravagant inodes of living are advanced as some reasons for the abnormal murder •■.rave which is still raging in the United States, and lives are being sacrificed daily, mostly in the old-time "‘eternal triangle” of love intrigue. One of the crimes which has engrossed public attention throughout the country is that where Henry Judd Gray, a young salesman of East Orange, New Jersey, broke down and confessed that he was the paramour of Mrs Albert Snyder, and had assisted her in slaying her husband, according to District Attorney Newcomb, of (1 neon's County. New York. Th*' confession-—a tale as gruesome •nd startling as the one which Mrs Snyder related a few days previously — came a. short time after Gray had been brought back to New York from Syracuse, where he had been arrested. The confession dovetailed with the one made by Mrs Snyder with but one exception. Gray insisted that he -■.truck Snyder, who was art editor of ‘Motor Boating” with a window sash weight wrapped in paper. He declared that Mrs Snyder then took the weight from him and she also struck her husband on the head. District Attorney Newcomb asserted that the murder was as cold-blooded and premeditated as any ever perpetrated in the history of Eastern America. Gray admitted that he and Mrs Snyder plan ned the crime weeks in advance. Mrs Snyder had increased her husband’s insurance to 25,000 dollars, and it wa: the thought of the insurance money md Mrs Snyder's threat to tell Mr: Gray of their illicit, love that forced h'im into it, he admitted. Three weeks previously, said Gi ay, he purchased the sash weight. and gave it to Mrs Snyder. It was hidden in the house. Then he went to Syra cu.-.e and established the “perfect alibi." lie wrote several letters and irranged with a friend to mail them late on Saturday. Then he purchased chloroform, some waste and some pic ‘ure wire, which was found twisted about to the slain editor's neck. lie mussed up his bed at the hotel in Syracuse, Told the attendants that he did not want to be disturbed; hung “quiet” sign on his hotel door, and caught a. train for New York at 10.10 on the Saturday night. He arrived at the Snyder home about midnight, and slipped through an open door and hid in a downstairs room. He was there •vhen Mrs Snyder and her husband .md daughter returned from the party early on Sunday morning. After Snyder had retired, and his wife had kissed him good night —and good-bye — she crept downstairs, and the pair met in that love tryst that was to end in death. Mrs Snyder got out the sash weight and Gray declared he made ready the chloroform ami picture wire. Silently they crept upstairs. Gray used the chloroform amt then the heavy sash weight. Then, he said, Mrs Snyder took the weight from him and struck Snvder another blow. According to the district, attorney. Grav said he tied and gagged Mrs Sinder on her orders, and left (hr house. At 5.45 on the Sunday mornjno—just fifteen minutes after the battered body of the slain editor was found —Gray caught a train back to Syracuse, where he was arrested following Mrs Snyder’s startling and gruesome confession. One little detail, the secreting under e, mattress of the jewellery that Mrs Snvder told the police had been stolen gave the clue that upset the whole elaborate structure of lies and alibis. A little more than 24 hours after the actual murder Mrs Snyder broke down under the merciless questioning, and confessed her part. Within a few hours Gray was arrested in Syracuse. Gray, who is 35 years of age and a corset salesman, told bow he and Mrs Snyder had been clandestine lovers. She is 32, a p,leasure-loving, good-look-ing blonde, married to a man a dozen years her senior. Gray blamed the woman. "The murder was done by pro-arrangement. and was as' coldblooded as we originally conceived it to be,” said District Attorney Newcomb. The motive was the 25,000 dollar insuiance on Snyder’s life, and Mrs Snyder’s threat to expose Gray’s relations with her to his wife unless he helped her.”

CURIOUS MYSTERY

While the murder carnival was at its height a baffling mystery surrounding the disappearance three months’ ago of Mrs Gladys Houck was partially cleared up with the finding ot her body in the Potamac River, ncai the Washington Navy Yard.

Although the Coroner said a preliminary examination had disclosed no mark of violence, and none were found when an autopsy was performed later the District Attorney’s office requested police at. Albany, Oregon, to detain the woman’s busband. Dr Knute H. Houck, formerly a. psychiatrist at Elizabeth's Hospital in. Washington. Ur Houck was located at the home of relatives, who said he was recuperatin'’' from a nervous breakdown, and added that the family had been convinced all along that his wife had committed suicide. Police asked that he be held for questioning, and an effort is being made to have him returned East, at least to testify at the Coroner’s inquest. Doth Mrs Houck, who before her marriage, lived in Canton. Ohio, and her husband dropped out of’ sight on December 15, leaving behind them a two-year-old son. Two days later. Dr Houck was picked up in Hornell. New York, wandering about in his underclothes and babbling incoherently. Taken back to Washington and Imld for a while under observation at Gallagher Hospital, he admitted he and his wife had quarrelled, but he insisted he had no knowledge of her whereabouts. He said he had gone to sleep on the morning of December 15, and had awakened from a dream to catch a glimpse of his wife leaving their apartment. He explained that he had gone out to .parch for her, but was, unable to recount how he came to be in Hornell. From Gallagher Hospital Dr Houck was transferred to Walter R’eed Hospital, and later was permitted to go to a Baltimore sanitarium. He disappeared and he was now located in Oregon. When the body was- found, gripped in one hand was a purse containing six dollars, a dime and three appointment cards issued by a doctor, and bearing Mrs Houck’s name. From the lefthand, police removed two rings —a. diamond solitaire and a plain gold band engraved on the inner side, “K.H.H. to Gladys.” In San Francisco another cold-blood-ed murder was perpetrated when Roy Frenner, a notorious gangster with a ’ong record, went to visit his lifteen-year-old sweetheart, Genevieve Foster, al the home of her mother, Mrs J 1 rad Klatt, on Octavio Street. A few words were exchanged, the mother not desiring the girl to keep company with the

gangster whereupon Frenner brandished a revolver ami shot the mother dramatically. As he was hurrying out of the apartment he encountered a neighbour, Mrs Vera Olson, and likewise shot, her dead. Frontier careered about San Francisco for two days and nights in an automobile, staying at two different hotels. He was urged by friends to give himself up to the police but did not do so. Two mornings after the double murder he was crossing the street at an early hour in the residential district, and was noticed by a policeman, who recognised him and hailed him. Frenner dashed away, pursued by the heavy policeman, who eventually overhauled him and took him in custody.

At police Jieadquarters Frenner frankly confessed and said: “It. looks like the rope for me.” Frenner posed willingly for newspaper photographers and said the reason lie slew the second woman was because she “got ir his way.” . Two men were killed and a third was seriously wounded in Detroit’s first machine gun shooting, when Joe Bloom and George Cohen were mowed down with an unaccountable number of bullets. Frank Wright, alias Burke. 23, of Chicago, was seriously injured. , The shooting resulted from the kidnapping of “Fish” Bloomfield, employer of “Doc” Brady, operator of a gambling establishment, Wright, Cohen, and Bloom went to the apartment to negotiate, for' Bloomfield’s release. A few minutes later they started to leave. As they went toward the door the machine gun was turned upon them. Directly afterwards occupants of the apartment took Bloomfield and the gun, loaded them into a car. and escaped.