Ruth Snyder AKA Ruth Brown Born: 27-Mar-1895 Birthplace: Manhattan, NY Died: 12-Jan-1928 Location of death: Ossining, NY Cause of death: Execution Remains: Buried, Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY
Gender: Female Religion: Roman Catholic Race or Ethnicity: White Sexual orientation: Straight Occupation: Criminal Nationality: United States Executive summary: Electrocuted for murdering husband Suburban housewife Ruth Snyder murdered her husband, Albert Snyder, with the collaboration of her lover, salesman Henry Judd Gray. Their felonies served as the basis for James M. Cain's terrific novel Double Indemnity, and the famous film noir adaptation by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder, with Barbara Stanwyck as the fictionalized Snyder and Fred MacMurray as her scheming boyfriend. Most of Cain's fiction involved making their conspiracy and crime seem well thought-out -- in reality the killing was clumsy and took several attempts, and Snyder and Gray both implicated each other under police interrogation. Their trial was covered in lurid detail, and ten months after the murder they were executed at Sing Sing Prison in the same electric chair on the same day, Gray ten minutes after Snyder.
Father: Harry Sorenson (changed name to Harry Brown) Mother: Josephine Anderson Brother: (older) Husband: Albert Snyder (editor, Motor Boating magazine, m. 1915, d. 20-Mar-1927, murder) Daughter: Lorraine (b. 1918) Boyfriend: Henry Judd Gray (b. 1882, affair 1925-27, d. 12-Jan-1928, execution)
Appendectomy Murder Queens Village, NY (20-Mar-1927) Inmate: Sing Sing Prison Converted to Catholicism Norwegian Ancestry Paternal
Swedish Ancestry Maternal
Risk Factors: Epilepsy, Appendicitis
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