Prime Crime: Solved Murders - Oceana Snead Pt. 1

Episode Date: February 17, 2021

In 1909, 24-year-old Oceana Snead died of an apparent suicide — but the case was far less clear-cut than the woman’s aunt, Virginia Wardlaw, would have police believe.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Due to the graphic nature of this murder case, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations and discussions of abuse, murder, and suicide that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. In mid-November, 1909, two women stepped out of a horse-drawn carriage and onto North 14th Street in East Orange, New Jersey. Residents of the quiet suburb looked on, excited to meet their next. neighbors. It was difficult to ascertain either newcomer's age. One of them had a huge bundle of alburn hair piled on top of her head. Her body was wafish, her neck so thin that it threatened to snap beneath the weight of her hairdo. The other woman seemed massive in comparison. Her figure

was clothed in layers upon layers of black fabric. A coal-colored dress flowed down to her ankles, its sleeves reaching all the way to her wrists. A heavy veil obscured her face and hair. The bizarre figures didn't stop to greet any East Orange locals. They kept their eyes down, lugged their suitcases into a house labeled number 89, and slammed the door behind themselves. Over the next week, neighbors kept their eyes peeled for the new residence. The black-clad woman occasionally came and went,

but her rail-thin companion never left. the house. Curious locals tried to catch a glimpse through the home's windows. Unfortunately for them, the curtains were always firmly shut. Neighbors thought it was odd to be so withdrawn, but they didn't want to be judgmental. Perhaps the newcomers simply preferred privacy, keeping to oneself wasn't a crime. However, just ten days after the women moved in, things in East Orange got very strange. Neighbors heard loud, in distinct noise. coming from number 89. On the evening of Sunday, November 28th,

the light stayed on much later than normal. The following afternoon, a police officer showed up at the woman's house. Within hours, everyone in town heard the news. The wayfish, unseen woman was dead. Welcome to Solved Murder's True Crime Mysteries, a Spotify original from Parcast. I'm your host, Carter Roy. And I'm your host Wendy McKenzie.

Every Wednesday we step into the world of true crime's most fascinating murder cases and tell the tale of how real-life detectives closed the case. You can find episodes of solved murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free exclusively on Spotify. This is our first episode on the 1909 bathtub tragedy. This week we'll discuss the perplexing death of a young woman in East Orange, New Jersey. Although it looked like a suicide, investigators dug deeper to reveal the possibility of a truly evil conspiracy. Next week, we'll see how the woman's own family fit into her untimely demise. We have all that and more coming up. Stay with us. At approximately 4.40 p.m. on Monday, November 29, 1909, the East Orange Police Department received a call from an unidentified woman.

Her voice was soft, calm, and markedly southern, an accent rarely heard in New Jersey. The woman said there'd been an accident at her home. She asked officers to send out a coroner, then gave them her address, 89 North 14th Street, and hung up. Police didn't have time to tell her that there was no coroner in East Orange. The best they could do was to send out Dr. Herbert M. Simmons. He was the closest thing to a medical exam. in the area. Because the woman requested a coroner, law enforcement assumed someone had died.

She said there had been an accident, but her voice betrayed no shock or panic. The physician expected that the death resulted from fairly ordinary causes. Dr. Simmons walked the short distance from the police station to North 14th Street. When he arrived at the gray, glum-looking house, he knocked softly at the door. According to the account given by author Norman Zierold, who researched the case for his book Three Sisters in Black. Dr. Simmons was met by a woman in a long black dress, a thick cape, and a heavy veil, funeral clothing. Dr. Simmons felt a pang of sympathy. The woman had clearly lost a loved one. You're the coroner? A physician.

Please, come in. You may call me Virginia Wardlaw. Dr. Simmons, I'm sorry to meet you under such circumstances. 57-year-old Virginia Wardlaw led Dr. Simmons upstairs to the house's only bathroom. She nodded towards the doorknob. He staled his nerves and opened the door to reveal a tragic scene. The nude body of a young woman floated in the bathtub. Her long, Auburn hair swirling around her pale face. She was disturbingly amaciated, with sunken cheeks and twig-like limbs.

Her huge brown eyes stared upwards. One of her hands gripped a washcloth. Dr. Simmons felt a lump rise in his throat. The woman couldn't have been more than 30, and there she lay, freshly dead but already skeletal. She must have been starving before she died. The doctor had to look away. He surveyed the rest of the bathroom.

It was almost entirely empty, save for a pile of clothing on the floor, on top of which he found a note. It read, Last year my little daughter died. Other near and dear ones have gone before. I've been prostrated with illness for a long time. When you read this, I will have committed suicide. Do not grieve over me.

Rejoice with me that death brings a problem. blessed relief from pain and suffering greater than I compare. The note was signed, O-W-M-S-Need. Dr. Simmons turned back to the body in the bathtub. The woman certainly looked ill, but self-drowning was an almost unbelievable method of suicide. It would take an unearthly amount of determination to force oneself to swallow water when air was readily available. The doctor moved closer to the corpse. The water in the tub was frigid,

and a cursory examination revealed that the woman must have been dead for at least 24 hours. Who is this woman? My niece, Oceana Sneed. We called her Osi. She was only 24, but she's been through so much recently. Her poor daughter and husband passed away. Her baby son is hospitalized.

She's been so sick. When did you say you discovered the body? Just before I called the police station. She's been dead at least a day. Perhaps she has. And you two lived alone? Yes. Yesterday afternoon she asked me to heat water for her bath.

I started a fire, but had some business to attend to and left soon after. You're telling me you started a fire, left your sick niece alone, then didn't bother to check on her for a full 24-hour. hours afterwards. She missed supper, breakfast, and lunch, and you didn't have the slightest inclination that something might be wrong. She specifically asked to not be disturbed. This line of questioning is ridiculous. I've just lost my niece and you treat me like some kind of criminal. The circumstances are strange. As are your accusations, I must request you leave my home immediately. Dr. Simmons left No. 89 with a bad feeling in his stomach.

as soon as he could, he told East Orange Police to send a detective to Virginia Wardlaw's home. The circumstances of 24-year-old O.C. Sneed's death were, at the very least, questionable. Sergeant William O'Neill knocked on the door of No. 89 at approximately 6 p.m. that same evening. The black-clad woman wasn't happy to have another visitor. Who are you? Sergeant O'Neill of the East Orange Police Department I've been sent to investigate the premises Thank you, but that won't be necessary.

I can come back with a warrant if you'd prefer. With no other choice, Virginia led Sergeant O'Neal upstairs and to the bathroom where Ossie's body still lay. O'Neill read the suicide letter, noting how clear and stable the handwriting appeared. This was caused for immediate suspicion. It was unlikely that someone under considerable emotional distress would write so calmly. The sergeant took the letter as evidence, making a mental note to check its authenticity.

Then, much to Virginia's disapproval, he surveyed the rest of the house. It didn't seem like a suitable place for anyone to live, especially not someone who was sick. Although there were multiple rooms, most were empty. The entire house contained just one sleep. keeping cot and a couple of makeshift chairs. The kitchen held nothing more than a few oranges, some stale biscuits, and a single box of cereal. There was no coal in the furnace to heat the house. The scene was one of abject poverty. Yet there were a few items that seemed to signal wealth. In one room, Sergeant O'Neill found a pair of nice shoes and a gown made of fine silk. This was in stark

contrast to the cheap, unbleached muslin that covered the home's windows. The sergeant noted this odd dichotomy. In the living room, he sat on a chair that had been fashioned out of a dry goods box and attempted to ask Virginia a few questions. How long have you lived here? About ten days. Are you waiting to receive your other belongings? What do you mean? There's only one cot in this house. Where do you sleep? On the floor.

Why did you come here? For my dear niece's health. That's absurd. Excuse me? This house is empty and cold. There's nothing healthy about it. Is there another bathroom that I've yet to see? No, just the one. Let me make sure I have this right. You brought your sick niece to a freezing and unfurnished home.

Yesterday, you helped heat the bathwater. Between that time, and approximately 4.40 p.m. today, you didn't bother to check in on her. She asked to not be disturbed. And you didn't find occasion to use the only bathroom in the house for a full 24 hours. I'm sorry, Miss Wardlaw, but you must admit the situation warrant suspicion. Sergeant O'Neill kept prodding for information, but Virginia shut down. She wouldn't say anything more about Osi, her husband, or her behavior leading up to the supposed suicide. The sergeant only managed to learn one thing, the location of Virginia and O.C.'s

prior residence, a home in Brooklyn. Before he followed that lead, however, Sergeant O'Neill wanted to make sure someone else kept their eye on Virginia. He informed her that she needed to come to the police station, and to his surprise, she did not protest. There, East Orange Police Chief James Bell interrogated Virginia until midnight. She offered no new information, but Chief Bell found her shifty and secretive. Instead of releasing her, he booked her into the jail as a material witness. Virginia made it clear that she was not happy to be spending the night behind bars. Although day one of the investigation brought more questions than answers,

authorities held out hope that the next day would offer some major breaks in the strange case of the bathtub tragedy. The following morning, Ossie's body would undergo an autopsy, and Sergeant O'Neill would make his way to Brooklyn, where neighbors had plenty to say about the woman, or women, in black. Up next, neighbors reveal that Virginia wasn't the only veiled woman in Ossie's life. Hi, it's Vanessa from Parkast Network, and I'm thrilled to tell you that this month marks a huge milestone for us. It's the four-year anniversary of a podcast I host called Serial Killers.

If you haven't had a chance to dive into the stories and psychology behind the most nightmarish murderers of all time, why wait? There's no better time than right now to start listening. Each week we enter the minds, the methods, and the madness of the world's most sadistic serial killers. From the son of Sam, David Berkowitz, and the co-ed killer, Edmund Kemper, to Eileen Warnos, Ed Gein, and Coming Soon, the Nightstalker, Richard Ramirez. And this February, look out for our four-part special on couples who kill, following the worst love has to offer. Their names may sound ordinary, but their atrocities are anything but. You do not want to miss it. With hundreds of episodes available to binge and new ones released weekly, get to know the killers, crimes, and cases that forever changed the face of history. Follow the Spotify original from Parcast, Serial Killers. New episodes air every Monday and Thursday, free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Now back to the story.

In the late afternoon on November 29, 1909, local physician Dr. Simmons arrived at the home of 57-year-old Virginia Wardlaw. The black-clad woman led the doctor upstairs, where her niece, 24-year-old O.C. Sneed had died of an apparent suicide. but things weren't as clear cut as they seemed. O.C. had been dead for at least 24 hours, and the suicide note was of questionable authenticity. After Sergeant William O'Neill visited the home, Virginia was taken into custody and booked for the night at the East Orange Jail. Although she refused to answer officers' questions, authorities had other avenues for finding information. The next day, Tuesday, November 30th, an autopsy, and further home investigation would offer plenty of new discoveries.

The autopsy suggested but did not confirm foul play. Both the suicide note and statements from Virginia alleged that OC had some kind of serious illness, but the body showed no evidence of disease. Osi had only suffered from starvation. Her corpse weighed just 80 pounds. Still, the autopsy confirmed that O.C.'s primary cause, of death was drowning. Her lungs contained a significant amount of water, but that didn't necessarily mean she drowned herself. The question of how Osi ended up in the bathtub remained open.

While the medical examiner conducted the autopsy, Sergeant O'Neill made his way to East 48th Street in Brooklyn, New York. Virginia and Osi previously lived in house number 1693, and neighbors had plenty to say about the peculiar tenants. You knew the previous residents? I wouldn't say that I knew them. I knew of them, but they rarely came outside. As far as I know, they never spoke to anyone in the neighborhood. Why not?

Beats me. They were odd. All three of them dressed in black like that? I'm sorry, what? Just the way they dressed. Always in those long black skirts and veiled. I don't think I ever saw a single one of their faces. You said there were three of them?

Uh-huh. And that sickly younger woman. I just... I need to make sure I have this clear. Four women in total? Yes. Pretty sure the ones who wore black were sisters. Like a creepy set of triplets. People around here call that place the House of Mystery. Sergeant O'Neill was stunned. Virginia hadn't mentioned any sisters or other women who lived in the house. But the shocking revelation was true. Countless other neighbors corroborated the claim, including Ethel Moore, who said she worked as O.C.'s nurse.

She'd been hired earlier that year to look after O.C. during the birth of her second child, a boy named David. According to the nurse, Osi begged for food several times during her labor and told Ethel that she was being starved. The story was chilling. O'Neill remembered the body in the bathtub, the young woman's impossibly slender frame. He considered the possibility of three sisters perennially dressed in funeral clothes, deliberately starving their own kin. It was too cruel to be true. After speaking to the neighbors, O'Neill was more determined than ever to get to the bottom of the case. He gained entry to the home where O.C., Virginia, and two other women had been living less than two weeks before. The caretaker who had been hired to clean the house hadn't yet had time to clear out the premises,

so it was exactly as the eccentric family had left it. The house of mystery was dark and silent. Light glinted off the cobwebs in the corners and the dust in the chilly air. The Brooklyn home looked a lot like the one he'd searched in East Orange. mostly empty, with a few broken pieces of furniture lying around. The kitchen cabinets held nothing but stale biscuits and sticky, half-empty cans of condensed milk. O'Neill rummaged through drawers, not exactly sure what he was hoping to find. Hello?

Oh, Jesus, you scared me. You're an investigator, right? Right. What are you doing here? I was hoping you'd answer a few questions for the New York world. The bathtub tragedy is going to make a great headline. Get out of here. This isn't a place for the press to...

Oh, come on. I'm serious. This is a possible crime scene. You could destroy evidence. Like this stuff? What stuff? Over here, on the floor. It looks like blood.

Let me see. Beginning in one of the downstairs hallways, dark stains trail to the house's second level, finally ending near the upstairs. bathroom. That, however, was all the House of Mystery had to offer. O'Neill spoke further with the property's caretaker, who agreed that the previous tenants were peculiar and reserved. He also mentioned that the family often had trouble making monthly rent payments. More than once, they neared eviction before suddenly coming up with the cash to cover

their bills. Interestingly, the caretaker also referred to a fifth person living in the home. A According to him, Ossie's husband, Fletcher Sneed, stayed at number 1693 until March 1909, leaving OEC alone with the women for months before she gave birth to David that August. Although Virginia said Fletcher died, the caretaker thought he'd simply moved away. The caretaker also suggested a further lead, a doctor named William Pettit, who he said treated O.C. for an extended period of time. Sergeant O'Neill got the doctor's address and went straight to his office. Dr. Pettettetticoe corroborated several details given by the caretaker and neighbors. Because of his more intimate relationship with the family, he also had unique information of his own.

Unlike other witnesses, he could identify every member of the family. They were 57-year-old Virginia Wardlaw, 61-year-old Mary Sneed, and 64-year-old carer Caroline Martin. Caroline was Ossie's mother. The other two women were Caroline's sisters and Osi's aunts. Dr. Pettett was upfront about the fact that he didn't particularly like the triad. Perhaps their actions can be explained, but these women didn't seem to care about the younger girl. They called me in to examine her, and the only diagnosis I could make was general weakness. I believe her lethargy was a result of inadequate nutrition and improperly. her care. And you told the older women that? Of course I did. I prescribed fresh air, a healthier

diet, and some medication to help get her back on her feet. The next time I made a house call, the girl was in the exact same state. They'd kept her shut up with no sunshine, kept feeding her rotten biscuits, and hadn't even tried to fill the prescription. Did they explain why? They said they couldn't afford the medication. All their money was going towards insurance premium. insurance on what the girl's life perhaps they expected her to die in childbirth i don't know all i know is that they didn't seem to care about the poor girl's welfare one bit they already had a will made out for her how do you know that they showed it to me it was disturbing it left her assets to her grandmother that's not all that strange but it reserved a thousand dollars for me that's ten times my

rate. It's an absolutely ridiculous sum. The women showed it to me as if, well, as if telling me I are to just let the girl die. I left that day positively shaken and immediately contacted the police, but nothing was done to help her. Dr. Pettett gave Sergeant O'Neill the most crucial piece of information yet, a possible motive. If there really was an insurance policy on Ossie's life, the three sisters could have murdered her for money. ending on Osie's grandmother's age, any sum she gained would likely soon be passed down to her children, Virginia, Mary, and Caroline. Virginia's case was looking worse by the minute. O'Neill needed to report back to East Orange, but he had one last piece of business in Brooklyn. He brought Dr. Pettett to the House of Mystery and asked if he could

identify the blood-like stains on the floor. Dr. Pettett took a look, but since he said, he was a little bit of he didn't believe the trail was any kind of bodily fluid. Rather, he said it looked like tobacco stains. Marks left behind by someone carelessly chewing and spitting the plant, a mystery that had become a little more disgusting than dark. Sergeant O'Neill headed back to East Orange, where other investigators had made even more interesting discoveries. Authorities in New Jersey had spent the day questioning Virginia and searching 89 North 14th Street for more evidence. Predictably, Virginia remained indignant and unwilling to answer questions.

In some ways, though, her silence spoke for her. As evidence mounted against the veiled woman, there wasn't much she could say to defend herself. At the house, investigators found a bundle of paperwork pertaining to the life insurance Dr. Pettit had mentioned. It looked like there wasn't just one policy on Ossie's life. There were at least five. And at a lawyer's office, authorities found a recently updated will bequeathing three of O.C.'s real estate properties to her family.

In total, Virginia and her sisters stood to gain around $36,000 in money and property, nearly $1 million today upon Osi's death. Equally important were the items investigators couldn't find. They couldn't locate a pen or ink anywhere in the house, racing the question. question of how exactly O.C. wrote her suicide note. There was also no towel in the bathroom, and no evidence that a fire had been lit in the furnace since the women moved in. Nothing suggested that O.C. took a bath at all. Not on purpose anyways. Virginia was unable to adequately explain the missing items. The following morning, Wednesday, December 1st, she was brought before a judge. Even then she refused to shed her black layers or remove her veil.

Her face was a secret, but her name was printed at newspapers everywhere. Virginia Ward Law had been charged with her niece's murder. As Virginia scrambled to find a lawyer, Sergeant O'Neill returned to New York. There he spoke to the numerous insurance companies, notaries, lawyers, and creditors that had dealt with Virginia. This investigation revealed a complicated web of financial swindling on Virginia, Mary, and Caroline's part. Put simply, it looked like the sisters used Ossie's life as a pawn for their own monetary gain. Beginning when Osi was just 15 years old, they purchased insurance on her life, then used the policy as collateral for a cash loan.

They repeated this process over and over until no more companies would offer them new. policies. This could explain the silk gown Sergeant O'Neill found in the East Orange home. It suggested the women were at one point quite wealthy. These cash loans could have provided plenty of spending money, until, that is, they didn't. As soon as insurance companies stopped selling the women new policies, their stream of income ran dry. At that point, it may have seem like the only way to make money was to cash in on Osi's life. East Orange Police could hardly have hoped for a more clear-cut motivation. Unfortunately, more questions remained.

Where's Osi's grandmother anyway? She's the beneficiary of the insurance money, but nobody here or in Brooklyn remember seeing her. If she's alive, she's got to be pretty old. What if she's not alive? Better for the sisters in black, I guess. The dead woman. Osi. Right.

She had two children and a husband. Her first child died, and the other is hospitalized. Her husband is dead. Supposedly. You really think he could be alive? I put money on it. That Virginia woman is a liar. Authorities had Virginia behind bars,

but four other persons of interest eluded them. Mary Sneed and Caroline Martin, Virginia's sisters and possible accomplices were highest on the list of potential suspects. Then there were O.C.'s grandmother and husband. They were more complicated because even if they were alive, officers didn't know where to start searching for them. The next morning, Thursday, December 2nd, Sergeant O'Neill woke up, rubbed the sleep from his eyes, and got to work tracking down the two missing women in black. He went back to Brooklyn and spoke to more of the odd family's previous neighbors.

One person pointed the sergeant to a local storage facility where Virginia and her sisters supposedly kept their more important belongings. O'Neill sped to the warehouse. An employee gave him access to the family's unit. At the same time, other detectives were contacted by a man in Manhattan, who had been keeping a large bundle of papers for a mysterious woman in black. and wanted to turn them over to authorities. Together, the storage unit and bundle of papers were a treasure trove.

This, apparently, was where the family hid their wealth. In the unit, there was a sizable amount of expensive-looking furniture, as well as over a dozen containers filled with high-quality clothing, family records, various documents, and newspaper clippings. The paper records revealed that the ward-laws, were once an established family, one of a few prominent, fabulously wealthy clans

that shaped the antebellum south. Receipts and rent bills showed gradual financial decline, with the three sisters moving to increasingly shabby homes over time. Sergeant O'Neill took note of every New York City address at which the sisters had lived.

Soon, he found exactly what he was looking for. In a basement apartment in Manhattan, Sergeant O'Neill discovered two figures hiding in a corner. One of them was 61-year-old Mary Sneed, black-clad and obscured by a long veil, just like her sister. The other was Martha Wardlaw, Ossie's 84-year-old, nearly-blind grandmother,

and the beneficiary of the equivalent of nearly $1 million in life insurance payouts. Coming up, Sergeant O'Neill tried, to get Mary to talk while Virginia starts crafting her defense. Now, back to the story. On December 2, 1909, three days after 24-year-old O.C. Sneed's body was found in New Jersey, Sergeant O'Neill and a group of detectives located O.C.'s' aunt and grandmother in a basement in Manhattan. 61-year-old Mary was clothed and veiled with black fabric.

84-year-old Martha was nearly blind, from cataracts. The sergeant introduced himself, but wasted no time with pleasantries. My name is Sergeant William O'Neill with the East Orange Police Department. Are you aware that Virginia Wardlaw has been placed under arrest for the murder of Oceana's need? With all due respect, sir, we read the papers. She reads the papers?

I read them to her. Very well. My condolences for the death of your niece and granddaughter. I was hoping you'd be willing to answer a few questions. Absolutely not. I believe you might be instrumental in solving the mystery of Osi's death. There's no mystery to be solved. Osi suffered one tragedy too many and took her own life.

My sister is innocent. Would either of you be willing to come to the police station in East Orange and say that on record? Neither I nor my mother will be going anywhere. Because no crime had been committed in New York, Sergeant O'Neill didn't have the authority to place the women under arrest. But he also didn't want them to get away. So he asked the NYPD to keep tabs on the women's home. Under the New York police's watch, Mary and Martha weren't going anywhere.

The men at East Orange authorities gathered enough evidence to warrant in arrest, they'd know exactly where to find their suspects. While Sergeant O'Neill continued searching for O.C.'s' mother and husband, Virginia met with a lawyer. Her high-profile case had attracted the attention of a star attorney, Franklin Fort, the son of the governor of New Jersey. If anybody could save Virginia from a prison sentence, it was Franklin. He carried the power and status the ward law family once had, and Virginia hoped he could use that position to help her. Franklin first set to work repairing his client's damaged reputation. In a statement about the case, he publicly released two letters Virginia wrote in April, 1908, a year and a half before Ossie's death, in which she corresponded with her family lovingly.

One letter sent to Osi's husband after the death of their baby daughter read, When a flood tide of loving sympathy flows to you this beautiful Sabbath afternoon, which is radiant with sunshine and cheerful with songbirds, butterflies, and blossoming trees. I wish you could sit by me in the perfect quiet and enjoy the restful stillness, the nerve-soothing beauty and calmness. Precious, darling, my heart aches to comfort and help you. According to Franklin, no woman who wrote such lovely prose and showed such obvious sympathy could be capable of murder.

In any case, he argued, Ossie's death was clearly a suicide. All of the odd circumstances leading up to it could be explained away. The three sisters in black, for example, didn't socialize because they believed their neighbors were below them in social status. And they were ashamed of their own fall from grace. As for the insurance policies, Virginia and her siblings weren't the beneficiaries of the money, so that didn't make sense as a primary motive. In fact, Franklin thought much of the women's suspicious behavior was actually quite easy to rationalize.

He stated, Miss Wardlaw's sole crime has been the possession of an intense pride. Pride of family and dread that their financial needs might get out. Theirs has been one long struggle, not only against poverty, but against that poverty becoming publicly known. Franklin tried to make Virginia look like a victim of her circumstances. He said her one crime was pride, but he couldn't explain why the evidence made her look so guilty of murder. In his statement, he had no justification for the missing towel, pen, or ink, and couldn't give a reason why no fire had been lit to heat Ossie's bathwater.

He seemed to dismiss all of these irregularities as coincidences, and instead his entire argument would have to rely on the presence of the suicide note. Franklin posited that the letter was proof O.C. Sneed committed suicide, and Virginia Wardlaw was as innocent as a newborn. The authenticity of the suicide note then became the central question of the investigation. If the letter really was written by Osi, little argument could be made against the sisters in black. If it was fake, East Orange Police had a solid case against the strange siblings. For the hearing in mid-December, handwriting experts looked over the note

and determined that the signature at the bottom, OWM-S-N-Skid, matched OC's script. The rest of the note, though, looked to have been written at a different time with a different type of pen. It was difficult to tell who wrote the note, as letters from all four women showed fairly similar handwriting patterns. Experts couldn't rule out the possibility that, that O.C. wrote the letter. But they couldn't be certain that Virginia, Mary, or Caroline hadn't written it either. Things only got stranger when authorities learned the results of a second autopsy of O.C.'s body.

The county physician, Dr. William McKenzie, had removed all the young woman's organs in order to do a more thorough investigation of her remains. Nothing abnormal in the brain. No evidence of disease whatsoever. her. Well, she drowned, after all. Yes, but the suicide notes says she was prostrated with illness. What illness? It doesn't make any sense. Have you checked the stomach?

I went through the intestines. No evidence of anything except prolonged starvation. The body is so emaciated. I just... I'm not even sure how she could have been conscious. What if she wasn't? What if... Someone put her in the tub.

Exactly. They could have carried her there and put her head underneath the faucet. She'd still be breathing, so that would explain the water in the lungs. But if she wasn't conscious... She couldn't have swallowed any water. You're a genius! When Dr. McKenzie opened O.C.'s stomach, his suspicions were confirmed. There was hardly any water to be found. Usually, when someone drowns, they inhale and swallow a significant amount of water.

Because water was found in O.C.'s. She must have been a lot of water. when she stepped or was placed into the bath. But the lack of water in her stomach suggested that she likely wasn't conscious when she drowned. This could have been due to starvation and exhaustion, but in that case, the need for air should have woken her. Therefore, it seemed to Dr. McKenzie and his assistant that OC's unconscious state must have been induced by some kind of drug.

In a statement, McKenzie said, It's a plain case of murder, nothing else. We were almost certain that either a poison or an opiate was given to the young woman just before she was placed in the bathtub. I mean that Ossie Sneed, in her weakened condition, was not able to walk from the bed to the tub or even attempt to take a bath. She was carried there and placed in the water to drown. To Sergeant O'Neill, the story was finally beginning to unravel.

The three sisters ensured Ossie's life as a way to make money. As soon as that stopped working, their only option to avoid the shame of selling their stored furniture and clothing was to stage Ossie's suicide and cash in. Virginia's lawyer argued that the sisters weren't set to inherit the money, but that wasn't really true. The beneficiary, 84-year-old Martha Wardlaw, was elderly and infirm,

and as soon as she died, every penny of Ossie's life insurance would fall into the sister's hands. The closer investigators looked, the more it seemed like Virginia, Mary, and Caroline were playing a long game, starving their relative until she became too weak to fight back. It was possible that they drafted her suicide note and forced her to sign it, or that the signature was a very impressive forgery. Either way, Ossie's death definitely wasn't a clear, cut suicide, and one central suspect was still on the loose, Osi's own mother, Caroline.

Osi's funeral was scheduled for December 7th. Local papers published the date, so Mary, Martha, and anyone else reading would know when and where the service was going to take place. Officers hoped that Osi's mother, stricken by the loss of her child, would show up to grieve. She didn't. To police, this was proof that Caroline Martin was hiding. She was so determined to evade law enforcement that she missed her own daughter's funeral. But Caroline couldn't stay hidden forever. Sergeant O'Neill was on the case. Before long, he would track her down and find enough evidence in her belongings to place both her and Mary under arrest. Thanks again for tuning into solved murders.

We'll be back next Wednesday with part two of the bathtub tragedy. For more information on Ossie Sneed, among the many sources we used, we found Three Sisters in Black, the bizarre true case of the bathtub tragedy by Norman Zero Old, extremely helpful to our research. You can find all episodes of Solved Murders and all other Spotify originals from Parcast for free on Spotify. We'll see you next time.

If we live. Till next time. Solve Murders True Crime Mysteries is a Spotify original from Parcast. It is executive produced by Max Cutler. Sound designed by Michael Langsner with production assistance by Ron Shapiro, Carly Madden, and Freddie Beckley. This episode of Solve Murders was written by Karas Allen with writing assistance by Giles Hofseth, fact-checking by Claire Cronin and research by Mickey Taylor.

The amazing cast of voice actors includes Tiana Camacho, Joe Hernandez, Eddie Lee, Ellie Schiff, and Laura Faye Smith. Solve Murder stars Wendy McKenzie and Carter Roy. Hi, listeners, it's Vanessa again. Before you go, don't forget to check out the Spotify original from Parcast, Serial Killers. Each week, join me and my co-host, Greg, for a deep dive into the minds and madness of history's most notorious murderers. You can binge hundreds of episodes, four years' worth, and,

Catch new episodes every Monday and Thursday. Listen to serial killers, free on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.