Ruth Snyder & Judd Gray “Granite Woman and Putty Man”.

Ruth Snyder & Judd Gray “Granite Woman and Putty Man”.

Ruth Brown Snyder was a 33 year old housewife who was electrocuted in New York’s Sing Sing prison on January 12, 1928, together with her boyfriend Henry Judd Gray, a married corset salesman for the murder of her husband, Albert, on March 20, 1927 in Queen’s Village, Queens, New York.

In 1915, Ruth Brown, 20, was employed as a secretary for Motor Boating magazine in Manhattan. She dreamed of marrying a wealthy man and in fact married the magazine’s art editor, 44 year old 

Albert Snyder. The couple had a daughter in 1918, named Lorraine.

Ruth and Judd had been having an affair since 1925 and evolved a plan to kill Albert as he was in the way of their relationship. To compound the crime a $48,000 double indemnity life insurance had been taken out on Albert’s life. 

Gray hid in a closet until the couple returned home from a night out. He then hit Albert over the head with a sash weight, then Ruth joined in and also hit him with a sash weight and they then strangled him with picture wire and stuffed chloroform soaked rags up his 

nose, before tying him up and throwing his body on the bed, trying to disguise the crime scene as a burglary gone wrong. Gray also tied Ruth up to add verisimilitude to the scene. 

Their daughter, Lorraine, found her parents and called the police. They were immediately suspicious of the burglary ploy and by Ruth’s lack of grief or emotion. The police then discovered Ruth’s allegedly stolen jewelry hidden under the mattress. They also found a note signed “J.G.”, Ruth asked the detective what Judd Gray had to do with the crime which made him suspicious as Gray had not been mentioned and in fact this particular J. G. was Jessie Guischard, Albert’s former fiancée.

Both were arrested on the day of the murder. They came to trial at Long Island City Courthouse before

Justice Townsend Scudder in April 1927, amid huge publicity, the trial lasting for three weeks. Each blamed 

the other for the murder.It took the jury just 90 minutes to reach guilty verdicts on May 9, 1927 and the pair were sentenced to death.

The judge told them “You shall be put in solitary confinement at Sing Sing prison until the week of June 20th 

at which time you shall be put to death as prescribed by law in this state.”  At this time the death penalty was mandatory for murder in the first degree.

Their appeal before the Albany Appeals Court was heard and dismissed on November 22nd, 1927.

On January 10, 1928 Governor Smith refused a reprieve for them. Legal wrangling with the defense team

continued to the last minute but was unsuccessful in saving them. At 11.01 p.m. on Thursday January 12, 1928, Ruth Snyder was led into the death chamber where 24 official witnesses and 15 uniformed guards were sitting in pew like seats or standing around the walls of the room. She had to be assisted into the chair by prison matrons. “Jesus, have mercy on me, for I have sinned”, she sobbed.

 She prayed, and as the mask went over her face, she again said, “Jesus, have mercy.” State executioner Robert Greene

Elliott threw the switch, and she was pronounced dead in two minutes. This was the first time he had executed a woman. Elliott gave the following cycle of shocks over two-minutes. 

The inmates received 2000 volts at 10 amperes for three seconds, 500 volts for 57 seconds, 2000 volts for three seconds, 

500 volts for 54 seconds and 2000 volts for the last three seconds.  At 11.07, Dr. Sweet listened to Ruth’s chest 

and pronounced her dead.  

The body was then removed from the chair, placed on a wheeled trolley and taken to the adjoining autopsy room. 

10 minutes later Judd Gray calmly met the same fate. 

Their bodies were claimed by their mothers. Ruth was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, NY.

An illegal, but very famous photograph of Ruth in the chair at the moment of death was taken by Chicago Tribune newspaper reporter, Tom Howard, using a concealed camera strapped to his leg. 

This newspaper and New York Daily News were under the same ownership at the time.  The photograph was cropped to remove the legs of the matrons and the prison’s Catholic chaplain, the Rev. John McCaffery.  

It was the enlarged and enhanced for printing in the New York Daily News.

Ruth was only the second woman to be executed in Sing Sing’s chair, the first having been Martha Place in 1899.